Brief Moments...

The fickle promise of rain in this late-summer heat seemed to laugh at the dying lawns, small and boxed off by stone and brick and step, sweeping down the avenue. The green licks of grass were slowly thinning out into islands amongst the browning, cracked majority. Cars bunched together upon the narrow street took the brunt of the sun, shimmering like dull gems, tangentially refracting small beams of light into the shadowed porches, sighing in the lazy darkness. One such beam caught John across the eyes, causing him to shift of out the way. It brought back memories of dusty classrooms and bored kids angling watches at teacher’s faces.
“I’m horrible in the heat, man. I sweat like a pig.” John’s roommate Philip Quane was leaning against the wooden banister that separated their duplex porches, quickly smoking a cigarette. John thought about bringing up the thought he had about watches, but caught himself, pointing out silently in his head how random a thing it would be to bring up, without context anyway. Instead, he laughed shortly, barely making a sound. “What are you doing tonight?”
“I don’t know. I got nothing planned, really.”
“Maybe catch a movie?”
“What movie?” Both young men paused to think about this, to roll through their mental list of titles. Both young men drew blanks. “Is there anything On Demand, you think?”
“Maybe. It’s fucking summer. This is when movies are supposed to come out, right? Movies worth seeing?” Their cigarettes, smoked nearly down to their filters, were flicked one at a time outward. The crushed, tumbling objects flitted onto the sidewalks. The two roommates went inside.