taxonomites | [ location: bronte beach ] let that igloo cooler mark your piece of paradise.

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[ location: bronte beach ] let that igloo cooler mark your piece of paradise.

Word has it, Taxon, that there's going to be a party. These rumors are not untrue, for one

slaying has arranged something of a get together for the Fourth of July. Unfortunately, the Extras have caught wind of this soirée and are already in the presence of crashing it, rocking those holey jeans and chilling with some Lynyrd Skynyrd and good ol' Hank Williams. This is their kind of party.

Don't let them have all the fun. The sun is getting low, so get on out here and get your party on before fireworks start lighting up the faux night sky.

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"Yes, that is a property of the ocean," Long says solemnly. "The fish that live in the sea could not live in freshwater, and vice versa. Don't swallow too much of the water, or you will become sick."

Never mind there are no fish in Taxon. Alas. Long resettles in his chair and opens his book again, but looks out to the glittering ocean instead of to the words on the page. "Where I lived before here-- in San Francisco-- I could see the ocean from my windows. Most days it was not so bright as this, however."

He turns to share the view. Digs his toes into the sand. He's envious, of course--the name for when you strain beneath the weight of what you can't have. But the more he thinks about it the sadder the idea of the ocean confined to a window becomes.

"I don't wanna go back," he says to nobody in particular, not so much speaking the words as releasing them.

He sits down in the sand and snaps open the tube.

The words make him arch a brow; Long refrains from saying anything to the effect that Dick is probably one of the only ones in the city who doesn't. There is no reason to interrupt the boy's happiness (or what might more accurately be termed surcease from misery, Long supposes).

He clears his throat. "A very wise man one said, Do not dwell in the past, do not dream of the future, concentrate the mind on the present moment. Which is, for now, putting on the sunscreen. Are you hungry?"

Dick brushes the sand off his leg and aims the tube at his calf. It belches out a blob of lotion; instead of the sting he expects there's a sudden spurt of cold. He smears the sunscreen on thick, the way he'd spread butter on toast if he could. As he does he turns the words over in his head, but more and more questions crop up: what if the present isn't a beach on a sunny day? If not the future, what are you supposed to dream of? Nothing?

At the mention of food his questions are quickly forgotten. Dick glances back at Mr. Long. "A little." He ducks his head, presses his mouth into his shoulder to hide his smile.

"A little, hm? So then: We will get you only a little food," Long says archly, but the corners of his eyes are crinkled with teasing amusement.

He puts a marker into his book and closes it, sets it down on the chair behind him as he stands. The heat of the sun doesn't bother him-- indeed, it feels marvelous on his skin-- and his eyes are not bothered by the brightness either... he ponders the straw hat a moment before picking it up and placing it on top of Dick's head. It is rather too large for him.

"Hm!" says Long, and shrugs.

(The sunglasses, sitting on the armrest of the plastic beach chair, give back odd reflections-- a grown man in a white shirt, a cigarette dangling from his lips with the permanence of a birthmark-- a stretch of black scales iridescent as oil, a golden eye bigger than a man's head.)

But Long does not notice these; he is scanning the beach for the vending cart he had seen earlier.

As the hat descends on his head—it casts a wide, sun-dappled shadow—Dick looks up and watches. Not for long, but in the moment the hat's slight weight comes to rest on his head, it feels like being crowned. He caps the lotion, plants it in the sand and reaches with both hands to adjust the slant of the hat, pulling it farther back on his head so the brim doesn't droop into his eyes.

It's when he gets to his feet that he spies the gold glinting off the lenses of the dark glasses. Dick steps closer, crouching down, hands on his knees, to look. A man and—he blinks—a giant black snake. He turns, slowly, as though he's back in the water, his bewilderment dense and buoyant.

There is no snake on the beach, no man.

He twists for another look at the glasses, hesitates. “Mr. Long,” he calls. It sounds like the beginning of a question, but he can't think of what to ask.

"Yes?" Long asks distractedly, still looking around for the vendor. The beach has become crowded, some citizens, some Extras, and the bright colors and shiny metal of the vending cart have been swallowed up.

"What is it?"

He'd hoped just to point to the glasses: the question could ask itself. But Mr. Long doesn't turn and common sense screams against touching something that doesn't belong to him and works according to mysterious rules.

Dick stands frozen, picking through the dull words at his disposal in an attempt to find something equal to the gleaming scales, the glowing eye. The stranger visible only in the glasses' glossy lenses.

He stays silent, trots to Mr. Long's side.

Long assumes that it mustn't have been very important, and in any case, he has caught the wink of metal that signifies the cart. He gestures Dick to follow and sets off across the sand, stepping carefully because he is not wearing beach shoes, and dislikes the invasion of sand into his polished Oxfords.

He flicks a wistful and slightly envious glance down at Dick's bare feet. It seems somehow indecorous for him to be walking about in public without shoes, or he would vastly prefer to do as Dick has been-- to feel the hot sand in between his toes, against his soles.

Ah well. The limitations of being an adult.

Soon it is the scrape of cement against his shoes all the same, the rasp of grains of sand between sole and pavement. There's no line at the metal cart with its interior promising all sorts of frozen treats.

"Only one sweet," Long instructs as they head towards it. "I refuse to be responsible for a nauseous regurgitation of ice cream upon the sand."

"Yes, sir," Dick says gravely. He has no idea what regurgitation is.

As they near the cart he tries to keep his steps measured--Mr. Long never hurries, not even in speech--but curiosity and the promise of ice cream prove too much for him. He reaches the cart at an undignified scamper, gazes admiringly at the colorful pictures splashed across it: popsicles that look like rockets, in red, blue, yellow, orange, green, and purple; ice cream sandwiched between two cookies and sprinkled with chocolate chips; a yellow square with a gaping, cartoony smile and gumballs for eyes; cones--King Cones--coated in chocolate and crowned with nuts.

"There's blue ice cream," he says, unable to help himself. He needs to call someone's attention to it. "Blue ice cream and sprinkles."

Long comes up more slowly, looking over the colorful logos with rather less enthusiasm than Dick does. He would give a great deal for a bowl of mango sticky rice right now. Alas.

"Blue," he echoes, lips pursed. "How-- how delightful. Sugar in all the colors of the rainbow. In China, a day like this would call for baobing-- shaved ice, with fruit and sweet syrups."

There are packets of nuts-- pistachios, peanuts, pretzels-- hanging on the side of the cart, outside of the frosty interior; Long collects one of the pistachio bags with a half-nod at the smiling Extra.

"This, and whatever it is the boy would--"

He breaks off. The metal of the cart is the polished smoothness of industry and brushed steel, but it does not reflect the glare of the sun.

"....like," he finishes after several seconds, brow furrowed as he stares at the shapes the metal gives back.

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[ location: bronte beach ] let that igloo cooler mark your piece of paradise.

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