Sunflower's Daughter/Chapter 1-3

This is the third and final subchapter of Sunflower's Daughter/Chapter 1. It was released in October 20, 2014.

Chapter 1-3
11:03 AM.

“Wow, Nins… I see you’ve rearranged some of the furniture.” Lasse enters Nina’s house with curious regard, her attention mostly on the foreign trinkets and pieces of furniture plastered all over the small living room. The coffee table, cabinet, end tables—hell, even the lamps—all looked like something one would get from a bazaar, or a trade post, or World Market or something. Like she recalls, Nina’s house still has this exotic, vintage charm. The smell added to it, too.

“Smells like… dust and, woodwork and—” Lasse notices the used ashtray on the coffee table. “Nina!” She sets her bag down on the table and approaches Nina, who was on the way to the small kitchen area.

“Smells like what…” Nina adds, turning to look at her and seeing her approach her. Lasse helps herself by opening and closing the shelves and cabinets, looking for something in particular. “Don’t hold out on me…”

“What…” Nina glares at Lasse, who was looking in the wrong places. She pulls the shelf nearest to her right and takes out a ziplock bag. The bag of hash, the very bag her mom left her as a parting gift. She was to call Lasse’s attention to it at first, but the thought of her mother makes her examine it. Was this really the last thing her mother was going to leave her?...

Lasse walks up to Nina’s shoulder, and sees the bag for herself. “Yes!” She looks to Nina for permission, and notices her phasing out for a second. Nina looks beside her, to Lasse, and hands her the bag. Lasse receives it, and goes with Nina’s sudden muteness.

Nina takes her lunch and returns to the living room. “This is at least a pound, and a half…” There was a growing excitement in Lasse’s voice, as she tried to weigh the bag with the palm of her right hand. It was filled to the brim with herb… “Nina can I….?”

Nina plops down onto the Mesoamerican lounge chair, her very own, and scans around for the remote control. “Go ahead. Paper’s on the shelf where I found it.” Lasse smiles, and scurries back to the kitchen. By the looks of it, she’s completely disregarded her lunch. Or, probably worse, she was going to smoke herself to hunger.

Nina finds the remote on the coffee table. She takes it, and opens the T.V. “My dealer’s been holding out on me,” Lasse says, returning to the living room with hemp. She sits on the couch to the left of Nina. “On us. He hasn’t shown up in the shop for a few weeks. Don’t know if he got caught or went big-time, or…” The possession of marijuana was still looked down upon in this city. But Nina’s mother was the queen of acquiring illegal substances. She, as her daughter, has taken these things for granted.

“Want your own?” Lasse asks. Nina glances at her, and nods nonchalantly. She’s been going against smoking this whole morning, but, with Lasse here, she has no choice. She had a feeling the day was going to get worse, anyway. That was the very reason she was going to watch television. And also relapse.

Nina turns the TV on, surfs through a few channels while she opens her packaged salad. Background noise of the television’s random noises droned on while Lasse hastily prepared herself a roll. Nina slows down her surfing once she reaches a few news channels.

''“…Wisconsin ain’t looking too good. When’s the last time you heard news from over there?”'' Lo and behold, Nina has finally found a channel from the mainstream media addressing what their state needed to be dreading today. The network had two correspondents, sitting in a talk show-like set. One man, one woman. Serious, noiseless vibe among the two. The headline, “East Coast ‘virus’ to be feared?” displayed on the bottom of the screen, in bold letters.

This was what Lasse has helped Nina forget. The impending doom, or rumors thereof. This network spot seemed to be confirming those rumors. ''“We’ve had four, five cities go into a state of emergency in a short matter of time. Shouldn’t—Nevada, California, the West Coast states be concerned?”'' Not all of them were, unfortunately. Nina slowly chomps on her greens.

“Got a lighter, Nina?” Lasse asks, and it momentarily takes Nina out of concentration. Nina glances at her and points to the ashtray’s area. “Red-and-yellow thingy.” Lasse taps around the area of the ashtray, and finds a red, yellow, and lime lighter, shaped to the likeliness of a bird. It was a parrot lighter, literally. Lasse puts the roll on her mouth and starts lighting it up.

''“Something’s definitely going on here. I mean, the virus… it’s an epidemic. And nobody’s made an official statement of it over there. Just—what is going on?”'' The woman was keeping her composure well, but there was a subtle kind of distress in her look. Nina is on the verge of getting immersed when she starts to smell smoke and hears Lasse cough in the background.

“H-holy shi—” Lasse’s voice, though hoarse, had an amused tone to it. Through squinted eyes, Lasse smiles. Smiles at Nina, attempts to call for her attention, but continues to cough. Mist spouts out from her nose, mouth. It was a long whiff.

''“W-we’ll be right back. Later on, we’ll talk about some of the East Coasts’ contingency plans and what they’re doing now to recover from this.”'' The male newscaster looks past the camera while the lady shuffles the papers she’s gathered on the table in front of them. “Stay tuned.”

“What the heck is going on?...” Lasse stares at Nina for a quick summary, but by the looks of it, she was only concerned about her stoic look at the T.V. screen.

Nina glances at her, at the glassy-eyed Lasse, a two-second delay in her comprehension. Lasse clears her throat and recalls what she had to do for Nina, which was make her a separate joint. Nina instead pieces it together and intervenes in Lasse’s high-flown stupor, taking the smoking joint from her fingers and gesturing for the lighter.

“N-no Nins I can make—” Nina shakes her head as an interruption and slightly leans forward to take the lighter from the table. Lasse, strands of her falling over her eyes, continues to stare at Nina.

So the reason for her uneasiness, her uncertainty, hasn’t been forgotten after all. Nina relaxes on her comfortable lounge chair, and looks at the charred joint in her fingers. Might be the last thing she ever smokes. Might be the first of many. First, in this day.

Noticing the smoke still rising from the burnt tip, Nina puts the joint on her lips and takes a two-second puff. Two seconds of reintroduction.

Nina follows it with another second. And another. And then a half more.

She holds it in her lungs, letting a bit of the smoke escape through her nose. Like a true, seasoned stoner. Or, at least, what she proclaims to be.

Two. Three. Fou—Nina coughs out the smoke, low-volume at first, until her coughs grow louder and louder. Each cough, her sight blurs; her head lightens; the weight in her mind, lifted. The weight in her chest, scattered.

She’s started the path. The path to forgetting, if only for a little while. In no time, the look in Nina’s face becomes similar to Lasse’s.

“I don’t know what’s in it but it’s pretty intense…” Lasse says, or more like echoes, in Nina’s ears. One hit, and she’s already feeling different.

What her mom left her must have been the good stuff. An absolute treat. For times like these. Because she might not see her again. Because things might change today. Tonight. 11:22 AM.

Nina and Lasse took it slow. They were nowhere near halfway through the bag, and yet the room they stood in was filled with smoke. The television was still running, though the channel was changed.

Lasse munched on her lunch, with a hungry reproach, but she was careful not to make a mess.

Nina was staring outside her window, watching whatever scene there was unfold.

The color of the trees’ leaves, practically roofing the whole block—the colors of the houses, ranging from yellow to blue to green—they were intense, yet soft. A different definition than what she remembered.

Nina couldn’t help but daydream while she stared at the scene. Recording them in her head before they change. Savoring the normality. Feeling nostalgic for some reason. It could be any of these reasons, but Nina’s expression didn’t show a telltale sign of any of it.

The van, her neighbor’s van, was still there at least. Something about it sitting there was comforting to her. Because they were people she knew.

Mr. Roland and his family must’ve been getting ready for this very thing. They were in the same loop as Nina. Maybe they overheard the radio broadcasts she listened to weeks prior.

Maybe she had to visit them. Just before Lasse leaves.

“Hey Nins—you going to eat?” Nina looks at a Lasse halfway done with her burger. She exhales lightly, and goes back to lounge on her chair.

Lasse nonchalantly goes back to eating while Nina lazily watches what was on the screen. Some kind of reality show, or a commercial, or a music video. She looks at the remote two miles away from her grip, and gives up. Instead, Nina takes the joint, which has been deduced to near-ashes, and prepares to finish it.

12:47 PM.

Lasse didn’t know how she got there. Nina didn’t know.

She was cuddled next to an apathetic Lasse, her head resting on her slightly-elevated shoulder. Nina was whimpering. Tears escaped her eyes.

She didn’t know what she cried about in particular. Where her life went. Where her mom went. What the world was going to become. What she could do about it. If it was all a lie. Or the actual truth. If she was wasting her energy.

There was a deeper reason for her overt emotions, but Nina didn’t choose to look at it. Those tears were the weight. The weight she was trying to lift with… leaves. This was just another form of release.

It wasn’t that Lasse was too incapacitated to console her. She understood. She’s respectful. She was the space Nina needed.

She figured the warm grasp she had on Nina’s hand was enough. And Nina kept her own grip on it.

3:49 PM.

There were conversations abound after that. Nina’s catharsis, about her life in the past couple of years, where here mom was in those years, how much she hated her for what she left behind. Nina was particularly angry about that. She felt cheated for leaving so soon, but when Lasse tried to pry some more, Nina decided to forget about it.

It led them to some other subjects. Her mom’s dealers. That one boyfriend she had whom Nina hated. Her mom’s phase when she was trying to get into witchcraft. Her own phase when she tried to proclaim herself a gypsy. Lasse being the person to keep her “tolerable for the average population.” Elitist talk, which turned to hipster talk. Nina’s community service.

Three hours of catharsis, gone into oblivion. No documentation. No memories left of it. Nina and Lasse knew they could talk about it again some other time.

Their very conversation led them back to Nina’s room. Nina’s poorly lit room. Lavender walls. Antique lamp. Mattress set bought a year ago. Clothes everywhere. Posters of Wham!, Duran Duran, Tears For Fears, Hanson, SWV, All 4 One—a bunch of cheesy bands not so relevant today. Nina’s dusty make-up set. That old dresser her older cousin passed on to her. Old, but new stuff. Lasse didn’t notice a change in her room.

Nina had, for some reason, decided to pull up some old stuff from whence they were high-schoolers. Not to say it was very long ago, but five years seemed to be sufficient enough for the two to get nostalgic about it.

Nina’s yearbook was signed by only about ten people. A few Nina called friends, a bunch of Lasse’s friends. Lasse. Scott.

The two sat on the bed, making out whatever they could from the yearbook the best they can from the poor lighting. Being baked was most certainly helping them not to cringe as much.

Maybe it was the lighting. The memories. The way Lasse looked from Nina’s angle. But she didn’t regret what she ended up doing next.

Nina puts the yearbook aside, brushes Lasse’s hair away from her face, and kisses her. Like how Lasse does, to her. It was her turn.

4:47 PM.

The oncoming night has certainly turned into a mellow one. Nina and Lasse decided to lie together and spout random subjects for conversation, each of them lasting no longer than a couple of sentences.

Attempts at finishing the bag soon came to an end; each attempt at returning to it only caused them to quit sooner. The sensation they’ve built up from blazing stuck a steady pace, developing much of the mellowness that’s caused them to lie quietly on the sofa, wordless, staring at what their twenty-twenty vision provided for them.

Nina didn’t bother to open any lights. The rich, orange sunset was enough. It was warm. Beautiful. Settling.

“I don’t think anything’s gonna happen tonight.” Yeah, tonight was going to be bullshit. Life will be normal, as soon as Nina sleeps tonight and wakes up tomorrow. She was going to have to look for her mom, call her to return. Also, get a refund on the gun she picked up today. Lasse responds with a weak nod.

Life was going to be normal. This… day. It was all for naught. Nina just needed some company from some of the things that were unsettling her. Lasse was here. She kept a tight grip on her arm.

Unfortunately for Nina, it was around this time when Lasse’s phone made some unnecessary noise. And, to make things worse, Lasse didn’t silence it. Those—those texts, she kept looking at them.

Not that she cared. She’s done well letting Lasse be her complete opposite. It must’ve been her friends. They must’ve been looking for her.

Lasse silences the tone by glancing at her phone, and putting it aside seconds later.

“C-can I see your phone?” Nina asks innocently, to which Lasse replies by giving it to her. Just to satisfy her curiosity.

Nina sifts through her messages. About… five, from the time she started hearing the tones. Fully aware that Lasse didn’t seem to mind, Nina reads them.

The first text was from a person she wasn’t familiar with, as to be expected:

''“Jean at hospital. cnt make it 2night”''

The next, yet again she wasn’t familiar with. But she had a female name:

''“marks at da hospital 2. Its y he wasnt @ work today”''

The next text, from the first person earlier:

“carina said 2 stay at home; crzy ppl outside”

And another:

''“i thnk we shuldn go 2 da party nemor las. Hella ppl canceling”''

There was a… pattern here. Nina decides to ignore it, giving the phone back to Lasse.

''“Sorry Nina, but I really have to go. My friend really needs me to pick her up.”''

''“O…okay. Call me tomorrow, yeah?”''

''“I will Nins. Love you.”''

Lasse had left a drowsy Nina ten minutes later. Nina was much too sleepy to give her a proper, more awake goodbye, but she remembers the parting words well. She was much too lazy to stand up from the sofa, walk her out.

Nina wakes up not ten minutes later, fully energized for some reason, feeling like she had to get some things done. It was a power nap she took. If only she’d have taken it sooner…

Nina stands up from the sofa, decides to light the house up a bit since the darkness was growing. She walks over to the kitchen, flips a few switches, sees the living room to be a smoky mess.

She couldn’t believe she smoked, from the way the ash tray was used, the way the bag was half-opened. Not even completely gone. She and Lasse must’ve done something else.

Nina was about to open the television, return to the same network she had seen earlier, when she hears a knock. Knocks, from her front door.

“Nina. It’s me, Fred. Just checking in to see if you’re okay.”

And soon, a sudden urgency hits Nina. Her heart races.

“M-Mr. Roland?” Nina calls back. She walks up to the door, opens it apprehensively.

There was Mister Roland, all dressed up for a trip, looking at Nina with concerned eyes. He had a fatherly moustache going on, clearly setting his age gap further away from Nina’s. “Hey, Nina. Your mom home?”

Nina glances behind her, looks back at Fred, and shakes her head.

“Well, she wouldn’t want you to be alone. I say you pack up and—come with us.” Fred points behind him, to his house, all lit up from the inside. “No rush.”

Nina feels up her hair, scratches the back of it while at it. “W-what time is it?” Fred pulls up his wrist, folds the sleeve of his jacket away. “Five-fifteen.”

The way Fred looked so urgent, coupled with the van behind him lit by the street lamps, brought a recurring feeling in Nina.

The feeling, that shift in safety… that they have to evacuate from something. An unknown threat. A force of nature.