A New Heaven and a New Earth

[ravenDivinity]

This one-on-one thread belongs to @ravenDivinity and @Sightles.

The universe is the biggest love story ever told. It came into being with crashing passion, and it danced still like that for aeons until it conceived life. The stuff of dreams was born, and even the gods and guardians were humbled. The universe is love because the universe is all, and all are the universe.

A New Heaven and a New Earth

Messenger bag slung over his shoulder, Vincent locked the door to the house as he departed. He hurried himself down the driveway and onto the main road, and he walked due north to the creek. The summer sun kissed his skin, a soft mix between the tan and the pale; his keen, warm, secretive eyes yielded to the star with a kind morning greeting, and so the sun blessed him on his way as he went. Streams and strips of sunlight played between the branches of solid oak trees hanging overhead. The leaves stirred with gentle wind while Vincent Clark, young and 17, approached the typical meeting spot where his dear friend would join him to spend their free time together and where the tall oaks sheltered and beckoned them to arrive. There the brunet fell to the lush, dewy grass, a small smile playing on his lips with his phone and sketchbook in his lap, and he began to sketch a bright red cardinal nested in one of the trees surrounding the little sanctuary he had.

Clark waited his fair time for his companion patiently; he knew that everyone rose at different hours. But he was duly very aware of his friend, who he also knew wouldn't bail on him without an explanation. If his friend was occupied or busy, Vincent would've already received a text message or something. It soon came to fruition, however, that long nights spent without sleep taxed him fairly and that he'd waited far too long for his friend to maintain consciousness, and Vincent fell to a quiet nap at the roots of the tree, fingers laced together over his chest, rising up and down gently.

 

[Sightles]

Zac knew full well he was late, but that did not hurry his step in the least. Zac had always been a lackadaisical person, whom did things on his own time, no matter what kind of consequences befell him. He also knew that Vincent would no doubt know this, as this wasn't the first time Zac was fashionably late to a meeting with him. Zac had been up for nearly 19 hours straight by this point, as his typical sleep cycle goes. The toll of the little amount of sleep Zac got showed on his skin, and in his slow gait. Despite the summer weather, Zac still wore his old blue jacket, and his worn out pair of blue jeans. RayBans hid Zac's gaze from the brightness of the sun as he approached the ol' meeting spot. Zac never knew why Vincent insisted on meeting out so far away from civilization, where there was nothing but nature. Zac was one that could appreciate nature, but by no means wished to spend his free time in it.

Zac crested a hill, and entered the orchard of rich oak trees that signified the usual meeting spot of the duo. Once in the grove, Zac spotted his friend, quietly asleep in the grass, with a notebook beside him. Zac smiled momentarily, wondering just how the two of them even came close to be friends. Neither one shared an awful lot in common, and neither one particular had the same interests. As almost to truly signify this, Zac pulled a pack of Camels from his blue jeans, and a lighter from another, lighting the cigarette. After a few drags, Zac finally decided it was time to wake his friend. Clearing his throat, Zac spoke "Are you gonna wake up, or can I go grab some pizza?" Zac chuckled to himself. He always liked to give people shit, but Vincent was one of the ones he truly loved to give shit to.

 

[ravenDivinity]

Vincent woke to a familiar voice and the pungent smell of cigarette smoke, and his eyes came open slowly. Clark yawned heavily and casually loud as he got on one knee and from there pulled himself up into a standing position, his phone and sketchbook sliding off his lap and onto the ground. He swallowed and sneered, "No, no, not at all, I think I'm just going to go back to sleep." Really, Vincent had the best choice in friends. Zac was incredibly special; Zac and Vincent were so different that one could almost bet on a negative relationship between them, but to the contrary, they turned out to be good friends. Time and time again events, like this regular meeting out in nature, proved their friendship, a friendship of two drinks with tastes so disparate that they just so happened to mix well. If Vincent were the moon, then Zac would be the sun.

The black-haired boy bent over to pluck his phone from the ground and shove it into his pocket and to snatch up his sketchbook and cram it into his bag. "I'm so fucking glad for the summer," said Vincent as if he was speaking of a great triumph over a troublesome time. "No more fucking homework." School was never Vincent's strong suit due to his poorly developed work ethic, and most of his friends and family were well aware. Too many times had he been punished for it by his parents and laughed over it sardonically with his friends. Maybe he had such a poor habit of procrastinating on homework because he hated constrained and forced tasks with rules and requirements and demanded his own freedom to act as he pleased and to be in control of his own fate, his own destiny, his own career, without some cruel dependency on the institutions of mankind. Breaks from school were the best relief. He felt unchained like he could do whatever he damn well pleased. Clark flipped his hair into place, pushed his glasses up, and cleared his sinuses a little. "Zac, I'm so bored."

 

[Sightles]

"Maybe if you spent more time studying, and less time messing around, you wouldn't feel so sorely about homework." Zac grinned, realising how ironic is actual statement was. If Vincent was considered a below-average student, Zac would be considered a abysmal student. Skipping class, and regular visits to the principal's office was a daily during the school year for Zac. It wasn't that Zac was bad at school, on the contrary he was well into the top 10% of the class when he applied himself, but it was difficult for Zac to take high school seriously at all. Zac took a few more drags from his cigarette, before he answered Vincent, "That makes the two of us." Zac started, speaking in between exhales, "Maybe if we had a better hangout spot, we wouldn't be so bored." Zac added, always on point with his smartass comments and attitude. Zac resisted the urge to pull out his phone, and start texting the various numbers of the girls he had in his phone. ~ Girls can wait, I guess. ~ Zac thought, almost scolding himself for such a blasphemous statement. Zac would of felt more sympathetic towards his good friend's boredom, if boredom wasn't the calling card of Zac's day to day life. Little to do at home, and less to do in school due to his less-than-stellar social standing, Zac often passed his days by crashing parties, hanging out with Vincent, and trying to pick up girls. Zac took a particularly long drag, holding it in for a while before releasing the horrible smelling smoke into nature's crisp air. Zac positioned himself next to one of the hearty oak trees, leaning his shoulder up against the bark of the tree, "It's summer, Vincent. We shouldn't be bored. We should be doing whatever we want, whenever we want." Zac started, bringing the roll of tobacco up to his lips, once more taking another drag, "Command your own destiny, Vincent. What do you want to do?" Zac said, smiling at his own statement, as he released the smoke into the air once more.

 

[ravenDivinity]

"Oh, fuck you, Zac," Vincent scorned, the little sailor in him coming out. "You're one to talk anyway." When Zac criticized Vincent's choice in meeting places, Vincent audibly sighed and softly punched Zac in the shoulder. Then out of nowhere, Clark looked skyward with a great sweeping tide of sudden deep thought as he crossed his arms and kicked some acorns around carelessly as he stepped around a tree aimlessly. Adventure was Vincent's element. In a way, his wanderings around that tree were just a smaller representation of the big picture. He wanted to move around, he wanted to be surrounded with curiosity, to be ambitious in his exploits.

"Command your own destiny, Vincent. What do you want to do?" Zac asked. Fuck, even if Zac was a reckless troublemaker, his words struck a chord with Vincent's spirit as if Zac were some powerful philosopher, an urban humanist.

"I want to explore. We've been coming here for, like, months now, and I still haven't had a good look around." Vincent's eyes fell from the sky to the sacred groves of Mother Nature before him, with Zac standing in the foreground of his sight, the front of the picture that seemed painted for Vincent by higher powers than those of his contemporaries. In this assembly, silence was the audience, and nobody was watching. At the same time, all eyes were on him. I want to go, he thought. But where? The forest felt limited by the suburban sprawl just at its edge, and at the same time, Vincent saw that the forest was an infinite drop in the bucket of the world. He strode over to Zac to deliver a query with a quiet tone of great undertaking. "Do you want to go with me and check this shit out?"