Go to the ice cream parlor, then run across old faces...

Well, whatever. There are places I'm meaning to drop by, anyway.

Checking to see if I have everything, I lock the door. After flitting down the short indentation of paved steps, I take a left turn down the block, towards the freeway they got a little further north, where most of the local stores and restaurants and what have you stretch out. Rows of trees provide a pleasing chiaroscuro of shade on the way. It's not as apparent this early in the morning, but it's still nice.

For a minute, while strolling, I feel strangely... normal. Out of the blue, I decide to close my eyes. Experimentally.

I waft in the ambience.

Chirp-chirp.

Vroom.

Flsk-flsk-flsk-flsk-flsk...

Utilities, radiators, lawnmower razors, bedroom giggles. All swirling and sifting through a slightly enhanced hearing field, before I gently let it subside.

Funny. No matter how much things have changed in theory, in me in particular, out here it's still the same, whirring world as it always is. Deep down, maybe it always will be.

I open my eyes, shake my head, and continue onward.

A flight of sparrows whisk past as I approach the first busy intersection. Once the signals turn red I cross to the other side, a nearby convertible full of chatty yuppies on the way to who knew what to do what knows who.

Ding-ding.

"Welcome."

A teem awaits upon stepping inside Jo's Creamery. I stop, and pedal backward. That's quite a line. It isn't that simmering outside, surely. Then again, a warm Saturday morning is probably second only to evening in the ice cream demand department. I find a place in the back, behind a big-boned dad and his daughter.

Inside it's not too spacious, not too impractical a venue. Enough free tile for a trio of human assemblages to navigate their way through, with tables spread out by the windows on the other side of the bar. It could afford the luxury, being of a menu comprising of a little more than 'just' ice cream cones and napkins. You could walk out with a genuine family meal.

Ding-ding.

Another welcome, tailed by a fog of gab behind me, the door sighing in the wake of another group of patrons. Meanwhile, the line progresses, and a well-groomed lady in a knee-length skirt and yellow spaghetti top takes her buttery cone at the counter in the front, smiles thanks, then turns, drifting into my view. As she proceeds towards the exit, taking a chunk out of her chilled snack, her nipples noticeably poke their way into visibility. Then, when they are fully erect, the outline of her buds suddenly enlargens and widens until it's pulling against the fabric with lewd indiscretion. Once she finally sweeps through the door, I reorient my gaze to the front of me.

It's only then I hear my name seep into audible range, the beginning of a 70s gangster noumenon.

"....hello? John? Hey!"

I look behind me, at the chatty party that entered only a second ago. Then I narrow my eyes.

Then widen them, two-fold.

"Magne?"

"In the flesh."

"...Magne! But..."

Before me, the tall, rich-haired young man throws off his brand name shades. He sticks them into the unbuttoned collar of his shirt, which dips low, and looks summery and tacky. But then he flashes a toothy grin, and it all seems to light up as if made for him, born to be there, on his person. Even those somewhat oblong capris.

I guess that's how it'd always been with him, though.

Two women and another beach-kissed guy with him watch ventral to his position as we stand googly eyed. I realize that they're the same gang that was cooped in that convertible. Magne plants a hand on his hip and slides a stray set of bangs back over his hairline.

"Been a while, hasn't it, buddy?"