Saturday, April 01, 2006

What You See

It was one of those rare summer evenings. Absolutely clear skies. Not too cold. Let the gulls and whales play in the fog-blanketed seas and leave her the stars tonight. The stadium blanket her head rested on could not hold back the smell of grass, or the dirt underneath, worms furiously working to pile it on the green. Around her, the traffic and sirens and voices of The City, and the perfume of jasmine she supposed on the softly moving air.

"Hey, look. A satellite."

"Where?" She felt the blanket pull as her date swiveled his head around.

"There, just over the trees. See it?"

"The moving one, right? Yeah. You getting cold?"

A breath of laughter. "Scoot closer. It's not really cold tonight." But when Donny's arm touched hers, it felt feverish against her chicken skin. She thought of sitting in the cafe, warm thighs touching under the small round table.

"Hey, look." He moved his arm to point. "A plane."

"Ha-ha, okay. Let's go get a drink then. Someplace close." They stood up, holding the blanket corners, giving it a good shake. "Goodbye, beautiful red, white, and blue stars!" She gave the sky an exaggerated salute. They started walking across the grass, back to his car.

"What, like the stars are patriotic or something? You're not a closet conservative, are you?" He laughed.

"I don't think so! Are they even allowed here?" She held his hand. "No, just saying goodbye to all the beautifully colored stars. I hardly get to see them in the summer; I miss that."

"But they're all white." He opened her door for her, went around to the driver's side.

"No they're not." She put the folded blanket on her lap.

"They are in the planetarium." As he pulled away and headed out of the park he put the roof down. "Not too cold for you, right? If it is, just say so. I know a place on Irving; that's close."

She leaned her head back and looked up. No they're not. They're blue and yellow and red and if you were good orange and green, too. "Are you colorblind?"

"Ha. No colorblindness or male-pattern baldness, lucky me...they're not white?"

"Only some of them."

"Huh." He pulled over.

"Are we there? Is this Irving?"

"No." He leaned back in his seat, looked up at the sky. "Show me a blue one."

She smiled, which he couldn't see, and pointed their clasped hands at the sky.

5 comments:

monkey 0 said...

it's so... nice!

see, and they say scratch fiction is all blood and guts and insanity and evil ghosts and whatnot. it can be nice, normal, cozy even.

I had actually thought of this as a topic tag... "write something nice."

Bones said...

Oh, but really, how much nice can you take before you're pulling out your hair and screaming for the return of blood, insanity, and ghosts evil or otherwise because it beats the monotony of niceness? I myself can only go a couple of days, tops.

monkey 0 said...

well, sure, I'm not saying we convert all our scratch fiction blogs to omg ponies or anything. but we've got to prove we can bring the sweets from time to time.

Chemical Billy said...

...and these sweets are well-written. Not too many cavities.

Bones said...

OMG.

I am in no state to comment.

But thank you.