Flowers from 1970

Chapter 2: paint

"...I can't tell you much. Isn't it science fiction common knowledge that telling someone of the past too much would mess up the future?" George told Dream.

"I suppose you're right." Dream sighed, "Well I know now that I moved out, since you live in my house now."

"So who's Sap?" George asked.

"My friend Nick. We call him Sapnap, and I'm guessing you have his telephone but I don't know why it ended up there at my house."

"Really? That's what you're confused about? What about the whole 'talking to someone from a different time' part?" George mentioned.

"Obviously I'm confused too." It's like Georhe could hear his eyeroll, "So how old are you?"

"24." George didn't know why he was telling this to a stranger, but his loneliness and desperation got the best of him.

"I'm 21." Dream answered with no hesitation, and George only assumed that he was a confident sort of man.

"What do you do for a living?" George let curiousity replace his anxiety over the magical phone.

Dream chuckled, "I coach baseball for little kids. I love baseball. What about you?"

"Do I love baseball? Or what I do for a living?"

"Hm why not answer both, I've got time."

George lied down on his bed and stared up at the ceiling, "I'm not that into sports. Also, I program video games for computers for a living."

"What kind of job is that?"

George smiled, "I forgot you probably don't know what those are yet."

"Yeah. Hello?! I'm in the past!" Dream joked, letting out a hearty laugh that warmed George's heart .

George smiled before glancing at his digital alarm clock, "Well I have to go, I should sleep."

"Boo." Dream groaned into the phone.

As fun as it was to talk to Dream, it was getting late into the night and he had projects to finish, he was letting these phone calls get in the way of his work, which was the last thing he had going for him in his life.

"Goodbye, wrong number." Dream bid him goodbye.

"Goodbye old man."

"Hey! I'm not old yet." Dream laughed before hanging up.

---

It had been a week since Dream and George had first started talking, and needless to say they had become good friends.

George had started eating lunch up in his room, awaiting a phone call around the same time everyday, and again with dinner in the night.

They talked about anything and everything, including their childhoods and favorite things from their time.

Dream had made George promise not to look for him in 2020, or try to google him ("Whatever that was.")

So George kept his promise, and they continued to speak as if the only distance between them was miles, and not time.

"It's weird, we can't physically communicate. I mean we can but I'm assuming you're old." George laughed.

"I have an idea." Dream after a while. He left the phone on his dresser and told George he'd be back.

George waited patiently, counting the many flowers on his wall, when he heard the faint voice come from the phone again.

"What's your idea?" George asked, turning to his side on the pillow.

"Go to the wall next to the window." Dream urged George.

George groaned, indicating his tiredness, but Dream insisted he go.

Grudgingly, he got up and walked to the wall next to the window as Dream told him to. "Now what?"

——
Dream stood by the window. The walls where he was (in time) were much newer and in tact than George's.

He had come from the shed with a bucket of lime green paint. He pinned the phone between his cheek and shoulder and opened the paint can.

"Dream? What are you doing?" He heard George ask.

"Just look at the wall." Dream said, as he took a brush and applied a thin coat of paint on his entire hand.

"Ready?" Dream said into the phone.

George sighed, "Yes. Though I don't exactly know what I'm ready for."

———

George waited at the wall, whistling. Suddenly lime paint started appearing on the wall. It was appearing slowly and a bit chipped and worn out, but there nonetheless.

"George? Are you there? I hope you see it and no one erased it after I moved out." Dream talked into the phone.

It was a handprint. A seemingly former lime green handprint, (it was darker and faint now).

George stayed silent and absentmindedly put his own hand over the handprint. Dream's hand seemed bigger than his, with slightly longer fingers.

"George?" Dream called out, and George pulled his hand away quickly.

"I- yeah I see it." George chuckled.

"Did you hold my hand?" Dream asked.

"Wh- I- ho-" George choked out but Dream started laughing.

"Calm down, I'm kidding." George could hear his smile, "I wonder what else we could try out."

George sat down on his bed,
still looking at the paint handprint. "I wonder why you've never visited."

"What?" Dream questioned.

"Why future you hasn't visited me yet since we started talking. Like why you never came on July 29 to tell me you're who I'm talking to." George pondered curiously.

"Maybe I'm dead." Dream said, half-jokingly.

George hated that thought. It was possible, and he fought back his urge to google him and find out everything he could about Dream, but the only information he had was that he lived here before, and Dream didn't want George to go looking for him.

They bid eachother goodnight, and George fell asleep on his side, staring at the green handprint on the wall.