Dealing With Absence » h. styles au

7ᵀᴴ CHAPTER

                                                    7ᵀᴴ CHAPTER

               

                                       “Out of clutter, find simplicity”

 

There are only a few restricted things one can enjoy about summer when their brain actually gets a break from the awful heat and allows them to take in their surroundings.

One is definitely the sight of PJ sweating his skin off at the back of the room whilst cursing under his breath and sipping his Stella from time to time, slumped over some plastic chair with his hair sticking out all angles, his mouth opening and closing with a few suggestions for his article in between his breaks from drinking and complaining about the falling-to-pieces kitchen. To be quite honest, though, Elisha is paying close to zero attention to all of it (and yes she is aware he is probably directing the conversation towards her, but. Well.)

Two has to be the smell of upcoming summer rain from outside. The scent is peaking through the half-opened window right above the sink and left to the stove in the corner, a mixture of dust and ancient water (?), maybe smelling mildly of leaves, too. Is not like she can quite figure all the components of the aroma filling her nostrils, but the mere statement that it smells rain is enough. People are used to that smell. Her people are used to it, at the very least.

Three is the sight of the sky itself, blurred into several shades of blue, tinted with warm colours just above the horizon line, where the sun is halfway through sinking into. The mixture between tonalities of blue and pink, slowly melting into each other’s tones, feels as if the sky is igniting on fire slowly, starting from the bottom and disappearing somewhere above where no one can actually decipher. The wilderness above is beyond Leesh’s comprehension, an enigma she has still to figure.

But maybe the wonder is the fun of it, after all.

Elisha leans against the cabinet behind her back again, sighing heavily as she sips her own bottle of Stella and stares out the window, boring her gaze into the clouds beginning to be blown by the wind towards this side of the town. The previously darkening-blue sky turns into grey, the remaining tints of pink sinking all the way behind the sun.

And then there’s thing four. Probably the best out of it all: the smell of Friday’s tacos. Of Bridgit’s Friday’s tacos, more specifically.

And the thing is, Leesh doesn’t usually stay for dinner after her shifts; there’s nothing she craves more than the warmth (not literally, because warmth is basically everywhere) of her bed, and albeit it’s not officially hers, it’s still the same it’s been a few years, so she’s grown quite fond of it.

But tonight she needs desperately to plan something with PJ (he’s been bothering her throughout the whole entire week, and she knows they should have something done by now), moreover, there’s Harry-guy, too, and, according to what they’d talked earlier today, he should probably be here around 8p.m.

Leesha thinks she’s too much of a great soul, sometimes. Should probably stop offering her help so often, but then again, she’s not busy at all.

So she’s decided to stay and have dinner tonight, mostly because the beef in the pan smells heavenly already, and the tortillas baking on the oven rack bars for the past five minutes to make the shells assumed a golden-ish tone to their surface that makes Elisha feel her mouth starting to water.

“Whales!” Patrick shouts at some point, lifting his bottle of beer as if to make a toast to God-knows-what. Leesh wasn’t paying attention to any of his previous ideas, so he’s not all that surprised when she doesn’t move from her staring-out position against the cabinet. “Leesh, whales!” he repeats, this time straightening his position until he’s half leaning over the table. “Just think about it, how amazing would the pictures be. Giant mammals in an infinite wilderness of blue. Or maybe Manta rays, what about it, huh? I could manage a Nikon 10.5mm for the best fisheye lenses; the images would be impeccable, to say the least.”