Prompts: Angel, Bones
It was probably three AM by the time Josh and Tyler skidded to a stop inside the cemetery. Autumn leaves crunched under bike tires, and then silence descended. Nearly silence, anyway. If one listened closely, one could make out the various noises of night - the various critters and owls that came alive, the soft breeze rustling the leaves. Josh glanced at Tyler, then hopped softly off his bike. Tyler followed suit, but more hesitantly.
"Are you sure about this, man?"
Josh shrugged. "It's cool. No one comes around here this late - not in Autumn, at least." He shrugged again, pulling his jacket on over his hoodie. "Too cold."
Tyler nodded, following Josh as they pushed on further into the cemetery. The farther they went, the more it was evident that going on foot had been the only option: There were too many roots, too many spots where bikes could easily have been flipped. He was grateful that Josh had stopped them when he had.
October hung in the air like some sort of specter. The weather had chilled significantly over the last few weeks, and now the nights were threatened by the creeping frost that came every fall. Soon enough that frost would be replaced by snow, and the leaves that softly crunched under their feet would be all but disintegrated. But for now, the air still held onto the last remnants of summer, permeating a strange chill around them. Frost puffed out of the boy's mouth's as they walked.
About twenty minutes later the path they had been forging finally spilled out into a clearing of sorts. "Clearing" was perhaps the wrong word, as trees leaned in all around, and there were really only space for maybe five people to spread out comfortably between the grave stones. Josh walked into the space, stopping by a particularly old headstone. It was cracked and weathered by the ages, but somehow a tiny angel statue still stood on the top. It looked relatively new compared to the headstone.
Tyler motioned to the angel statue. "It looks in remarkably good condition."
Josh smiled. "Yeah, I think someone else has found this place before me and makes a point of switching out the statue every now and then."
He pulled out a blanket, spreading it out a little ways away from the gravestone. Tyler examined the headstone, but it was too worn to make out anything defining who it belonged to. 136Please respect copyright.PENANADhwLvD8Mp9
Tyler walked over to where Josh was, sitting down on the blanket he had set out. He scoured through their picnic basket, pulling out food and soda, along with a couple of cups. Josh joined him, opening the soda and pouring some into their cups as they looked around the tiny clearing. It had become their own little secret. An autumn treat, of sorts. Their own little Halloween tradition, despite it still being a couple weeks until Halloween.
"Only skeleton bones remain," Tyler mused.
Josh looked at him. "What?"
"Oh, uh, just thinking aloud," Tyler said, smiling back. "Underneath we're all the same. Under our clothes, under our skin... we're all the same. And when we go underneath... We're all the same, Just a pile of bones."
Josh remained silent for some time, considering Tyler's words. "Once you remove all the tricky tricks, we're just a skeleton."
"Tricky tricks?" Tyler asked, chuckling.
Josh shrugged. "I don't know."136Please respect copyright.PENANA0XjRmdAxDU
"Nah," Tyler said. "I like it."
They once again sat in silence, time giving the illusion of standing still.
Time stands still136Please respect copyright.PENANAVg4zas9QhI
Time stands still136Please respect copyright.PENANAKEEF6GMi9c
There's a metaphor in hand136Please respect copyright.PENANAGjWeGfHNsG
A metaphoric blast which only few will understand136Please respect copyright.PENANAcpjoy6hLh1
Under clothes, Under skin, Underneath we're all the same136Please respect copyright.PENANAyJ9ouEivST
For when you remove the tricky tricks136Please respect copyright.PENANAf54ICsx3xu
Only skeleton bones remain136Please respect copyright.PENANAQKn4e3haib