infinitypool

[infinitypool]

Infinity Pool: Chapters #1-3

Authors note. —————————————— Letting go of something, some place or even someone that you thought you had loved can be one of the hardest things in the world. Realizing that you are lost in a brand new world of your very own can be even harder. There are so many things that can overtake us, dreams of fortune, relationships; with every second bleeding out consequent thoughts and assumptions, philosophical questions that are almost extraneous to our own paths and yet still perplex us and our time with paradox, excitement; a feeling which gives us proof of purchase in a foreign and distant type of rebellion, there is boredom ; a quiet tempestuous void, without a continuance and still representing a feeling that epitomizes the phrase “in between” and lastly the definition of life, a way of a path, a bridge to an end, a solution to a constant and a shimmering light in lieu of an overly apparent darkness. ——————- Chapter 1 - Efflux We would always meet up at “Saint Frick ” in between east and west Greenwich. The reservoir was pretty much a beacon of our progression as time went on. It was there before the 7-eleven, the St. Andrew’s baked goods fiasco and was rehabilitated about a month right after Ricky ate out Clarisse out on my fucking roof…. So yeah it holds a lot of history I guess… our history. Ricky was the type of person who you would love to hate with a passion; Don’t get me wrong he was good company, good laughs, good times on Saturday nights, but he honestly had no sense of respect at times. He was attractive enough to be considered a somewhat tolerable asshole, so when you got down to the gist of it, he was a prick, a likable prick nonetheless. Claire, from my previous mention of her, you could probably guess is my next topic of discussion, ironically she wasn’t anyone’s sole girlfriend, she was everyone’s girlfriend. It wasn’t because she was considered the typical “loose” floozy or whatever you would call her but because she didn’t have a care in the world. That was pretty much her only flaw, she didn’t care enough about anything, so she did everything and well actually every body, for a bit. A stranger to which me and my father would soon see dancing on the entrance after driving up there for maintenance issues. I think it was something wrong with the filter gutter, wild moss? Or just leaves I don’t really remember. Though one of the things that i do remember about that day was her song, and the leaves. Aidan looked up toward the sky. “What is she doing?” What was she doing? he asked himself… and how many times had she done this before? better question.. “How the fuck did she get up here?” Aidan said to the group. He stood next to Alexandra, Rick, Sarah and his father, Victor; All of their gazes were unified at this sudden intrusion. She was an odd spirit, dancing so calmly on top of the mismatched half refurbished planks. What is she doing up there? “Dancing….” said Aidan’s father “What?” “She’s dancing.” Victor said, shocked “More like teasing really… “Aidan said. Victor laughed "YASSSSS”  Truman screamed. “SLAY! QUEEN” Sarah chimed in. “She’s kind of hot” … Rick uttered I thought she looked interesting, not in Ricky’s sense but she was pretty I guess—though Ricky would’ve fucked a brick to be honest. “That’s debatable…” Aidan remarked as he eyed her hips and peeked a look at her ass. Aidan’s Father, Victor stood still and in a daze almost… “On a fucking Monday …” he said to himself…. Hmph… Aidan looked over at Alexandra. “What do you make of all this?” She looked through her glasses.. “I’m a little more concerned about the integrity of the roof..” Alexandra said   “SHIT” Victor yelled as he quickly burst into a run to the pool shed. “DEBORAH! He yelled again. "WHERES THE LADDER” “Oh Come-On,” Aidan looked back up at the girl. “She’s not even in any fucking danger..,.” “Watch your mouth, ” scolded Victor as he hustled away. Aidan looked back to the girl and sighed in remorse. “She got up there for Christ’s sake, I don’t think she’s going to fall.” This girl baffled him. “The amount of effort”… he thought in his head. “I kind of admire her for it to be honest” he muttered “For what?” Sarah said “Her spunk,” Aidan said, still looking in awe. Truman smiled. “She is definitely high off of something.” Sarah said “Hmph..” Rick grunted in amusement. “And it definitively aint weed”….. he said “Nope” … “Ecstasy?” Truman suggested . “A rave drug without the rave.” “Hmph” Rick muttered . “ She’s been up there for like an hour, that’s a fucking rave.” Sarah said. The whole gang looked intensely at each of sway of her hips, her feet balancing and readjusting fluidly and in a motion they had never really seen or even understood if they had even. “ She actually got up there,” Aidan said as he looked on… She was moving with aimless passion of all sorts, everyone kind of stayed still for another moment and just was there for the sight of her. The skylight glistened around the roof through some of the fresh palms behind the entrance. “That’s something in its self.” he said astonished. “You don’t even know if she’s sober.” Alexandra said “Well could you have gotten up there if you were drunk?” Aidan remarked “Good point” Aidan looked up at her intensely, perplexed and curious thoughts about, “ ………Fuck It ” Aidan reached for the nearest branch jutting out of the side of the old sycamore tree beside the main entrance. “What are you doing?” said Rick “I’ve been inspired, Rick.” Aidan said to him as he started to ascend This was unlike him. Sarah thought. “By what Mr. Mcdaniel?” Sarah said in spite. “Her” he responded ,yelling as he grunted with the fling of his wrist to the next branch. “Oh, well that’s fucking cute. "Sarah said to herself. "You know … some could say she’s his Rapunzel in this instance.” Truman said as she chuckled. I had never truly understood why the first couple of scratches you get from climbing hurt so much, Aidan thought, after the third or fourth scratch you just slowly stop caring all together, or maybe you just lose a sense of pain, after all your already half way up, you kind of feel like you owe it to yourself really, and that’s why you fight through it. Its an odd sense of adrenaline. “Ladies and gentleman”  Aidan Grylls in the premier of NIGGAS VS WILD !“ Truman yelled as he sarcastically clapped. "Truman!” Aidan yelled below. “What?” Truman replied “When’s the last time you sucked a dick?” Aidan said as he smirked while grabbing another branch. “Tuesday! I thought you would have remembered me and the moment we shared ! ” Truman yelled back from below. Aidan laughed as he reached for another branch now about halfway up the old sycamore, the sound of the girl’s boom box was more of a motivation for him to reach forward again and again. “Don’t be an idiot!” yelled Rick. It’s a little too late for that. Aidan thought to himself. Alexandra sighed to herself. “Determination is a such a puissant resource for the blissfully courageous,” She said to herself, distressingly as she watched. “You mean blissfully ignorant” Rick interrupted “Do you even know what puissant means?” Alexandra waited for a senseless response. Rick thought for a moment, paused, “Means precise right ? ……” he asked. Aidan’s grunting was echoing in the distance as Rick took a moment to look at Alexandra, this short haired little Spanish girl with a Hiroshima sun tattoo on her back peaking out from beneath her bra strap .He saw this intelligent girl spectacularly in tune with everything and yet still at a distance from any standard definition of human emotion, she glared back at him, looking at him for longer than he looked at her, through him almost, without a care in the world through her faded & scratched maroon glasses. He bit his lip, thinking about any possible miserable definition for puissant, and looked back at Aidan. Alexandra smirked. “It was a latin word, and even though her pronunciation of it was actually wrong, she would have never told him this.” She opened her phone and checked her messages, reading some text, then paused for a moment to think again. Aidan had reached a very decent height and a small realization hit her, she sighed and then quickly raised her head up high, closed her eyes and yelled. “IT RAINED LAST NIGHT YOU FUCK WATCH WHAT YOU REACH FOR ” Aidan braced for it just as the words reached his ears, “Shit”. his foot had slipped off one of the moistened branches Everyone watching flinched at the sight of the blunder, all except Alexandra. Aidan was now hanging from a branch by one hand precariously as he glanced back down to the sneering ground below…. He could see Alexandra smiling as she waved up at him with a smug look of self-appropriation. “GET THAT FUCKING SMILE OFF YOUR FACE, YOU’RE FUCKING ME UP! ” He yelled. Her intelligence was more like a constant truth really, annoyingly so. She was always so imp-endingly right and why it would always be right before he would try to fly so close to the sun he would never know. It would always feel so sidesplittingly ironic how much she was right, He had come to love and hate that about her and he would always remember that about her, Aidan thought to himself as he held the base of the tree trunk before shimmying onto one of the branches. He jumped from the biggest branch to the ledge of the entrance,  barely making it. His hands grasped the top of the gutter, hanging dangerously high from the top of the entrance roof as he slowly tried to raise his legs from beneath the gutter. The music from the speakers vibrated through the tiles of the roof. One elbow after another he pulled himself up. His face was red and plump with effort as he gained a footing on the roofs red tiles; he bent over as regained his breath. “I’ll be damned” Rick said impressed Aidan rose from his quick and tired state to stand up on the roof. He let his arms drop as he felt the falls dry breeze beneath them as he regained a better sense of where he was, he raised his head to the clear maroon sky and let go of the fear of falling for a second to catch his breath. The palm leaves looked quaint dancing in the sunlight from the top of the entrance. In fact the entire facility looked amazing, Aidan could see the path to the hayfield in between the pool shed’s back gate, his father running back from the tool shed, Alexandra’s mother Vivian watching from outside of the Shake shack, and even the pool, looked invariably grandiose from up there and he probably would’ve tried jumping in it if it were closer to the entrance. Everything went slow for a moment; He couldn’t hear anything, the wind, the oceans far distant echo , Sarah cursing at Truman for making jokes about his apparent demise, Victor yelling at him to get down from the roof, everything was silent. All he could hear was Claire’s music. He loved her all together in that moment in time despite the absurdity of the moment, he would never forget exactly how in the flying fuck he got up there on that windy day in March in the first place. “So this is why people climb mountains …. and all other types of extravagance and shit,” he thought as he looked at the scenery.  It’s serene….“ Aidan started to bob his head to the beat as he looked around his view, he was star-struck by the beauty of the moment, in fact, this was the first thing he had climbed in his life… and to think he didn’t even climb shit since his freshman year…. "Holy Fuck” Aidan said mind-blown at this sudden surrealism. Claire turned around at him and looked at Aidan disturbed, the song had ended. “What? "She said Aidan had completely forgot about Claire in that moment and quickly turned around … they both looked back at each other. "What did you say?” Claire said confusedly. Aidan was at a loss of words…. This was the first time he had heard her talk, then it hit him. “Wait, why are you looking at me, like I’m the wild one? he said ” You’re the one on our roof”  he gestured at her “like seriously?” he said. He looked back down at the gang below, then looked back at Claire. The entire gang looked back up at him blankly. “How do you think its going?” Truman questioned. “I don’t know, this isn’t like him, at all, well at least not to this degree” Sarah said to herself. “DON’T FUCK UP YOUR FIRST IMPRESSION WITH RAPUNZEL.” Rick yelled. “Oh fuck you Rick” Aidan whispered as he eyed him below. Her face was blank as she stared at him. Why am I even up here? he thought to himself, surprised. Claire, still looking at Aidan, laughed and smiled. The next song started to play, breaking the silence and just like that she was dancing again. Aidan turned around to look at this weird, clearly insane woman sensually moving without a care in the world one more time. He had thought it was love at first, but it clearly wasn’t that type of affection, it was much less serious than that, it was more like sheer amazement, an amazement he couldn’t even pinpoint, a sense of unpredictability" he thought. He sobered up and looked back at Claire, crazy fucking Claire. What is she on …  he thought to himself … Aidan snapped back to his senses.. he cleared his throat “Ok?….so uhm you’re going to have get dow—.” the tile beneath him broke before he could finish his sentence, and of course he fell into the pack of panda lilies in front of the entrance.

Chapter 2  -  Run-off

“How’s the arm tiger.” Aidan woke to see Sarah’s coy face looking back at him from beside his hospital bed. “Pretty good…” He said. The hospital bed was very high up and the height almost matched the window frame, so Aidan could see clearly outside of the window, Oahu was jolting with tourists as usual, markets, arcades and the thickly overly paved streets, the ancient cracks in between where cement should have been were filled with sand, he forgot how much he loved the quaint little town, you could see the wind bracing the palm trees outside as a pelican was somewhat firmly nested sitting on top of the tree, was woken from its slumber by some noise and flew away. His arm lay in a cast beside him , a marked cast, which someone had basically defaced with black stripes “Rick”… Aidan noticed his handwriting, luckily the two other petite signatures stretched across the top of his bandaged arm that were scribbled over it it were much more conservative and so he decided to let it go for the moment. “Its kind of early to see pelicans don’t you think,"Alex said as she looked outside of the window, the fish migrations patterns aren’t usually around here this time of year so that guy’s kind of far off from Kauai. "Well, Marlin the clownfish needs to find Nemo sometime dontcha think”. Truman said with a bolt of surmise. Rick laughed as Alex paused. “What was the pelicans name again? Sarah asked. "I think it was George.” Truman said unsurely. “And they were also in Australia Truman, that joke is geographically challenged.”Sarah said. “Oh really, well did you know this is actually Finding Nemo 3, they lost him again ” Aidan laughed. “Well I thought jokes were supposed to have detailed complex layers.” Sarah chimed.“its reall- "EVERYBODY HUSH” Alex interrupted. “Were going to address why were all here.” She said as she pointed at Aidan. Aidan stopped mid laugh. “Now I’m not going to tell him anything cause I already know why he was being an idiot so- "Wait a minute!, I have the right to defend my-” "No” Alexandra interrupted,“ You dont, you know why you hurt yourself, but i don’t think you realize how important of a lesson this presents” And whats that lesson? “Always wear a para…OW” Sarah hit Truman before he could finish. Everybody else in the room remained silent looking at Aidan with a sort of guilt almost, dwelling in the obvious truth. “Well I’m still alive !,"he said with a bolt of passion. "Like it’s not the worse thing that could have happened… my bones will grow back. "Slowly.” Alex said as she pried open the cable box. “Huh?” Aidan said “They’ll grow back SLOWLY. ” She said as she plugged in a computer board to the cable box and like magic, a cartoon slowly glimmered its way onto the television screen. Aidan flinched.. “Actually if someone hadn’t had been talking to me while I was cl… Alexandra quickly bolted a stare at him and he corrected himself. ..She caught me off guard. “ She would have caught anyone off guard. Sarah scoffed. ”…Anyone?“ she said as she gleamed at Rick jealously. "I mean, not like that, its not like I find her… that attractive when it all comes down to it. Everyone sighed. "I mean in like summation,” he said. Everyone went along ignoring Ricks pleas. “Like in totality… you know” Alexandra chuckled. “Ok..ok….. She’s average at best .” “That’s BULLSHIT!” Truman yelled. “We both know damn well y-“Suddenly curtains behind them were pulled back to show a disgruntled nurse. COULD YOU GUYS PLEASE KEEP IT DOWN ?! she beckoned, "this isn’t your school yard, ok.” Alex scoffed. “I don’t get payed enough for this” she whispered to herself as she turned around to help the other patient. Truman scoffed. “Id pay to you fairly to let me suck on them ti-” Sarah quickly covered his mouth before he could finish. The nurse turned around furiously to see Aidan covering his mouth from the bubbling laughter. Rick did the same while he coughed into his shoulder and let out a chuckle. Alexandra glared at Truman with a look of disbelief. She angrily stomped out of the room, her face completely in remorse as she whispered to herself. “Fucking delinquents” Sarah slapped the shit out of Truman. “Ow! What!“ Said Truman Be respectful” Sarah said as she recoiled her palm He did deserve that. Aidan thought. “Oh so I’m the rude one now?!” Truman refuted. Yes?! Alex said surely. Truman scoffed as they both revved up again and went on a rant to side. Rick walked across the other side of the room, to the adjoining hospital patient bed to see who it was and just stopped. “Well fuck.” He said, as pulled the curtain in the middle of the room abruptly to the side. The group went silent. Everyone looked over to see Claire, in an adjoining hospital bed. “Well at least you have a swell roommate,” he said jokingly. Aidan eyed the following bed. She looked tired and muffled alone in her sleep as she turned over on her side of the bed, the covers crumpled up at the end of the bed. “Jesus” Alexandra exclaimed. Claire’s bare ass cheeks had clapped into view together, bare and in glorious view as she lay still again… Everyone watched without a word. Aidan blushed. Rick stood in awe. Alexandra was flustered. “So how long are you staying here again?” Truman chimed Sarah slapped him again across the face. Aidan and Victor sat down at the table in the hospitals cafeteria. Wait so she doesn’t have any parents? said Victor fretfully The cafeteria was dim, the smell of processed meat and bread overwhelmed the area and the cafeteria was quite mellow, lit by the sun shining through the swaying palm trees. "They died in a plane crash from Honolulu 3 months ago,” said Officer Deacons. I would probably have been an entirely different person if my parents had died so suddenly; hell I probably wouldn’t even be able to think straight, let alone live. Aidan thought to himself. Claire did, so much as everyone does, found out one day and didn’t even flinch, "She was already a foster child, and was living with her parents for a couple of years in Sakanawga, her foster parents had to tell her the news because they felt like she should’ve known. She’s been wandering around the island ever since. We’ve gotten a lot of reports of her trespassing, and this marks the twelfth disturbance this week” Deacon said with a pitiful tone. “ Sounds like one serious trend of delinquency ” Victor coined “Still doesn’t beat your kerfuffle with Mr. Colhem on the beach a while ago ” Aidan remarked. Victor’s mouth halted open as he slowly realized his own sense of hypocrisy. Officer Deacon cleared his throat and pressed on. “I’m well aware of your record Mr.Mcdaniels, this isn’t even close to how pressing of a matter that was, just tedious ”.With Claire it’s just the same thing over and over again. Trespassing then loitering . I haven’t arrested her yet because no one really has given any serious complaints about it or even gotten hurt, … “until now.” The officer raised his finger toward Aidan. Aidan looked at officer Deacon and quickly down to his signed cast…. It wasn’t that bad…. he thought to himself Why though? Victor asked. “Well like I said no ones gotten hurt, so there’s been no legitimate means to bring her in, just bring her home and tell her foster parents..” “No, I mean has she been diagnosed with anything? asked Victor I don’t really know, she’s been an enigma when it comes to any type of possible prognosis ; I would assume it’s just her way of coping. Makes no type of sense to anyone down at the station. We drug test her every time and she’s completely clean. Every time. Aidan chuckled. "You ever try moving her to another foster home?” Get her new foster parents? asked Victor “We could never get her to talk about anything about herself so we just decided it was easier to bring her home and wait for the next time” said the officer. But that is an interesting thought. Victor paused and thought for a moment. Aidan’s eyes wandered across the room in a perplexed array of emotions. “She seemed to gravitate toward your pool after a long time of wandering though” Officer Deacon sighed. “and the thing is she actually did seem to be at an odd sort of peace before we started to drive away, relaxed actually. "And then it came to me,the thought, What if she stayed with you guys” Victor halted for a minute, and looked at Aidan, eager and clearly excited about the thought . “She could actually live in the guest house shed…” Aidan said posing the thought to himself. Officer Jenkins looked anxiously at Victor, “Would you want to?” he said. “She doesn’t talk much, we had her in custody for a couple hours; and the entire time she kind just kept looking around like a lost puppy.” If she doesn’t talk that much, then why did she talk to me? Aidan thought. “She really is like a lost puppy though … Aidan thought and then stopped. Actually wait she’s more like a blithering fucking firecracker, I almost broke my arm, God knows what type of bad influence she might be if she lived across the pool from me.” Aidan recoiled and looked at his father.“ Actually…” “ Alright ” Victor Interrupted. “Could you have her foster parents send over the paper work?. "Of Course,” Mr. Deacon grinned hopefully, “I’m sure if I explained the situation to her foster parents they would gladly be open to it if Claire insisted on it.” She’s too much trouble to try to hammer down for that long anyway; and we have much more pressing matters to deal with this year you know, with the Festival coming up, and it would probably keep her out of our hands for a very long time. But before I leave I’m actually legally abided as an officer to ask if you’re going to want press charges against her. Aidan paused “what?” “Do you want to press charges?” said Officer Jenkins Aidan thought about it for a second, and then looked at his father …Victor looked back at him with a look that said all too well. “Let it go”. Aidan looked out the window….. It really wasn’t that bad , he wasn’t playing any sports in high school so it wouldn’t change that much,the doctor said it wasn’t a serious fracture and would probably heal in couple of months… not to mention when his mother would come back eventually she would bring all types of hell down on him if he actually had brought any of it to court, especially over something so petty. The refurbished country club was almost finished and he knew that any type of drama that could be attached to it wouldn’t be worth the trouble. So do you want to go through with it? the officer repeated Aidan turned back at the officer. “We’re good” Aidan said with a smile. And from then on , I had always wondered if he had planned on getting rid of Claire as he quick as he possibly could have despite even knowing Victor personally for years , it was all such a weird phenomena to begin with.

Chapter 3 - Ohána

Are you not full? Aidan asked sarcastically, still in awe of the meal in front of him. The lasts of some bananas and strawberries were spread along a chocolate nutella spread, a crepe that had beside it a pool of ham and some spilled maple syrup that was all beginning to fall off of the side of Rick’s plate, on a smaller saucer next in line housed the remains of two sunny side up eggs and on another plate next to that was the leftover morsels of a croissant ham sandwich. “Probably not until I get my shake,” he said scratching his mustache of any more possibly entrapped food. As such of a beast Rick himself was, Aidan thought to himself. He was more surprised that he had successfully avoided dropping any of the remnants of this huge smorgasbord of food on any part of his still pristine white suit. Rick’s tie fell from atop his shoulders as he lifted the remaining croissant sandwich into his mouth, his eyes now looking at Aidan. “and to think he didn’t even care how close he was to a suddenly abrupt mad-dash to the dry cleaners”. Aidan thought ironically to himself. I guess that’s how Rick and him differed. He was spectacularly lucky in the most infuriating way possible, to be more specific the type of infuriatingly luck that makes you do incredibly stupid things just in order to see if you could get as close as that person would. Aidan looked down at his now worn cast. Rick wiped his mouth clean and cleared his throat. “Are you done daydreaming Cinderella? "Nope,” Aidan said as he smiled and looked around Fenton’s café diner. Rick coughed. “You know” He said as he reached for the last morsel of a crepe. “I know this place gets a lot of slack on the island for just being another one of those invading food chains but you have to admit, they make some pretty damn good food. "It was incredibly misleading,” Aidan thought to himself, sensibly the place felt like a Denny’s but the food in comparison to the decor felt like a delicious foreign oddity. Is a crepe a French dish.? “Hell should I know.” Aidan grimaced and sternly said"You fucking went there" “Never ate any crepes” “Well you got on the wrong flight then.” “Yeah the airline fucked up again and sent me to Hawaii.” Aidan laughed. Rick & Aidan walked out of the pancake house, while Rick drummaged through his to-go container as he followed Aidan across the street. Aidan looked at the grass along the parking lot. Where is it? he thought to himself as they walked. Rick munched on. “So, is it just me ? or is Sarah’s mother getting worse by the day? ” Aidan flinched as he stared at rick shamefully. “What?” he defended. “Its not natural to take death with ease” Aidan said. He looked across the parking lot to a sparkling brown van. “Its been 6 years though, you would think that she would eventually get better & stop acting like everything is still the same.” He said as he fiddled with the last of the leftovers as they walked to the  back of the van. “You know they say playing with your food every 5 seconds can be symptoms for growth problems” “Mumfherfagala fy-uck you” Rick said through the food as Aidan knocked on the back of the van. They waited a moment for signs of intelligent life until the van door clicked, slid halfway open stopping short with a sudden clang. “Shit” Peni said from inside the van. “Come on through the back” he said “He still has to get it fixed?"Rick said  . "Yuhp,” Aidan said as they walked to the back. The side door unlocked and Peni waved them in. The van inside was packed almost to the brim with beanie babies and plush toys and smelled of hookah and lavender.They both situated themselves in the back seats among the mini plush toys. “You getting ready to set up shop in Makoa Valley?” “Yuhp” he said. “They used to call it the land of dreams back when i was in school, now its just the land of dreams and hotel services” Rick closed the door behind them as Peni put the keys in the ignition. “You know , you really should invest in some seat-belts back here Peni."Aidan said. Peni sighed and looked into the rear view mirror "Doesn’t one of you own a car?” “Its in for repairs"Rick said. Peni frowned. "Well then I don’t want to keep hearing about not having seat belts ok, this ride’s on the house” They both looked at each other and nodded. I"’m also not planning on keeping this van for very long, rather not put more money into it anyway", he mumbled to himself ,this is just my day hustle.“ Peni said with a sanguine smile into the mirror. "Hows Kalena? Rick asked as he looked out the window into the beginning of the valley’s hills. "Good,still pregnant” Aidan paused .“Shouldn’t you be with her now?” “ The baby’s not due for a couple of months and im going to need every penny I can get just to get her going.” Peni said as he made the turn into the valley road intersection. “Wait why did you guys  call me if you don’t even have a car to get back? ."Alexandra is going to pick us up from the hotel for the festival after she finished her tours .” Aidan said. “God bless that little woman” Peni said to him-self. “Is she still working for Aola ?” he asked “Yeah, but i can tell its beginning to annoy her.” “Why?” I thought she was getting paid well. “She is but she keeps getting hit on by every artist that she shows even an ounce of hospitality to.” “Oh” he said surpised at how fast things had changed. Well ..She knows how to hold her own. “I wouldn’t bet on it” Aidan refuted. “Really?” Peni’s eyes opened wide. “Its been a while since she’s been in a serious relationship, she doesn’t mention it but i think she’s starting to get docile.” “Just like her mother” Peni added. “Boy if you had seen her mother back in the day, her eyes could burn a hole through the middle of earth.” “Alex used to find it quite fun for a bit.” “And she would even make a game out of it” Rick grumbled to himself as he closed his eyes. Peni smirked as he drove along. “Well, ever since I first met that little fiery girl in Mahana I can’t even fathom the thought of somebody settling her fire .”  Peni said in a hopeful tone. “Yeah”.. Aidan said as he got lost on the horizon. Peni smiled . “ remember in pre- k she would always end up going her own way even, her mother had a hard time with her .. "Peni said as he trailed off. He stopped and looked back to see that he had indeed lost both Aidan and Rick to the beautiful morning. Peni sighed. "Well….” Peni said now loudly. “ Its about 15 miles till we get to the hotels , so take a nap and enjoy the ride.” They both looked outside at the vast beyond. Aidan scrunched his nose and rubbed the morning crust from his eyes. It was surprisingly calm and still for the Sunday morn, the humidity was low , enough that the light cut through the sky in neat diamond rays leaving a translucent spectacle cherisable even to the experienced gaze. A snore interrupted Aidan’s daze. Rick lay asleep, in a food coma basking in the glow of the sun. Well that didn’t take long, he thought.Next time i’ll make him pay for the food and he probably won’t eat as much, hopefully.Aidan smiled to himself. 20 minutes had passed like it had been 3 on that road , it was smooth. Aidan, now contempt looked into the rear view mirror to see Peni’s eyes for a moment and then quickly looking away. Peni in a flux, laying his arm out of the window bit his nail and sighed. “What is it ?” Aidan poked. “Nothing” he said fretfully. Aidan sucked his teeth. “You can tell me anything Peni….. come-on” Peni paused and looked out onto the road in a perlexed mood. “You need to control your friend Aidan” Peni warned. “What? Aidan thought surprised. He looked over at Rick, so caught up in a deep and impenetrable nap not even a gunshot could perturb his slumber. "What?”. “He’ s starting to garner a reputation for himself”  Peni said fretfully . “Really? "Aidan said  "I hadn’t noticed, he said as he chuckled, what does that have anything to do with you though Peni?” “Im going to be a father soon Aidan…..what if its a girl? I have to take the responsibility to protect her anyway i see fit” Aidan shrugged. “From Rick?” Peni quipped “I know it sounds quite strange and I didn’t have to think about it initially but, after Kelani got pregnant i starting thinking about how I grew up and what kind of people I listened too. I remember Rick’s  father slightly and what he was to me. He wasn’t supposed to be such a bad person but he never had any plans only missions to do. "Missions aren’t bad” “Ah but sometimes you forget the point of them, he never seemed to plan for danger or anybody else. Im afraid Rick has the same issue.” “and whats that ?” Aidan said. “He’s magically irresponsible and yet incredibly influential” “You can’t say that” Aidan remarked. “I can if I’m trying to warn someone else” “And that would be me ?” he said “Yeah” “Rick isn’t as bad as you think he is” he defended. Peni breathed out a sigh of contempt. “Do you know why his car’s in the shop.” “No, but … ” “Do you know if he’s paying for it?” “…… no but.” “You see you don’t know and it won’t kill you now but you really should be asking him about these things because they will eventually add up to something big.” Aidan shrugged. “maybe, if your not careful” Peni added. Peni took some gum out of the side compartment and ate it while he brushed through his hair as they drove along the interpass. Aidan sat perplexed in thought. “So.. I realized that if Rick stays the same way indefinitley, he wont grow up to be any better than his own father  , and will eventually have a son for himself . Aidan stopped him ” Or daughter". “Either way it isn’t a cycle that i would want to have continue on to influence generations to come .” “Well what about me ,Peni?” Aidan said. “Well, even an intelligent man like yourself can still get into bad circumstances look at your arm for instance.” “Oh com-eon, We both know he wasn’t to blame for…. this.. ” he paused. Was he?  he paused then shrugged the thought away “It wasn’t that simple” he thought. “It wasnt that simple.” he refuted to Peni. “Im sure it wasn’t.” Peni sided. “Though all of this points down a road i dont think you want to go down right now. At the very least though you  still need to try to help him when you can, push him to be a better man so it in turn can help you and my future daughter. "Or son” Aidan interrupted. “Or son…out” Peni sided. “In the future.” Rick snored on. “All in all I actually wish that his father had been able to have had someone like you with him growing up, hell even i would have been lucky to have had someone like you by my side, you’ve always been able to balance people very well. Aidan flinched…."Your not coming on to me are you Peni ?” Peni chuckled as he looked at him through the rear view mirror “Oh you aint ready for all this fluff Big Kahuna” Aidan laughed. “Im baffled Kalena can even handle that much fluff.” he quipped as they continued driving  through the inter-pass into the mid-day through Makoa Valley.

[infinitypool]

Chapter 2  -  Run-off “How’s the arm tiger.” Aidan woke to see Sarah’s coy face looking back at him from beside his hospital bed. “Pretty good…” He said. The hospital bed was very high up and the height almost matched the window frame, so Aidan could see clearly outside of the window, Oahu was jolting with tourists as usual, markets, arcades and the thickly overly paved streets, the ancient cracks in between where cement should have been were filled with sand, he forgot how much he loved the quaint little town, you could see the wind bracing the palm trees outside as a pelican was somewhat firmly nested sitting on top of the tree, was woken from its slumber by some noise and flew away. His arm lay in a cast beside him , a marked cast, which someone had basically defaced with black stripes “Rick”… Aidan noticed his handwriting, luckily the two other petite signatures stretched across the top of his bandaged arm that were scribbled over it it were much more conservative and so he decided to let it go for the moment. “Its kind of early to see pelicans don’t you think,"Alex said as she looked outside of the window, the fish migrations patterns aren’t usually around here this time of year so that guy’s kind of far off from Kauai. "Well, Marlin the clownfish needs to find Nemo sometime dontcha think”. Truman said with a bolt of surmise. Rick laughed as Alex paused. “What was the pelicans name again? Sarah asked. "I think it was George.” Truman said unsurely. “And they were also in Australia Truman, that joke is geographically challenged.”Sarah said. “Oh really, well did you know this is actually Finding Nemo 3, they lost him again ” Aidan laughed. “Well I thought jokes were supposed to have detailed complex layers.” Sarah chimed.“its reall- "EVERYBODY HUSH” Alex interrupted. “Were going to address why were all here.” She said as she pointed at Aidan. Aidan stopped mid laugh. “Now I’m not going to tell him anything cause I already know why he was being an idiot so- "Wait a minute!, I have the right to defend my-” "No” Alexandra interrupted,“ You dont, you know why you hurt yourself, but i don’t think you realize how important of a lesson this presents” And whats that lesson? “Always wear a para…OW” Sarah hit Truman before he could finish. Everybody else in the room remained silent looking at Aidan with a sort of guilt almost, dwelling in the obvious truth. “Well I’m still alive !,"he said with a bolt of passion. "Like it’s not the worse thing that could have happened… my bones will grow back. "Slowly.” Alex said as she pried open the cable box. “Huh?” Aidan said “They’ll grow back SLOWLY. ” She said as she plugged in a computer board to the cable box and like magic, a cartoon slowly glimmered its way onto the television screen. Aidan flinched.. “Actually if someone hadn’t had been talking to me while I was cl… Alexandra quickly bolted a stare at him and he corrected himself. ..She caught me off guard. “ She would have caught anyone off guard. Sarah scoffed. ”…Anyone?“ she said as she gleamed at Rick jealously. "I mean, not like that, its not like I find her… that attractive when it all comes down to it. Everyone sighed. "I mean in like summation,” he said. Everyone went along ignoring Ricks pleas. “Like in totality… you know” Alexandra chuckled. “Ok..ok….. She’s average at best .” “That’s BULLSHIT!” Truman yelled. “We both know damn well y-“Suddenly curtains behind them were pulled back to show a disgruntled nurse. COULD YOU GUYS PLEASE KEEP IT DOWN ?! she beckoned, "this isn’t your school yard, ok.” Alex scoffed. “I don’t get payed enough for this” she whispered to herself as she turned around to help the other patient. Truman scoffed. “Id pay to you fairly to let me suck on them ti-” Sarah quickly covered his mouth before he could finish. The nurse turned around furiously to see Aidan covering his mouth from the bubbling laughter. Rick did the same while he coughed into his shoulder and let out a chuckle. Alexandra glared at Truman with a look of disbelief. She angrily stomped out of the room, her face completely in remorse as she whispered to herself. “Fucking delinquents” Sarah slapped the shit out of Truman. “Ow! What!“ Said Truman Be respectful” Sarah said as she recoiled her palm He did deserve that. Aidan thought. “Oh so I’m the rude one now?!” Truman refuted. Yes?! Alex said surely. Truman scoffed as they both revved up again and went on a rant to side. Rick walked across the other side of the room, to the adjoining hospital patient bed to see who it was and just stopped. “Well fuck.” He said, as pulled the curtain in the middle of the room abruptly to the side. The group went silent. Everyone looked over to see Claire, in an adjoining hospital bed. “Well at least you have a swell roommate,” he said jokingly. Aidan eyed the following bed. She looked tired and muffled alone in her sleep as she turned over on her side of the bed, the covers crumpled up at the end of the bed. “Jesus” Alexandra exclaimed. Claire’s bare ass cheeks had clapped into view together, bare and in glorious view as she lay still again… Everyone watched without a word. Aidan blushed. Rick stood in awe. Alexandra was flustered. “So how long are you staying here again?” Truman chimed Sarah slapped him again across the face. Aidan and Victor sat down at the table in the hospitals cafeteria. Wait so she doesn’t have any parents? said Victor fretfully The cafeteria was dim, the smell of processed meat and bread overwhelmed the area and the cafeteria was quite mellow, lit by the sun shining through the swaying palm trees. "They died in a plane crash from Honolulu 3 months ago,” said Officer Deacons. I would probably have been an entirely different person if my parents had died so suddenly; hell I probably wouldn’t even be able to think straight, let alone live. Aidan thought to himself. Claire did, so much as everyone does, found out one day and didn’t even flinch, "She was already a foster child, and was living with her parents for a couple of years in Sakanawga, her foster parents had to tell her the news because they felt like she should’ve known. She’s been wandering around the island ever since. We’ve gotten a lot of reports of her trespassing, and this marks the twelfth disturbance this week” Deacon said with a pitiful tone. “ Sounds like one serious trend of delinquency ” Victor coined “Still doesn’t beat your kerfuffle with Mr. Colhem on the beach a while ago ” Aidan remarked. Victor’s mouth halted open as he slowly realized his own sense of hypocrisy. Officer Deacon cleared his throat and pressed on. “I’m well aware of your record Mr.Mcdaniels, this isn’t even close to how pressing of a matter that was, just tedious ”.With Claire it’s just the same thing over and over again. Trespassing then loitering . I haven’t arrested her yet because no one really has given any serious complaints about it or even gotten hurt, … “until now.” The officer raised his finger toward Aidan. Aidan looked at officer Deacon and quickly down to his signed cast…. It wasn’t that bad…. he thought to himself Why though? Victor asked. “Well like I said no ones gotten hurt, so there’s been no legitimate means to bring her in, just bring her home and tell her foster parents..” “No, I mean has she been diagnosed with anything? asked Victor I don’t really know, she’s been an enigma when it comes to any type of possible prognosis ; I would assume it’s just her way of coping. Makes no type of sense to anyone down at the station. We drug test her every time and she’s completely clean. Every time. Aidan chuckled. "You ever try moving her to another foster home?” Get her new foster parents? asked Victor “We could never get her to talk about anything about herself so we just decided it was easier to bring her home and wait for the next time” said the officer. But that is an interesting thought. Victor paused and thought for a moment. Aidan’s eyes wandered across the room in a perplexed array of emotions. “She seemed to gravitate toward your pool after a long time of wandering though” Officer Deacon sighed. “and the thing is she actually did seem to be at an odd sort of peace before we started to drive away, relaxed actually. "And then it came to me,the thought, What if she stayed with you guys” Victor halted for a minute, and looked at Aidan, eager and clearly excited about the thought . “She could actually live in the guest house shed…” Aidan said posing the thought to himself. Officer Jenkins looked anxiously at Victor, “Would you want to?” he said. “She doesn’t talk much, we had her in custody for a couple hours; and the entire time she kind just kept looking around like a lost puppy.” If she doesn’t talk that much, then why did she talk to me? Aidan thought. “She really is like a lost puppy though … Aidan thought and then stopped. Actually wait she’s more like a blithering fucking firecracker, I almost broke my arm, God knows what type of bad influence she might be if she lived across the pool from me.” Aidan recoiled and looked at his father.“ Actually…” “ Alright ” Victor Interrupted. “Could you have her foster parents send over the paper work?. "Of Course,” Mr. Deacon grinned hopefully, “I’m sure if I explained the situation to her foster parents they would gladly be open to it if Claire insisted on it.” She’s too much trouble to try to hammer down for that long anyway; and we have much more pressing matters to deal with this year you know, with the Festival coming up, and it would probably keep her out of our hands for a very long time. But before I leave I’m actually legally abided as an officer to ask if you’re going to want press charges against her. Aidan paused “what?” “Do you want to press charges?” said Officer Jenkins Aidan thought about it for a second, and then looked at his father …Victor looked back at him with a look that said all too well. “Let it go”. Aidan looked out the window….. It really wasn’t that bad , he wasn’t playing any sports in high school so it wouldn’t change that much,the doctor said it wasn’t a serious fracture and would probably heal in couple of months… not to mention when his mother would come back eventually she would bring all types of hell down on him if he actually had brought any of it to court, especially over something so petty. The refurbished country club was almost finished and he knew that any type of drama that could be attached to it wouldn’t be worth the trouble. So do you want to go through with it? the officer repeated Aidan turned back at the officer. “We’re good” Aidan said with a smile. And from then on , I had always wondered if he had planned on getting rid of Claire as he quick as he possibly could have despite even knowing Victor personally for years , it was all such a weird phenomena to begin with.

http://figment.com/books/1001093-Infinity-Pool- (via infinitypool)

[infinitypool]

Letting go of something, some place or even someone that you thought you had loved can be one of the hardest things in the world. Realizing that you are lost in a brand new world of your very own can be even harder. There are so many things that can overtake us, dreams of fortune, relationships; with every second bleeding out consequent thoughts and assumptions, philosophical questions that are almost extraneous to our own paths and yet still perplex us and our time with paradox, excitement; a feeling which gives us proof of purchase in a foreign and distant type of rebellion, there is boredom ; a quiet tempestuous void, without a continuance and still representing a feeling that epitomizes the phrase "in between" and lastly the definition of life, a way of a path, a bridge to an end, a solution to a constant and a shimmering light in lieu of an overly apparent darkness. ------------------- We would always meet up at "Saint Frick " in between east and west Greenwich. The reservoir was pretty much a beacon of our progression as time went on. It was there before the 7-eleven, the St. Andrew's baked goods fiasco and was rehabilitated about a month right after Ricky ate out Clarisse out on my fucking roof.... So yeah it holds a lot of history I guess... our history. Ricky was the type of person who you would love to hate with a passion; Don't get me wrong he was good company, good laughs, good times on Saturday nights, but he honestly had no sense of respect at times. He was attractive enough to be considered a somewhat tolerable asshole, so when you got down to the gist of it, he was a prick, a likable prick nonetheless. Claire, from my previous mention of her, you could probably guess is my next topic of discussion, ironically she wasn't anyone's sole girlfriend, she was everyone's girlfriend. It wasn't because she was considered the typical "loose" floozy or whatever you would call her but because she didn't have a care in the world. That was pretty much her only flaw, she didn't care enough about anything, so she did everything and well actually every body, for a bit. A stranger of which me and my father would soon see her dancing on the entrance after driving up there for maintenance issues. I think it was something wrong with the filter gutter, wild moss? Or just leaves I don't really remember. Though one of the first things that i do remember about her was the song she was playing that day. Aidan looked up toward the sky. “What is she doing?” What was she doing? he asked himself... and how many times had she done this before? better question.. "How the fuck did she get up here?" Aidan said to the group. He stood next to Alexandra, Rick, Sarah and his father, Victor; All of their gazes were unified at this sudden intrusion. She was an odd spirit, dancing so calmly on top of the mismatched half refurbished planks. What is she doing up there? "Dancing...." said Aidan's father "What?" "She's dancing." Victor said, shocked "More like teasing really... "Aidan said. Victor laughed "YASSSSS"  Truman screamed. "SLAY! QUEEN" Sarah chimed in. "She's kind of hot" ... Rick uttered I thought she looked interesting, not in Ricky's sense but she was pretty I guess—though Ricky would've fucked a brick to be honest. "That's debatable..." Aidan remarked as he eyed her hips and peeked a look at her ass. Aidan's Father, Victor stood still and in a daze almost... "On a fucking Monday ..." he said to himself.... Hmph... Aidan looked over at Alexandra. "What do you make of all this?" She looked through her glasses.. "I'm a little more concerned about the integrity of the roof.." Alexandra said   "SHIT" Victor yelled as he quickly burst into a run to the pool shed. "DEBORAH! He yelled again. "WHERES THE LADDER" "Oh Come-On," Aidan looked back up at the girl. "She's not even in any fucking danger..,." "Watch your mouth, " scolded Victor as he hustled away. Aidan looked back to the girl and sighed in remorse. "She got up there for Christ's sake, I don't think she's going to fall." This girl baffled him. "The amount of effort"... he thought in his head. "I kind of admire her for it to be honest" he muttered "For what?" Sarah said "Her spunk," Aidan said, still looking in awe. Truman smiled. "She is definitely high off of something." Sarah said "Hmph.." Rick grunted in amusement. "And it definitively aint weed"..... he said "Nope" ... "Ecstasy?" Truman suggested . "A rave drug without the rave." "Hmph" Rick muttered . " She's been up there for like an hour, that's a fucking rave." Sarah said. The whole gang looked intensely at each of sway of her hips, her feet balancing and readjusting fluidly and in a motion they had never really seen or even understood if they had even. " She actually got up there," Aidan said as he looked on... She was moving with aimless passion of all sorts, everyone kind of stayed still for another moment and just was there for the sight of her. The skylight glistened around the roof through some of the fresh palms behind the entrance. "That's something in its self." he said astonished. "You don't even know if she's sober." Alexandra said "Well could you have gotten up there if you were drunk?" Aidan remarked "Good point" Aidan looked up at her intensely, perplexed and curious thoughts about, " .........Fuck It " Aidan reached for the nearest branch jutting out of the side of the old sycamore tree beside the main entrance. "What are you doing?" said Rick "I've been inspired, Rick." Aidan said to him as he started to ascend This was unlike him. Sarah thought. "By what Mr. Mcdaniel?" Sarah said in spite. "Her" he responded ,yelling as he grunted with the fling of his wrist to the next branch. "Oh, well that's fucking cute. "Sarah said to herself. "You know ... some could say she's his Rapunzel in this instance." Truman said as she chuckled. I had never truly understood why the first couple of scratches you get from climbing hurt so much, Aidan thought, after the third or fourth scratch you just slowly stop caring all together, or maybe you just lose a sense of pain, after all your already half way up, you kind of feel like you owe it to yourself really, and that's why you fight through it. Its an odd sense of adrenaline. "Ladies and gentleman"  Aidan Grylls in the premier of NIGGAS VS WILD !" Truman yelled as he sarcastically clapped. "Truman!" Aidan yelled below. "What?" Truman replied "When's the last time you sucked a dick?" Aidan said as he smirked while grabbing another branch. "Tuesday! I thought you would have remembered me and the moment we shared ! " Truman yelled back from below. Aidan laughed as he reached for another branch now about halfway up the old sycamore, the sound of the girl's boom box was more of a motivation for him to reach forward again and again. "Don't be an idiot!" yelled Rick. It's a little too late for that. Aidan thought to himself. Alexandra sighed to herself. "Determination is a such a puissant resource for the blissfully courageous," She said to herself, distressingly as she watched. "You mean blissfully ignorant" Rick interrupted "Do you even know what puissant means?" Alexandra waited for a senseless response. Rick thought for a moment, paused, "Means precise right ? ......" he asked. Aidan's grunting was echoing in the distance as Rick took a moment to look at Alexandra, this short haired little Spanish girl with a Hiroshima sun tattoo on her back peaking out from beneath her bra strap .He saw this intelligent girl spectacularly in tune with everything and yet still at a distance from any standard definition of human emotion, she glared back at him, looking at him for longer than he looked at her, through him almost, without a care in the world through her faded & scratched maroon glasses. He bit his lip, thinking about any possible miserable definition for puissant, and looked back at Aidan. Alexandra smirked. “It was a latin word, and even though her pronunciation of it was actually wrong, she would have never told him this.” She opened her phone and checked her messages, reading some text, then paused for a moment to think again. Aidan had reached a very decent height and a small realization hit her, she sighed and then quickly raised her head up high, closed her eyes and yelled. "IT RAINED LAST NIGHT YOU FUCK WATCH WHAT YOU REACH FOR " Aidan braced for it just as the words reached his ears, "Shit". his foot had slipped off one of the moistened branches Everyone watching flinched at the sight of the blunder, all except Alexandra. Aidan was now hanging from a branch by one hand precariously as he glanced back down to the sneering ground below.... He could see Alexandra smiling as she waved up at him with a smug look of self-appropriation. "GET THAT FUCKING SMILE OFF YOUR FACE, YOU'RE FUCKING ME UP! " He yelled. Her intelligence was more like a constant truth really, annoyingly so. She was always so imp-endingly right and why it would always be right before he would try to fly so close to the sun he would never know. It would always feel so sidesplittingly ironic how much she was right, He had come to love and hate that about her and he would always remember that about her, Aidan thought to himself as he held the base of the tree trunk before shimmying onto one of the branches. He jumped from the biggest branch to the ledge of the entrance,  barely making it. His hands grasped the top of the gutter, hanging dangerously high from the top of the entrance roof as he slowly tried to raise his legs from beneath the gutter. The music from the speakers vibrated through the tiles of the roof. One elbow after another he pulled himself up. His face was red and plump with effort as he gained a footing on the roofs red tiles; he bent over as regained his breath. "I'll be damned" Rick said impressed Aidan rose from his quick and tired state to stand up on the roof. He let his arms drop as he felt the falls dry breeze beneath them as he regained a better sense of where he was, he raised his head to the clear maroon sky and let go of the fear of falling for a second to catch his breath. The palm leaves looked quaint dancing in the sunlight from the top of the entrance. In fact the entire facility looked amazing, Aidan could see the path to the hayfield in between the pool shed's back gate, his father running back from the tool shed, Alexandra's mother Vivian watching from outside of the Shake shack, and even the pool, looked invariably grandiose from up there and he probably would've tried jumping in it if it were closer to the entrance. Everything went slow for a moment; He couldn't hear anything, the wind, the oceans far distant echo , Sarah cursing at Truman for making jokes about his apparent demise, Victor yelling at him to get down from the roof, everything was silent. All he could hear was Claire's music. He loved her all together in that moment in time despite the absurdity of the moment, he would never forget exactly how in the flying fuck he got up there on that windy day in March in the first place. "So this is why people climb mountains .... and all other types of extravagance and shit," he thought as he looked at the scenery.  It's serene...." Aidan started to bob his head to the beat as he looked around his view, he was star-struck by the beauty of the moment, in fact, this was the first thing he had climbed in his life... and to think he didn't even climb shit since his freshman year.... "Holy Fuck" Aidan said mind-blown at this sudden surrealism. Claire turned around at him and looked at Aidan disturbed, the song had ended. "What? "She said Aidan had completely forgot about Claire in that moment and quickly turned around ... they both looked back at each other. "What did you say?" Claire said confusedly. Aidan was at a loss of words.... This was the first time he had heard her talk, then it hit him. "Wait, why are you looking at me, like I'm the wild one? he said " You're the one on our roof"  he gestured at her "like seriously?" he said. He looked back down at the gang below, then looked back at Claire. The entire gang looked back up at him blankly. "How do you think its going?" Truman questioned. "I don't know, this isn't like him, at all, well at least not to this degree" Sarah said to herself. "DON'T FUCK UP YOUR FIRST IMPRESSION WITH RAPUNZEL." Rick yelled. "Oh fuck you Rick" Aidan whispered as he eyed him below. Her face was blank as she stared at him. Why am I even up here? he thought to himself, surprised. Claire, still looking at Aidan, laughed and smiled. The next song started to play, breaking the silence and just like that she was dancing again. Aidan turned around to look at this weird, clearly insane woman sensually moving without a care in the world one more time. He had thought it was love at first, but it clearly wasn't that type of affection, it was much less serious than that, it was more like sheer amazement, an amazement he couldn't even pinpoint, a sense of unpredictability" he thought. He sobered up and looked back at Claire, crazy fucking Claire. What is she on ...  he thought to himself ... Aidan snapped back to his senses.. he cleared his throat "Ok?....so uhm you're going to have get dow---." the tile beneath his foot broke before Aidan could finish his sentence, and of course he fell into the pack of panda lilies in front of the entrance.

[infinitypool]

Chapter 3 - Ohána  Are you not full? Aidan asked sarcastically, still in awe of the meal in front of him. The lasts of some bananas and strawberries were spread along a chocolate nutella spread, a crepe that had beside it a pool of ham and some spilled maple syrup that was all beginning to fall off of the side of Rick's plate, on a smaller saucer next in line housed the remains of two sunny side up eggs and on another plate next to that was the leftover morsels of a croissant ham sandwich. "Probably not until I get my shake," he said scratching his mustache of any more possibly entrapped food. As such of a beast Rick himself was, Aidan thought to himself. He was more surprised that he had successfully avoided dropping any of the remnants of this huge smorgasbord of food on any part of his still pristine white suit. Rick's tie fell from atop his shoulders as he lifted the remaining croissant sandwich into his mouth, his eyes now looking at Aidan. "and to think he didn't even care how close he was to a suddenly abrupt mad-dash to the dry cleaners". Aidan thought ironically to himself. I guess that's how Rick and him differed. He was spectacularly lucky in the most infuriating way possible, to be more specific the type of infuriatingly luck that makes you do incredibly stupid things just in order to see if you could get as close as that person would. Aidan looked down at his now worn cast. Rick wiped his mouth clean and cleared his throat. "Are you done daydreaming Cinderella? "Nope," Aidan said as he smiled and looked around Fenton's café diner. Rick coughed. "You know" He said as he reached for the last morsel of a crepe. "I know this place gets a lot of slack on the island for just being another one of those invading food chains but you have to admit, they make some pretty damn good food. "It was incredibly misleading," Aidan thought to himself, sensibly the place felt like a Denny's but the food in comparison to the decor felt like a delicious foreign oddity. Is a crepe a French dish.? "Hell should I know." Aidan grimaced and sternly said"You fucking went there" "Never ate any crepes" "Well you got on the wrong flight then." "Yeah the airline fucked up again and sent me to Hawaii." Aidan laughed. Rick & Aidan walked out of the pancake house, while Rick drummaged through his to-go container as he followed Aidan across the street. Aidan looked at the grass along the parking lot. Where is it? he thought to himself as they walked. Rick munched on. "So, is it just me ? or is Sarah's mother getting worse by the day? " Aidan flinched as he stared at rick shamefully. "What?" he defended. "Its not natural to take death with ease" Aidan said. He looked across the parking lot to a sparkling brown van. "Its been 6 years though, you would think that she would eventually get better & stop acting like everything is still the same." He said as he fiddled with the last of the leftovers as they walked to the  back of the van. "You know they say playing with your food every 5 seconds can be symptoms for growth problems" "Mumfherfagala fy-uck you" Rick said through the food as Aidan knocked on the back of the van. They waited a moment for signs of intelligent life until the van door clicked, slid halfway open stopping short with a sudden clang. "Shit" Peni said from inside the van. "Come on through the back" he said "He still has to get it fixed?"Rick said  . "Yuhp," Aidan said as they walked to the back. The side door unlocked and Peni waved them in. The van inside was packed almost to the brim with beanie babies and plush toys and smelled of hookah and lavender.They both situated themselves in the back seats among the mini plush toys. "You getting ready to set up shop in Makoa Valley?" "Yuhp" he said. "They used to call it the land of dreams back when i was in school, now its just the land of dreams and hotel services" Rick closed the door behind them as Peni put the keys in the ignition. "You know , you really should invest in some seat-belts back here Peni."Aidan said. Peni sighed and looked into the rear view mirror "Doesn't one of you own a car?" "Its in for repairs"Rick said. Peni frowned. "Well then I don't want to keep hearing about not having seat belts ok, this ride's on the house" They both looked at each other and nodded. I"'m also not planning on keeping this van for very long, rather not put more money into it anyway", he mumbled to himself ,this is just my day hustle." Peni said with a sanguine smile into the mirror. "Hows Kalena? Rick asked as he looked out the window into the beginning of the valley's hills. "Good,still pregnant" Aidan paused ."Shouldn't you be with her now?" " The baby's not due for a couple of months and im going to need every penny I can get just to get her going." Peni said as he made the turn into the valley road intersection. "Wait why did you guys  call me if you don't even have a car to get back? ."Alexandra is going to pick us up from the hotel for the festival after she finished her tours ." Aidan said. "God bless that little woman" Peni said to him-self. "Is she still working for Aola ?" he asked "Yeah, but i can tell its beginning to annoy her." "Why?" I thought she was getting paid well. "She is but she keeps getting hit on by every artist that she shows even an ounce of hospitality to." "Oh" he said surpised at how fast things had changed. Well ..She knows how to hold her own. "I wouldn't bet on it" Aidan refuted. "Really?" Peni's eyes opened wide. "Its been a while since she's been in a serious relationship, she doesn't mention it but i think she's starting to get docile." "Just like her mother" Peni added. "Boy if you had seen her mother back in the day, her eyes could burn a hole through the middle of earth." "Alex used to find it quite fun for a bit." "And she would even make a game out of it" Rick grumbled to himself as he closed his eyes. Peni smirked as he drove along. "Well, ever since I first met that little fiery girl in Mahana I can't even fathom the thought of somebody settling her fire ."  Peni said in a hopeful tone. "Yeah".. Aidan said as he got lost on the horizon. Peni smiled . " remember in pre- k she would always end up going her own way even, her mother had a hard time with her .. "Peni said as he trailed off. He stopped and looked back to see that he had indeed lost both Aidan and Rick to the beautiful morning. Peni sighed. "Well...." Peni said now loudly. " Its about 15 miles till we get to the hotels , so take a nap and enjoy the ride." They both looked outside at the vast beyond. Aidan scrunched his nose and rubbed the morning crust from his eyes. It was surprisingly calm and still for the Sunday morn, the humidity was low , enough that the light cut through the sky in neat diamond rays leaving a translucent spectacle cherisable even to the experienced gaze. A snore interrupted Aidan's daze. Rick lay asleep, in a food coma basking in the glow of the sun. Well that didn't take long, he thought.Next time i'll make him pay for the food and he probably won't eat as much, hopefully.Aidan smiled to himself. 20 minutes had passed like it had been 3 on that road , it was smooth. Aidan, now contempt looked into the rear view mirror to see Peni's eyes for a moment and then quickly looking away. Peni in a flux, laying his arm out of the window bit his nail and sighed. "What is it ?" Aidan poked. "Nothing" he said fretfully. Aidan sucked his teeth. "You can tell me anything Peni..... come-on" Peni paused and looked out onto the road in a perlexed mood. "You need to control your friend Aidan" Peni warned. "What? Aidan thought surprised. He looked over at Rick, so caught up in a deep and impenetrable nap not even a gunshot could perturb his slumber. "What?". "He' s starting to garner a reputation for himself"  Peni said fretfully . "Really? "Aidan said  "I hadn't noticed, he said as he chuckled, what does that have anything to do with you though Peni?" "Im going to be a father soon Aidan.....what if its a girl? I have to take the responsibility to protect her anyway i see fit" Aidan shrugged. "From Rick?" Peni quipped "I know it sounds quite strange and I didn't have to think about it initially but, after Kelani got pregnant i starting thinking about how I grew up and what kind of people I listened too. I remember Rick's  father slightly and what he was to me. He wasn't supposed to be such a bad person but he never had any plans only missions to do. "Missions aren't bad" "Ah but sometimes you forget the point of them, he never seemed to plan for danger or anybody else. Im afraid Rick has the same issue." "and whats that ?" Aidan said. "He's magically irresponsible and yet incredibly influential" "You can't say that" Aidan remarked. "I can if I'm trying to warn someone else" "And that would be me ?" he said "Yeah" "Rick isn't as bad as you think he is" he defended. Peni breathed out a sigh of contempt. "Do you know why his car's in the shop." "No, but ... " "Do you know if he's paying for it?" "...... no but." "You see you don't know and it won't kill you now but you really should be asking him about these things because they will eventually add up to something big." Aidan shrugged. "maybe, if your not careful" Peni added. Peni took some gum out of the side compartment and ate it while he brushed through his hair as they drove along the interpass. Aidan sat perplexed in thought. "So.. I realized that if Rick stays the same way indefinitley, he wont grow up to be any better than his own father  , and will eventually have a son for himself . Aidan stopped him " Or daughter". "Either way it isn't a cycle that i would want to have continue on to influence generations to come ." "Well what about me ,Peni?" Aidan said. "Well, even an intelligent man like yourself can still get into bad circumstances look at your arm for instance." "Oh com-eon, We both know he wasn't to blame for.... this.. " he paused. Was he?  he paused then shrugged the thought away "It wasn't that simple" he thought. "It wasnt that simple." he refuted to Peni. "Im sure it wasn't." Peni sided. "Though all of this points down a road i dont think you want to go down right now. At the very least though you  still need to try to help him when you can, push him to be a better man so it in turn can help you and my future daughter. "Or son" Aidan interrupted. "Or son...out" Peni sided. "In the future." Rick snored on. "All in all I actually wish that his father had been able to have had someone like you with him growing up, hell even i would have been lucky to have had someone like you by my side, you've always been able to balance people very well. Aidan flinched...."Your not coming on to me are you Peni ?" Peni chuckled as he looked at him through the rear view mirror "Oh you aint ready for all this fluff Big Kahuna" Aidan laughed. "Im baffled Kalena can even handle that much fluff." he quipped as they continued driving  through the inter-pass into the mid-day through Makoa Valley.

http://figment.com/books/1001093-Infinity-Pool-

[infinitypool]

Chapter 2  -  Run-off "How's the arm tiger." Aidan woke to see Sarah's coy face looking back at him from beside his hospital bed. "Pretty good..." He said. The hospital bed was very high up and the height almost matched the window frame, so Aidan could see clearly outside of the window, Oahu was jolting with tourists as usual, markets, arcades and the thickly overly paved streets, the ancient cracks in between where cement should have been were filled with sand, he forgot how much he loved the quaint little town, you could see the wind bracing the palm trees outside as a pelican was somewhat firmly nested sitting on top of the tree, was woken from its slumber by some noise and flew away. His arm lay in a cast beside him , a marked cast, which someone had basically defaced with black stripes "Rick"... Aidan noticed his handwriting, luckily the two other petite signatures stretched across the top of his bandaged arm that were scribbled over it it were much more conservative and so he decided to let it go for the moment. "Its kind of early to see pelicans don't you think,"Alex said as she looked outside of the window, the fish migrations patterns aren't usually around here this time of year so that guy’s kind of far off from Kauai. "Well, Marlin the clownfish needs to find Nemo sometime dontcha think". Truman said with a bolt of surmise. Rick laughed as Alex paused. "What was the pelicans name again? Sarah asked. "I think it was George." Truman said unsurely. “And they were also in Australia Truman, that joke is geographically challenged.”Sarah said. "Oh really, well did you know this is actually Finding Nemo 3, they lost him again " Aidan laughed. "Well I thought jokes were supposed to have detailed complex layers." Sarah chimed."its reall- "EVERYBODY HUSH" Alex interrupted. "Were going to address why were all here." She said as she pointed at Aidan. Aidan stopped mid laugh. "Now I'm not going to tell him anything cause I already know why he was being an idiot so- "Wait a minute!, I have the right to defend my-” "No" Alexandra interrupted," You dont, you know why you hurt yourself, but i don't think you realize how important of a lesson this presents" And whats that lesson? "Always wear a para...OW" Sarah hit Truman before he could finish. Everybody else in the room remained silent looking at Aidan with a sort of guilt almost, dwelling in the obvious truth. "Well I'm still alive !,"he said with a bolt of passion. "Like it’s not the worse thing that could have happened... my bones will grow back. "Slowly." Alex said as she pried open the cable box. “Huh?” Aidan said "They'll grow back SLOWLY. " She said as she plugged in a computer board to the cable box and like magic, a cartoon slowly glimmered its way onto the television screen. Aidan flinched.. “Actually if someone hadn’t had been talking to me while I was cl… Alexandra quickly bolted a stare at him and he corrected himself. ..She caught me off guard. " She would have caught anyone off guard. Sarah scoffed. "...Anyone?" she said as she gleamed at Rick jealously. "I mean, not like that, its not like I find her... that attractive when it all comes down to it. Everyone sighed. "I mean in like summation,” he said. Everyone went along ignoring Ricks pleas. “Like in totality… you know" Alexandra chuckled. "Ok..ok..... She’s average at best ." "That's BULLSHIT!" Truman yelled. “We both know damn well y-"Suddenly curtains behind them were pulled back to show a disgruntled nurse. COULD YOU GUYS PLEASE KEEP IT DOWN ?! she beckoned, "this isn't your school yard, ok." Alex scoffed. "I don't get payed enough for this" she whispered to herself as she turned around to help the other patient. Truman scoffed. "Id pay to you fairly to let me suck on them ti-" Sarah quickly covered his mouth before he could finish. The nurse turned around furiously to see Aidan covering his mouth from the bubbling laughter. Rick did the same while he coughed into his shoulder and let out a chuckle. Alexandra glared at Truman with a look of disbelief. She angrily stomped out of the room, her face completely in remorse as she whispered to herself. "Fucking delinquents" Sarah slapped the shit out of Truman. “Ow! What!" Said Truman Be respectful" Sarah said as she recoiled her palm He did deserve that. Aidan thought. “Oh so I’m the rude one now?!” Truman refuted. Yes?! Alex said surely. Truman scoffed as they both revved up again and went on a rant to side. Rick walked across the other side of the room, to the adjoining hospital patient bed to see who it was and just stopped. "Well fuck." He said, as pulled the curtain in the middle of the room abruptly to the side. The group went silent. Everyone looked over to see Claire, in an adjoining hospital bed. “Well at least you have a swell roommate,” he said jokingly. Aidan eyed the following bed. She looked tired and muffled alone in her sleep as she turned over on her side of the bed, the covers crumpled up at the end of the bed. "Jesus" Alexandra exclaimed. Claire's bare ass cheeks had clapped into view together, bare and in glorious view as she lay still again... Everyone watched without a word. Aidan blushed. Rick stood in awe. Alexandra was flustered. "So how long are you staying here again?” Truman chimed Sarah slapped him again across the face. Aidan and Victor sat down at the table in the hospitals cafeteria. Wait so she doesn't have any parents? said Victor fretfully The cafeteria was dim, the smell of processed meat and bread overwhelmed the area and the cafeteria was quite mellow, lit by the sun shining through the swaying palm trees. "They died in a plane crash from Honolulu 3 months ago,” said Officer Deacons. I would probably have been an entirely different person if my parents had died so suddenly; hell I probably wouldn't even be able to think straight, let alone live. Aidan thought to himself. Claire did, so much as everyone does, found out one day and didn't even flinch, "She was already a foster child, and was living with her parents for a couple of years in Sakanawga, her foster parents had to tell her the news because they felt like she should've known. She's been wandering around the island ever since. We've gotten a lot of reports of her trespassing, and this marks the twelfth disturbance this week" Deacon said with a pitiful tone. " Sounds like one serious trend of delinquency " Victor coined "Still doesn't beat your kerfuffle with Mr. Colhem on the beach a while ago " Aidan remarked. Victor's mouth halted open as he slowly realized his own sense of hypocrisy. Officer Deacon cleared his throat and pressed on. "I'm well aware of your record Mr.Mcdaniels, this isn't even close to how pressing of a matter that was, just tedious ".With Claire it's just the same thing over and over again. Trespassing then loitering . I haven't arrested her yet because no one really has given any serious complaints about it or even gotten hurt, ... "until now." The officer raised his finger toward Aidan. Aidan looked at officer Deacon and quickly down to his signed cast.... It wasn't that bad.... he thought to himself Why though? Victor asked. "Well like I said no ones gotten hurt, so there's been no legitimate means to bring her in, just bring her home and tell her foster parents.." "No, I mean has she been diagnosed with anything? asked Victor I don't really know, she's been an enigma when it comes to any type of possible prognosis ; I would assume it's just her way of coping. Makes no type of sense to anyone down at the station. We drug test her every time and she's completely clean. Every time. Aidan chuckled. "You ever try moving her to another foster home?" Get her new foster parents? asked Victor "We could never get her to talk about anything about herself so we just decided it was easier to bring her home and wait for the next time" said the officer. But that is an interesting thought. Victor paused and thought for a moment. Aidan's eyes wandered across the room in a perplexed array of emotions. "She seemed to gravitate toward your pool after a long time of wandering though" Officer Deacon sighed. "and the thing is she actually did seem to be at an odd sort of peace before we started to drive away, relaxed actually. "And then it came to me,the thought, What if she stayed with you guys" Victor halted for a minute, and looked at Aidan, eager and clearly excited about the thought . "She could actually live in the guest house shed..." Aidan said posing the thought to himself. Officer Jenkins looked anxiously at Victor, "Would you want to?" he said. "She doesn't talk much, we had her in custody for a couple hours; and the entire time she kind just kept looking around like a lost puppy." If she doesn't talk that much, then why did she talk to me? Aidan thought. "She really is like a lost puppy though ... Aidan thought and then stopped. Actually wait she's more like a blithering fucking firecracker, I almost broke my arm, God knows what type of bad influence she might be if she lived across the pool from me." Aidan recoiled and looked at his father." Actually..." " Alright " Victor Interrupted. "Could you have her foster parents send over the paper work?. "Of Course," Mr. Deacon grinned hopefully, "I'm sure if I explained the situation to her foster parents they would gladly be open to it if Claire insisted on it." She's too much trouble to try to hammer down for that long anyway; and we have much more pressing matters to deal with this year you know, with the Festival coming up, and it would probably keep her out of our hands for a very long time. But before I leave I'm actually legally abided as an officer to ask if you're going to want press charges against her. Aidan paused "what?" "Do you want to press charges?" said Officer Jenkins Aidan thought about it for a second, and then looked at his father ...Victor looked back at him with a look that said all too well. "Let it go". Aidan looked out the window..... It really wasn't that bad , he wasn't playing any sports in high school so it wouldn't change that much,the doctor said it wasn't a serious fracture and would probably heal in couple of months... not to mention when his mother would come back eventually she would bring all types of hell down on him if he actually had brought any of it to court, especially over something so petty. The refurbished country club was almost finished and he knew that any type of drama that could be attached to it wouldn't be worth the trouble. So do you want to go through with it? the officer repeated Aidan turned back at the officer. "We're good" Aidan said with a smile. And from then on , I had always wondered if he had planned on getting rid of Claire as he quick as he possibly could have despite even knowing Victor personally for years , it was all such a weird phenomena to begin with.

http://figment.com/books/1001093-Infinity-Pool-

[infinitypool]

Authors note. —————————————— Letting go of something, some place or even someone that you thought you had loved can be one of the hardest things in the world. Realizing that you are lost in a brand new world of your very own can be even harder. There are so many things that can overtake us, dreams of fortune, relationships; with every second bleeding out consequent thoughts and assumptions, philosophical questions that are almost extraneous to our own paths and yet still perplex us and our time with paradox, excitement; a feeling which gives us proof of purchase in a foreign and distant type of rebellion, there is boredom ; a quiet tempestuous void, without a continuance and still representing a feeling that epitomizes the phrase “in between” and lastly the definition of life, a way of a path, a bridge to an end, a solution to a constant and a shimmering light in lieu of an overly apparent darkness. ——————- Chapter 1 - Efflux We would always meet up at “Saint Frick ” in between east and west Greenwich. The reservoir was pretty much a beacon of our progression as time went on. It was there before the 7-eleven, the St. Andrew’s baked goods fiasco and was rehabilitated about a month right after Ricky ate out Clarisse out on my fucking roof…. So yeah it holds a lot of history I guess… our history. Ricky was the type of person who you would love to hate with a passion; Don’t get me wrong he was good company, good laughs, good times on Saturday nights, but he honestly had no sense of respect at times. He was attractive enough to be considered a somewhat tolerable asshole, so when you got down to the gist of it, he was a prick, a likable prick nonetheless. Claire, from my previous mention of her, you could probably guess is my next topic of discussion, ironically she wasn’t anyone’s sole girlfriend, she was everyone’s girlfriend. It wasn’t because she was considered the typical “loose” floozy or whatever you would call her but because she didn’t have a care in the world. That was pretty much her only flaw, she didn’t care enough about anything, so she did everything and well actually every body, for a bit. A stranger to which me and my father would soon see dancing on the entrance after driving up there for maintenance issues. I think it was something wrong with the filter gutter, wild moss? Or just leaves I don’t really remember. Though one of the things that i do remember about that day was her song, and the leaves. Aidan looked up toward the sky. “What is she doing?” What was she doing? he asked himself… and how many times had she done this before? better question.. “How the fuck did she get up here?” Aidan said to the group. He stood next to Alexandra, Rick, Sarah and his father, Victor; All of their gazes were unified at this sudden intrusion. She was an odd spirit, dancing so calmly on top of the mismatched half refurbished planks. What is she doing up there? “Dancing….” said Aidan’s father “What?” “She’s dancing.” Victor said, shocked “More like teasing really… "Aidan said. Victor laughed "YASSSSS”  Truman screamed. “SLAY! QUEEN” Sarah chimed in. “She’s kind of hot” … Rick uttered I thought she looked interesting, not in Ricky’s sense but she was pretty I guess—though Ricky would’ve fucked a brick to be honest. “That’s debatable…” Aidan remarked as he eyed her hips and peeked a look at her ass. Aidan’s Father, Victor stood still and in a daze almost… “On a fucking Monday …” he said to himself…. Hmph… Aidan looked over at Alexandra. “What do you make of all this?” She looked through her glasses.. “I’m a little more concerned about the integrity of the roof..” Alexandra said   “SHIT” Victor yelled as he quickly burst into a run to the pool shed. “DEBORAH! He yelled again. "WHERES THE LADDER” “Oh Come-On,” Aidan looked back up at the girl. “She’s not even in any fucking danger..,.” “Watch your mouth, ” scolded Victor as he hustled away. Aidan looked back to the girl and sighed in remorse. “She got up there for Christ’s sake, I don’t think she’s going to fall.” This girl baffled him. “The amount of effort”… he thought in his head. “I kind of admire her for it to be honest” he muttered “For what?” Sarah said “Her spunk,” Aidan said, still looking in awe. Truman smiled. “She is definitely high off of something.” Sarah said “Hmph..” Rick grunted in amusement. “And it definitively aint weed”….. he said “Nope” … “Ecstasy?” Truman suggested . “A rave drug without the rave.” “Hmph” Rick muttered . “ She’s been up there for like an hour, that’s a fucking rave.” Sarah said. The whole gang looked intensely at each of sway of her hips, her feet balancing and readjusting fluidly and in a motion they had never really seen or even understood if they had even. “ She actually got up there,” Aidan said as he looked on… She was moving with aimless passion of all sorts, everyone kind of stayed still for another moment and just was there for the sight of her. The skylight glistened around the roof through some of the fresh palms behind the entrance. “That’s something in its self.” he said astonished. “You don’t even know if she’s sober.” Alexandra said “Well could you have gotten up there if you were drunk?” Aidan remarked “Good point” Aidan looked up at her intensely, perplexed and curious thoughts about, “ ………Fuck It ” Aidan reached for the nearest branch jutting out of the side of the old sycamore tree beside the main entrance. “What are you doing?” said Rick “I’ve been inspired, Rick.” Aidan said to him as he started to ascend This was unlike him. Sarah thought. “By what Mr. Mcdaniel?” Sarah said in spite. “Her” he responded ,yelling as he grunted with the fling of his wrist to the next branch. “Oh, well that’s fucking cute. "Sarah said to herself. "You know … some could say she’s his Rapunzel in this instance.” Truman said as she chuckled. I had never truly understood why the first couple of scratches you get from climbing hurt so much, Aidan thought, after the third or fourth scratch you just slowly stop caring all together, or maybe you just lose a sense of pain, after all your already half way up, you kind of feel like you owe it to yourself really, and that’s why you fight through it. Its an odd sense of adrenaline. “Ladies and gentleman”  Aidan Grylls in the premier of NIGGAS VS WILD !“ Truman yelled as he sarcastically clapped. "Truman!” Aidan yelled below. “What?” Truman replied “When’s the last time you sucked a dick?” Aidan said as he smirked while grabbing another branch. “Tuesday! I thought you would have remembered me and the moment we shared ! ” Truman yelled back from below. Aidan laughed as he reached for another branch now about halfway up the old sycamore, the sound of the girl’s boom box was more of a motivation for him to reach forward again and again. “Don’t be an idiot!” yelled Rick. It’s a little too late for that. Aidan thought to himself. Alexandra sighed to herself. “Determination is a such a puissant resource for the blissfully courageous,” She said to herself, distressingly as she watched. “You mean blissfully ignorant” Rick interrupted “Do you even know what puissant means?” Alexandra waited for a senseless response. Rick thought for a moment, paused, “Means precise right ? ……” he asked. Aidan’s grunting was echoing in the distance as Rick took a moment to look at Alexandra, this short haired little Spanish girl with a Hiroshima sun tattoo on her back peaking out from beneath her bra strap .He saw this intelligent girl spectacularly in tune with everything and yet still at a distance from any standard definition of human emotion, she glared back at him, looking at him for longer than he looked at her, through him almost, without a care in the world through her faded & scratched maroon glasses. He bit his lip, thinking about any possible miserable definition for puissant, and looked back at Aidan. Alexandra smirked. “It was a latin word, and even though her pronunciation of it was actually wrong, she would have never told him this.” She opened her phone and checked her messages, reading some text, then paused for a moment to think again. Aidan had reached a very decent height and a small realization hit her, she sighed and then quickly raised her head up high, closed her eyes and yelled. “IT RAINED LAST NIGHT YOU FUCK WATCH WHAT YOU REACH FOR ” Aidan braced for it just as the words reached his ears, “Shit”. his foot had slipped off one of the moistened branches Everyone watching flinched at the sight of the blunder, all except Alexandra. Aidan was now hanging from a branch by one hand precariously as he glanced back down to the sneering ground below…. He could see Alexandra smiling as she waved up at him with a smug look of self-appropriation. “GET THAT FUCKING SMILE OFF YOUR FACE, YOU’RE FUCKING ME UP! ” He yelled. Her intelligence was more like a constant truth really, annoyingly so. She was always so imp-endingly right and why it would always be right before he would try to fly so close to the sun he would never know. It would always feel so sidesplittingly ironic how much she was right, He had come to love and hate that about her and he would always remember that about her, Aidan thought to himself as he held the base of the tree trunk before shimmying onto one of the branches. He jumped from the biggest branch to the ledge of the entrance,  barely making it. His hands grasped the top of the gutter, hanging dangerously high from the top of the entrance roof as he slowly tried to raise his legs from beneath the gutter. The music from the speakers vibrated through the tiles of the roof. One elbow after another he pulled himself up. His face was red and plump with effort as he gained a footing on the roofs red tiles; he bent over as regained his breath. “I’ll be damned” Rick said impressed Aidan rose from his quick and tired state to stand up on the roof. He let his arms drop as he felt the falls dry breeze beneath them as he regained a better sense of where he was, he raised his head to the clear maroon sky and let go of the fear of falling for a second to catch his breath. The palm leaves looked quaint dancing in the sunlight from the top of the entrance. In fact the entire facility looked amazing, Aidan could see the path to the hayfield in between the pool shed’s back gate, his father running back from the tool shed, Alexandra’s mother Vivian watching from outside of the Shake shack, and even the pool, looked invariably grandiose from up there and he probably would’ve tried jumping in it if it were closer to the entrance. Everything went slow for a moment; He couldn’t hear anything, the wind, the oceans far distant echo , Sarah cursing at Truman for making jokes about his apparent demise, Victor yelling at him to get down from the roof, everything was silent. All he could hear was Claire’s music. He loved her all together in that moment in time despite the absurdity of the moment, he would never forget exactly how in the flying fuck he got up there on that windy day in March in the first place. “So this is why people climb mountains …. and all other types of extravagance and shit,” he thought as he looked at the scenery.  It’s serene….“ Aidan started to bob his head to the beat as he looked around his view, he was star-struck by the beauty of the moment, in fact, this was the first thing he had climbed in his life… and to think he didn’t even climb shit since his freshman year…. "Holy Fuck” Aidan said mind-blown at this sudden surrealism. Claire turned around at him and looked at Aidan disturbed, the song had ended. “What? "She said Aidan had completely forgot about Claire in that moment and quickly turned around … they both looked back at each other. "What did you say?” Claire said confusedly. Aidan was at a loss of words…. This was the first time he had heard her talk, then it hit him. “Wait, why are you looking at me, like I’m the wild one? he said ” You’re the one on our roof"  he gestured at her “like seriously?” he said. He looked back down at the gang below, then looked back at Claire. The entire gang looked back up at him blankly. “How do you think its going?” Truman questioned. “I don’t know, this isn’t like him, at all, well at least not to this degree” Sarah said to herself. “DON’T FUCK UP YOUR FIRST IMPRESSION WITH RAPUNZEL.” Rick yelled. “Oh fuck you Rick” Aidan whispered as he eyed him below. Her face was blank as she stared at him. Why am I even up here? he thought to himself, surprised. Claire, still looking at Aidan, laughed and smiled. The next song started to play, breaking the silence and just like that she was dancing again. Aidan turned around to look at this weird, clearly insane woman sensually moving without a care in the world one more time. He had thought it was love at first, but it clearly wasn’t that type of affection, it was much less serious than that, it was more like sheer amazement, an amazement he couldn’t even pinpoint, a sense of unpredictability" he thought. He sobered up and looked back at Claire, crazy fucking Claire. What is she on …  he thought to himself … Aidan snapped back to his senses.. he cleared his throat “Ok?….so uhm you’re going to have get dow—.” the tile beneath him broke before he could finish his sentence, and of course he fell into the pack of panda lilies in front of the entrance.

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