"Tell me again why I can't go over there right now and tell her the truth?"
Slate sighed, rubbing his hands through his black licorice hair, and replied. "We've been through this a thousand times. Will you give it a rest already?"
"It's been 12 months," his friend exclaimed. "How much longer am I supposed to sit here with my thumb up my a-"
"Until the time is right," Slate replied, cutting off Kaden's whining.
Said friend stomped around the rock formation kicking loose grass as he went. It'd been recently cut, the long, dry stalks flying everywhere, evidence of a landscaping job left too long between mows.
Activating Slate' hay fever, Kaden heard his friend's relentless sneezing begin.
Damn it.
Now they'd have to leave and being here was the only place Kaden felt sane lately. He needed to reconnect with nature. Get away from it all. The concrete jungle was no place to live.
Frustrated, Kaden huffed his way to the nearest boulder and sat down, hoping against hope that Slate's allergies would abate. Cursing to himself when a protruding sliver of rock scraped the back of his calf, Kaden angrily flicked the nearby pebbles away from his palm.
Kaden couldn't breathe in this city. More and more the walls of his small neighborhood were closing in on him.
He missed the forest, the birds and the animals. It's why the two of them were at the nature center, not far from the boys' home they lived in. It was for orphans.
Slate and Kaden were the only two boys there with Native American heritage mixed into their ancestry. The fact that the boys weren't true relatives didn't matter to either one of them. As far as they were concerned, they were brothers. Their bond was deeper than the mortals they lived with anyway.
Catching his breath, Kaden reached into his pocket to pull out his ahpikòn. The flute had a beautiful scent, being made of cedarwood and pine pitch. Kaden had carved it himself many years ago. He taught himself to play by watching YouTube. Ever since, whenever he was stressed out, Kaden would disappear into the woods and play.
"All this time," he thought to himself.
Waiting on his wife.
He needed her as much as he needed the earth and wind, fire and rain. More so.
And yet...
...and yet, here he sat, waiting on a rock with his best friend, unable to reach her.
It wasn't how things should be done.
She had to remember him, before it was too late.
"Kaden," Slate exhaled while leaning back onto a nearby rock, his sneezing finally giving way, "she'll come around. Just wait."
Closing his eyes, Kaden let his worries go with the music that his heart was making.
"Doesn't look like I have much of a choice," he thought to himself. "I just hope she remembers us in time."
---------
Reference:
*Guthrie, W. (2011). Lenape Musical Instruments Study Guide. Guth-Rue Integrated Knowledge. Web Search 27 May 2020.
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Dreamcatching
Любовные романы© 2020 & 2022 Written by A. E. F. All Rights Reserved. When you kill vampires, losing your memory can be fatal, especially when your blood attracks the dead. For a stand-alone short-story prequel, read "Blood Angel," (though it's not necessary for...
