Conversation With the Past

Morning light crept over the city as Pella satchel drove into the day. She had spent all night watching the ocean with apprehension; lotus dust mixing with her blood and chemistry. Now Santa Monica boulevard passed under the car's wheels. The street droned with backstage life.

"Why do you always go up there?" Asked the young woman in the passenger seat, her edges indistinct.

Pella's long grip worked the wheel and gear shift with deft reflex.

"Drowning in dust I swear I see so far. From that mountain road perch the water's past spills out below me. I watch slime become fish become man interspersed with meaningless eons. The things that crawl up in the in between are still waiting for their time."

The hard, shorn-haired driver looked at her passenger for a moment with over dilated eyes, then smiled.

"Is that not the craziest shit you've ever heard Nova?"

Nova frowned, "I tell you every time not to call me that."

"I know, but anything else just feels wrong."

Drifting north the car merged at Hollywood. They passed through the walk-of-fame while old men swept and blew debris from the previous night into the gutter. Cool air breathed through the city; its ground so far unbaked by the mid-day. Beyond Hollywood Pella pulled into a park on a hill, build around a famous old house.

The women sat on the grass, looking out over the city. A mid morning haze clung to the ground; houses obscured and only the palm trees and some few skyscrapers peeked through. So many more palm trees than seen from the street.

The two women talked. Pella spoke about the two women in her life. Of reuniting with her brother. Of her fears for their collective future. Nova listened with an intent ear; each sentence equal and more important than that which preceded it.

"I'll be gone soon." The indistinct young woman looked much older now.

Pella was unsure how to feel yet again. He mother always appeared at the end of these lotus trips, as history caught up with the present. When her parents lived she was not particularly close with them. Now she only wished for more time.

"Really, you already are."

The tall, hard woman with hair so closely shorn, Pella, rose alone on the grass and walked back to her car.