Erica could hear some big, metal doors open behind the house, possibly in the backyard. She stepped outside of the room and into the kitchen, to see Sarah and Joseph enter their special transport.
Suddenly, a tall, skinny figure appearred behind her. Erica slowly turned to face it.
"What is it, Jess?" she asked with a smile and came a little closer.
"We-wewe-we're gogo-go-going to the cccity." Jessica pointed behind herself and smiled timidly, too.
"Let me grab my hoodie and I'll be with you in a minute." Erica answered and walked into her room, leaving Jessica free to go back downstairs.
She walked into the backyard very soon after, in a black hoodie, that was matching her straight hair by colour.
Their special transport was very, very weird. It looked like a train car (not a carriage, no,no), if you can imagine an electric unit 451, choo-chooing around Czech Republic and making people inside jump up and down, or a train people used to call žabotlam, feel free to skip the next paragraph.
A big, loud and dirty speaker looking like a mohawk was built into the roof of the train. Long, bright lights, very far from each other, stared at you, wide eyed. A big, black hole, probably representing a mouth, but used to connect to other cars, was placed lower than the lights and right in the middle. It was all white and blue.
The only difference, there were no windows above the lights, instead, it was a gentle gradient between blue and white. And plants and moss growing on top, obviously. And flower stickers all over the place, how could I forget...
It was a big, heavy door, that allowed Erica to enter the pretty small car, with some soft seats and a mysterious thing in the back.
Usually, only Sarah touched the thing, who knows why. It seemed like no one except her knew, what a big, metal circle with rectangle shapes on it, huge heavy batteries, that can recharge and has got a ball inside, is doing in a mutated train car. But it was their special transport.
The door closed, everyone sat in their seats, even Alice, the dog. Sarah rolled her eyes and stood back up. She stretched her hand and clutched her teeth. A wiggly, magenta needle pierced through her wrist and slid into the ball in the center of the circle.
With visible exhaustion, she crashed onto her seat and her head fell into Joseph's lap. It kind of shook him and he automatically jumped in his seat, because he didn't expect this to happen.
"Wro-wwrong one, Ssss-sa-sarah," Jessica pointed out and giggled.
"The responsibility crashed into dad's arms." Rosa joked and started giggling too.
Jessica was full on laughing now.
"That's not even a pun!" Erica exclaimed, but started laughing too.
Sarah finally lifted herself up from Joseph which made him almost sigh in relief, and laid her head down on Sean's knees instead.
"There, there..." he smiled and stroked her head a few times. After doing that, he placed two of his fingers on Sarah's shoulder and something sparked.
"Ugh, this is so exhausting. At least I've got Sean and I'm filled with energy." she lifted herself up and stretched.
"And we've got you, so we can go to the city." Sean answered and automatically pushed a few buttons to his right without even looking. The engine started working somewhere out of eyesight, behind the walls. They started flying, or riding or floating or whatever into the city.
"Only for that? That's pretty cynic, isn't it, Sean?" Joseph added.
"What's cynic?" Rosa asked, suddenly.
"It's when, uh, you-you-you-you don't rere-really ava-val-value things and do-do-don't find any-any-anything wo-wo-wowo-worth it and all." Jessica explained to her.
"Ahaa, thanks sis," she answered with a grateful nod. Her sister nodded back with a smile and fixed her round glasses.
Rosa dug her fingers into her straight hair and ruffled it a little. You could say her eyes were black, pitch black, like black holes. But they're not. They're actually a really dark brown. Most of Asian people have this and she wasn't an exception. Why did I bring up eyes all of a sudden? Well, Erica's are a chocolate brown, just like her father's.
Alice was possibly wondering why everyone was silent. He just looked around, not even to try to say anything. He didn't need to. He wasn't a young dog anymore, he didn't have much to say anymore.
Jessica's eyes are blue. She's a tall, blonde, 16 year old girl with glasses, a big scar across her neck and acne don't ruin anything at all, she's still as pretty as ever. Just so you don't have to be suprised about a character's looks later, y'know.
"Hey, can we stop talking about unimportant nonsense?" Sarah exclaimed. Sarah! How dare you attemt to break the 4th wall!
"Nonsense? We were literally silent!" Sean laughed with a hint of confusion.
"Eh, no idea." she giggled mischievously and put a hand to her mouth. Thank you, Sarah.
Aaaand, they arrived at the city. At a place, where nothing lives and nobody walks. And no one can see their vehicle. It's like a spell is casted on that place. A spell, that allows no one to enter that place except for the family.
Alice ran off to jump around his favourite field. Not very fast, just to have a little fun. Rosa was going to run after him, but Erica called him and he joyfully came back.
A lawn covered in beautiful flowers was what surrounded them. Simmilar flowers covered the vehicle, oh, let's call it a train, shall we? Simmilar flowers covered the train, along with grass of the same colour as the lawn's. It's like it stood there forever. Long before humans and humanoid creatures inhabitated it. It grew in to belong there perfectly over time.
They all stepped out to witness a very familiar path, tiny bushes of round, green and purple leaves growing very close to it. The same kind of bushes, or trees rather, grew everywhere else around them, everywhere in the city. The same kind of trees each one of these people remembered back from their childhood.
As they slowly reached the city, in Rosa and Sarah's lead, they rambled about stuff.
Buildings with huge windows appeared before them. Office buildings, restaurants, grocery stores, houses with people watching the telly, telling stories and laughing. And much more.
"There's far more office buildings than before." Erica pointed out with slight dissapointment.
"The government is doing some reforming, because certain people were replaced. Of course there are changes." Joseph explained, he was a bit dissapointed too, but used to it to some extent.
"The f-fff-fu-funny thing is-is-is... is that w-w-we do-dod-don't even know who-who-who-who the new go-go-go-gov-gover-government is." Jessica tried to laugh it off.
"It's always like that, isn't it? No matter how much time passes, every country's government are going to be clowns." Sean gazed at the sky sadly.
"Some old dudes are deciding our future and they're only considered wise, because they're old and they're dudes. Ew," Rosa made a face expression, like she just saw an old "wise" dude.
"You're so right, my goodness, you should be in the goverment!" Joseph laughed and pet her on the head.
"Do you really have to go play at that nasty jazz bar?" Sarah whined. Joseph grinned and came closer to her to hiss something at her, so his kids can't hear.
"What, would you rather see me play in that strip club again?"
Sarah started laughing and Sean tried to keep it to himself so he was dying inside.
"Oh, come on, just like the good old days!" Sarah was laughing even harder now.
"I would rather not see you there again." Sean added out of nowhere. Then he finally broke and started giggling too.
"You-you-yo-you are not be-be-bebe-being quiet at-at-at all." Jessica didn't seem to find any of this funny, she always said they were worse than her classmates, when, in fact, nothing was worse than her classmates. And she had good hearing.
Fortunately, Rosa and Erica heard nothing, as they were enjoying being in their own world right now. Picking up leaves and comparing their colours.
Joseph suddenly stopped laughing, and glared at Jessica. She grinned and started laughing along with Sarah and Sean, because of it.
But the memories were still here. He didn't start laughing again, oh, he shouldn't have started this topic at all! It was a very hard and very wild time in his life. Back then, he just met his two friends about a year ago.
There were men and women around there, of all ages. Some looked gayer, some looked like lumberjacks. The women didn't interest Joseph much, though. Any of them would hardly want to be friends with him after meeting him here. Oh, what was he doing? Joseph Lavender? In this embarrasing clothing, or worse, without it? But he needed the money and this place payed well. Well, people left him big tips, for some reason. Maybe his face was pretty? Who knows...
"So this is your new job?" Sarah asked with a sad smile. She was so young back then, almost as if someone took her out of a picture and made her live.
"Funny enough, eh?" it was not funny to Joseph at all. This place was nasty. Red lights everywhere, burning your eyes. Not a single cute coworker.
"Are you sure this is the only option?" Sean was even more worried than Sarah. He tend to do that, yeah.
"None of the interviewers would take me, because I'm gay and a ginger, and here they took me because I'm gay and a ginger. Some people find that cool, somehow."
"Okay, so, here." Sarah handed Joseph a big tip. He sighed and took it.
"I'll buy you a drink later, what about that? Don't be sad, go, do what you're here for, we're watching right from here." Sean punched him in the shoulder in a friendly way.
"It would be much better if you didn't!" Joseph giggled and started walking away.
"So we're not watching, then!" Sarah laughed and waved. That seemed like an eternity ago. All of this. And Joseph would be even happier if he could forget it and it was, like fifty hundred thousand eternities ago.
But that was such a long time ago, that time is gone. But Joseph could feel all of these eyes and hands on him still, sometimes. Only sometimes. And yet, that was very much enough to bother him for hours and hours. Torture.
"Can we stay with Sarah and Sean tonight?" Rosa asked her dad with hopeful eyes.
"You'll be home late anyway," Erica added.
"Huh, can they?" Joseph turned to the two and smiled with hopeful eyes too. Maybe, Rosa got there from him, even. That's funny.
"Sure they can, can't they, hun?" Sean kindly accepted, but turned to ask Sarah first.
"Of course, we can get instant noodles, huh?" Sarah placed her hand on his shoulder.
"Are you going to go too, Jessie?" Joseph adressed his oldest. She shook her head and grinned. Even though everyone called the place "the nasty jazz bar", she liked it a lot. It was warm, the bartender was such a nice woman and the band her dad played in was rather good. He was the sax player. Alice looked around for a bit, and as always, went to the jazz bar too.
They all said their goodbyes and parted their ways. What a gentle evening it is, ain't it?