Pretty Follies

I don’t think there was ever a time in life when I thought I would miss the squeaky, whiney, tumultuous, chipper noise that came out of Lorraine’s throat when she talked. Her voice, the one that I loathed, was something I actually would have paid to hear right now. We had walked and bickered about everything our minds wandered too, but now that we had been walking for nine hours, surprisingly, we ran out of things to fight about. Every argument just seemed insignificant to our situation at hand.

Her twiggy legs and my stringy hair weren’t important enough. Now we were both thinking about important things; how long would we go without food or water. The sun would start to set soon, where would we sleep? Would we sleep? Are there plants or creatures that we should worry about?

I think I had lost count of how many times I had tripped and crash landed into the hard forest ground. I climbed over rotten logs, hobbled down steep hills and a couple times stopped myself from falling off of a big drop off. Hundred year old trees blocked the sun, so as the sun set we found it hard to see straight in the dim light. Lorraine and I found each other constantly bumping into one another or falling on top of each other.

“Can you please pick up your feet, horse radish?” I pushed myself up off the ground, groaning at the pain in my forearms. “You’re slowing me down.”

“Finally! You know, I was starting to forget how lovely your raspy voice sounded.” Her red, choked hair whipped around and her tired eyes met mine with a look of annoyance. “And where exactly do we need to be in such a rush? I didn’t even know we had a destination.”

She didn’t answer me. She carried on and I was stuck staring at her musty black T-shirt that had now acquired a couple of rips from straggler tree branches.

“Unless you know of a magical brook up ahead?” My voice bit at her. “Because if you do, you should have told me about it earlier. It really would have kept this train moving.”

“Alex, can you just shut up? Please? You’re really pissing me off. I’m not in the mood to fight with you.”

“Are we ever in the mood to fight?”

“No. So I guess shut up then, yeah?”

We both slowed down as we came across a road block. I wouldn’t really call it a road block though because there was no road of path and there hadn’t been for hours. A stack of tiny rocks and giant boulders blocked our path like the Mediocre Wall of China.

Lorraine went first, stepping carefully on the floor of rocks as to not twist an ankle or fall. I stepped on them like stepping stones, being a little less wary therefore moving quicker up the slope of rocks.

“I’d rather not,” I called back to her. “You see, watching you get angry makes me get happy.”

She stepped cautiously to the next rock, one by one, making sure she had her balance before moving up a little more. “Wow, you sick bastard.”

“Not like that Lorraine!”

I hopped haphazardly up the wall, feeling the burn in my thighs from the steepness and starting to lose my breath. I turned around to see Lorraine lose her balance for a second, but her arms were out like she was walking on a balance bean and she regained her stability and then continued to climb, trying to catch up to me. She shot back with heaving breaths, “Well specify next time.” I rolled my eyes at her. “God, now I have the picture of you jacking off. Fuck.”

I laughed. “You’re doing that to yourself. Don’t worry though, I’m used to girls doing that.”

“You’re so full of yourself!” Her face distorted into anger. “I was making a joke. Honestly, Alex.”

“Okay, one, I was making a joke too. Two, you are being-”

“Shit!”

“-a bitch.” I turned again and saw Lorraine on top of a giant rock with blood dripping down her leg.

“You’re being a bitch,” she said back, trying to sound mean through the pain by clenching her teeth. Tucking a dirty piece of hair behind her ear, she brought her hand down to wipe the blood.

Instead of climbing over the last rock, I stopped and looked at her. “Way to smear that blood.” That earned a sneer.

The salty, reddish orange blood blotched her hand even after wiping it off on a rock. “Can you get me a leaf of something?”

“…For your collection…?”

“No, dickhole. To clean my leg.” I laughed, knowing what she meant all along. “Nevermind,” she grumbled. Using her healed leg, she stiffly stood up, making a scene by doing it the most difficult way possible. “I’ll do it myself.”

I stood in the same spot, watching her hobble along the rocks to find something. Finally a piece of bark and a leaf got the job done and we started clamber up the rock wall again. Blood still tricked down her leg, so she kept her bloody leaf in one hand to wipe her knee if she needed. I found it absolutely disgusting and couldn’t stand looking at it.

She was never a girl about things like this I made a face at how rogue she was when I watched her smudge a streak of crusty and fresh blood up her leg. “You’re such a lady, you know that?” I said with ridicule, crawling over the top of giant mound. After bracing myself on the other side of the wall, I turned around and took her not-so-dirty hand, to help her up and over the big boulder.

As soon as she had two feet planted on the ground, she yanked her arm away. “And you’re being such a gentleman.”

A little scoff spilled out my lips and I tucked my hands in my pocket as we walked. We stuck to a normal pace, not ever really knowing where we were going. Our route was decided by a cool looking tree or whatever looked the least difficult. Real proficient we were.

“So, um,” Lorraine broke the silence. I was grateful because I was bored out of my mind. It turns out walking for hours without anything to look at but trees and dirt, in fact, is not fun. “What are we going to do?”

By the “so um” I was expected a smart ass remark, but she was actually ready to be civil with me. Me, being me, I didn’t always take the hint and play off her emotions. “Probably keep walking.”

“Yeah, I know that, Alex. God, can you just be serious for one second?” I muttered “no” under my breath and she chose to ignore that. “I mean, we can’t keep putting off the realization that the sun is setting. W-What’s going to happen?”

I stepped over a hidden bump. Three hours ago I wouldn’t have been able to anticipate the hazard, but I had grown more than accustom to identifying what would cause me to trip. I didn’t really know how to answer Loraine’s question. I wasn’t sure myself and I hadn’t really though about it. I thought we would have been relaxing in front of the campfire by this time, not wondering around in an endless forest. I mean, literally, it had no end.

“I’m not sure…I guess just walk and rest when we need?” She nodded her head. “I mean, we might as well keep walking and hope that we find a way out of the shit. Sitting won’t get us anywhere, why not just keep going.”

Lorraine stumbled and I felt her body press against my back and her hands grabbed my belt, trying to catch her body from smacking into the hard ground.

I was jerked back from the force of her body, but kept my balance for the both of us. “Damn, Laney! Usually I’d take a girl out on a date before we take each other’s pants off.”

“I wasn’t-”

“But if you insist…” I turned around and pretended to approach her.

“Don’t you fucking dare!!” I got a punch to the chest and swift jab to the gut. “I swear to God, Alex, if you ever-”

“Calm your tits,” I said rolling my eyes and turning around to keep trekking. “Not like you have any…”

“I have boobs!” she said offended.

“Well now that we’re on the subject…”

“What the fuck, Alex. Can you just…can you just…”

“C-Can y-y-you…c-c-c-can-”

“Stop!!!! God!! Can we just back to being quiet?!?!!” She stomped forward, taking the lead and not slowing. She made sure all the branches flung back to smack my body.

I just laughed, proud that I had gotten under her skin again. “Whatever your little heart desires, Laney.”

“It’s Lorraine,” she grumbled.