Paradise Lost

When I was a child, I partook in a pastime I'm sure many young children share; cloud gazing. I was an advent cloud watcher; I could find a castle being attacked by a fire-breathing dragon in any skyline. My perfect day had to have a bright blue sky lined with just enough cloud cover to let my youthful imagination soar. One could almost say I was addicted to watching the clouds, perhaps I secretly wished they were watching me in return, yet as I grew in age, my maturing mind stopped seeing the wonder in the thin wisps of white that danced against their blue canvas. I began to appreciate different skies, purer skies, cloudless skies.

In my childhood, my perfect day was painted with clouds. Now, my perfect day was a lot like today.

I assumed that the rest of the Lake House congregation of restless teenagers was still sprawled out on old wooden floors or worn leather couches, either unconscious or wishing they were unconscious as they nursed well developed hangovers. There's always a toll on the road one travels along in the search for that perfect thrill, even in the summer. C'est la vie. I've always assumed that at the end of the day, or perhaps the beginning of it, there has to be some small reward for disliking alcohol. This must be it; these moments where I can lay on my back and gaze at my perfect sky with no interruptions. These moments where Summer Gemma and Ordinary Gemma could live in harmony with one another.

I exhaled all the air in my lungs with measured restraint at that thought, watching the way the sunlight glinted on the bubbles that drifted above my head with the action. I was mesmerized by the way such fragile soap bubbles could capture beams of light and shatter them, refracting the broken pieces in a myriad of different colors. It was science, yet it was magical and it had me captivated.

That was something Summer Gemma would never admit to; the way I could still find wonder in the most childish of things. I was a young woman for Christ's sake! I was growing, I was maturing, I was learning and thriving in this world; what could I possibly find the least bit bemusing with a little bit of soapy water? It was immature, and the others would never understand. My perfect sky, it was even more perfect when iridescent bubbles danced and twirled against its cerulean backdrop.

I still have a perfectly formed memory of the first day I truly met him; that perfect day. His voice twirled and danced and wound its way through the air along with the bubbles I was blowing. I never expected it; he appeared so suddenly and disappeared in exactly the same manner.

I had just taken a slow, deep breath when his voice echoed in the clearing. "You know, when I was a kid, I used to make it a competition."

I choked on the air I had gathered in my lungs and frantically turned my head in every awkward direction I could manage to find the body that had produced the voice; my bubbles were momentarily forgotten.

When my eyes finally landed on him I had to squint to make out his features against the blaring summer sun. His hair was tousled and a light chestnut brown. His nose was pert and his eyebrows thick. His eyes reflected my perfect sky and were fixed on the bubbles that rose above my head. He was familiar in that vague sort of way that gnaws irritatingly on the back of your memory; I was sure I had seen him around before. Yet he had never been anyone special; he hung with a different crowd here at the Lake House.

He never glanced at me, his attention seemingly solely on the sky above my head, but I was still wracked with insecurity; Summer Gemma did not blow bubbles!

When he seemed to realize that I wasn't about to respond in any way, in all honesty I couldn't fully recall what he had said to disturb my silence, he continued on with his explanation.

"It wasn't really a competition with anyone in particular, or even anyone else at all. Maybe it seems pointless to have a competition with yourself, but that's really all it was. I always tried to blow the biggest bubble I could, I was so serious about it. I would get so frustrated when it would pop before I was finished." His voice was light and seemed distant, almost full of infinite wisdom in its reminiscent tones. I remember blowing another set of bubbles, intentionally making them as small as possible, and watching him shake his head out of the corner of my eye. "It's funny, you know?" he continued on in that same light tone, "I put so much energy, so much concentration into making this one perfect bubble and it was gone seconds later, popped by the wind or the grass on the ground or some low hanging tree branch. When I was kid, that one bubble was my world for that moment, the only thing that existed to me, and then suddenly, it didn't. Kind of puts life in perspective."

I was silent, I had been from the moment I awoke bleary eyed and starving to the moment this boy interrupted my perfect day. I didn't know what to say, what to think. Who even said things like that anyway?

"Why are you watching me blow bubbles?" Was the only thing I could think to respond with, my voice catching slightly in my throat. It seemed like a perfectly logical question at the time.

I feigned disinterest as he thought over his reply, yet I watched him closely, even as my eyes focused on the bubbles before me. I saw the noncommittal rise and fall of his shoulders and the way the very corner of his lip lifted in a way that made him appear to be caught between smiling and smirking. And I caught the way his eyes shifted just enough to cast me a sideways glance.

He offered no apology for his actions and rose to his feet almost silently, his parting words dancing on the air with my bubbles, "There were no clouds to watch."

I glanced away for a few moments and when I turned back to where he had been previously seated, he was gone. I hadn't even received his name.