Bis It He

“Virgil says something about sleep being death’s brother,” Sylv mused idly, taking the fork. She speared another strawberry, “If I ever stop, consider me to be finished.” The brunette chewed the fruit, considering the question. “Likely, but I don’t think my reputation begins and ends with my loyalty to an engagement with an eye glasses company.”

her eyes closed when he kissed her temple and they didn’t easily reopen. she was warm and with timer blaring the completion of their lunch she had no pressing to move. “everything is lighter and shaken off.” less stresses crammed within their cage, less bullets flying around inside of it. hana nodded. “fluttering about like i always do.” she had her days, she always had grounded days as much as she had airborne days. both came and went in alternation, sometimes by the week, sometimes the day, sometimes the hour or minute. he drew her to his eyes and she felt the brush of his nose, heard the question. “i don’t like the word bound. bound is the opposite of free. it’s a useless and unneeded word.” live and let live; do what you want and need on your own conviction without that useless word. “still sounds free, yes, in theory if what you want is to not have what you want then…” yes, naturally. and with that the timer sounded.

“i want to suffer, and i want to be happy about it.” hana jests, kissing his forehead before she flew from the blankets and went slowly to get the timer off.

“I’m glad,” Bisi hummed, combing his fingers through her gently, watching her as she spoke. He’d have loved to hear her explain all of it; so many things in his life still needed explaining, but the alarm rang, and before he knew, she’d slipped away. His hand fell to the pillows beneath, and for a moment he lay still, looking at the high ceiling in silence. There was a joke and a kiss, but he barely paid attention to either. In the cold her absence left, a heavy thought settled in, and while it would take Bisi a few weeks to figure it out, he knew then already that he’d not get around to confront it eventually. 

she nodded her head, deciding to let herself relax a little. she was sore and tired, but why not play along? why not see if he’ll respect the rules she gives. she’ll respect his, she always respected rules, even if she was finding loopholes she still did what she wanted to do, without really breaking rules. she followed them, but also never crossed them just stayed right on that line that people thought she might cross. so she listened to his rules, eyes looking to the front of them, and then behind them, to the side of them, and then looking back to jess. “okay, so rule four: we’re only allowed to go north.” she says, pulling out her phone, checking on it, before looking at jess once more a soft smile playing on her face. “rule five: we can only drive in the left lane, “ she says smiling softly at him before thinking of the next rule. “rule six: you have to lose the car behind us. it’s been following us for the last twenty minutes.” she tells him, looking out the mirror once more to see that same car that she knew oh so well.

“so you’ve never done a road trip before?” she asks him, before nodding her head as she listens closely to what he is saying. “what if its been awhile since you did something, and you forget you’ve already done it?” she asks, before she was frowning softly at his next question. “my life is an adventure in itself.” she tells him, smiling softy at him, before she was looking out the front window and then back to him. “i’ve always wanted to learn to fly.” she says shrugging her shoulders. “think it would be pretty cool to fly a plane, don’t you?”

“A’ight!” Bisi laughed. They were already headed north, so he shifted the gears, pulled over to the left lane, and then did what he was best at: speeding. There was no greater feeling than leaving your soul behind while your body rushed forward so fast, too fast. “Rule number seven: We have to stop at at least seven gas stations and buy a treat we’ve never tried before. And rule number eight, we can’t stay at a motel or hotel. It has to be a bed and breakfast, or a private location.” Eight was such an ugly number. He looked at her. “You can make up the last rule.”

her and bisi were opposites more than she thought they realized at times. it amazed her when she saw the proof of it unfolding or heard it like now unraveling in his words. it pulled her eyes closed and brought a small smile to her face, closeness and warmth and the blankets, the presence of a friend and the presence of pillows. his presence poked at times through grayer clouds but that was the thing with gray clouds wasn’t it? there was still blue behind them or a sky full of stars. her mind followed the paths his fingers chose and her eyes stayed on his, smaller hand running up to brush his hair off of his forehead before she let out a content sigh. “see and i….would have told that in the opposite way a little bit. reverse those roles from a mental and emotional perspective and see if you can see the ways it makes sense that reversed too.” she admits, her smile spreading a little more. “i love how perspective is like that.” she did, so much she loved how two people different and yet similar in the same scene could see things so differently. bisi was more active in his adventures yes, moving and moving, road trips and day trip and night trips and the world and hana less so, content where she was and happy, while it was her mind that soared on adventures instead of her body so much, her mind that pulled apart her classes or explored a relationship or thought about getting a job at seven places just to say she did had seven different folders of trade open in her mind at once, one for every day of the week. “a seed planted grows up, roots need the soil sometimes. going places physically…doesn’t always mean going places mentally or emotionally i suppose. i’m not missing or losing anything i don’t think, no regrets so that has to be a good thing.” or something like that, she realized she wasn’t putting her entirety of talent into this explanation. “i feel more like….there’s as many places to go that don’t require me to fly right now, and yet still i’m flying. it’s….hard to explain.” she mutters, meeting his eyes with a soft smile, admitting it was hard to explain. “a person can go so many places and do so many things but…at the end of the day you’re happy right? you feel whole? safe? like you’re flying or like you’re shooting up with a rubber band wrapped around you that’s going to snap you right back down? slow stretches can be a good thing.” she meant ‘you’ in the general sense, not bisi directly or herself. her lips pressed to his forehead and she hugged him close, comfortable and now possibly dreading the sound of the timer for that very reason; she would have to get up. “the world is always scared of something that it can’t contain or control.” hana points out in hindsight. “i know i need myself, but i also have myself. needing someone else isn’t a bad thing. doesn’t even have to be a need but first a want; a want is what can form the strongest of needs. it’s possible to find someone who doesn’t change the things you need and want for yourself but wants to witness those things with you, the same way you want to witness their things.” a soft smile spread on her lips and she let her eyes close. “i’m more free than people realize. it’s a large error to think i might not be.” her lips pressed to his shoulder and she lifted her head only a little bit to see that he was snuggled in the blanket good enough. “not being bound to anything you don’t want to be bound to, that’s free, right.”

Not all dreams have to stay dreams. His hand gripped the steering wheel a little tighter, and then he released one to shift gear. The car took speed again. “A proper map?” he chuckled, for now ignoring the answer that Bisi had given him. “Do they even still print them?” He shook his head, “but, no thanks. I’m good. Worst of it we get lost in some town in Maryland.” He shrugged as if it was just a minor thing. 

For a little while he said nothing else, finishing his sandwich instead and minding the road. He would slow down in those parts where it was more likely to run into police cars, and then he’d pick up speed again as soon as they were safe to go. They lost the exit for Baltimore and now the signed warned that by keep going they would leave the state. “So is that your dream?” he asked, then. “Getting Starbucks and companies like that to go green?”

Oliver didn’t react to what he’d said, but for many reasons, Bisi thought it was the most elegant way to let this conversation run out. There was nothing to say to all this, not really. It wasn’t something you said for an argument, or for an exploration of the topic. It was something you said because you knew it would settle into the other person’s mind, into their skin. It would resurface when time would come, Bisi knew that, just like he knew that Oliver was well aware enough of it too.

“They do,” he chuckled. “And it can be quite useful. You never know when you run out of net or bat or something.” It surely wasn’t a scenario Bisi was a stranger to. But it was just like Oliver said. In the worst case, they’d get lost in Maryland. Or ... whatever state Oliver was driving them to. In silence but not in indifference, Bisi watched. The chai was soon finished, so was the sandwich and cupcake, and their wrappers and the infamous paper cup were tossed to the back seats to the rest of the wrapper-and-cup cemetery there. He didn’t stop Oliver from continuing. If he was honest, he was glad Oliver was aiming for somewhere farther away than the ‘’suburbs’’ of Whitebridge, and something more unusual than DC. Actually, he was also almost relieved. It meant they’d be on the road for longer, didn’t it? His smile was soft and very private. 

his comment brought along a gentle glance and a small smile, the halter hanging on her wrist and rope in hand. “her less than me.” she would give the animal the benefit of the doubt on having more patience than hana had, of course, hana’s mostly shined solely because of her ability to turn her ears off and pretend she didn’t exist where she didn’t want to. she’d never not been called a little spoiled in her life due to that nonchalant attitude but then she hadn’t cared about that either. stubborn was perhaps a little accurate. 

eos had her eyes on the two of them, the rope in hana’s hand, she trotted their direction and she slowed when she reached her so that she could reach and slide her fingers down the velvet of her nose, under her chin to rub there. the animal didn’t nibble her at all, standing very well behaved in the company of a stranger to her. “manières.” she took a step back from the horse to give her room as she brought her front right leg up, keeping the left straight and firmly planted she rocked her weight back and bowed her head, a formal bow for bisi. “bonne fille.” a pat was given to her neck and brought eos back up straight. “we’re going to need a saddle, unless you want to ride with me over to the stables?” she didn’t want to help bisi on by himself without the saddle but with her at least he’d be much more secure. 

the smile still lingered on her lips as they continued to drive. she had no idea where they were going, and frankly she didn’t give a damn. she was too tired and too sore to ask questions that wouldn’t actually get an answer to. so instead she smiled and listened to jess while her eyes just watched the scenery go past. hearing his questions though mack shrugged her shoulders, eyes turning back to look at him. “a car, and a road defines a road trip. nothing else really matters if you don’t have the both of them.” she puts simply, not really one for overthinking too much on a topic like this. it was simple enough. you could have a road trip by yourself, because you would be in fact going on a road trip. “though going to the next street obviously doesn’t count as a road trip. more of a long distance thing.” she adds, before she was looking out the window once more. her eyes straining as she tried to take note of the scenery, but then she just decided to look ahead of them. 

a chuckle left her lips now, before she was shaking her head. “not at all. i’m just saying. i feel like if you stopped moving yourself. you wouldn’t be living. you’re like the earth in that sense. it needs to keep rotating to survive.” she says, her eyes soft on him, before she was listening to his next words, nodding her head letting him know she was in fact listening. “how do you keep up with all the things that you’ve done? or do you also repeat the things you’ve done? so you take like spontaneous trips and things?” she asks him, her eyes looking around them once more before landing on the front window. “i’ve never been able to go out exploring the world. but i believe if you’re living in it, and doing what you want, that makes you happy. then you’re exploring enough to know the beauty that the world has to offer. not many people get the luxury of just road tripping it, or going across to europe to see the beauty there. but they still manage to see the beauty in their back garden. because it’s the most beautiful they’ve ever seen and they know. they’re the lucky ones to have seen it.”

“Boo!” Bisi complained, in this blunt way of his, which didn’t mean to insult, but which was the result of a lack of filter between his brain and mouth. “Boring. C’mon! You get the unique chance to define something here! Be creative!” He was grinning, excitement in his voice as he continued: “Let’s make up all sorts of rules, and try to break none of them. I start. Rule number one, two and three: A car, a road, and being in-slash-on both for longer than five hours! Now your turn.”