I spot an ice cream cart that formerly arrived not distant away and wanted a cone for myself. I gesture towards Howard, as if beckoning that I want one. He sighs but nods anyway. ‘Wait here’, he says before bolting away and disappearing inside the previous alley. In the spur of a moment, he returns with a triumphant grin spread across his face. ‘Let’s go’ He states buoyantly. I’m assuming he must’ve borrowed some cash from his buddies back in the alley.
            The moment we get there, there’s already a long queue of children ahead, yearning for their ice creams. I can’t help but notice how the majority of the kids have perfectly-shaved heads with absolutely no naughty hairs peeking out. I pout at him, upset about the waiting line, and he appears to have received my message a little twisted. He was already ginormous to the little dudes at six feet, and he definitely took advantage of his towering stature.
            He mercilessly shoves and kicks away those crystal ball heads off of the path one-by one, sending them off flying like paralyzed chicks. He’s clearing the path for me; I should be content but I’m more abashed instead. Hey, at least he didn’t utilize them as stepping stones and hop on their shiny little heads one after another. There are a bunch of pedestrians that noticed, yet kept to themselves. The ice cream man, on the other hand, does not give a living damn as long as it doesn’t trim his wage. The pool of defeated eight-year-olds are grumbling and protesting how we don’t get suspended even after cutting the line. Although, Howard did reason with those exasperated kids like a total smart-ass, clarifying that ‘We’re not cutting the line; we’re just being efficient’
            ‘Which would you like?’ The ice-cream man queries while displaying his daily jaded expression. I don’t blame him; having to serve shiny bald-headed rascals on a regular basis may actually craze one head’s up.
            ‘Anything you’d recommend’ Howard answers.
            ‘An extra-large chocolate fudge ripple!’ I eagerly reply.
            ‘We sell regular-sized portions. Only.’ The ice cream man emphasizes.
            ‘Make that 2 then!’ I insist, breaking out a dimple smile.
            I feel Howard lean towards me and poke me in the cheek with his index, ‘Aw! You’ve got dimples!’ he squeals in a girlish demeanor.
            I immediately smack his hand away from touching my face like it’s a charity. ‘Stop feeling my face you pathogen-infested mammal! I’m charging you a dollar next time!’ I rebuke. My face is not public property. He raises both arms up in the air in surrender. As soon as the ice cream man hands us our treat, we take off skipping with our ice creams on hand. I skim the zone as we walk; my eyes loitering in search of anything intriguing. I must squeeze the most advantage I can from my personal genie in the bottle while the day is not over. Hence, I must find something good that is most likely to set Howard broke. As I was thinking of it, I notice a puddle of red mud in front of me. It didn’t take long for me to spot it but it took long for me to respond to it; too long in fact.
            It happened as swift as a flash. I slipped and slithered muck all along the path. I was wearing a baggy shirt that hangs just below my thighs, and now it’s stained in filth. I feel absolutely obnoxious and I look no better either. Fortunately enough, the jeans I have on are not as wretched as my shirt is. It candidly looks as if period blood has exploded out of my bum. It’s atrocious! ‘Are you hurt?!’ Howard asks in panic as he helps me up. I angle my body in a way that my back is facing him, and he instantly gasps in shock. ‘You have a freaky thing on your bottom’ He utters in one short breath.
            ‘Excuse me?’
            He thought for a while before responding back, ‘What I meant was; do you need me to go buy you tampons?’ He offers. That’s a great proposition, except that I don’t really need any at the moment. I roll my eyes at him, making his cheeks blaze up in shades of red.
            ‘I don’t need tampons! It’s the mud you immature pervert!’ I exclaim, holding up a poker face.
            He then quickly takes off his flannel shirt he had on as a cardigan, ‘Here, change into it, otherwise you’ll catch a cold’ he offers. It’s pretty chilly at the moment and Howard doesn’t have that many layers of coverage on him either, so I suppose that act is quite endearing of him. I end up having to use the public restroom to change into the flannel, and as anticipated, the chamber pot—or what I like to call Mr. Crapper is contaminated with crap. Worse, it’s bespattered everywhere within its internal walls. I hesitated to use the restroom initially, yet Howard assured me that he uses public toilets on a frequent basis and that I’m not going to end up with giant explosive warts on my privates. I shouldn’t have trusted him, but I did.

           

            We have been walking for roughly twenty minutes so far with our destination set to wherever. We basically got fixated on name-calling and belittling each other too much that we failed to pay attention. We like to refer to our little game as the war of insults. After half an hour or so, we sight a junction not distant away from our spot and decide on a random path, in which we find ourselves walking through the boulevards of some rich neighborhood. There, I spot an ongoing carnival. There are balloons of many different colors suspended within the air and lively chants of enthusiastic adolescents and children cluttered altogether. My eyes twinkle in seeing that. It’s been years since I’d gone.
            ‘Can you buy me a ticket?’ I straightaway ask with pleading eyes, pointing my index towards the jolly carnival.
            He reaches his hand inside his jeans pocket to check whether he’s got just adequate left before saying ‘Why not? I think we’ve got just sufficient left’ he says, boosting my mood by 100%. I squeal and scamper away in ecstasy upon that.
            We experienced all the rides, games and some uncanny foodstuff; but there are only two things in particular that stuck to me. First; I can’t patently recall all the things I’d consumed or whether or not it’s actually legitimate food, yet I do remember devouring down on some bizarre treat from an older-looking man who claimed to be a university professor. I was so weary and out of my head that I’d accepted the offering, regardless of having yet a single knowledge of whether that sort of foodstuff is even legal in the state. Second, we had got strapped onto the roller coaster and needless to say, it was a horrific ride. All I can think about now was clawing Howard on the face three times during the ride. It was the only pacifying thing about the experience. I’m really proud of the masterpiece I’ve created on his face though.
            The ride was extremely spine-chilling. I was swallowing my own vomit of dread the whole time. When it finished, I thought I had split my ears because everyone was drying their tongues out screaming throughout the ride. I wouldn’t call it a roller coaster, but more preferably a Kill-an-Astrid-Coaster.
            I slump my body out of the ride seats, relieved that the terror is over. While I’m here limping, Howard’s back up on his feet in a completely erect posture, like usual. He slings an arm over my shoulder as if to help support my weight. The feel of his warmth pressing against my skin is so appeasing. His soft breaths and light murmurs sweep through my ears, and across my face like serene gusts of wind. ‘Bah abah ababah abah bah’, I thought hear him say. It wasn’t until his voice became more distinct that I realize he’d been telling me of how much I’m wobbling like a dying goat.
            I wanted to hammer his head yet my own feels paralyzed. All of a sudden, my hinge joints start to feel numb and I drop flat on the asphalt. I was openly awake but too lightheaded to thoroughly understand how my body isn’t. As soon as Howard sees my frail body on the ground, his face turns white. He panics at first but eventually picks me up. Fortunately, this time he isn’t clumsy and in fact, handles me with much precision. He’s very attentive of me this time. For each tugging movement I make, he’d respond by caressing me. How can he make me feel so temperate even in a breezy late afternoon like this?
            My entire body is beginning to collapse, and my state of mind is spiraling about with lightheaded euphoria. Mind you, this is not the positive kind of euphoria, but rather the one you get after snorting an excessive dose of crack. The severe throbbing in my head is one I’ve never endured before but the bafflement and the inability to process this situation is much more troubling. It comes to a point when I thought I'd sighted a sinister-looking nurse dangling lifelessly off of a tree. Yet, I realized that that was only a hallucination of my mine. It seems that my visions too, are outright screwed and thus unreliable. Looks like I won’t be able to return home anytime soon. I can only pray that Jerquis finds me quick, before my crappy luck turns me into a psycho.
            Out of the blue, my stomach begins to feel peculiar. It feels as if a demon is continuously twisting my gut with a pitchfork. Hence, I’m acquiring more urge to throw up overtime. This has to be the drug effect. This must’ve been caused by the uncanny substance the old sleazebag who’d claimed to be a university professor had offered me. I was such a blockhead, wasn’t I?
            Howard seems as if he’s having a hard time carrying me bridal-style, therefore he lifts me up to alter the position. He then attempts to do me the fireman-carry instead. He hoists me into the air and slams my body onto his shoulder; knocking the air out of me. I already have the impulse to vomit and he certainly worsened it. Right now, I’m constantly retching and have no power to contain it. A couple moments after, my mouth ultimately gave in. Before I know it, it’s begun to discharge vomit all over the place.
            Howard—the man in barf. His imminent reaction to my mouth spewing vomit all over his torso is to promptly release me to the ground and run off. I splat face flat on the cement—but in contrary to what you may think, this doesn’t particularly surprise me. Howard is certainly more of a blockhead than I am. It didn’t take long for a crowd to begin huddling around us. Observant pedestrians hurry over to me and try and help me get back up on my feet. Solemnly, my limbs didn’t manage. Eventually my eyelids begin to cram together, in which I have no control over. At that moment in particular I can only realize hands of random feel, shapes and sizes on my skin. I completely shut down. That’s the last thing I remember from that breezy afternoon.

I hanker for oxygen as I try to pull myself out of the murky waters. I can’t breathe. It feels as if my lungs are slowly immersing in liquid. I’ve never been able to swim, therefore my arms have become hyper in the water, flipping and flopping uncontrollably all over the place to try and defy gravity. It’s as if they have a mind of their own. On the other hand, my thighs remain worthless. They act as nothing more than monster chopsticks in process of bulging out of my hips. My hands are eventually able to reach above the surface yet my head remains submerged. Air is all that I think of while liquid brims my head.

            Before my very eyes, my world starts to crumple apart. It was then that I realize how it all had just been a harmless dream. I'd had my face suppressed inside the pillow and that was what suffocated me. Sitting up, I gasp for air one final time; taking control over my body and recovering from what I thought would be the apocalypse of my life. My intuitive response is to suck air out of the first thing my hands are able to grasp onto. Unexpectedly, I feel my lips collide against another. But I don’t stop—air simply feels very placating.
            I open my eyes to see a pair of marble blue eyes staring back at me. He remains there in astonishment with his skin so pale and mouth wide agape. Realizing that it is he, I instantly hurdle backwards in shock. Was it he that I’d kissed? Most likely so. I try to soothe myself down. Just deny the facts, Astrid; I tell myself. The positive thing is that all the numbness inside of me has vanished without a trace. Hence, now I can move liberally, alike a normal person again. My skin has retained feeling to it and I can feel again too. I rub my hands against my cold cheeks to warm it up.
            Everything about me seems in the ordinary—except for my surroundings. I’m nowhere in the carnival and I’m not back home either. Howard is present though, but nobody else aside of him. He seems to have taken notice of my perplexed expression, that he immediately pipes up to clarify things. ‘Astrid? Are you already conscious?’ He queries, as I regain my composure. He brings one hand to lie over my forehead as if to record my temperature, ‘Your fever has gone away.’ He grins comfortably. Is this it, is he going to hurt me now? Has this been his motive from the moment he broke in last night?
            ‘What the hell is going on?’ I ask him furiously, scrunching my eyebrows together. He has no shirt on, and stinks like an eccentric mixture of boy hormones and gasoline. I stare down at myself and luckily, I’m still thoroughly dressed in his red flannel and I still do smell like masculine men’s fragrance. Fortunately, he didn’t attempt anything on me without my assent.
            ‘You don’t remember, do you?’ He asks in which I shake my head.
            ‘You blacked-out in the carnival. All the bystanders assumed I was your friend and thus I was impelled to take accountability of you. I didn’t want to seem like a bastard in public therefore I did.’ He implies.
            ‘So if there was nobody around, you would’ve let me die?’ I cut him off.
            ‘Not like that. I would’ve chucked you in a ditch, just to make it more deferential in a way.’ He responds. I face palm. ‘But that’s not the point, because that never transpired. What really happened was that I rung a buddy of mine who apparently lives close by and brought you all the way to her place to let you rest. But most importantly because carrying you for more than a half hour would gelatinize my arms.’ He implies in exaggeration.
            ‘Who’s the friend?’ I tweak my eyebrows.
            ‘Aubrey’ he replies casually. Is it just superstition or does he have discreet drives behind this idiot-veil of his? He’s flown me out to these random places involving random people I've never heard of. I’m starting to become nail-bitingly dubious, but what’s left for me to do? I can only pretend to not acknowledge and abscond when the perfect chance arrives.
            ‘Why didn’t you try to wake me and ask for consent?’
            ‘I thought you were dead! Though, I figured you weren’t when you rose back up like a revenant.’ He chuckles awkwardly. I shoot him a chilly glare.
            ‘Damn girl! You just woke up and you look like you’re ready to assassinate me! Should I be petrified or should I be a man?’ He exclaims, pretending to be afraid.
            I gag at his statement. ‘So I suddenly wasn’t dead, was I?’ I ask sarcastically, raising an eyebrow.
            ‘You’re never dead to me’ He says, gazing through the windows of my soul with his piercing blue eyes.
            ‘Stop being cheesy!’ I smack his arm, peeved by the fact that I suddenly feel flattered by how endearing he acted.
            ‘Am I that cheesy that you simply can’t help but want to smooch me? Go on beauty, this bastard doesn’t mind at all’ He smirks, tilting my head up with the tip of his finger to level with his eyes. He puckers his lips and inches his face closer to mine, whereas I try to awkwardly lean back the closer he gets. It is only then that I realize how inflexible I am, that I instantly fell on my back against the downy sofa. He leans forward, his nose meeting mine. The sound of his inhales soon becomes audible and for a moment, I was enthralled by his charisma. Yet I snap back to reality and was quick to avoid his mouth. I smack my palm against his cheek to shove him away from me. He flinches at my act; holding up his palm to his cheek to pretend being wounded.
            ‘Who are you!? My boyfriend?’ I yell at him.
            ‘But you kissed me first, after you woke. So I thought perhaps-’
            ‘I didn’t kiss you! I was stealing your oxygen!’ I reason.
            Right as I said that, his face dims and for a moment I thought I’d sensed ferocity in him. ‘Forget it then, Astrid.’ He says before repelling away.
            ‘By the way, a shirt sounds appropriate unless you’re a model for Hollister!’ I holler, suggesting him to put a top on.
            ‘Whose fault was it to vomit all over the place?’ He defends with a gag.