It was Bess's last day in New Zealand, and the warm New Zealand air was hazing everything ultraviolet. She could almost see a purple dust halo over everything.
Or maybe it was that certain someone she was still seeing everywhere.
The world seemed to draw its color from his hair, the sky's evening shades almost a perfect likeness. The back of his head bobbed away, and something seized in her throat, and, without any warning, she found herself relapsing. And only with her mojo having been back for a few hours. Bess grimaced.
Of course, it was now or never.
Cracker? she thought suddenly.
What? She shook her head.
Been spending too much time with Patrick.
Definitely spending too much time with Patrick.
She couldn't offer him a cracker, even if she wanted to. Which she did. That strategy worked. But she didn't have any crackers.
"Sonny!" she called.
Sonny turned and grinned. "Hey!"
Bess trotted up to him, stumbling once over a rock on the ground. "HEY!" she shouted. And promptly winced. "Want a cracker?" she asked. Then fought the urge to bang her head into something. Regressing. She smiled. And didn't stop smiling.
Silence.
Smiling.
Sonny's eyebrow rose. "Eh?" He nodded. "Sure."
"Just kidding! Ha ha ha! I don't have crackers." Bess threw her hands up in the air. "Who has crackers? I don't know!" she said in sing-song.
Sonny continued to stare at her. "Right."
"But I have chocolate bars… I think," chattered Bess. "Maybe they're melted. They're melted. I don't know if they're melted." She groaned softly. "My brain is melted." She said in an undertone.
"Are you sure? It'd probably be oozing out of your nose at this point."
She looked up sharply. He'd heard what she'd said.
"Jamila told me that," Sonny said proudly. "That's what the Egyptians did for embalming."
"Wouldn't… wouldn't they have cracked the skulls first?" Bess asked meekly. "Because, in that case, um, I think that mine is intact."
"Can you be sure?" he quirked an eyebrow again.
"Can I be sure? Let's see." Bess thought. "Um… yes?"
"It wasn't a rhetorical question. If you think you're sure, then you probably are." Sonny scratched the back of his head. "Me, though. I'm not sure of anything."
"What do you mean?" she asked as they went to sit in the dining area.
"Ever try saying a word fifty times?"
Hadn't Nancy relayed this conversation already? "...No," said Bess.
"Try it. If it doesn't unravel your entire existence, then you're probably more transcendent than the rest of us." Sonny paused. "Or rooted in reality. Or language. Or something."
Bess nodded slowly. For the first time ever around Sonny Joon, she didn't feel all the atoms in her spasming in random directions. Mostly because she was confused. But not because she was only looking at his face, which had gotten her into the 'turtle' predicament. No, this time she was listening, too, and Sonny Joon was still inscrutable. That wasn't her fault. "So what are you going to be doing now?" she asked.
"Stuff," said Sonny, looking forward at the setting sun.
"Profound," offered Bess.
"Right?" he nodded at her. "What about you?"
The calmness dissipated in an instant. Sonny Joon was asking her—her—what she would be doing! "Hah, hah, hem," she cleared her throat, "um, uh, things!" It was the most cogent thing she'd said today, and she was proud of herself. And only after five seconds or so of wracking her brain for a response! Aloud, she added. But still!
"That's the spirit," Sonny said, his brow furrowing as his thoughts switched. "I wonder what this means for the animals."
"What?" Bess asked confusedly, trying to grasp the sudden leap in topic.
"Putting together the compass. Sending the beacon. The Earth's still in trouble. I don't know for how long, though. Now I know at least we'll be all right, but..." He turned to her. "Do you think we'll stop eating them?"
Bess thought. And looked at him. And thought. And looked. And figured out that looking was significantly delaying the progress, so moved her eyes to the mountains instead. Unfortunately those, too, were beautiful, more beautiful than Sonny, even, as a matter of fact. Her mind blanked as a result. "Um, what were we talking about?" she asked, peering up at him sheepishly.
"Us eating animals."
"Ah! Right! Uh… hmmm." What was the question? Did she eat animals? If that was the question, yes, yes she did. As for stopping on account of the aliens… "I don't know; that's a bit of a stretch," she said.
"Unfortunately."
Something dark passed over his face.
No. No. Baristas weren't supposed to frown. Bess nudged him. "Hey."
Sonny looked up. "Yeah?"
"Maybe we won't depend on animals so much! I mean, it's not like sheep can sew. I mean, not that they should be able to sew or anything, but we can't use them for animal labor… hard labor, or anything. I mean, do you think sheep can sew? Because, I mean, you're always hearing these things about man-made materials, and then you think, what about sheep-made materials? Or cow-made materials?"
Sonny sat up. "I guess if they had magnets in their hooves-that would pass the needle from hoof to hoof, since the needle is metal."
"Or if they worked like a sewing machine works!" Bess said excitedly. "You know, if you-" she began to gesticulate, "if you do the up-and-down thing with the machine needle without having to pass it through the fabric."
"That could work. Same with the cows and those hoofy things they have. Maybe horses can even sew!" Sonny's voice grew in volume as he promptly forgot his former woes.
"But sheep and horses don't belong in factories, sewing. They belong in pictures because they're so cute!" Bess scrunched up her hands into fists and squealed. "Animals are the best thing since cotton candy!" and here she turned to Sonny, completely sincere: "do you think aliens like cotton candy?"
"Well," Sonny began, "cotton candy is good. Humans like cotton candy. The Annunaki are more advanced than us, so they definitely know what's good. It could go either way... if we're wrong in liking cotton candy, and that's the less advanced part of us, than they don't like cotton candy. But I don't think we can be wrong about cotton candy. Cotton candy is good. I think that's the more advanced part of us. So if we like cotton candy, they definitely like cotton candy."
"So alien cotton candy is better than our cotton candy, then?"
"Undoubtedly. But," Sonny held up a finger, "but, there can't be anything better than chocolate. That is an anomaly. Chocolate is the most advanced chocolate can possible get. So I don't know what they can have for that that's possibly better than what we have… Chocolate 2.0? But it couldn't possibly be better, so it could only be different."
"But if it's good different!" Bess interjected. "But if it's good different, that is better than bad different or different different. That makes it the best kind of different, which makes it the best kind, better than better! That's how it's better than our chocolate."
Sonny nodded sagely. "I do believe you've got it."
"And melted Koko Kringles-"
"What?" he cut across.
"Melted Koko Kringles," Bess said slowly, confused.
"You eat Koko Kringles, too?" he said, slowly.
"Yeah! They're great, aren't they?" Bess paused. "They come from Nancy," she admitted quietly, almost glumly, "but I eat most of them!"
"Are those the chocolate bars you have in your tent you were talking about just now?"
"...But they're melted."
Sonny shook his head and sprang up. "Don't care. Where are they?"
"I said I might have them…" Bess trailed off. Oh, for the love of anything, she had suffered enough embarrassment for one day. They had to be in there, or else! Something meaningful that she could do for Sonny, make him remember her, would be lost. And then she'd be back to moping.
They walked down to Base Camp, Sonny grabbing Bess's arm as she tripped. They both stopped at the sight before them:
Patrick.
Digging around in Team Tui's tent.
Leena sat nonchalantly on the log in front, reading a book.
"Patrick!" Bess admonished.
Patrick jumped and turned around.
"Wha'?" he asked, face blank where it wasn't smeared with chocolate. "Nancy stole stuff from our tent. This is payback."
"Patrick." Sonny stared him down. "Those were my Koko Kringle bars."
"Leen told me to take 'em. Right Leen?" he called.
Leena, in reply, frowned, shook her head, and walked away.
Bess shook her head and placed it in her hands. "Sorry, Sonny. You'd think with a lifetime supply you wouldn't run out at the wrong moment, wouldn't you?"
Sonny froze. "What?"
"I said you'd think you wouldn't run out that the wrong—" Her muffled voice replied as she glanced at him through her fingers.
"No. No. Wait. Whoa. Back up. A lifetime. Supply. Koko. Kringle. How?"
"P. G. Krolmeister sends them." Bess sighed and shrugged before letting her arms fall back at her sides. "As a thank you present to Nancy." Upon seeing Sonny's eyes cloud over, she repeated, "but I definitely eat most of them! No one likes Koko Kringle bars more than I do!"
"A lifetime… supply…"
"Are there any left, Patrick?"
"Wha'?" He replied in the middle of a mouthful.
"Urgh!" Bess whined, balling her hands into fists. "Fine. I'm going to go check if that Auction… place sells them."
"Nope." Sonny shook his head. "They don't sell Koko Kringles anywhere in New Zealand. I checked."
Bess started to mourn before noticing something odd out of the corner of her eye.
It was Patrick.
He had stopped eating.
In fact, he was sitting pretty still.
But the short sound of ripping permeated the silence.
"Aha!" said Bess, who dived for the newly-opened chocolate bar. Before Patrick knew what had happened, she was handing it to Sonny. It occurred to her afterward that perhaps Patrick simply had not cared, especially in the way he had silently moved on to the next one. Bess had snatched that one for herself and trotted back up to Sonny at the edge of Base Camp. "Chocolate, right?" she said before unwrapping her bar and taking a giant bite.
Sonny didn't reply. He didn't need to. And when he looked over to thank her, he stopped before speaking. They looked at one another, seeing and sharing a smattering of meaning, a fraction of life's purpose in this near-infinite universe. And a fraction was more than what most people got, what with their wars, their screaming matches, their slaughters. What could be bad or neutral about a moment like this?
It was that type of drawn-out that wasn't awkward, where neither person stayed too long. Bess knew she wasn't too soon or too late in leaving when she did, and she grinned when she started to walk away. "See you later, Sonny Joon," she called over her shoulder.
"Hey, Bess?"
Bess stopped. "Yeah?" She asked, craning her head a little farther in order to see him better.
"Look after Nancy, okay? After what she did… I think she's a favorite of the Annunaki. She's integral to our advancement. Not to mention my growing Koko Kringle supply," he quipped.
"Yeah!" Bess stifled a giggle. Sonny entrusted her with Nancy! "So, Sonny?"
"What?"
"So we should aspire towards chocolate? I mean, if our chocolate is the most advanced—"
"Be as gooey as you can." Sonny said, answering her question. He waved.
From Nancy's tent, Patrick saw the grinning Bess walk past and stand at her usual spot next to the confessional booth. Leen had always noted that standing there could not possibly serve her any particular purpose. Though Patrick never said anything in response, he understood how standing in a certain spot just brought you something, a certain feeling. And that feeling was what got you to do things. And when you got to doing things, it was a real momentum, a real motivational power, and you got to doing good things for a really long time, so long that eventually you lost track of the time. It was odd and inexplicable, but it was there, and it was true.
And maybe infatuation was love plus bees, but bees have a short lifespan. As far as he could tell anyway.
AN: Please review this! Please? This is quite unrefined, but I am so sick of editing things thanks to school. That being said, I probably used too many adverbs, as well as a bunch of the same words over and over, and I apologize for that. So, a conversation between two people who are not great at conversation, resulting in covering a bunch of random topics. (Bess normally is, I suppose, but Sonny has her off her game.) Plus ending with Patrick, since his insights provide the perfect ending to a weird story like this. I'm not sure if you guys have ever engaged in a conversation that is 100% theoretical, such as the sewing sheep and the alien cotton candy, but it is very, very fun. In fact, the sewing sheep conversation is one that actually happened between my friend and me (except it was goats in my case)… I'm a vegan, my friend is not, and he misunderstood what I meant by "man-made materials." :P He thought the alternative was goat-made materials. (Aren't conversations great when they are based on fundamental misunderstandings?) That got us on the ethics of having goats sew without any way of getting their consent, which (of course) led to the possibility of goats being able to sew altogether. Bess's crush on Sonny was pretty adorable, so I wanted to give them some interaction. Not romance, mind you, but just some interaction with both of them going off on random tangents. If I ship Sonny/anyone, it would probably be Sonny/Nancy. But we'll see if I have time to write any of that. I'm writing another story in which Sonny explains why he turned up in all the places Nancy has seen him. I'll have that one finished soon, hopefully!
Oh, and also, I characterize Sonny as a vegetarian. 1) because of what he said regarding animals in this game and 2) because his hair has been through so many dye jobs. I'd go as far to say that most of my veggie friends have oddly-colored hair (come on! we all know what I'm talking about!), and, conversely, most of the people I know with weird dye jobs are vegetarian. So rectangles/squares rule does not apply here.