Dating : Liberatio

Rewritten draft.

Willow´s Creek, a small town with a few hundred inhabitants, peacefully surrounded by mountains with white snowy summits, and a cold river crossing through the main street, dividing it. An old, rusty bridge kept the road going, connecting both sides above the running cold mountain river.
There´s a modest shopping, — modest meaning like five or six retail stores — normally and almost religiously stacked with teenagers from Willow´s Creek Highschool, not much business there besides the movies or the noisy arcade filled with fun and games.
A forest of green woods filled with life surrounds the town, like a barrier of trees, between the mountains and houses.
Simple and peaceful sunsets complete this calm and gentle get away from the city — the nearest big one was more than a hundred miles away — making this place perfect for a life of peace and silent existence.
My name is John, born and raised here, 28 years old, years gone without much of extraordinary to tell. Work in a small insurance company, a stepping stone to nowhere I know, but pays the bills and feeds my bank account (no matter how anorexic it remains).
As another eight hours of writing or replying emails and reports came to an end, I arrived home, a modest space, one bedroom, kitchen, bathroom — wich seems to attract humidity like the black plague along the ceiling — and a living room with a tv, couch and some bookstands.
After a nice warm bath, enjoyed frozen lasagna that my microwave so perfectly prepares in such a non-healthy manner.
Looked at the clock, half-past nine, time to get some sleep.
My nightstand trembled as my phone vibrated with an incoming call.
Annoying noise woke me up to a bright blue light invading my vision trying to adjust in the dark.
Stretched my arm to pick it up, Mike — and old friend from high school, drinking buddy sometimes — was calling.
“Mike, you know its passed eleven, what do you want?”, I asked with a sleepy and annoyed voice.
“Hey John, I know the time, but I want to ask if you want to come to a party.”
“No,” I replied, with a deep sigh, still half asleep.
“Oh man, c´mon, get ready, Paula and Jules are with me, we´ll be there in fifteen minutes.”
Before I could persist on my denial, he hanged up — Mike was that stubborn crazy friend, a thirty-year-old man working in construction that just won´t accept age or maturity — so I slowly sat on the bed, surrendered to this late hour invitation.
“Better get ready, because if he said fifteen, he´ll be here in ten,” I thought as with a touch of my finger, lightly faded away from the phone in my hand.
Finished brushing my teeth, one last spit of water and toothpaste as I hear a car pulling up in front of the house.
Through the window, just like a sudden sunrise, headlights from Mike´s car brightened up the bathroom mirror in front of me.
The loud 80´s rock, blasting away from his so loved sound system, that he purchased not so long ago.
All in place, phone in jacket´s pocket, close my house front door, I see Paula and Jules in the backseat. As I approach the car — an old mustang that Mike bought on one of those online auto sellers, black with silver rims, pair of purple velvet dice hanging in the rearview mirror for swag appeal, that was his most adored and cared for possession — the smell of weed poured out the open window like a greenhouse was growing in the car´s trunk.
“Hi, how are you?”, I greeted them with a smile and an abrupt cough right after, due to the merry ambiance set by the girls puffing away all life´s problems.
Sat in the front, while I was buckling my seat belt, Paula kept looking at me.
“Heard you didn´t want to come tonight, gave up on living for good?” She asked with an enquiring gaze, while gently blowing the burning tip of her joint between two fingers, lighting it up like a pulsing beacon of fire.
“No, I missed you all, but I wasn´t expecting to go out tonight, and I was sleeping already”, I said trying to justify my initial denial.
“Ok you pussy, I forgive you for the defiance”, she said with a very serious look, then she burst out laughing, giving me a friendly slap to the back of the head.
“We missed you, you fuckin idiot”, smiling and blowing a small kiss to me, winking her eye.
Paula was 26 and Jules 24, long time best friends — since preschool and till now, fast food restaurant employees — that now to my eyes, looked like two magical glowing creatures in a deep, blinding mist of pot.
“Let´s go!” Mike said with an enthusiastic voice and heavy foot on the gas, as the tires screeched I noticed that Jules, wasn´t in the same happy, excited state like the rest, gloomy and distant, just looking out the barely open window.
“Hey Jules, everything ok?”, I asked intrigued by her resistance to the smoothing smiley smoke.
“Leave her alone.” Paula demanded with a firm tone to her words, “Jules and I, we´re going to party tonight, forget all and everything right little sister?”
Jules just nodded yes with a faint smile.
“Sorry for asking.” I retreated, Paula had always been fierce in looking after Jules, unlike her protector, Jules was the fragile one, like a cub and lioness, a bond no one could break.
“So, where is this party anyway?”, I asked Mike, and so, trying to relieve the awkwardness of the moment.
“Oh, it´s in a friend´s house, did a remodeling job for him, finished it a few days ago, he was so glad about the finished work, that he invited me and told me to bring friends for a party there. You gotta see this place man, it´s amazing,” he answered with a smile filled with pride for his finished work.
While we stopped at a red light in the interjunction next to the hospital.
“Look! look what someone did to Carson´s old ice cream van!”, screamed Paula, pointing out to the abandoned ice cream van that was left parked close to the hospital.
That van once slowly roamed around town, playing music for kids, they all flocked to it, — like seagulls on the beach when they see a piece of bread on the sand — as soon they heard the delicious luring tunes.
Sadly, Carson ate more than what he sold, became obese, so a few years ago he was found right there, inside the van, dead from a heart attack, music still playing and a half-eaten popsicle, melting in his cold hand. Through rain, sun and time, it stands there, like a ghost van, covered in dirt, four flat tires, broken windows, and remainings of pictures eaten by rust. And now some poetic soul sprayed on its side, “Suck it!”, right next to the remainings of a picture of a strawberry popsicle.

(To be continued)