sunkissed, worldless

01

It's always been this quiet.

Adele scoffs into her exhale, just her warm breath into her hands and a puff whistling the ripen morning. The sun slinks its eyes open 5km into the horizon, the wind is blue and the tall grass wavers. Time is still if she's the only head and eyes that could think out here in the fields.

Like the falling tree in the forest, the rest of the world doesn't really exist. Or, she doesn't exist to the rest of the world. She can't figure out how to tell the difference yet, from where she stands and contemplates.

The dawn breaks, so does the silence. A bell rings behind her. Even without the bell she could've heard Olivia's approach, wheels squeaking and chains rattling. Her belongings where it was tied to the small trunk steadily bumping to the rhythm of her cycle.

Olivia stands on the pedals, she hung her lantern on the handlebars again. Adele had told her not to.

"You're late," she chastises but no bite, lips cracking open as Olivia slows down next to her.

Her rear trailers turned low rise rack, is stuffed like Adele's own. A rolled up sleeping bag, extra clothes in a burlap sack and a mismatched boho bag fastened with what used to be her preschool backpack clips. The only difference was the two tupperwares in the caged basket attached to the front set.

"Yeah, well," she starts, catching her breath, "You really need to savor breakfast." It's long stretches without home cooked meals after all.

And here Adele thought she overslept again.

Olivia looks up. Her neck is speckled with sweat but it doesn't stain the collar of her loose band t-shirt. The once Guns N' Roses logo had faded, Olivia says she's listened to one song, it counts and hums it when someone out of town asks her if she knows them.

Adele doesn't know any better. She thinks she's listened to a couple of theirs, but never caught the name of the band afterwards so it's merely speculation.

"Did you eat yet?"

"Yeah, I did."

"Oh good," she chirps, "Cuz I was going to eat the extra sandwich."

"You have an extra sandwich?" Adele sputters and Olivia grins. She cycles away and Adele kicks off after her. She's convinced herself that height doesn't matter but Olivia cycles tall, breezing through momentum between two pumps.

The asphalt sprawled in front of her is bleached and worn and soiled with gravel that eats it away, edges first.

It's not this road, the bridge that leads out of Lake Jade clamoring between the woods. But it's there if she squints, because summers are always meant for bike rides in the suburbs and dogs that chase after her.

When everyone gets on their ride, it's a case of aimless days. Of flocking to the first suggestion someone comes up with that afternoon, be it terrorizing the movie theater or going into the woods to sword fight with sticks and climbing dead trees just to break them.

They raced a lot.

One of the girls always sits out because her bike isn't built for speed, rainbow streamers tethered to long stretched handlebars on a low front set and a tall pair of metal bars as a backrest. Adele always wanted one like it. She cruises on her head start as the finish line referee.

Adele always end up behind the boys who had dropped curled handlebars like the ones on the Tour De France but ahead of the siblings, which the older of the two had to pedal twice as much.

In hindsight she didn't know why she tried so hard back then, knowing she wouldn't make it first to the parlor. Ice cream doesn't exist anymore. And it's an indescribable loss.