Purple Sunrise

Twenty-Seven

Rose had the image in her head of John attempting to put all the gone off food scraps in both his arms, filling it with dirt and peels. Bits falling off as he took careful steps up to the stairs leading outside. Looking around wandering how to get up them, fumbling around to get it into one arm so he had a free hand to use. But, coming to the conclusion that he had no other option, put one foot on the first step, and trying to use his body strength to jump up and get his other foot onto the ladder step.

More food spilling out onto the dirt ground. John falling backwards with a yelp, with a thud as his back hit the ground, the scraps falling all around him. Some on his clothes and other bits all over his face. She let out a giggle from the picture; it was just too funny. The giggle turned into a full-blown laugh as Rose replayed it in her head. Bending over from the pain beginning in her side Rose tried her hardest to stop the laughter before it turned into a stitch.

"What's so funny?" John had an eyebrow raised not understanding what had made her start laughing in the first place. He thought that maybe she's starting to have a mental breakdown. He was amused by this thought.

Rose gave it her best shot to explain what she had imagined; however, she couldn't stop laughing long enough to properly explain. By her last attempt Joh was even more baffled by what she had been hysterical over. All he had caught was it was about holding food and going somewhere. John gave a half-hearted chuckle to save the time Rose would have taken to explain it again.

"I think there's a couple of bags in one of the draws." John changed the subject going over and opening the draws to see if he could find them.

When they had it all bagged up, they commenced their journey Rose stood at the top waiting for John to come out from the hut. Seeing his shadow appear, Rose picked back up the bags; by this time, she had accomplished it, John was stood right next to her. Rose jogged her head to the right, the direction that they would be walking to get to the pit.

"I hope you're up for the journey." Rose exaggerated. "It's about a twenty-minute walk to the pit, what did you wanna talk about?"

"We couuuuld...erm...How have you been feeling about crashing here? I haven't really asked you." John fumbled over his words; he didn't know what to talk about but wanted to start a topic.

The idea popping into his head suddenly that he hadn't bothered to think that Rose might not be taking it as well as she seemed to be about the new planet. She had been so busy in organising them into what needed to be done that he didn't believe that she might be struggling too until now.

"It's been. Interesting" Rose was choosing her words carefully as she could.

"I mean, it has been a bit difficult." Rose worked out that her facade wasn't going to hold up as well as she thought it would. Giving a long sigh Rose started again.

"Really, I have been having a bit of trouble with it all. There is just so much to do, so much to make sure is done to help us all as much as possible. I've really been restling with myself about how much responsibility to give to Lily. Upset and feeling so guilty for us lying to her. Always worried about how she is dealing with it all herself. I'm also missing having proper adults with us. To tell us what to do and take all the responsibility on their shoulders instead of mine I just feel like I will end up messing up with it all. Y'know?" She asked. Rose gazed up at John to see what he was thinking about her spurting out all that information with how bad she was feeling.

"I do get it. It is hard, but you know that I am here to carry some of the burden with you," John informed her, smiling with his lips but not eyes.

That was a lot more than what he was expecting to receive from her. He didn't realise just how bad Rose had started to get. And would stick to his statement. Help her with the decisions that may come up in the future.

Rose appreciated what John had told her, it did make her feel the tiniest bit better. She just resented the idea of anyone else having to feel the same way as she had become to feel.

"I'm sorry for unloading all of that on you. You don't need the added pressure." Rose quietly uttered after a while of just walking.

"It's fine, we all need our time to rant to someone else. It's a lot better to let it out than what it would be to bottle it all up. If you had bottled it, it would've eventually affected your mental health to the extreme." John shrugged it off.

He wasn't lying. He really didn't mind Rose releasing all the stress and tension in her life on him. In fact, it made him feel the slightest bit happier knowing that it had helped her. Feeling slightly ore in sync with Rose.

They eventually came to the pit.

"Here it is." Rose pointed out coming to a sudden stop. "We just need to pull it all out of the bags into the pit, the bags won't decompose so it won't help." Rose continued.

She pulled the bag open tipping it upside down and watching the food hit the ground.