Days Passing By

Chapter 1

Lapis and Peridot were relaxing by the barn, backed slouched against the wall with pillows between them. Periodot gazes to the sky for an unrecorded amount of time, which Lapis found unexpected of her, but she was too busy wasting time of her own. This behaviour became quite frequent for the couple after the crisis was over. For them, it was bittersweet; they found Earth life to be exhaustingly boring, but it gave them more than enough time to relax. After all, they haven't relaxed in a long time. They deserved this, they told themselves.

Finally, Peridot stood up and turned to Lapis, who opened a single eye and shifted her head just slightly enough to face Peridot. Despite ruining this peaceful moment, Peridot felt the need to suggest something.

"Hey Lapis, is this what life on Earth is supposed to be like?"

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, it's just so…"

"Boring?"

"No…" Peridot pensively replied.

"Uneventful?"

"Yes! Exactly!" Peridot exclaimed.

Peridot continued "It's just that on Homeworld, there were always these repetitive operations and procedures to carry out every single day of our existence." She paused. "It was fun."

"Then what do you suggest we do?" Lapis muttered.

"I don't know, but Steven mentioned that humans often have recreational institutions where they would socialize, consume food, and stimulate themselves with certain means of entertainment. I think we should do that!"

"Sounds a bit… unfamiliar" Lapis hesitated. "Are you sure we're ready for human activities? How will we blend in?"

"No problem, Lazuli. This barn holds a plethora of human accessories, if we cover enough of ourselves in that, we might be able to disguise ourselves as human."

Lapis and Peridot rummaged through the piles of old, dusty clothing, finding that half of them were too big for Lapis, and even more too big for Peridot. Eventually, they decided on two very mismatched outfits covering them from head to toe. The two gems walked out in pride for their effort.

"So, we have the disguises, but we still don't know where we should go." Lapis remarked.

"I'll just ask Steven through this direct communication device."

Peridot picked up a nearby flip phone from a table in the center of the barn. She recently received it as a gift from Steven, so she would be able to contact him without ripping a hole through his roof (with a certain fuel-powered propulsion system which was in retrospect quite disastrous indoors) and was advised to call only during the hours of daylight.

After a long and incredibly detailed conversation, Lapis and Peridot journeyed to their next destination, a local bus stop. The whole idea of public transportation seemed strange and unnessessary to Peridot. "Why don't humans just fly to where they need to go?" she thought. A few minutes into waiting the bus arrived and the two gems boarded anxiously. This was their first experience with human customs, and Peridot and Lapis thought it would be a gas if they practised socializing with humans.

"Hello! My name is a… human! And as many… of.. like you… I am also quite knowledgeable with this bus!" Peridot blurted to the passanger next to her, who subsequently moved to another seat.

"Hi, I'm Lapis. It's very nice to meet you." Lapis calmly stated to a man next to her.

"Oh, nice to meet you too." Said the man.

Lapis turned to Peridot with a smug expression. "I win." Bragged Lapis. Peridot was not amused.

After that thrilling bus ride Lapis and Peridot arrived at a shopping district in Ocean Town. There were an array of stores, and a mall in the center of it all. Lapis recalled what Steven said about shopping. Humans usually purchase clothing, food, and means of entertainment. Since Lapis and Peridot were not particularly fond of eating, she suggested to go find clothes first.

"Well what kind of store sells these 'clothes'?" Peridot questioned. "Wait, I got it! It's over there!" Peridot pointed at a hardware store across the street. "Clothing is what humans equip outside of their natural form, right? That means that a hardware store sells this clothing. As always, my logic is flawless." Peridot concluded her reasoning.

"I guess we could give it a shot, I can't seem to find any other clothing stores." Lapis presumed.

The hardware store caught the gems by surprise. They have never seen such a mass quantity of products available to the public. A wall of hammers and screwdrivers causht Peridot's attention.

"There must be more than a hundred hammers here! What sort of human would need that many?!" Peridot ranted.

"Hey Peridot, come check this out!" Lapis yelled from across the store. Peridot followed. "This store even sells human weapons. They're not that sharp, but I bet it could cut through a human pretty easily." Lapis swung a chainsaw in curiosity.

"That sounds great! Except now that the war's over there's no need for weapons."

"Oh yeah, guess I forgot." Lapis gave an awkward laugh.

"You know, the problem here is that Steven only gave us a hundred of these 'dollars' to spend. I don't think we could get something like this."

"You're right. There's nothing here I want either." Lapis agreed.

Lapis and Peridot exited the hardware store with hopes of finding a more suitable shop. During the way they discussed their confusion with the concept of "money" in the human world.

"I mean, what is the purpose of this money anyway? If we exchange this for a product and use that to get more money, why not just get the product?" Peridot issued.

"It doesn't make sense to me. Humans should just get rid of this money and distribute goods and services equally among all humans, that way everyone could be happy." Lapis added.

"Exactly! I wonder what Steven would think about this concept. We should tell hum about it afterwards."