sunkissed, worldless

10

People used to think another country had it out for them. Destroyed their infrastructure, an inside job to cut the power grid and leave them helpless. And that everyone, everywhere else is fine but here. That's not what happened, and things were confusing in the first few years, to say the least.

The sun had selfishly destroyed most man-made light, a storm that shook the planet to its magnetic poles, become the only light they'll ever have from then on. But there's other things to look at, like the blue skies, green grass.

In her case, Olivia is the most mesmerizing thing, emanating in the darkness. Adele ceases to care she's selfish, how the sun would describe her, the way they've described the sun.

Olivia holds her gaze when the stars are right there, twinkling by the millions. And the only reason she doesn't stare is because you can't look at it for too long. It's a rule, but Adele doesn't really follow it most times.

She piles the tinder nest in a circle of rocks, rubs the excess sticking to her palms. Olivia lights up a piece of bark holds it to the strands of dry grass, it catches fire. They kneel and blow soft, nurture the embers until it grows and adds the rest of their sticks one by one.

She thinks magic exists. And maybe the poetry is getting to her. A little bit.

People glow in the dark now. More than they normally do anyway.

Cartilage parts are more translucent, refracting light in shallow skin as if it shines from behind them instead of burning inside. When her hair pulsates a dim gold, she thinks of the fiery loops on the surface of the sun, the strands that made this mess in the first place.

"You're glowing."

Olivia prods the fire, it gurgles. She looks really pretty here and she can't tell if her face is lit because of the flame or her own dim glow. She glances up. "It's really dark out, huh?"

Adele nods.

"You're glowing too."

They say across the coast there's fireflies that light up summer lawns. Shines brighter since the Blackout, flutter out of disturbed grass if you run your fingers through them. They say the bones of your hand crackle before a rainstorm if you flex it the right way, electricity in your veins.

People get their sugars from birch trees, salt from the sea, grow spices in their own backyard. There's a boom in berries and flowers, especially in places that stay in permanent summer. It was supposed to happen every ten years or so but now there's psychedelic colors if you look at the right hill.

She wasn't alive for the moon landing. She's seen the footage on the tapes someone gave her grandma. That was magic too, flushing forwards. This time the trajectory's reversed.

Once the flame is under control, she brings out the garlic bread from earlier, thankfully untouched. They reheat it over the fire, holding it precariously in their fingertips because you can't trust stabbing it through a stick.

"Where did you put the cheese?" Adele asks, checks the temperature of the loaf every so often.

"Hold on, lemme—" Olivia squeaks as she heaves up, shoves her bare feet into her sneakers and heads to her bike to grab it. She looks a little worried as she returns with the metal container.

"Why, is there ants on it?"

"I found some," she answers with a pout. "I think it's fine though."

They dip the bread into the soft cottage cheese spread, leaving some flakes behind. It's a modest dinner. Adele itches for something to say, stares vacantly between the parts of her that aren't lit by the fire.

Sometimes she's self assured that the amount of time they've been together solidified their relationship, exchanged personality quips and knitting each other all over again. Other days she's reminded four years isn't equivalent to childhood friends, hand holding at the playground. They were ready to grow up by the time they've met each other.

Olivia gave her name, her real one, some time between the blur of days. One that Adele is too self-conscious to say out loud, like it isn't meant for her. She hears it all the time when her parents talk to her over dinner or at the bathhouse when her coworker interrupts their chats during her shift.

She had told and taught her pretty simply.

But when she tries to call her outside of that lesson after mustering the courage, Olivia pitches up while she laughs and tells her to stick to what she knows. "I don't mind either way."

Adele thinks she might've messed up that day, and it never comes up again. This is probably a good time to bring it back one way or another, among other more pressing news.

"Do you want it to come back?" Adele asks, a little mindlessly.

Olivia has to know what she's talking about, but pretends she doesn't because dancing around words is fun. Because sometimes, some things collide too much to bring up, "Want what to come back?"

"Life before the blackout."

She thinks about it for a while then says, "I miss pizza." Olivia holds up her piece and stares longingly.

Adele laughs, relieved at the lighthearted answer. She thinks that it might be a couple more years before an Italian chef washes ashore the east coast and builds those stone ovens everywhere. It's a setup for the perfect authentic pizza, if only it'd come sooner.

"Me too."

"I mean, it'd be easier but," She bites her lip. "I kind of like things the way it is, right now."

"Me too," Adele echoes, sighs in her shoulders.

"I don't know, can't we pick something in between?"

Because nature is pretty and everything's dismantled. You can't get it all back when the world jumps on its chance. The adults are always fighting, and they can't give a damn about it or do a thing to change it. What're they supposed to do?— bike to the House on the Hill where the protests are happening, meet with the mayor of Romsey and tell him his town is pretty and kind and then what?

He matters.

Mattered.

Something cheesy like that. Fighting the good fight or the wrong one, but she's leaning to the former. I'm here and I'm yelling and you're waiting for me to lose my voice. They're quite useless after all.

"I guess that's not how it works," Adele muses, glances her way.

Olivia chuckles, the fire crackles.

"We don't know how anything works."

They bury inside their sleeping bags a distance away, look up at the sky where the full length of the milky way sings. Every single star in part of a choir and even if some are brighter than others, Adele has to really look if she wants to identify any constellations swimming in the ocean of clouds and dust.

They point out the summer triangle; "The Swan, the Lyre, the Eagle." The adventurer's favorites, of course, Cassiopeia. But Orion, Canis Major and Minor were nowhere near smack dab in the center of the sky. It'll be much help if she actually had her graph with her but they're content enough to aimlessly wander.

Remember to put out the fire before whistling asleep.