TUMULTUOUS Chapter III
Anne zones back in. Anne zones back in.
Grass. Slow crackling sidewalk; the in-front war, tree root vs cement. Middle school bell rang for the last time. 30 minutes ago or maybe 15.
Where's the flow in this? The fun in that? Why isn't summer hitting in that way it does? Anne assumed the feelings arose naturally. Do they also need to be sought out? A constant zoom in of life was supposed to help put one foot in front of the other, but recently Anne feels every anxious muscle and twitch -- sharp thoughts hit like ghost notes. like ghost notes.
Mom called pretty much just to yell, so Anne quickly threw the conversation out her brain. Anne zones back in: wind in the grass, a lizard hopping over the particularly big cement crack, a gorgeous tree shading her and -- she only just sees the two boys big chillin' on the stairs which cut the school lawn up to the main entrance. She looks away. What even is this music in her ears? She only half zoned it out to the point it was just stressful babel. She pauses and keeps headphones on, pretending not to hear this conversation:
"You still dating Natalie?"
"Yeah but bro she's like, mad at me right now."
"Why?"
"I think it's over a text, I don't know. She just needs to calm down and then we can talk it out."
"Right."
Must've been pretty awful, Anne was thinking.
"Anyway, look at this."
"Huh?"
"It's a coupon my teacher gave all of us. Free bowling match."
"Bro! That's sick!"
"I guess so. Last time I went bowling was at a birthday party but that was yeeeaarrrsss ago." (Two and a half years -- less, maybe.)
"There's so much to do this summer but it'd be cool for an off day."
"True! I'm trying to go to Great America."
"Same! And a beach day with everyone."
"And the skate park."
They made further plans for their totally busy summer across this vast land. A long time ago in our collective consciousness but not so much more than a few generations, different people made very different summer plans in this very same but wildly different land. But people all the same who did see the flow in this and the fun in that. The dry season meant water conservation, creek and river shade, preparing acorn meal, strolling out to gather more, and "beach day" meant fishing, diving, collecting shells, beach wood and other magnificent things ripe for artistic expression, and maybe it meant hunting or collecting lizards, an evening bowl of tobacco, a sturdy group of volunteer night watchers defending their people from coyote packs, mountain lions, and bears. Certain moods come about in the dry season here, certain songs and dress. Maybe they prepared for this particularly hot time of the year in emotional, political, and material ways. These two middle school boys in the present, however, grow up with the notion of what summer means to American culture, which seasonally means New England, and are now spat out in the urban heat island effect with no reasonable way to walk home, forced to rely on their late parents to pick them up. The pattern is clear: they are reliant on the car physically and by extension spiritually, and yet a ride is hard to find even under necessary conditions. There will be no busy summer, it'll be boring and inside like last year and the year before that. The two boys as well as Anne try to ignore this depressing thought which plagues all slightly abandoned children. It's not that they're not well fed, clothed, have a roof over their head, and adults who care for them, it's that it has all become mundane, begrudged, boring, isolating, and kind of sad.