Last weekend, my friends picked me up. Fiona's boyfriend, Jeff, had just waxed his '83 VW Beetle. they had decided to drive to Daytona Beach. Annon asked if I would like to go, and I said "yes." We drove for two days and didn't sleep much at all. We took turns, and when it was my turn, there were lights in the forest. It felt like I was drowning.
I must have fell asleep because I felt Jessie's hand on my shoulder, nudging me awake. When I raised my head, its surface bearing an impression of the steering wheel I had been slumbering on, I saw the most glorious day-glo yellow sunrise against the milky,
green-blue Floridan horizon. But how? When I asked Jessie, he said he'd only been awake a few minutes before I. I thought of the lights in the forest and mentioned that to him. He dropped his head, trying to shake some wakefulness into his eyes as if the air was
full of caffeine, and just whistled really low, as if suggesting I was nuts.
In a way, I think we all are.
"It must be early."
"Mmm... You wanna see if we can round up some grub?"
"Sure," I said, yawning. "Do you think we should wake the others?" I nodded to the tangled, dozing, snoring mess of our friends.
"Nah. We'll be back."
So we unlocked our doors, stretching. The flow of the softly pulsating new born sun made the edges seem to blur. The sand that flowed into our beat up sneakers was already scorching to the touch. We looked into one another's eyes, laughing. We started running, striping off our worn T-shirts and jeans which still bore distinctively trendy deep indigo dyes despite the unknown years they may have spent in the attics of our parents. We finally collapsed, stark naked, in the cerulean silk of the ocean, thrilling in it's
warmth.
It must've been about five-thirty before we decided to explore the boardwalk. We still felt a little woozy because it was so early, but the morning's escapade had left our eyes, bodies, minds, and hands electrified. It was all we could do to stop ourselves from groping and revelling in the sweet taste of each other right there for all to see, if anyone else were running around town at this unearthly hour. What if an innocent passerby came along. Why not, even if?
But we didn't. We talked instead about life, the pros and cons of subsisting only on a watermelon diet, and trying to estimate how many hours of sleep we had got in last night.
