aprilxbishop:
Armed with a black trash bag and a litter-pick, blonde hair tied back in a kerchief that was both fashionable (shiny, pale-green silk, patterned with little blue flowers) and functional (her hair stayed put; only a few flyaways escaped and stuck sweatily to her forehead, like a chic hairstyle from the 1930s), April had already spent an hour since breakfast at Knocking Lake. Today, she was the lone representative of Radcliffe’s Green Initiative Club. A few others had made promises, put their names on the sign-up sheet, but many of them had also posted from the same frat party last night— which meant they were all probably still in bed, nursing their respective hangovers. So it was just April, dutiful April, spearing litter out of the mud and shooing beer cans out from under foliage. It was amazing how much trash there was in the world once you really looked— gum wrappers and bottle caps and cigarettes. So many cigarettes! She’d thought that people were supposed to be smoking less nowadays. Or at least, switching over to E-cigs and mango-flavored vapes. But the evidence of Radcliffe’s unkicked habit was quite literally all around her: butts thrown in the grass, butts buried in the sand. Butts bobbing in the shallows.
Up and down the banks she went all morning, her Green Initiative shirt dampening under the arms, pulling junk out of the weeds and stopping only once for a break, and in spite of the trash and the sun’s unseasonal heat, in spite of the pesky gnats that millioned near the water, her mood was good. Happy, even. She felt uplifted by the work; doing it reminded her that there were still people in the world who cared, like her, like the other, absent but already-forgiven members of the Green Initiative — surely, that meant things would be okay. Then April bent down and pushed aside some reeds by the water’s edge, and saw it floating like a dying dentist-office fish— a used condom. Her recoil was automatic. Her horror, swift and immediate. The reeds whipped back and the resulting splash sent the condom gliding out towards open water, carried by a length of ripples. “Oh no, come back!” She couldn’t let some poor bird find it, mistake it for a worm— the thought alone made her stomach do a queasy somersault, and April leapt quickly onto a flat rock, jabbing at it with her pick, missing wildly. “Shoot!” Pivoting on the toes of her sneakers, trying to spot the fugitive bit of latex, only then did she notice someone had stopped to watch her frantic spearfishing. Both exertion and embarrassment stained her cheeks bright pink. “Sorry, I just, I can’t let it get away— do you see it anywhere?”
@radopens
A night spent tossing and turning, accompanied by screens and frenzied writing didn’t bode well for the day Siobhan had planned. Never did, but it wasn’t a habit she had learned how to break yet. Couldn’t with the way her body shook and her thoughts swarmed, but she wasn’t going to attach any practicality to it now or ever. Instead, she had bust out of the dorms an hour after remembering her promise to April. Aggravation swelled, at herself, ‘cause it was April and Apriil didn’t deserve empty words. Siobhan didn’t think much on it. She still wore her silk cut-off pajamas in a royal blue, slipped on some old sneakers and left her hair uncombed -- a curled heap soon weighed down by the sun’s heat. In the bathroom stall, before she had left, Siobhan had chugged a Redbull, hidden from view ‘cause it didn’t fit the image she had construed for herself. Something frivolous that she continued to hold onto even if it meant nothing. At the very least, she tossed the can into the recyclables. Her hands were always shaky, anyway. Unnoticeable.
The sight of April was reassuring. In a maybe-you’re-not-the-only-person-who’s-lost-it sort of way, not that Siobhan would ever think of herself or April like that. Not so openly, at least. It was just that April’s heated search, balanced on a rock as Siobhan gawked on, looking like she had just rolled out of bed and onto this very spot, was a sight to behold. “You’re killing it, angel,” Siobhan praised once April caught sight of her and followed it by a clap -- an extra show of goodwill. “Sorry I’m late. I had a total brain blast last night. Slept past my alarm clock. So much to do, so little time.” Small talk was exchanged as if they were leaning across the breakfast table, mimosas in hand. Siobhan moved closer to the water’s edge, trying to catch sight of the piece of trash April had closed in on. “Where’s everyone else?” The question was cut through with exasperation as she took a break from her own search to peer around with contorted brows. Then, just as quickly, a loud, ‘Ah ha!’ followed and Siobhan pointed at the now realized condom, floating out further from the shore. Without another word, she kicked off her sneakers and then slipped off her shirt and shorts, tossing them onto the grass behind her. Now, Siobhan only stood in matching robin blue, cotton undergarments. “I’ll grab it,” was her only explanation, before she grabbed April’s pick from her hand and began wading out into the water. And, despite the whole show behind it, a genuine sigh of contentment fell past her lips, the cool water providing some relief from the beating sun. “Not half-bad in here, Bishop, if you’re wanting a break!”