Sunshine and Soma are skipping hand and hand down a tree lined path. The sun is bright. The sun shines brightly through the leaves of evergreen trees, tickling their skin. It is tickling their bare feet. Their bare feet- which are covered in blood of berries, grass, and dirt- are being tickled by the feathery fingers of heat.
They are holding hands. They are laughing and skipping merrily down a tree lined path. A tree lined path which resides alongside a stream. Everything has a surreal feel to it: the sky is just a bit too wide, the sun just a smidgen too bright, the clouds cut from paper, the chirps of birds composed and conducted, the colours seem to come from a painter's brush.
Soma secretly has pinched herself several times over just to make sure that she is not living in a dream, just to make sure she is not asleep. She reminds herself, while running, to remember this moment.
She is reminding herself to remember this moment, to take a mental picture. To store an image in her head that she can conjure up in the future in order to remind her mind that life was once beautiful. In order to remind her future, older self that she was once young; that she once had so much fun.
Soma and Sunshine finally run out of breath and decide to sit and rest.
They find a nice spot located beside a creek, where it is not so hot. Soma laces her fingers together, places them behind her head, stretches out her feet, lies on her back and looks up at the earth's ceiling.
There are some birds singing a melancholy yet peaceful tune. The sound of water trickling downstream, in between the slippery-looking rocks, is soothing. The surroundings are lush and green.
Soma is reminded of a land before time.
Soma is reminded of existence before disease. Soma is reminded of ancient, native civilizations- she can see their bodies amongst the trees. She can see horses without saddles bucking and whinnying loudly. She can see women gathering fruits from trees and berries, naked, while carrying babies. She can see men smoking pipes for peace, smiling with pointy teeth. She is inhaling and exhaling the poetry and beauty of everything.
"Sunshine- can I ask you something?"
Soma's voice is uncertain, her mouth is dry and her words come out in a creaky squeak. She almost didn't say anything at all for risk of ruining the serenity. But, in the end, she wanted a second opinion. She wants evidence to support her hypothesis, recently formulated, that there did not exist a word for freedom in ancient civilizations.
Sunshine is sitting on a rock. She is smiling, she is pulling something from her sock- a baggie of marijuana and a glass piece for smoking. As Sunshine looks at Soma's body splayed out on the ground her smile widens.
"Sure, you can ask me something So So- you just did, didn't you?- you wanna smoke with me?"
"Huh?"
Soma lazily lifts her gaze to see what Sunshine is holding out to her. When she sees the pipe and the weed Soma starts giggling.
"No, no, thank you. I don't smoke that sort of dope."
"What? Soma I thought there wasn't a drug you didn't do-"
Sunshine is genuinely confused, her hands are frozen in midair still offering the marijuana and paraphernalia to her friend. Soma smiles, a slanted and lazy grin before answering her friend's question.
"That's almost true. I don't smoke pot though, I mean- why would I want to take something that makes me stupid, hungry, and lazy. No offense, baby. Thanks and everything. You got a cigarette? I'll smoke a cigarette if you have it. Besides, I'm trying to go sober. I'm tired of being let down by love and drugs. I'm taking a break."
"Fine, suit yourself," says Sunshine as she hands Soma a cigarette from her pack and lights it.
Soma reclines back on her back, staring at the trees and smoking.
"Thanks. Anyway, what I wanted to ask you- was, this: do you think there existed a word for 'freedom' in ancient civilizations?"
Sunshine takes a big hit from her pipe, she coughs for twenty seconds, her eyes become instantaneously droopy.
"Shit. This is good shit, you're missing out. Um, freedom? In ancient civilizations? Well, fuck- I don't know? I suppose so? Why? What's it matter- what do you think?"
"Ha, you stoner! What's it matter? It matters- it definitely matters. And, well. I don't think there did exist a word for freedom- because I do not believe that the opposite existed yet. I mean, why would you need to define freedom when it was a given? Look at the trees, close your eyes- now, think, there once was a time when right where we are sitting there was a teepee and naked babies, horses, even more trees, corn, fruits and vegetables, wild beasts, and a dark so dark that we couldn't even begin to imagine what all those stars must have looked like at night. I mean, once upon a time there weren't buildings, there weren't these fucking trash cans in between the trees, there weren't cars, there weren't all these materials, there wasn't even money for fucksake! And, especially- there were not prisons, there were not thousands and thousands of penitentiaries. Everybody was free- so, why would they need a word for it? Just to say 'we exist' would have been synonymous with saying 'we are free,' but then things changed. Fucking ships from Spain, fucking greedy sailors, fucking diseased ridden blankets- you know? Then- amidst all the death- the word was born for them, because all of a sudden there was an antithesis. And, I mean, that's just one instance. We could go to a different continent and even further back into history, and everything- it'd be a the same picture, only with slightly different colours."
Sunshine's eyes are still closed, but she is crying. An alligator tear drop claws its way out from behind her eyelid.
"Shit, Soma. Shit, that's heavy. God. Humans can be so ugly. Fuck money!"
At this point Sunshine opens her eyes and begins crying harder, her words come out of her mouth moist and muffled.
"I mean, you can't eat money! You can eat corn, you can't eat gold! Things got so messed up, everything is so messed up. Fuck. No wonder we do drugs."
Sunshine wipes her eyes with the corner of her flannel, reaches in her pocket, takes out the same baggie from before, and begins packing another bowl.
Soma, who has been reclining up until this point, rises, and puts her arm around Sunshine in an effort to console. She speaks, and when she speaks she does so softly.
"God it's beautiful here, though. If anything, beauty is even more apparent these days, at least- because there is less of it and it exists against a backdrop of ugliness. Never underestimate the importance of contrast or juxtaposition, my dear. Hey, let's build a house in a tree and never leave here? I don't want to go back to the city, there's too much...too much ugly there. I can't bear to be in the city again. I just can't."
"Yeah, yeah," Sunshine coughs a bit, takes another hit, and smiles lethargically.
"No seriously. We can shed our clothing, live in a tree and be happy forever. You can be my wife or my husband. We'll build weapons out of branches, we'll hunt for food and cook it over an open fire. We'll never want anything ever again- the word desire will be erased from our vocabulary entirely. The word freedom will be effaced from our memory, crossed out, deleted and replaced with wide open space. It'll be great, it'll be so wonderful! It could be like this, it could be like this forever you know? I promise."
Sunshine is smiling at Soma, a lopsided and silly grin full of irony or hilarity or something. She doesn't say anything. And Soma doesn't listen.
They lie there- side by side, arm in arm- until the sun sets.
It begins to get cold. It starts getting chilly. They mechanically, automatically pack up their bags, put on their socks and shoes, then head towards the car. Sunshine drives as Soma sits in the backseat cooking up a fix.
"I'll get clean next week," she mutters inaudibly from between clenched teeth.
As they approach the city, in the stolen jeep, a feeling like loss chokes both the women's necks until they are breathing with difficulty- practically suffocating.
Soma is high on heroin in the backseat and Sunshine is packing another bowl of marijuana in the front of the car.
"Shit. I can't see the stars. I can't see any stars anymore," Soma whispers this quietly, but angrily, from the backseat of the car.
They turn onto the boulevard and her heart starts to stop.
Soma is crying and dying more quickly than slowly as she wipes the blood of berries from her shoestrings.
She wipes the blood of berries from her shoestrings as she decides she can't face the city and falls asleep, while crying, in the backseat of Sunshine's jeep
They are holding hands. They are laughing and skipping merrily down a tree lined path. A tree lined path which resides alongside a stream. Everything has a surreal feel to it: the sky is just a bit too wide, the sun just a smidgen too bright, the clouds cut from paper, the chirps of birds composed and conducted, the colours seem to come from a painter's brush.
Soma secretly has pinched herself several times over just to make sure that she is not living in a dream, just to make sure she is not asleep. She reminds herself, while running, to remember this moment.
She is reminding herself to remember this moment, to take a mental picture. To store an image in her head that she can conjure up in the future in order to remind her mind that life was once beautiful. In order to remind her future, older self that she was once young; that she once had so much fun.
Soma and Sunshine finally run out of breath and decide to sit and rest.
They find a nice spot located beside a creek, where it is not so hot. Soma laces her fingers together, places them behind her head, stretches out her feet, lies on her back and looks up at the earth's ceiling.
There are some birds singing a melancholy yet peaceful tune. The sound of water trickling downstream, in between the slippery-looking rocks, is soothing. The surroundings are lush and green.
Soma is reminded of a land before time.
Soma is reminded of existence before disease. Soma is reminded of ancient, native civilizations- she can see their bodies amongst the trees. She can see horses without saddles bucking and whinnying loudly. She can see women gathering fruits from trees and berries, naked, while carrying babies. She can see men smoking pipes for peace, smiling with pointy teeth. She is inhaling and exhaling the poetry and beauty of everything.
"Sunshine- can I ask you something?"
Soma's voice is uncertain, her mouth is dry and her words come out in a creaky squeak. She almost didn't say anything at all for risk of ruining the serenity. But, in the end, she wanted a second opinion. She wants evidence to support her hypothesis, recently formulated, that there did not exist a word for freedom in ancient civilizations.
Sunshine is sitting on a rock. She is smiling, she is pulling something from her sock- a baggie of marijuana and a glass piece for smoking. As Sunshine looks at Soma's body splayed out on the ground her smile widens.
"Sure, you can ask me something So So- you just did, didn't you?- you wanna smoke with me?"
"Huh?"
Soma lazily lifts her gaze to see what Sunshine is holding out to her. When she sees the pipe and the weed Soma starts giggling.
"No, no, thank you. I don't smoke that sort of dope."
"What? Soma I thought there wasn't a drug you didn't do-"
Sunshine is genuinely confused, her hands are frozen in midair still offering the marijuana and paraphernalia to her friend. Soma smiles, a slanted and lazy grin before answering her friend's question.
"That's almost true. I don't smoke pot though, I mean- why would I want to take something that makes me stupid, hungry, and lazy. No offense, baby. Thanks and everything. You got a cigarette? I'll smoke a cigarette if you have it. Besides, I'm trying to go sober. I'm tired of being let down by love and drugs. I'm taking a break."
"Fine, suit yourself," says Sunshine as she hands Soma a cigarette from her pack and lights it.
Soma reclines back on her back, staring at the trees and smoking.
"Thanks. Anyway, what I wanted to ask you- was, this: do you think there existed a word for 'freedom' in ancient civilizations?"
Sunshine takes a big hit from her pipe, she coughs for twenty seconds, her eyes become instantaneously droopy.
"Shit. This is good shit, you're missing out. Um, freedom? In ancient civilizations? Well, fuck- I don't know? I suppose so? Why? What's it matter- what do you think?"
"Ha, you stoner! What's it matter? It matters- it definitely matters. And, well. I don't think there did exist a word for freedom- because I do not believe that the opposite existed yet. I mean, why would you need to define freedom when it was a given? Look at the trees, close your eyes- now, think, there once was a time when right where we are sitting there was a teepee and naked babies, horses, even more trees, corn, fruits and vegetables, wild beasts, and a dark so dark that we couldn't even begin to imagine what all those stars must have looked like at night. I mean, once upon a time there weren't buildings, there weren't these fucking trash cans in between the trees, there weren't cars, there weren't all these materials, there wasn't even money for fucksake! And, especially- there were not prisons, there were not thousands and thousands of penitentiaries. Everybody was free- so, why would they need a word for it? Just to say 'we exist' would have been synonymous with saying 'we are free,' but then things changed. Fucking ships from Spain, fucking greedy sailors, fucking diseased ridden blankets- you know? Then- amidst all the death- the word was born for them, because all of a sudden there was an antithesis. And, I mean, that's just one instance. We could go to a different continent and even further back into history, and everything- it'd be a the same picture, only with slightly different colours."
Sunshine's eyes are still closed, but she is crying. An alligator tear drop claws its way out from behind her eyelid.
"Shit, Soma. Shit, that's heavy. God. Humans can be so ugly. Fuck money!"
At this point Sunshine opens her eyes and begins crying harder, her words come out of her mouth moist and muffled.
"I mean, you can't eat money! You can eat corn, you can't eat gold! Things got so messed up, everything is so messed up. Fuck. No wonder we do drugs."
Sunshine wipes her eyes with the corner of her flannel, reaches in her pocket, takes out the same baggie from before, and begins packing another bowl.
Soma, who has been reclining up until this point, rises, and puts her arm around Sunshine in an effort to console. She speaks, and when she speaks she does so softly.
"God it's beautiful here, though. If anything, beauty is even more apparent these days, at least- because there is less of it and it exists against a backdrop of ugliness. Never underestimate the importance of contrast or juxtaposition, my dear. Hey, let's build a house in a tree and never leave here? I don't want to go back to the city, there's too much...too much ugly there. I can't bear to be in the city again. I just can't."
"Yeah, yeah," Sunshine coughs a bit, takes another hit, and smiles lethargically.
"No seriously. We can shed our clothing, live in a tree and be happy forever. You can be my wife or my husband. We'll build weapons out of branches, we'll hunt for food and cook it over an open fire. We'll never want anything ever again- the word desire will be erased from our vocabulary entirely. The word freedom will be effaced from our memory, crossed out, deleted and replaced with wide open space. It'll be great, it'll be so wonderful! It could be like this, it could be like this forever you know? I promise."
Sunshine is smiling at Soma, a lopsided and silly grin full of irony or hilarity or something. She doesn't say anything. And Soma doesn't listen.
They lie there- side by side, arm in arm- until the sun sets.
It begins to get cold. It starts getting chilly. They mechanically, automatically pack up their bags, put on their socks and shoes, then head towards the car. Sunshine drives as Soma sits in the backseat cooking up a fix.
"I'll get clean next week," she mutters inaudibly from between clenched teeth.
As they approach the city, in the stolen jeep, a feeling like loss chokes both the women's necks until they are breathing with difficulty- practically suffocating.
Soma is high on heroin in the backseat and Sunshine is packing another bowl of marijuana in the front of the car.
"Shit. I can't see the stars. I can't see any stars anymore," Soma whispers this quietly, but angrily, from the backseat of the car.
They turn onto the boulevard and her heart starts to stop.
Soma is crying and dying more quickly than slowly as she wipes the blood of berries from her shoestrings.
She wipes the blood of berries from her shoestrings as she decides she can't face the city and falls asleep, while crying, in the backseat of Sunshine's jeep
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