Into the Night

{New} Ch. 6 : Roman Candles

Calla wasn't having a good time. The wind ripped through his aunt's car window. Her long black hair whipped his face relentlessly despite his best effort to dodge it. And when they weren't slapping his cheeks, the fuzzy dice hanging from the rear-view mirror were slapping his forehead.

"Well I gotta be honest, this whole thing is bumming me out."

She had her eyes on the road, but they darted to him every now and then.

"On a scale of sudden amnesia to jerking off with a knife, how traumatized are you?"

Calla pulled a handful of hair away from his lips.

"I don't know, I'm not a psychologist."

Lily rolled her midnight blue eyes in a way that gave her nephew deja vu. They had the same colored eyes, but there was more to it.

"Stop looking at me like that."

"Like what?"

"Like I'm your mom or something."

She could have been her twin sister by how strong their resemblance was. Their nose and jaw, everything, mimicked one another to the smallest detail. They could be mirror reflections of another, if she wasn't a full foot shorter than her.

"I'm too young to be a mother, " she made clear.

Just because their appearance was identical didn't mean they acted anywhere near the same. Fashion wise they were night and day, croissant and cheesecake, an elegant bob and a deep fried drag queen's wig.

Lilith only wore shades of black. Of which she frequented three: coal, leather, and ink. And she never wore an article of clothing that revealed her arms or legs or even her neck. She kept to ankle length dresses, black scarves, and sensible heels. Always in mourning for someone no human, other than her, ever met. Not out of respect for the dead, but for what they shared. Which is something her sister could never understand.

Lily didn't want to mourn the loss of love. She postulated that love can't be quantified, it remains limitless to those who accept it. So if that was true, as she hardly believed, why should anyone cry at their lover's funeral when they could go out and find another one?

Her style reflected that.

As she drove her nephew through the middle of nowhere she wore a stripped men's dress shirt as a dress, neon yellow hoop earrings, red thigh high boots, and a violet sequin beret. She loved colors, and loved them all enough not commit to just one of them.

"Sheesh, I want to go to a gay bar, damn it. And I'm pretty sure they won't let me in if I'm by myself. They can sense a breeder from a mile away." She plucked something from her teeth with a long red nail. "Maybe if I owned a pair of jeans, that would throw them off my hetero scent..."

She shrugged before punching his shoulder.

"Will you buck up already? I can't be a fruit fly without my fruit. "

Calla sighed.

"I'm sorry, I've had like maybe three hours of sleep. I'm sure I'll get over it eventually..."

He didn't know why he tried to make her feel better.

"It's alright my faithful fruit. I'm thinking you're more of a strawberry or a mango. Anyways, as I was saying. I'm going to buy you all the stuff that got wrecked. Don't worry about that. We will get to shopping right after we deal with something more important than material belongings."

She turned to him again.

"There's more to life than just stuff. Stop being so materialistic and think of someone other than yourself. That has always been your problem. I tell people all the time that they should love their fellow man. Love is the one thing worth living for. Not art stuff-"