Tarps
Chapter One, Summer 2037
The walk was scenic, gentle, and tiring. Myles was heaving breaths though all he’d been doing was walking. Color noticed. “Would you like to rest?”
“What’re those breathing techniques you were talking about? I think I could use some right now.” Myles said through his heaving chest.
“Oh, right. Yes, the breathing techniques are to get you used to the elevation. You can’t do it well while we’re walking, so let’s find somewhere to sit down.” Both looked for a place to sit and spied a copse of short trees shaded from the sun and floored with grass.
Myles flopped to the ground while Color smoothly slid her legs into a cross-legged position.
“Alright, let’s begin with this: have you ever meditated before? Or… what’s your history with meditation?” Color asked.
“None whatsoever. I ain’t no hippie,” Myles said.
Color laughed. “Well, sit in a comfortable cross-legged position and put your hands on your lap. Whatever’s comfortable for you. Make sure your back is straight.”
“Okay…” Weird. “Cross-legged… hands… back straight. Now what? I feel like you’re messing with me. Dammit, is this what wearing a corset is like?”
Color laughed again. “What’s a corset?”
“It’s this underwear under old-century dresses that women wore. You’ve never heard of them?”
“Nope,” She said. “Maybe this is what a corset feels like. Was it elastic?”
“Elastic? No, it was just cloth and you tied up the back I’m pretty sure. It took a couple people to get it on one person. Anyway, I want to breathe again, so let’s get started. I’m in position, now what?”
Color straightened. “Okay. This isn’t ‘hippie’ like you were saying. Since you’ve never meditated before, this may be strange to you. Ready?”
“All set, chief.”
“Okay. Close your eyes.”
Myles closed them.
“Now, just breathe through your nose.”
“Easy enough,” Myles mumbled.
“Don’t talk, it’ll break your concentration.”
“Yessir.”
Myles took several deep, concentrated breaths through his nose and didn’t feel any different.
Just before he was about to make another smart comment, Color spoke, “Now, focus on your body. Focus on either your hands or your feet, whichever is colder right now. Focus on the temperature.”
Myles chose his hands. They seemed to feel cold at the moment and he relaxed them further, falling face-side up in his lap. This was relaxing. Several breaths passed and his hands still felt cold, but Myles was surprised to find he could sense the blood coursing through them. Weirrrrd! Is this what meditation does to someone?
“Keep focusing on your hands, trying to heat them up just by thinking.”
Myles took another breath.
“Now we’ll do the actual breathing. That was an exercise to get you in touch with your body and in tune with breathing.” Color explained. She went on to instruct him on a deep-breathing technique she called Wim Hof’s Method. They both took 35 fast deep breaths and then exhaled completely and held the breath for fifteen seconds. Though he felt he held it for a while, Myles had to inhale much sooner than Color who continued holding for another full minute.
“And again,” Color said before beginning the rhythm again. Another 35 and fifteen-second hold.
Myles thought he reached forty seconds or so on that second hold.
And again. 35 breaths.
When Myles held his breath, this one felt different. He had almost passed out, but now he could feel the blood in his system and how much warmer it felt, though the air was still chilly. He focused on his heartbeat which felt like a diesel engine, pumping fresh, strong blood. He focused on slowing it down, calming himself, and using the air in his system. He didn’t need to try keeping his eyes closed now; they were relaxed shut, the darkness behind his eyes was now something he welcomed. It increased the focus and understanding of what was happening in his body. It felt sudden, but he had the need to breathe. He didn’t know how long he’d held his breath, but that was fine. He forced the urge to breathe back and stuck out for another ten seconds before inhaling and holding for fifteen seconds.
He opened his eyes; that felt weird but helpful. Color was across from him, seated motionless, still holding her breath. A few seconds later, she inhaled and held, opening her eyes. She smiled and nodded at him.
Myles felt relaxed, energized, and not as light-headed. “Nice.”
“Feels good, huh?” Color said.
“Yeah. Keep walking?”
“Yup. I’ll teach you a couple others, but we don’t have to do them yet.”
Myles listened as Color talked about the breathing techniques and eventually trailed off once there was nothing more to say about how thin the air was.
“So,” Myles said after a silence. “Now what? We just keep walking?”
“Yeah, I guess so. We have several days before we reach Stablefield, so in the meantime I guess we will just walk.”
“There’s no faster way?”
“We could take a boat, but they’re all run by Cavaliers and we’d get captured.”
“No land vehicles?” Myles was desperate; He didn’t want to walk and already felt sore from the couple of miles they’d trekked already.
“Nope, unless by some miracle we find a horse. Lots of bigger animals that couldn’t adapt fast enough died when the sky rose. So it’s really just little animals like birds and rabbits.”
“My legs are killing me.”
“Have you seen the Ledge yet? The side of the land where it drops off into the ocean?”
Myles shook his head. “How far is it?”
“I’m not sure, but it’s that way,” She pointed to their right. “Maybe twenty minutes?”
“Yeah, I mean, what else are we up to?”
They changed course and began walking through the woods. The feel was similar to the woods behind Bushkill Avenue, with the spacing and greenery, the sunlight and grass. After about fifteen minutes, the trees ahead seemed to stop and everything after that was sky.
Myles slowed to a stop. “Oh, jeepers. Laughers and weepers, help me. I don’t know if I’m ready for this.”
Color looked at him. “C’mon, it’s cool!” She grabbed his hand and he followed.
Color was laughing as they approached the Ledge. Myles began breathing harder.
They slowed to a brisk walk a few minutes later and stopped about ten feet from the Ledge. Color let go of Myles’s hand and walked closer.
“Color…” Myles said with concern.
“Don’t look at me, look at the sky.” And she opened her arms to the expanse.
The ground dropped off of a cliff with nothing but horizon after it. Myles put his hands and knees under him, crawled to the ledge, and looked down. Far below, almost a mile down, there was dark water. And out over the horizon there was nothing but ocean. He felt like he was being pulled over the Ledge by some invisible force. “Fucking hell, man.” He looked up. Bits of land floated on the horizon, all mostly at the same height: a hovering archipelago.
A huge rock at least the size of Bushkill Avenue meandered slowly by. It was dark stone and browned dirt, mossy from the humidity and constant drenching from the clouds, and topped with a few trees; a real floating island. There were two tiny streams of water falling off of two ledges and turning into mist. The large rock roamed about like a ship in harbor, passing by Myles’s and Color’s own island. That was when it fully struck him that he, himself, was on a floating rock.
“Whoa,” Myles finally said. If only he could fly right now! He’d jump off of this rock and zip around to all the islands and explore. Even if it was just for an hour.
He noted the small streams from the floating rock. “Where’s the water coming from? Wouldn’t all the water just fall off?”
“Rain water, dew, and cloudwater. There are just so many ways for water to get onto the rocks that there’s really never any shortage.” Color said.
“So even though we’re quickly running out of water, we’ll probably find more somewhere?” Myles said.
“Oh, yeah. Water is one of our least worries, we just need to find somewhere that it pools, like that tarp.” Color said as she returned next to Myles who was glad she wasn’t so close to the edge now.
They both put their eyes on the scenery and drank it in with a sigh, “Wow.” It didn’t make them feel smaller, on the contrary, Myles felt like he was part of something bigger, but it would be incomplete without him and Color. It felt strange pairing her with him; he’d only known her for a day, but he felt again that he’d known her for much longer. That same weird feeling he’d had in the dream.
“Head back now?” He said.
“Yeah.” They took in another gaze before turning and walking back to the path.
Myles wanted to ask a question, but he didn’t know what. He wanted to know more about her, and not just so he could trust her.
“I saw you in one of my dreams.”
Color paused. “You saw me in a dream?”
“Yeah. You were with this guy, he had blond hair, a long green jacket… kinda looked like a boy, but definitely was a man. Do you know him?”
“No. You saw me in a dream?” She asked again. “What was I doing?”
“Nothing, just… standing there. You looked just like you do right now. Always happy.”
“Yeah, that’s me,” She said.
“Do you ever fake your happiness?”
“Umm…” She truly wasn’t sure. “I don’t know.”
“What makes you think you do, and what makes you think you don’t?”
“Well,” She started. “Honestly, the only thing at this point that’s keeping me happy right now is you.”
Myles started chuckling. “Fuuuuck, you’re real sad then.”
Color chuckled lightly as well.
“And what reasons should you be sad? You said you were running from people that wanted to kill you… what else? You’re alone, so I assume,” His prophesying automatically finished his sentence.
“Oh, shit. Color.” All the information slapped him in the face. “You lost everything, didn’t you? Your friends, your Aunt, village, safety, hope…”
“Hey! No probing into my mind!” She said,
sLAP
right in the face. “Ow, I didn’t probe into your sparkly little mind! How would you like me to slap you?” That slap hurt.
“If you didn’t go poking around in my mind, how did you know?”
“I told you, I didn’t. The prophesying did it all on its own; I don’t know how to control it completely yet.” Myles said. “It goes on and off, especially now that I’ve been up here. All I know is what you were thinking in that minute. It was a lot and it was… not that specific.”
Color sighed, “My village was raided by the Cavaliers and I was the only fraiser to escape. Only person to escape at that. They killed everyone else and they chased me for a while in their boat, but I think I outdistanced them and they gave up.”
Myles let that thought settle for a few seconds. “I really am the first person you’ve been able to talk to since then?”
Color nodded, seeming much sadder now.
“Damn,” His eyes wandered around the forest. “Aren’t we just… we’re really a lost couple of idiots, you and me.”
The conversation stopped there.
Without wanting to, Myles perceived the contents of her backpack. There was more than one cassette in there! He already knew Van Halen was in there.
“You have cassettes?” He asked.
Color grabbed her backpack. “Yeah, five of ‘em.”
“Wanna listen to one?” He asked.
“I would, but we don’t have anything to play them with.”
“Really?” She said,
Myles grinned, feeling more useful now that he could do something for her. He popped out the tape (Uppercut Mix) and offered the empty walkman to Color. She unzipped her own backpack and pulled out three tapes.
“We can listen to an album or Marie’s Mix.” She held them up.
“What’s Marie’s Mix?”
“A bunch of songs from 2019 that my Aunt Marie made me.”
“No way, let me see that,” He said.
She handed him the tape. He held it, fascinated. Music from the future. “This is from 2019?” That was nineteen years in the future!
“2019,” Color confirmed.
“I… don’t know how I feel about this. This is like… this is crazy. It’s music that doesn’t exist yet. Some of these artists are still kids. From where I’m from at least.”
“Should we play it?”
“Definitely.”
Myles held the walkman, Color put the tape in, Myles clicked it shut, plugged in the headphones and hit play. The battery was dead in this one too.
“Dammit, I think the mirror killed the batteries in everything I brought.”
“I could just sing them?” Color said.
Myles shrugged. It would keep the awkward dialog away for a while. “Sure.”
“Alright, I’ll sing it out of order because this song has been stuck in my head. It’s called Racecar by a guy named Aries.” She cleared her throat and hummed a little bit. Then:
She said I hate my. day job; I don’tfeelit,
I need racecar. top down, matchmy ceiling,
I don’t have none. have none. Dollar-billies inmy bag,
Run. bag, run. fuck your feelings, I detach them,
Myles grabbed his water again and took a drink. The music wasn’t what he was used to, but who cared? This was literally music from the future.
Pilot, I’ve gone too high, parachute, this is my first
If we land in quicksand tell him too, I might die
Body-bagged, prolly glad, hada price, onmy head,
Took her hand, in July, couple miles, fallagain
Hate my! day job! I don’tfeelit,
I need racecar.. top down, matchmy ceiling
I don’t have none, have none, dollar. billies in my bag
Run- bag, run, fuck your feelings, I detach them
Myles looked over at her. All he could see was her scalp since she was focused on singing. She was cute, yes, but she was fucking annoying. Bright ball of sunshine who could throw knives and was all touchy-feely. She clearly liked being right about things. Whatever, he could live with that. The good outweighed the bad at this point. He had to admit, her company was better than none and, who knows?, maybe she’d teach him a thing or two if he swallowed his pride.
He realized she had finished the song and was looking at him from her moist, glassy eyes. “What’re you thinking? You’re boring a couple of holes right into my head with those eyes.”
“Yeah.” He was pretty deep in thought and broke his eyes off her. “Uh, nothing. Just thinking.”
“Hm, what’re you thinking about?”
About how annoying you are. Can’t we just walk and not talk? “Just stuff. I dunno.”
“Hm.”
She reminded him of that one girl from Bridge to Terabithia. What was her name? Leslie? And the kid’s name was Jess which was also a girl name. He liked that book; he often wondered how he’d meet the girl of his dreams and maybe not lose her to some crazy accident. He glanced to and from Color.
Nah.
But their situation was similar, he would mentally admit. Color was like Leslie because she was all energy and wacky language and ideas, and Myles was like Jess because he was practical and… colder. Good at being alone. Color always needed someone, but Myles would be fine with or without her. This thought comforted him.
“Have you heard the term ‘kindred spirits’?” Myles asked.
“No, but I could guess what it means.”
Okay, know-it-all. “I didn’t know you at all aside from seeing just a quick picture of you in a dream, but I feel like I trust and connect with you much faster than a stranger. I think it’s because we’re kindred spirits. I first…” He stopped himself.
“Wait, finish the thought. ‘I first…’ what?”
“Well, I was just going to say I first heard it from Anne of Green Gables. It’s just stupid. It was an audiobook I used to listen to before going to bed.”
“Why is it stupid? What’s Anne of Green Gables?”
“Well, it’s about this ginger orphan girl who just gets the shit-end of the stick all her life. It’s like a little girl’s book, that’s why its stupid. But that’s where I first heard it; she called her best friend and people she connected with well ‘kindred spirits’.”
“I think it’s cool! Any book can be cool to listen to or read, no matter how old you are. If you’re reading at all, that’s great!”
“Whoa, wait,” Something occurred to Myles. “Can you read?”
“Yeah, mostly,” She said, her eyes looking down.
“You’re not very good at it?” Myles guessed. He wasn’t reprimanding her either, it was okay that she couldn’t read well yet. It was out of character for him to not be berating the kid who couldn’t read. If there was a kid in Winton Middle who everyone knew couldn’t read, Myles would probably make fun of him or her. Marshall wouldn’t, but he would get mad at the people who did. Why did he have to be such a gentleman all the time?
“It’s weird, usually I’d make fun of someone who couldn’t read. But I can’t really. It’s like I don’t want to make fun of you and it makes me sound like such a pussy.”
“What’s a pussy? Like a girl?”
“Uh,” Myles hand-picked his next words. “It’s ah…a wimp.”
“Is it a bad word?” Color rolled her eyes.
“Yup. Like how shit just means poop, ‘pussy’ just means wimp.” Myles said and then quickly muttered, “And vagina.”
“What? And it means what?”
“Nothing.”
She narrowed her eyes. “Okay, so it makes you sound like a pussy just by being kind to someone? So did Hannah from my village; she was like a twin sister to me, in all the bad ways though. I never understood it. Why does being nice make you a pussy wimp?”
Myles’s mouth twitched. Pussy wimp. “I don’t know… I guess it has something to do with you putting yourself below someone else’s level.”
“Like, being humble?”
“Humble, that’s the word. If you’re humble, you just are put down a lot. You can’t live, you gotta elbow your way to the top.”
“Go on,” Color said, her facial expressions clearly in disagreement.
“I don’t know, it’s like nice people never ruled the world.” Myles wasn’t putting this into the words he wanted, but he blundered along anyway.
“Is that what you want to do, rule the world?”
“No, not the whole world. You gotta be strong just to protect yourself.”
“So putting other people down beneath you is protection?”
Myles didn’t answer.
“Okay, I know that’s not what you mean, I admit I’m being a little bit of a Devil’s Advocate right now.”
“Fucking-A right you are.”
“Hey, calm down.”
He looked at her. “I need you to know that telling someone who is even remotely close to ‘not calm’ to ‘calm down’ has never calmed them down.”
She nodded humbly. “Point taken. Sorry.” She didn’t sound sorry, she sounded annoyed.
“Thanks. Okay, what I mean is… yeah, obviously when you put it like that, you can’t be mean to other people and say you’re protecting yourself. But like… sometimes that’s just what you do.”
“Why is it something you just do?”
“You know, just to be funny and shit.”
“Hm.”
“Not convinced?”
“No.”
“Well, I mean, we are from completely different cultures, backgrounds, and entire fucking planets,” Myles said.
“True.”
Oh, fantastic, Myles thought, I pissed her off. She’s answering in single words. Eh, whatever.
They walked in silence, the tension humming between them like a note fading from a guitar string. Myles pretended he didn’t care; if it were a boy he were walking with, there probably wouldn’t be any fighting and if there were, they’d get over it. With a girl it was different. Why did they have to hold these grudges? Why couldn’t they just duke it out and humble themselves a bit?
Instead of cold-shouldering her, his fraise kicked in suddenly. Her favorite flower is Dragon’s Head and it’s up on the right. “Hmm.”
“What?” Color asked, partially forgetting the tension and becoming slightly nosy.
“Stay here.” She stopped as he walked ahead. Behind a tree, almost underneath some ferns, were several Dragon’s Head flowers. “What the fuck am I doing?” He muttered as he picked three.
“What is it? What’d you find?” Color began walking toward him.
He kept his eyes on the flowers as he rose and walked toward her. “Dragon’s Head?”
Her face lit up like the Sun returning from behind a cloud. “Dragon’s Head!” She accepted them. “Look at them, they’re so healthy. How did you know…? Oh, was it your fraise?”
“Yeah,” He said.
She smelled them and smiled. “Wanna smell?”
He leaned forward to smell and she shoved them into his face, laughing.
Myles flinched and jumped backward, “Hey!”
“What’s the matter,” She said, still chuckling. “Don’t like flowers?”
“Not ones that I inhale,” He said, smiling in spite of himself. “Fun fact about me, I don’t like getting pranked or have stunts pulled on me like that.”
“Killjoy,” She said.
“Asshat.”
“Smoothbrain.”
“Jew.”
“Bastard.”
“…fuck…wad….”
“‘Bitchslap.’” She quoted.
“Shiiiit, that’s the strongest word I’ve heard you say.”
“I win.” She raised her hand. “That was something I heard our village elders say once and I still don’t know what it means. Where should I put these?”
“Up your glitter-lined asshole.”
“Wait, I know.” She said and as she whittled the flower down to a shorter length, she said, “‘Glitter-lined asshole’?” Then she threw away two of them and kept the shortened one. She placed it daintily behind her ear.
“Adorable,” Myles said, not with complete irony, “Yeah, ‘glitter-lined ass’ because you’re such a ball of daylight and probably shit ribbon or something.” Then he remembered she’d literally killed full-grown human men before. “With a touch of flamethrower or minigun in there.” He glanced at the spear on her back and then the knives on her shins. “I dunno, I just met you, who am I to judge?”
“Let’s keep walking,” She suggested.
Eesh, I went too far again? His jokes were flopping. The Astronomy Club would be reeling laughing. Tough crowd right now; he hoped she didn’t get the wrong impression of him. He just sometimes wanted to say jerky, suspect things without being an actual jerk.
Conversation resumed as they walked, but it wasn’t as deep. Myles learned she’d saved one of the village’s fraisers by killing a midnight thief who had snatched the toddler from his crib. He also learned she’d been close with her Aunt Marie and the village elder named Music.
Color learned that Myles was a loner though he had friends. He had a good childhood and was far outside of his element here. He had zero outdoors experience which was fascinating to her; what was living indoors like and having running water? She’d heard stories, but here was real-world experience right from the horse’s mouth.
Much walking and several pauses to catch their breath and perform some breathing exercises, the sun began setting. Myles tried to use his fraise at will and find somewhere in the vicinity that they could sleep, but his fraise was still underdeveloped.
“We’ll just find a tree with tall roots. Those are the best to sleep under because they’re like a natural windblock. There’s one other trick to keeping warm which I think would be smartest,” She said.
“Oh yeah? Let’s hear it, I’m down to try anything because I do not want to freeze here. I need my sleep.” Myles said.
“You sure?”
“Yeah, why?”
“Big spoon or little spoon?”
He had no idea what this meant so he said nothing and stood around looking confused.
“We’d sleep together, either side-by-side or one of us would wrap around the other. Preferably not the second one.”
“Uh…” He put his hands on his hips. “I… uh. Yeah, I’m not that touchy-feely of a guy.”
“Side-by-side? Otherwise, you probably won’t sleep at all.”
“Mmmmmmm…” He tapped his leg.
“It’s not that intimate, trust me. Me and Mason and Hannah used to sleep like this, but we were in sleeping bags and it was just a pile of us once we woke up. You forget the closeness after feeling just how cold it is and focus on being warm.”
He sighed, “Alright, fuck it.”
“Since we’re still pretty warm from the walk, we should probably just lay down now. It’ll warm up the ground and be a good setting for the rest of the night.” Color said.
“You’re sure I won’t freeze to death in these wet clothes?”
“What’re you wearing? I’m waterproof aside from my pants and hair.”
“Uh, a shirt, a snow coat, some jeans, and skechers.” Myles said.
“What’re ‘skechers’?”
“Shoes. Tennis shoes.”
“Oh. Are your feet cold?”
“Yeah, my socks feel wet. Probably sweat.”
“Take them off and let them dry,” Color advised.
“What about my feet?”
“They won’t freeze, but it’ll be worse if you keep the socks and shoes on.”
He took them off. “Great, now where do my feet go?”
Color shrugged. “Alternate them between your legs. I always had pretty warm feet. But now I just sleep in all my clothes.”
“When was the last time you changed clothes?”
Color shrugged. “A few weeks.”
“Fuckin’ nasty.”
“That’s life on the road.” She defended.
“Lucky it isn’t hot out. You probably smell terrible.”
“Well, I’ve bathed since then. I just haven’t changed clothes.”
“Bathed? Where? And how?”
“In ponds and streams and stuff.” She didn’t seem eager to continue the conversation.
“What if the Cavaliers literally caught you with your pants down?”
“I would have killed them,” she said with seriousness.
“Hmmm.” Myles thought it was funny that she had to do all that in the wilderness. Then again, maybe it wasn’t so strange to her because she lived in a village. Maybe it was just weird talking about it with him.
“So you came here through a mirror?” Color said.
Myles was rubbing his bare feet together to warm them. “Yeah, me and the Astronomers, but I don’t know where they are. They made it through, I’m sure of that.”
Color closed her eyes again. “We’ll probably find them in Stablefield.”
“You officially want to help me? I mean, you’re kind of deep into this already anyway.”
“I do. I’m invested, you could say.” Her eyes sparkled again, but this time with some form of joy Myles couldn’t determine.
Myles wasn’t used to people being nice to him without knowing him. He did not expect Color to want to help him at all. They settled into the ground and the Sage was surprised to find he was comfortable with his coat and being alongside a girl he hardly knew. A girl who had found enough love in her heart to enjoy the company of, and decide to help out a kid who was pretty much dead weight to her. She was a survivor and Myles… needed her help and she was more than willing to help him for nothing in return.
Myles rose partly from his seated position and looked down at Color.
“Nature calling?” Color asked with a slight smile before she was shocked speechless as Myles, all on his own, gave her a hug. His eyes felt watery and his heart was light. Thank you.
“That may quite likely be the nicest thing anyone has offered to do for me.”
She hugged him back without a word. She seemed to understand better than he did.
He laid back down and she locked her arm in his. They lay hip to hip and he could slowly feel her body heat covering the left side of his body. She didn’t try to hold his hand which made him think she didn’t see this as a romantic moment, so Myles didn’t treat it as such either. They just needed each others’ warmth for practical purposes. Still, Myles felt his crotch warm up faster than the rest of his body.
The last words they exchanged that night were,
Myles: “First thing tomorrow, we’re finding blankets so we don’t have to do this again.”
Color: “M’kay.”
When he awoke, he was alone. The dead walkman and tape were still here, but Color was gone.
His head popped off the ground, “Color? Color!” He scrambled to his feet.
He almost blacked out, ohhh shit, and squatted down to let his heart catch up with the movement. This altitude was a bitch and he was thirsty. He grabbed his water bottle nearby and took a long drink.
“Where’d you go, Color?” He noticed her backpack was still here so she was planning on returning, wherever she went. There was her water bottle too and he was just noticing the name on the side. “Hydroflask.” He grabbed it as well. His hunger had doubled overnight.
Color appeared close by holding her spear and two rabbits swinging by their feet like unconscious beanbags from her other hand.
“Morning, female,” He muttered.
“Greetings, male,” She said.
They both took a long drink from their water bottles. Myles noted the rabbits again. “Find any ‘grab’?” He was hesitant to watch a couple of animals cook again and then eat them.
“No, but I wasn’t looking either; took me longer than usual to catch these. Finding grab should come naturally to you eventually once you get your fraise all up to speed, but I can teach you how to look in the meantime.”
“Yeah, about that, how long does that take usually?” Myles asked.
“To let the fraise develop? I have no idea… Maybe a few days or weeks? I grew up with mine, so I’m not sure.”
“Maybe one of these days I’ll wake up, and boom, I’m a prophet.”
Color shrugged. “Maybe.”
They cooked and ate another rabbit. After another post-meal drink of water, Color said, “French walk?”
“What is it with you and walking?” Myles said, using his sore legs to rise. He had to admit that yesterday’s after-dinner walk felt nice.
After a few minutes of walking, the forest broke off and brought them through an abandoned neighborhood. Their walk slowed as they took in the sight: most of the houses were nearly covered in vegetation now. The driveways and street were recognizable, but mostly covered with cracks filled in with grass like little mohawks.
Myles whistled slowly, “Look at this.” An apocalyptic neighborhood.
“Buildings are usually some of the first stuff to go. It’s because a lot of them aren’t made of rock or soil I think.”
“Really,” Myles didn’t hear her because he was wondering: “Can we explore them?”
“That would be against the rules.” Color grinned.
“Alright, alright,” Myles dismissed her and walked quickly to one of the houses. The front door was broken in and both fraisers let themselves in. “Think we’ll find anything cool?”
“Blankets, hopefully,” Color said.
“Good point. Maybe then we won’t have to sleep like we did last night. How did you manage before me?” Myles said quietly. He didn’t know why, but it felt smarter to not make too much noise in the house.
“I’d do the breathing exercises first,” Color’s volume matched his. “There’s one that heats your body up really well if you do it correctly. Then I’d curl up really tight and put my arms inside the belly of my jacket. It kept the heat well enough for me to sleep.”
Many of the rooms and walls were filled with vegetation and the entire house’s air was humid and sticky.
“I’ll warn you, blankets are usually moldy and gross in places like this. But it’s still worth looking. The only way there would be any usable ones is if it were in something airtight.”
“They get moldy from time?”
“From the humidity, time, and animals live in them or chew them up. Most blankets are made by hand nowadays.”
“Did you sleep with a blanket when you lived in your village?”
Color nodded. “We had a loom.”
“What’s a loom?”
“It makes fabric.”
“Ah, then blankets were probably simpler than something like a shirt or pants.”
Color nodded again, “You catch on quick.”
“Prophet.” He put his thumb to his chest.
She chuckled. There were no blankets in this house. “Even a tarp would work,” Color said as they left. “Tarps are still good if they’ve been folded.”
Myles imagined tarps. His dad had two that he used to need for a couple of woodworking projects outside, but now that they were done, he just folded them and put them on a low shelf. Now involuntarily he pictured more, but he’d never seen these tarps before. It was like his mind was being tickled to see something else. Like when someone is describing a scene you have never seen before and your imagination creates it on its own, but this was like watching a movie after you’ve read the book. All of the facts lined up and at the same time you put a face to those previously faceless characters. Articulating the feeling was impossible; it was easier to just realize and say: “Oh, there’s some in the garage that way.”
Color looked down the street where he pointed. “You found some? With your prophesying? Is that how it works?”
“I’m not sure, but I’m going to go with it.” He started a slow, excited jog toward the open garage he sensed the tarps in. Both fraisers walked in and several rats evacuated.
“Fuckin’ hell, man,” Myles said as he jumped away from the vermin.
Color laughed at his reaction and asked: “Where’d you see them?” There were shelves piled with material, old tools, several cans of paint, and assorted cloth and items.
“I didn’t really see them,” he said. “I just think they’re in here. Kind of.”
They started poking around the material. Myles kept thinking about the tarp hoping it would reveal itself. He stopped and thought hard, hoping he could somehow force his fraise into action. “C’mon…” It didn’t work.
“Myles, I found them,” Color said. “Look at that!” She picked them up, amazed and giddy.
Myles gazed at the tarps. He’d found them with his mind, just like he’d found the mirror and known what to do with it. “It really worked.”
“This is incredible, Myles. You found them with your prophecy! Congratulations!”
“Yeah,” he said. “Thanks.”
“Does it tire you out?” She asked.
“Nah, I didn’t feel anything. That jog over here did though.”
“Want to explore any more of these houses?”
“Nah, I feel like we’ve seen it all already. Let’s just keep walking.” Myles took off his Jansport and grabbed one of the tarps, blue on one side and green on the other, folded it up, and put it inside. Then he put the pack on his back. Color took a good look at hers and tossed it.
“Why’d you do that?” Myles asked.
“That one’s big enough and I’d rather not carry it.”
“Where will you sleep?” He said, not following.
“Oh, I forgot you don’t like sleeping together.” She picked the tarp up again.
“Okay, let me try to understand you: You really like sleeping with other people. It’s almost creepy, you know that? You really like getting intimate with people, why is that?”
Color shrugged, “I’ve never seen it as strange.”
“You ever get taught what sex is?”
“Yeah…”
“That seemed like an unsure ‘yeah’.”
“No, I mean like, ‘yeah, our village was pretty open about it and we talked about sex quite a bit. Not with the really little kids, but the adults wanted us to be educated.’”
Holy shit, what? “What the actual fuck? Seriously, what was your village like? I sensed a lot of things from you when we met, maybe prophecy, maybe not, but being some kind of like… rape victim or got-beat-by-my-dad… wasn’t one of them.”
“Nothing like that,” She said. “I wouldn’t like to ever think of it like that. It’s probably that difference in culture again or something because sleeping together like what we did wasn’t so out-of-the-ordinary. It still isn’t for me, it’s just how we would sleep on the road. And then sex is a whole other level of connection that’s pretty private.”
“Jeepers,” Myles said. “Well, sleeping with someone like that is, to me, pretty touchy and close.”
“But you’re okay with hugging?”
“Hugging is way different,” Myles said. How could she compare sleeping together with hugging?
“Hmmm,” She said.
“For real, what was it like in your village? Where did you sleep when you lived in the village and why did you leave?” Myles said.
Color took a deep breath, thinking. “Well,” she started, “When I was really young, we all slept in one longhouse. Do you know what a longhouse is?”
“Let’s pretend I forgot.”
She chuckled, “It’s a giant, long hut, all one big room aside from the very end where there’s a room for changing and stuff, but everyone sleeps together. It kept everyone safe, close, and fewer people were afraid with the big community. It also made us… more connected and empathic. That was how they described it at least.”
“What’s ‘empathic’ mean again?”
“Like… you can feel what another person is feeling. It makes it harder to get mad at them because you see from their view.”
“Oh,” Myles said. “Continue.”
“When I was about ten, the village elders decided to make houses for each family as an experiment because several new people we’d taken in were wanting to bring some of our village back to what used to be ‘modern day’ living. Back before the Rise. There was a lot of disagreement, but eventually they said ‘yeah, we’ll try it out with just a few houses first,’ and pretty soon everyone liked the idea of their own house. Our village had grown and we all felt pretty safe. We didn’t have any walls around the huts, but since we lived close to the Ledge, it was like we were protected from one whole side. And we were in the middle of a forest like this.” Color sighed and her breath shook as it left her mouth. “And everyone was all very happy…”
She’s about to cry. Myles thought. No, he didn’t think it, he knew. “I’m… um…” What can I say? What can I do? Uhhh…
She choked and put her face in the pocket of her elbow. She choked several more times before a fully fledged sob came from her mouth. They stopped walking, still surrounded by houses, and sat down on a curb. Color covered her face with her hands, only the white hair visible now. Myles sat next to her and for some reason his heart was hurting watching her, like when Langley started crying in the clearing all those years ago. She cried viciously with drool, tears, and snot falling from her face.
She hasn’t spoken to anyone about this yet, despite the weeks that have passed since then; she hasn’t befriended anyone in that time. Myles felt these facts arrive in his brain; part of it felt like the fraise at work, but he put most of these facts together on his own. He looked at her shaking body, listening to her cry. How to console her? What could he say? Was there something he was supposed to say? Or maybe words weren’t what she needed.
He put an arm around her shoulder and sighed to let her know he was listening. She spit the saliva dangling from her mouth and wiped her nose, before putting her head on his chest and putting both arms around him. She cried and cried as Myles let the gestures of connection say what was needed. Maybe… maybe sometimes letting someone use an emotional outlet for a while was the answer, not words. Maybe they just need someone to be there and listen. So the simple, but weighty, burden of knowing was shared.
The crying steadied for a few minutes and then slowed. Myles didn’t know how long they’d sat there on that curb, a long time or not long enough, but it felt like the perfect amount of time. Color didn’t let go when she finally stopped. She stayed with her head on his chest, her hair just under his chin.
“We were raided by Cavaliers,” She said. He could feel her chin trembling against his ribs. “They came in a big stone boat. They found us because they were using a prophet to find other fraisers. I would have killed him, but he was too protected. They got all the fraisers and killed everyone else. Eventually they gave up the chase and I wandered the forest, living off the land and finding shelter wherever I could. I’d seen the barn a few days ago, but didn’t use it. I was staying in the area, wandering around and saw that it was getting rainy, so I ran and ran until I found that barn…and I met you.”
Myles didn’t think he should say anything. The whole situation felt magical. He rubbed her shoulder to let her know he heard her.
“I knew I’d get to this point eventually. The point where I just cry and let it all out, all the stuff that happened to me. I didn’t have anyone to share it with aside from God.”
Myles felt more sorry for her than anyone. More than Langley when he moved from Ohio and cried in the clearing behind their house, more than Blink who had a messed up dad (and a dick of an older brother), more than Pretty who was the man of the house before he could ride a bike, more than Mariah who wasn’t even allowed to watch TV! More than… more than himself, even.
“It’s okay,” Myles said eventually, swallowing hard. He was feeling choked up himself. To get his mind off of thinking too much, he began to rock her. Back and forth. He could feel her start to smile and she rocked back.
“‘A heart of gold is also a heavy heart,’” she said.
He snickered, “Complimenting yourself?”
Her crying was interrupted by a quick laugh. “Maybe. I don’t know why I said that.” She straightened back to a seated position. “My face is so gross. I think I may have gotten a lot on your shirt.”
Myles looked down at the wet spot on the left side of his shirt and jacket. “That’s okay.” He was shocked to find that he meant it. “It’s okay, really.”
She took a sharp breath and wiped her face with her sleeves. She sniffed and looked at him with her mouth open like she was about to speak. Then she closed it, looking to and from him, then opened her mouth again. Then closed it.
“It’s okay,” Myles said again. “I’m… glad I could help.”
She sniffed once more and breathed out of her mouth, nodding.
They both stood up and started walking without a word.
They walked in silence for a while, only stopping once to refill their water bottles in a crystal-clear stream of water.
Somewhere along the way, Color stopped walking. Myles took a few more steps before stopping and turned around, knowing she was about to speak. She said, “Let’s go to the Ledge. There’s one pretty close by.”
“Okay,”
They turned off the path again and in a few minutes they could see the trees abruptly stop a few hundred feet ahead. The light was beautiful, a wafting gold tint everywhere. They made it to the Ledge and stopped, looking out into the expanse.
Myles heard his breath whoosh from his lungs as he sat down, eyes riveted to the view. Clouds gracefully rolled around at different heights, small and large rocks, far and near, hovered perfectly still, gently existing in the thin air. The sun was setting, poking rays through any holes in the clouds.
“It’s really cool,” Myles said.
“Yeah.”
They watched the expanse for a while. Myles still felt that there were some things he didn’t like about Color, but at the same time he realized that was how he felt about all of his friends.
“Head back?”
“Yup.”
They walked and began talking again about what they’d do if they could time-travel. It was an excellent conversation that held their attention away from the situation. Myles said he’d become a professional singer and just use popular songs from the future. Color said she’d see what her kids would be like. Darkness fell and they found a spot to sleep. They laid out their tarps and stood over them for a moment.
Color turned to Myles, “G’night,” and hugged him.
Wrapped in tarp, exhausted and warmed by walking, they fell asleep in minutes.