Outer Space / Carry On | Michael Clifford AU

14.

Even with a jacket on, it was still cold. The air was fresh, turning our breath into little grey clouds. I shrugged my shoulders as we walked, trying to create some warmth. "So, where are we going?"

"Nowhere," Michael said, his legs taking lazy strides. Wherever it was, we weren't in a rush. He turned to me and shrugged, "Anywhere."

"Everywhere?"

"Not tonight," Michael answered, as if everywhere were a real place and we were going to get there someday. The sky was a dull blue-grey, barely any stars out. I could make out a small slice of the moon behind the fog.

The fog made the sky feel lower, closing the space between it and the ground, creating less empty space in for everything in the middle. Less empty space between Michael and I. For a brief moment, I imagined the fog multiplying until there was just a bubble of nothingness around the two of us, and the sacred silence we'd fallen into.

I liked the idea so much, I cleared my throat to make it go away. "While we're on our way to nowhere, or anywhere, you could tell me about your major work."

A quiet laugh came from Michael's lips. "I could, but we're too busy for that right now."

His hand slipped into the pocket of his hoodie and he pulled out a box of coloured chalk. It was the big, giant kind that kids used to draw Hopscotch on the footpath. He moved his hand a little closer towards me. His voice was soft, like he was inviting me in on a secret. "We're going to give the sky something to look for."

He pulled a yellow piece of chalk and handed me the box. Shrinking his body and kneeling onto the footpath, he drew a little sun and then started writing in big, loopy letters. He moved his body down the path as he wrote, stretching his arms so that each word took up the width of the footpath. Then he stood up, taking a few steps back to admire his handy work and dusted yellow chalk dust from his fingertips to his black jeans.

I moved to the other side, so I was standing next to him and looked at the words the right way up: The sun is up, I'm so happy I could scream!

"Mint Car, The Cure. Some of my favourite lyrics," he explained, our eyes locking together. I wasn't sure what to say but Michael was already one step ahead of me. "Come on," he said, walking a few metres along until the concrete path underneath our feet was blank. "Your turn."

"What do I write?"

"Whatever you want to write. The first thing that comes to your head." He was staring at me, his lips still pink even in the darkness. His bottom lip seemed to come out a little further, giving him this permanent and glorious pout. 

I wanted to kiss him. That was the first thing that came to my head.

Michael made the silence his, crouching down and writing again. This time in candy pink. I watched each careful loop he drew, and the way his tongue seemed to stick on his bottom lip in concentration. As the words came to life my heart thumped in my ribcage like a herd of elephants running across a savannah: There's nowhere else in the world I'd rather be than here with you.

"More Mint Car lyrics," he explained, dusting off his hands again (knowing they were lyrics did little to stop the elephants.) Pink and yellow chalk dust danced across the knees of his jeans. "Just imagine you're having a really sucky day... what would make you smile if you saw it written on a pavement?"

I turned over a few thoughts, running through the few lyrics I knew by heart. Then I said the second thing that came to mind. "You're like a graffiti vigilante."

Michael placed his hands on his hips, like a superhero about to push off into the sky. I wouldn't have been surprised if he really did. "They call me Chalkman," he said, putting on a generic Superhero-sounding voice. "Saving the city one heartfelt chalk message at a time."

He practically doubled over laughing at himself, making it into one big joke, but a smile was stuck to my face. "You really are, though." I was thinking of my Mum, and how her illness was way more complicated than anything that could be fixed with some nice lyrics written in chalk, but I was also thinking about how temperamental her mood could be, and how something so small could have made just one of her days a little bit brighter.

I took a piece of blue chalk, as blue as the hair on Michael's head. I hummed as I wrote, ignoring how nervous I felt with Michael watching from behind me. My writing was messy, even more so next to Michael's, but that wasn't the point. This wasn't supposed to look pretty, it was supposed give someone - an unknowing stranger who might be having a terrible, sucky day - a tiny reason to smile, even if just for a second.

Michael read my message aloud as I stood up: Here comes the sun, and I say, it's alright. It was written much smaller than his but still big enough to be read clearly from someone walking by.

"Beatles, hey?"

I nodded. "The Beatles and The Rolling Stones, my Dad's favourites." I wondered about Dad and Joan. My phone was on loud in my pocket and so far, I hadn't heard a peep. I supposed labour could go on for a very long time.

We walked a bit further and then Michael handed me the chalk again. This time I settled for a smiley face, paired with the generic, It's a good day to have a good day. "It's all I've got right now," I explained to Michael, handing him the box of chalk back. I wished that I had something more in my head. Something delightful and inspiring, something like all of the things Michael in his head.

Michael spent more time on his next drawing. It was two hands reaching up for a cartoonish world globe. Underneath he wrote: The world is all yours. Go on, take it.

We were so far from home now, the fog thicker and the air colder, and it did feel like the world was all ours to take. "Do you do this a lot?" I asked, turning my head. Behind us, the path of chalk drawings followed like rainbow footprints.

"Whenever I can," Michael said. Our hands brushed together, and everything around us got a little brighter.

"Do you always take a sidekick with you?"

"No," he laughed. "Chalkman usually prefers to work alone."

"But you took pity on me, right?" I continued to joke. "The poor city civilian who can't paint?"

"I've seen your house. You're definitely not a poor anything." He said it kindly, so it didn't come out like an insult. I thought about pointing out that his family was worth twice as much as mine, but that was moving us into the small-talk zone, and we felt bigger than small-talk.

"You know, you really are something else, Michael Clifford."

Our hands brushed together again as he shrugged lazily.  "Today I am."

There was a sadness in his voice that unravelled me. "I told my friend Pip you were something ethereal."

Michael's head spun around a few times before stopping and meeting my eyes. "You're already telling your friends about me? Jeez, Alice. I haven't even tried to kiss you yet." He was teasing me, and I was practically floating.

Our hands met for a third time. I wondered if he was doing it intentionally. (I was.)

Before I had a chance to drum up my best, semi-flirtacious reply, my phone started ringing and the fog seemed to melt away, the world no longer ours. It was my Dad.

"We have a boy!" he sung. "I can't wait for you to see him, Alice. He's perfect."

A boy! A perfect, little baby boy. "How's Joan? Is she okay?"

I could hear Dad smiling. "She's fine. She did an amazing job."

"And a name?"

Dad laughed. "Jagger. Jagger Dane Thompson."