Autumn to summer in Penny Lane

May extra, extra

Calam and Caitlin

The sound of low music, conversation, and laughter carried slowly outside like a cloud.  Not that it bothered Calam as he enjoyed the coolness of a late spring night.  Sighing he took a sip of beer and sat on the grass looking over as the bright yellow lights shone brightly from the house.  It was a clear evening with the stars in full force as Calam looked towards the darkness at the bottom of the garden.  There was various shapes of bushes and even a tree but it looked more like a dark silhouette figure.

'Sometimes,' Calam thought, 'it was nice to enjoy a bit of silence.'  Breathing hard he embraced the cold air and the smell of the cherry blossom tree as it rustled gently. 

'BOO!'

Calam turned around alarmed as he felt a heavy slap on his shoulder as Caitlin sat down laughing.

'Did you think it was a ghost?'

Laughing Calam relaxed as he took another sip of his beer.  'Not with a tap that would have floored David Haye.'

'Come on I'm only petite!  Caitlin laughed with a glint of mischief in her eyes.  Carefully she looked into Calam's face and felt that you could swim in those green eyes. Something so alluring about them. Although there was something vulnerable about Calam.  Quiet and serious as well as shy.  Just a bit different, Caitlin mused although she knew Calam cared, Sometimes too much.

'Yeah, and you can bloody well punch.'

'What are you drinking?'

'Beer.'

'I know that.  What type?'

'Badger.  Poacher it's called,' Calam replied holding the dark beer up.  It tasted fruity and rich that it was so easy to drink.  Already he was feeling light headed.

'Can I try?'  Caitlin asked.

'Sure,' Calam said passing over the glass.

Surprised by the weight of the glass of the rich alcoholic smell, Caitlin paused as she took a sip with the bitter, hard taste making her stomach convulse.  'Uurgh!'  Caitlin said wincing as though she had swallowed a lemon.  'You can take it.' 

'It is a lovely beer.  Goes down too easy though.'

'I'll take your word.  Nice to get out into the open.  I remember as a child doing the same.  I'd look up into the sky and it seemed so vast that I wondered if there was something out there.' 

'Yeah, I'd think the same.  You read or watch programmes about the universe and you just wonder are there other planets like ours.  I'd think that's what I wanted to be an astronaut and go explore these worlds.'

'To boldly go where no Scouser has gone before,'

'Don't you think about life out there and what we could discover?'

'Of course. I'd love to go up there and really see it up close rather than in pictures. When I was little I thought the stars was where you went you died, Only because people say they'll be looking down on us now.'

'It's a nice thought,' Calam replied. 'Everyone being a star.'

'Well I guess we all are in some way.'

Caitlin rested her head against Calam's shoulder as they enjoyed the silence together. Nothing needed to be said as they just enjoyed the moment. It was a moment of being wrapped in their own little world as they joked about the stars names and made up stories.

'It's an invisible star,' Calam laughed as Caitlin then proceeded to talk about a shooting star that was too fast and then the glitter ball star because it shone so brightly.