I opened my eyes at first morning rays. Realizing who and where I was after a deep and turmoiled dream, I tried to go back to sleep. Suddenly, alertness hit me like a shovel and I jumped out of bed recalling last night's events. With sun safely above the horizon, our little creepy adventure was not as scary as his parting words that he will see me soon.
This was a mess! I was a mess. The house is a mess. Did I mess up by not clarifying things yesterday? With my gut and heart feelings playing dirty tug of war of pros and cons, there was so much to figure out that my mind just gave up on thinking and I simply decided to do the things I could in meantime.
I began tidying things up, which in turn evolved into cleaning, before I knew it, I was sweeping front yard. This confused my sister when she woke up. Thankfully no questions were asked, could have something to do with my previous bout of early sleep early rise phase. With noon approaching, and people beginning to stir, going out and about, I figured to fix my outer appearance at least. Let's hide behind the outer appearance, my actual mess on the inside.
Bath, lotions, face cream, face mask, hair style. I baaarely stopped myself in time before plucking my eyebrows too thin and probably out of existence. This was a clear signal to stop, I got dressed. Five minutes later I changed outfit, then again, and again, until I circled back to the first thing I liked. Looking at the mess in my room I just managed to create, I thought that I may be losing it a little. Thus, I decided to distract myself with a good book after cleaning up this impromptu mess.
I grabbed my favorite novel and settled on a kid sized, but wide enough for me to sit on, swing hanging on a metal frame under our giant apple tree. The shade was amazing, it allowed reading under a bright sunlight, which made book pages reflect sun-rays making it too blinding to read.
Time flew while I journeyed through alternate universe's adventures, my tummy growled. Turns out it was way past lunch time; in fact, I couldn't see the sun anymore and it was getting darker. I was shocked to realize I forgot to have breakfast, and even lunch was ignored.
Victor didn't show up that evening, nor did he on the next day. By the third day I was beating myself up for getting hyped up over drunken promises.
Day after that I already forgot all about it and was helping around the house. I enjoyed pulling out weeds around the flower beds. There is something calming about manual labor that is not too taxing on the body. Beautiful tulips swayed in the breeze, we had a large verity with amazing shapes of petals; the tulip collection was started way back by my grandma, when she was still alive.
"Blessings to your work." Yet another passerby shared the standard greeting for someone busy with work.
"Blessings to your journey." I replied without looking away from this especially pesky weed which was refusing to let go of the ground. It was so stubborn, making me grunt and puff. This was going to be war! Now, where is my rake?
"Need help?"
"No, ugh, thanks." I said looking up at the noisy busybody to recognize Victor beaming at me while leaning over the fence; with his arms crossed, resting on the railing and attitude of a giddy child evoking my annoyance. Bastard has perfect timing! How long was he there? I felt my face turning red.
"Anything you need? I'm busy." There was so much I wanted to say, but this growing feeling of acute awareness of all the grime, dirt, and sweat on me caused insane desire to put miles between us.
"Yeah, couple of us are going to the lake for overnight this weekend. Will you come?" He asked.
"Is that an invitation?" I didn't really know how to answer this, I was stalling for time.
"Yes." He smiled at me.
"I don't know..." I was leaning towards a no.
"Take your time thinking until Saturday. When you ask permission from your sister tell her Seta is coming too, her mom already let her come with. I will come to pick you up in the morning, around ten." And with that he walked away waving bye-bye.
I was stunned. This didn't really leave me with an actual choice. It would be too awkward to explain if he shows up to pick me up and chats up my sis, who is only few years older than him. There could have been an over lap in their dating scenes. NOPE! I shooed the thought away.
Should I fake that I'm on my period? Ugggh, it doesn't prohibit me from going…
With no good reason to refuse, I decided to go. Who knows, it might be fun…
True to his word Victor showed up right on time. I grabbed my bag containing towel, change of underwear and jacket for when it gets colder at night. I decided to wear my bathing suit under my tee and shorts for simplicity of logistics once we get to the body of water; which I planned to immediately jump into right away.
Victor took my bag and I remembered to run back and grab a box of cookies I baked last night, they were always a good snack. We headed out, and after just two streets, between mine and Ira's homes, we arrived at our destination. Seta was already there with Sergy and two other boys standing in front of a house. I recognized the boys from the cookout, but didn't remember anyone's names. They gave me what I assumed were their nicknames, Losi an extra tall, lanky blonde boy Ira would fawn over, and Passo, a short bulky type, the ashen haired boy resembled a dwarf smith with his oversized muscles.
As we waited for Kazy to come out with our ride, we engaged in mild chatter. I thought car will be a bit cramped with all of us, but we should manage if girls sit on the laps. I was stopped from drawing dots to my future fate when Losi showing us his loot.
He pulled five coin-sized music marbles from breast pocket and was telling us what song playlists he had stored in each of them. I was a little envious of them being trained to use their energy in the army. The more skills they unlocked, the more they could do when they came back home. Turns out Losi was able to easily recharge this sized orb, and we will have great entertainment all night.
After a while, Kazy emerged from behind his house and my jaw dropped seeing him pushing a tricycle. It was a camouflage-colored bike with an attached side carriage on one wheel meant for a third passenger or a war dog.
There is no way we will be able to use this.
I didn't doubt that the heavy metal war relic could handle the weight. After all it could carry heavy munition in its side buggy. It still ran on raw energy ore, you could see the exposed gears under the ore tank, grinding and pushing it down, dropping minute leftover dust out the back exhaust pipe.
There was just no way a ride designed for three people could fit us all, it was simply a matter of logistics. Guys just laughed at my expression. I didn't even have to say what I thought about this. I just stood there, wordlessly gesturing from us to the bike, shaking my head in disbelief.
I looked at Seta for some moral support in this matter. But like newly imprinted duckling, she looked like she was going to follow whatever the mother goose Sergy will do. Yup, looking at her closer I realized that Seta checked out and is holed up in the land of Sergy. There was no reaching her now.
"Yeah, I'm out…" I finally said making a move for my bag.
"Don't be like that…" Victor said showing bags deep under the hood of the side buggy, where long legs would usually go.
Kazy, a tall, skinny brunette boy jumped on the bike, gripped the steering wheel, and scooted over to the front, practically sitting on the ore tank. His knees dangerously protruded over the front wheel.
"You're next." Sergy said to Seta, who had the unfortunate lack of foresight and wore lacy, skin tight, ancle length, sky bule dress. She pulled her skirt up so high, you could almost see her underwear. When Sergy placed her behind Kazy, it looked like she wore a long tee.
Sergy proceeded to layer four tent bags across his chest and over his shoulder, he resembled a turtle that hid its head when he was done. Then he tells Seta to scoot forward and jumps on the seat behind her.
There was only a blue trace line where Seta used to be, I was worried if she could breathe. There was no way they could do this to me, since just my chest took up as much space as Seta. But I still decided to run. Unfortunately, I was too slow in my thinking.
Victor was already sitting cross legged in what space remained of the buggy seat. As I turned around to leave, I faced grinning ear to ear Losi, who plucked me off the ground and placed me sideways on Victor's lap. With my legs protruding over his right knee, out of the buggy and over its side, and his right arm snaking around my waste like python, there was no wiggling out now. It was amazing that I still held the box of cookies.
With Passo jumping on the front hood of the buggy, settling on the spare wheel, and Losi climbing on the back bumper, settling sideways on the top of the buggy's seat we begun to move.
What did I get myself into???? I was speechless. Seta didn't speak as well, I wasn't sure if Seta had enough air to breathe, not to mention speak. But boys seemed to have fun, my reaction was the new amusing thing to them.
We barely left the borders of the town as one of them yelled.
"Fuck! We forgot to buy drinks!"
I suddenly felt relieved, this resupplying will be a perfect opportunity for me to run.
"I'm not turning around." Kazy said. My heart sinked as he sped up considerably and continued: "There is a store in the village on the way."
Kazy slowed when we got close enough to see the store, it was right before the village begun, down a slope from the elevated highway.
"You see? We need to turn here anyway."
He nodded at the T intersection, there was a road veering off the main road and was going down towards the endless fields, one could see that it turns into a mud trail eventually. But when it begun, it was still elevated as much as the main road, separating the store from the new construction growing on the other side. They have just started, and there were only metal fence posts set in concrete periodically, patiently waiting for their fence.
Kazy slowly drove down the hill and pulled over in front of the store. Losi and Passo quickly dismounted and dashed inside.
Victor took this time to shimmy around, adjusting his position. I flipped my head backwards, leaning on his left knee to check on Seta.
"Seta, you ok?" I was genuinely curious since I saw no movement on her disjointed limbs. Eerily reminiscent of leftovers of a spider squash. Like a squeezed cat's head, emerging from tight spot it got itself into, I saw Seta's blonde head squeeze out with difficulty from between the boys; protruding eyes from all the hair being pulled back by unknown force rolled a little before finding my location.
"Yeah, I was facing the other way before."
It took a lot of willpower not to laugh at the choice of her words, since there was literally just her disjointed face on top of her arm visible.
The guys quickly came back with two big packets of stuff, which ended up on my gut, my field of view shrunk as well to just a small slice of blue sky above. When the boys jumped up and re-mounted their spots Kazy begun to move. Driving up the slope, the bike barely made it to the top as we slipped back. The dirt trail just didn't offer enough grip. With two more failed attempts I insisted we get off an remount on the road.
"No. I just need a bigger start." Kazy oozed stubbornness.
As he kept on driving towards the back, long past the store I was thinking this distance was way over the top. But what did I know about driving?
When he got the torque he wanted, he smiled and released breaks, we zoomed in the direction of the slope. I think I heard normal people wear helmets, I suddenly really want one…
Bike slid like a hot knife over butter to the top of the slope. Unfortunately, the heavy war machinery felt the freedom to realize its desire to fly, and we kept on going towards the sky. Weightlessness set in when we were flying over the middle of the road, and with the pit in my stomach the descent begun.
With a perfect ten-point landing on the other side of the slope, the metal warhorse was unstoppable.
Then with a whiplash time stopped. No. Seeing five pearlescent rainbow marbles flying over my head, in a perfect arch that would make their namesake proud, I realized it was us who stopped when the tiny dots disappeared in the tall grasses.