No Where Else I'd Rather Be

"I don't believe in absolutes."

"I know. But wouldn't it be great if at least one thing was?"

Forever. Such a simple, too-big concept. You can throw the word around with ease in conversation, but feel like your head might explode if you try to wrap your thoughts around it's true meaning for a mere moment. It's hard to comprehend, no matter just how many centuries you've been alive. How much you've lived. How much you've forgotten.

But a moment, that's easy. A moment is now. Now and gone. A moment is tomorrow. A moment is yesterday. A moment is today.

It's easy to forget that...that's all forever is; just a series of moments. A string of todays on a necklace of tomorrows. But in the end, when the number of moments gets too high, they become jumbled, they fuse together, they get pulled and taut, the fall off the chain.

But then there are others, pendants that shine amongst all the bland links... moments you'll never forget.

It's the tiny moments that make forever count.

*****

"Oz! Oz! Listen to me when I'm talking to you!"

"What?! What?!" Oz ripped out his headphones, spinning to the driver, "You said I could listen to music!"

"I said you could listen to music, that doesn't mean you can stop paying attention entirely!"

"Well if you'd let me play it in the car I wouldn't have to ignore you to listen to it!"

"That's because what you call 'music' hurts my head!"

"What, quality music hurts your head?"

"Ooh, what's that?!" Alice poked her head in between them from the back seat—(she had never been quite satisfied about being forced to sit in the back, but Oz had called shotgun)—pointing to an animal in a pasture beside the road. "It looks like it would be good to eat!"

"You don't know what a cow is, stupid rabbit?!"

"That's a steak?!" She blinked. "Lemme eat it! Lemme eat it!"

"Not now, Alice!" Oz had to pull her down, keeping her from jumping out the car to attack the innocent livestock. When Oz had sufficiently talked her down from the edge, he turned back to his friend,

"What did you want to talk to me about, Gil?"

"Nevermind, it...doesn't matter now."

Oz glared at him as he put his earbuds back in, sighing, watching the greenery go by.

A simple trip to go get ice cream was proving more trouble than it was worth.

A lot of things proved more trouble than they were worth when it came to Oz and Alice nowadays. Alice had always been known to find the simplest of things strange and fascinating, but this was another level; they could barely walk two feet without one of the two stopping to admire a newspaper stand, or pointing at a parking meter and asking what that was, or picking up a candy wrapper in a sewage grate and asking what this strange object was, or even pulling at his coattails to ask about a particularly funny looking bird (that last one was Alice).

Still, even if it was annoying, he couldn't fault them too much; returning to the world after a hundred-year absence was bound to do that to you.

Gilbert had wanted to introduce them to another, particularly yummy modern thing; ice cream. But, only a few miles out from the house and he already had half a mind to turn around.

But only half.

The wind brushed through their hair, picking up the empty sleeve of Gil's jacket as they drove down the road, winding in and out of evergreens.