Hidden Valley (D. SWING)

VII. Pencil and Paper

Don stands in the mirror, brushing the faded sides of his head, staring back at himself to assure everything is perfectly in tact. He could've swore that he heard Dalvin laughing on the phone last night, but that is zero of his business. He's focused. Something about the aura in the air gives him a sense of déjà vu. Ananda referring to D as Lil' Don is a nostalgic trigger. It's a name he hasn't heard in a long time. It'll easily take him back to his childhood.

Twelve-year-old Donald sits on the top stairs of the church hallway, that lead to the practice room, staring down at the young lady jumping off of each stair due to boredom. Two female voices are heard next to her, one being his mother's. The girl is pretty and what he'd practically describe his first girlfriend to look like. A small series giggles in relations to her hops echo before she stumbles and nearly falls. "See, now sit ya' tail down before you break your neck!" There's a moment of silence before the voice continues engaging in a conversation with Donald's mother.

Donald moves away from watching the girl and takes a breath. "Hey, Lil' Don!" Javon skips up the stairs. "You want to go play in the back? My sister's cruisin' for a bruisin' and I don't want to get caught in her mess." He laughs.

"That's your sister," questions Donald.

"Yeah, man!" Javon laughs pulling up the sleeves of his dress shirt. His mother carries his blazer with her downstairs to keep it from getting dirty. "I told you I had a sister when we were like.... six!"

Donald nods his head as he recalls the truth of Javon's words. "You're right... you did." Shaking the crush before it can begin, Donald stops a problem before it can start.

It'd been that long since anybody has called Don anything starting with a Lil' in the front of it. He never had the time to genuinely sit down and think over how much he'd outgrown the name over the years. It never crossed his mind, honestly. Well, his reminiscing is short lived all thanks to his clock reading that it is time for him to head off to school.

Running down the stairs, picking up a pile of mail from the table that he knows belongs to him, Don shuts the door behind him with his keys in his hand. Don jumps in his car, he throws his swim bag into the backseat and bookbag into the seat beside him. A single slip of his lengthy fingers brings the stereo sound he is looking for. "All the old paintings on the tombs, they do the sand dance, don't you know? If they move too quick–" Don mumbles the backing vocals lines, Oh whey oh! "They're falling down like a domino!" His tires smoothly turn with his steering wheel as he rolls around the corner.

The sunrise sits on the edge of the mountain that has given his neighborhood the chance to become a valley that is hidden. Don takes a moment to flip through the envelopes in his hand. FAMU, LSU, Howard, and Stanford. He nods his head as he puts them in the glove box, he'll look these over later. "Walk like an Egyptian..." Don mumbles to himself as he pulls his keys from ignition. He steps out if the car with his bookbag and goes to reach for his swim bag. "Walk like an Egyptian..."

While Don's going for an early swim, Cynthia's alarm clock is barely going off. She jumps up with the phone next to her head. Hanging up the phone, Cynthia slides out of the bed with pounding curiosity of whether or not Dalvin's plan was successful. She quickly runs to the bathroom to warm up her flat irons so that they'll be the perfect temperature once her shower is finished.

Her dreams, they're getting more and more vivid. She can still feel the crook in the center of her back from the way she bent backwards. A cloud of guilt hovers her all throughout her shower, her brushing her teeth, and her flattening her hair. After learning Javon left an hour early to start weight-training, Cynthia eats breakfast and kisses Big Mama as a sign of gratitude before jogging down the stairs to come face to face with Dalvin.