A warm orange tambourine buzzes warmly in the distance, soft amber smoke rises on a purple-blue sky that only shows itself in faraway places. Humming fluorescent lights zigzag across caverns like decorations at the town market, selling all manner of knickknacks. A stubby cigarette that never goes out, a flask that never empties. I take a sip from my golden flask and listen to the crackling of the fire. His voice washes over me like amber waves.
“Said to them it won’t be long before we have a place of our own so he can put his money up his ass. I’m thinking cozy little tenement in one of them cities. Light the candles and watch a movie every night and I’ll make us a nice breakfast on Sunday mornings, bacon and eggs and biscuits, the buttery ones you like. I told you about the bougainvilleas, right? I want to plant those, have some of the purple ones…”
More more more. His voice is gold melting in the heat of the fire and being funneled into my ear. Hello there frontier cowboy. He has amber eyes, kind, but tired, with dark circles underneath that, strangely, make him look younger, and a handsome face. His nose juts out like a compass turned upward in the direction we’re heading, and there’s the faint impression of a smile emblazoned on his face, an indent from years of happy memories spent around fires. Uneven stubble speckles his pallid cheeks and a furrowed line of hair has made its home in the space between his lips and his nose. When I first met him he had a bouquet of white roses in one callused hand and a Colt .44 in the other. He saw me flinch at it and stowed it away in his holster and turned it around, like it was never there.
The spurs on his boots are orange from rubbing up against the sandy clay all day. His shirt is slumped over the rocks on the outskirts of the campfire as he sits by me, waiting for it to dry. His chest inflates and sinks as he takes deep, steady breaths, and the fireflies dance over the slow river thirty feet back and illuminate the other side, a thicket of more trees, loblolly pines and shrubs speckled with the first yellow and red inklings of an encroaching autumn. The fleetingness of the moment hits me like a bag of bricks.
“What?” FC asks. He’s staring at me with his head turned slightly, eyes digging into mine, trying to burrow into my brain.
“It’s going to be winter soon.” Starting the mourning early helps. The thought of it all being taken away is too much.
He blinks, and looks puzzled, like he’s carefully weighing my words one by one.
What feels like an eternity later, he says, “But… then it’ll get hot ‘gain, won’t it?”
I can’t help but laugh. “Yeah, you’re right.”
He smiles meekly. “Cold don’t scare me. I’ll be right here.” He turns towards me and I can smell a spot of whiskey on his breath. I take another sip from my flask and smile back.
“I wish it could stay here forever. Just like this.” I worm my hand a little closer to his. The slight breeze tickles the hair on the back of my neck.
FC grabs hold of my hand and slides his fingers in between mine. The way he does it is perfectly natural, like the two were designed to be one. He’s very close now, and his shoulder is touching mine.
He leans in and whispers in his amber voice, “I’m not going anywhere.” His eyes reflect the orange light of the fire like brown saucers. Then he leans in and touches his lips to mine. It tastes like desert flower, linen, and blood orange. What was I thinking about? I don’t know. I don’t care. Sometimes good things can be simple. Sometimes simple things can be good.