'Jules' mind went back under the moonlight and night air of Baldwin's Fine Arts Center Garden, where intense anger shifted into an intimate moment of curiosity with a blow of the wind.
Maybe two flames weren't supposed to be that close when raging...
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"Poor minds, poor decision makers; No reward...then what's the risk you taking?"
— Pusha T, M.P.A. King Push
RAHEEM awoke to crumpled papers littered around him. The horrid sound of Jules' snoring made him grimace, then slowly chuckle. The Vinyl still spun, although no sound was coming out of it -- flipping the record over was way past due.
After stretching and rubbing the drowsiness from his eyes, he'd chosen to be a menace to the girl that sat snoring in his desk chair. He took a ball, and threw it at her forehead — making her shift in her sleep. The ball silently tapped the floor as it fell.
He threw another, her eyes slowly fluttered open to a bloodshot red. Her face wore confusion, and then swapped out the emotion for embarrassment.
"Don't worry, they couldn't hear you down the hall."
Jules stretched, her chest rising as she expanded her torso to crack,"How long was I out for?"
Raheem looked at the clock — 4:53 pm.
"We..we were for about an hour and a half, give or take. I guess your weak flow put us to sleep."
"My weak flow? What was that line you tried to pass off as complex poetry — Love is like a fountain? What a damn cliché."
"Poetry ain't gotta' be complex and damn near unreadable, just felt. Old white men in tights fooled you into thinking it sounds good cause you can't decipher whatever the hell they're saying, so you gotta' guess with what was given and how it resonates. That's bullshit."
"No," Jules leaned up from the seat she'd been propped up from, removing her calves from his bed and placing her feet on the floor, "that's art."
He shrugged, "Well art doesn't have to be the hardest thing in the world. Long as it touches somebody, it's doing its job."
His eyes wandered to the clock again, and then to the window to see how much light from the day had been lost.
"It's almost five — I'm sure you gotta' get to the cafe or something to get yourself something to eat. We can finish this later. We covered the basics today, so that's a start," He told her.
Raheem hopped up from the comfort of this position in the bed. He reached for his flannel shirt and put his free arm into the sleeve.
"Yeah, I need to grab some dinner before it gets late," she started to gather her things.
Raheem was quite hungry himself, as his stomach twisted from its emptiness. He reached into one of his drawers in his desk, pulling out the Oreo and Peanut Butter combo he was so fond of.
