Eden

Eleven

We start walking down the road, towards the city. The road is dirt, and the dust on it is quite soft. So soft it almost feels like flour underfoot, or like very fine sand at the beach. It doesn't really stick our feet, either, which might be because it's so fine, and it doesn't get stirred up much as we walk, I notice too.

I wonder about that dust. I look at the ground as we walk, and at the odd way it doesn't stick to us, and I have the strangest feeling that this is very old dirt. Dirt which has somehow been worn away and worn away until it becomes more like dust than dirt.

It's a little bit odd, that's all.

We walk, and as we do, I also notice the road doesn't have many other footprints on it, and those that there are all seem to be going in the same direction as we are. I can't really tell for sure, and everything is quite scuffed around, like on a busy beach, but it seems as though not many people are going back to that building we arrived in, compared to how many are leaving.

I wonder about that as well.

We walk a little further, and the road surface begins getting harder, and less dusty, and now there are what look like fields around us, too. Fields, as in, they are growing what is probably wheat, or what I imagine wheat looks like. Something upright and yellow on stalks, anyway, rather than just random patches of grass. Soon after that stone walls start appearing around the fields, too. Stone walls being used as fences, I mean. As well, we begin to pass squares of twisty-bent trees with dull green leaves, like orchards beside the road, and I'd almost stop and look, but Lexi seems to want to keep going, so we do, and I decide to look later. By then, the dust has completely disappeared from the road, too. Now it's just packed-down earth, as though it's frequently used and people's feet have worn down the layer of fine, old dust. And also, there are small stones now, which are unpleasantly hard to stand on.

We keep walking, hopping around the pebbles when we have to, and while we do, Lexi complains about our linen dresses. I think she's just talking, just saying what she is for something to say, and I really don't mind that she's moaning a bit. I listen, just to be polite. She seems to want jeans, and lace, and a lot more black in her clothes, and also in her makeup, too. I get the idea she's a bit emo or something. I'm not sure what that would be in Russia, but something like that, anyway. I make polite noises, and say yes I wish we had proper clothes too, and actually, yes I do wish that. I want proper clothes too. And make-up. And actually, shoes. And I'd really like something to tie my hair back, too, since the breeze keeps flicking it into my face, and that keeps happening often enough that it really starts getting annoying.