Next summer

“Whoa you got a fortune?” The man was handed a chocolate bar with the name “Fortune chocolate” in gold letters with a purple background. They both sat down on a bench while she prepared something to drink for them both.

”I haven’t seen ona’ those since I was five. Thanks!” He thanked his friend. She didn‘t have one, but he guessed that she was more of a blossomgum bar type anyway.

”Found it in one of those old wending machines nearby” The man had already taken a bug chunk out of the chocolate before hearing the statement from his friend that told him, yeah, that chocolate was probably as old as he was.

He spit it out immediately.

”Ew! What the heck, man!” The young man’s pissed off reaction made his friend chuckle a little. It eased him, but forgiveness wasn’t on the table by a long shot.

”Come on, I’m sure it‘s still good! Back when things weren’t bad, I used to eat some that were made before I was born, haha!” The woman offered a beverage in a paper-cup, seemed warm because of the steam. She had one too.

”You. Are. Disgusting“ The man said, but jokingly. He looked up at the sky, and heard the wind breeze through the trees. Yeah, he’d never get used to this. “Why are we here anyway?” He took a slurp of the beverage, he didn’t recognise it, but assumed it was one of those ”old-timey” drinks from the times before everything.

”You know that I am much older than you?” The woman asked with a hint of humour to her voice. The young man was confused like he always was with his friend’s stories.

”Uh, yeah? You’re almost 17 years older than me” He cautiously approached her question. He wasn’t sure what kind of answer she wanted. Was it rhetorical?

”Yeah, I guess I am“ She sounded a bit more melancholy and she rose up from her seat, throwing the backpack back on her back. She held her empty paper-cup in her hand “You done with yours?”. The young man nodded and gave her his cup. He then proceeded to also throw is backpack on his pack and follow his unusual friend.

The funny thing was that it was summer now. They had met for the first time when it was summer. Her name was after the summer month May and his name was Zion Sumers. He never did like summer though.

It was a summer’s day when it all when to shit. He’d rather not remember any of it and repress it instead.

May tossed the paper-cups in a nearby bin and Zion threw the icky chocolate. May started to walk a path that lead into the forest. Zion paused. “Do we have clearance to go here?” He asked. He knew that May had special permission to be here, but he had to ask.

She looked at him, not quite turning around her body, but a little. There was something he couldn’t describe that was in her eyes. A complex emotion for sure, but he didn’t really know how those worked yet.

”Nah. Let’s go” She said continuing on walking. Flustered at her answer, he paused and then caught up with her again by running fast.

She had brought him to the top of a hill, maybe a small mountain. It had a bench too, so they stopped by it. It seemed as this was the final destination. What was so special about it, Zion thought. It’s just a view of Lake Sali and the landscape around it. Bunch of trees. Lots of them.

They both sat down and out their backpack behind the bench. May began the conversation by sighing. Happily, sadly? Maybe both? Zion didn't have the world’s greatest vocabulary or the greatest figurative library of human emotion. Again, since this was May and they were here of all places, he just had to ask the dreaded question.

”Are you relapsing?”

May’s eyes shot up and then looked at Zion like he had asked her if pigs could fly. With a mix of shockfullness, which Zion knew wasn’t a word, but it described her expression effectively.

”No, no, no that’s not- that’s not what’s happening here. I just wanted to talk. About something. Something about all of this” the all of this section of her sentence had May wave her hands and gesture to the whole landscape including herself.

”Then talk. I know that you always make yourself sick with not being able to talk about this place with anyone” Zion patted his friend on the back, showing support. May had her hands folded and placed in her lap. She took a deep breath.

”Fine. I relapsed. I didn’t come here just to see how far I’ve come since that bloody summer” She pulled out a flask from her backpack behind the bench and took a swig of it. May offered which Zion politely declined. She took another swig before she started talking.

”I wanted to come here one last time before they completely brainwash me. Those- those people who keep convincing me we have it better protected and safe inside the shitty domes with fake weather, it isn’t even bad weather in there just- numbness“

“Isn’t it better in there? Sure we don’t have the things we used to, but at least there’s-” Zion didn’t get to finish before May threw her flask down the hill. Excellent thrower if Zion could say.

”I know we never talk about that summer. That summer when it all got bad. You were so small back then, your mom showed me pictures” May laughed. Good, she laughed. That made it less tense.

”I was an adult at the time, and a young one at that. So I had opinions, strong ones. Yes, could you believe it? Little ‘ol me” May sighed.

”Why the heck did I throw away that bottle? Oh well” And she kind of stopped at that. They didn’t have to speak about the natural disasters that happened that killed so many people. They didn’t have to remember everything, but if Zion knew her right, she’d start soon enough.

A couple of minutes went. May looked up at something that Zion couldn‘t detect. She looked back at Zion with the most serious expression he’d ever seen her in. Never took for her as the serious drunk.

”Do you want to talk about it? Or shall we never reminisce about it and have it be forgotten like these once green pastures?” They used to be green? Guess they kind of were, thought Zion. He looked away, focusing on a faraway tree.

”My older sister died, and my grandparents, and my aunts and uncles on both sides. My older sister was out of town so she wasn’t there when the dome was built. She promised she’d get to one, but she never did” Zion paused. No one was ever going to hear him cry. May was probably going to be ok with that, but he sucked those tears in.

”Ha, guess we both lost pretty close family members. I lost everyone” This made Zion’s head turn. All of them? May could see his confusion, and as adorable as if was, she was going to put him out of his misery.

”Everyone I ever knew was dead. I had moved away on my own and had secured a place on the dome because I was young. My family was going to, but didn’t make it. We- we lost a lot of lives that summer” May turned to her backpack and fiddled with it until she found a another flask.

”I was saving this for a different occasion, but what the heck? It’s a bit strong than what you’re used to, but let’s just have fun while we can, huh?” May gave him the flask to drink out of and he thought, why not?

They stayed there for a hour or two, thinking about how f-ed up that time was and how f-ed up it was now. Not a lot of people would experience this, not for a long time. It still hurt for people and scientists weren’t sure if there would be more catastrophes.

May mentioned that she wanted to be killed in one of those disasters, but had Zion never tell anyone. Zion confided in her that he more or less wished the same when he was a teenager. He saw how sad his mother was without their family so he couldn’t do that to her.

Zion drank less than May because someone had to be somewhat sober. They had an unusual friendship, bonding over being so young during the disaster. Zion remembered how people thought they were dating, but it wasn’t like that.

The regular meeting between the two became less and less frequent after May had started to see a doctor and Zion had seeked help to deal with his problems. Were they better off? Maybe.

Next summer, they would go up to that hill again, even if the both of them weren’t keen on going on trips in the first place, but maybe Zion could understand what she saw, that he couldn’t see. What he had forgotten.

They both looked forward to, for the first time, summer. A summer where they would be better people and could talk about things more in depth. May would bring the flask though if it got bad again and Zion would try and steal it so May wouldn’t have it.

It’d would be better soon. Till next summer.