How to be Pia | editing 2023

how to lose (iii)

Pia only notices pretty things when he's alone or when he's drunk.

He notices how gorgeous the Kaapse fynbos is, how it looks like green spiderwebs all across the crooks and nooks of the mountain, snugly sitting against the ocean. He notices how the ocean washes up against the boulders fastening and supporting the mountain, sinking over the rock as amorphous mist. He notices the scarcity of life the further they pass through the area, how the houses seem vacant, how wildlife seems depleted, as if the earth got tired and muted life.

He notices how high up they are, how steep the road is climbing hand in hand with the mountain's side. He notices how clear the road is, like fresh skin after a scab has shed.

The ocean and the sky differs by only the ocean carrying a rich blue tone, breathing up against the night sky like a beast in slumber. The stars glimmer soundlessly, suspended in the air like dead fireflies. The wind crawls through Pia's hoodie, assuring him that it is spring—albeit early spring—enough to make him regret wearing ripped jeans.

Pia notices how warm Roman's body is, exuding heat like a radiator—he seems feverish, his body is wrapped up in slight trembling. His arms, however, are secure on the handlebars and stay unmoved, handling the machine beneath the boys strictly. Roman wears a red, floral patterned satin shirt, a material unabashed to quantities of money. You can feel wealth in the wreaths of material, writhing beneath Roman's leather jacket. Flowers bloom from the material, a garden of blood oozing over Roman's chest and stomach.

Pia sets his jaw on Roman's shoulder, peering at the boys slim, cadaverous fingers wrapped around the handlebars tightly, whitely. The leather jacket pulls up slightly as his arms extend to make the turns, revealing frayed wrists and the vermillion cuffs of his satin shirt. But his shirt and his wrists have so many colors in common. Staring up at Pia, egad, is bright cordons of vermillion marks, still flames ebbing from the cuffs.

He reverts his attention away from the boy's tortured wrists, rather holding his attention on the boy himself straddled between his legs. Roman might be slightly high, but he still has full control over his motorcycle, taking every turn with assurance. He might not have seen a single speed limit—because Pia did see it and he was ten, twenty kilometers over it—driving as if the limit were merely a suggestion. [He may have driven over a closed railroad track as well, but Pia didn't see a single train in sight.]

It was when Roman turned into the steep road that Pia noticed all of his surroundings. How the sky and the ocean met in a amorphous snog on his left. How the stars dangled as if they committed suicide above their helmet-less head. How the mountain to his right rumbled with darkness.

In one hand Pia balances half a bottle of vodka he stole against his body and in the other hand, he clasps a ball of Roman's satin shirt to hold onto the boy securely. Roman's breaths were languid and every now and again he chuckled with his own amusement—only reminding Pia that he is, in fact, as high as a the clouds vaulting over the mountain.

Roman's quick drive was a lot shorter than Pia anticipated when the motorcycle halts in the middle of a lookout point in Boyes drive—a road overlooking knots and knots of ocean from the middle of the steep mountain.

The lookout point is gorgeous—it reminds Pia so much of his view from the living room window back home. You can see the stomach of the ocean push out waves, ebbing out onto over the low-angle rocks packed to the lookout point. Plants and bushes and leaves grow out of every possible cranny of the stones, etched into the stones like calligraphy over pretty, aged paper. But beyond the stones and the low stone bannister, there is nothing but darkness and revelry. The wind blasts past Pia's ears in a sinister whistle, the leaves crackle on the pavement like a boiling pot.