Across the lightwell, Nate finished sizzling his bacon. Its smoky fat aroma roamed over the narrow gap, tentacles of meaty temptation. Cooper questioned how Nate could light a fire in the gathering heat. The air had settled into stillness. It would nurture the heat all day.
He poured himself a cleverer bowl of cold cereal in cold milk. Cunningly, he had ensconced the entire cereal box in the refrigerator last night. Every molecule mattered. If he could attenuate the motion of many, he could do the same to more. The chilled gulps soothed his stomach.
Cooper crunched to the orchestra and mumbled the chant by ear. He still couldn’t understand the words but understood them as a secret. Whenever the volume dipped, his heart jumped in rollercoaster dread. He feared to find the surround sound lapse, and quell his exhilaration. He didn’t know he longed for a strangeness, he didn’t know he lacked.
“Hey, Nate!” Cooper called, “What do you think of this psycho music?”
“Indeed, the sizzling of fat over a fire, music to the human psyche,” Nate replied, “As predators, we are evolutionarily adapted to hunger for meat in the morning, no matter how hot the day may be. On the savanna, your poor grasses, all soggy in watery suspension, can never subserve your pursuit of a healthy, red-blooded female. Following the hunt, females fall upon only those bringing home the heftiest bacon.”
“So where’s your girlfriend?” Cooper reached the root of the matter.
“Another feature of humanity is our tendency to teeter on the knife edge between monogamy and better life choices. I, as a normal male, recognize no reason to entangle myself with one specific female, since many more are available for said entanglements of a less exhausting, oppressive nature,” Nate explained.
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“A brief youth is a terrible thing to waste. Soon, we will be old, fat, bald, ugly, and diseased. No female will want us for anything except our wealth,” he forked up his riches.
“Then shouldn’t you acquire a female fast, before you totally decay?” Cooper retorted, “Once you get one, you can become her sunken cost.”
“At present, I am focused on bacon acquisition, and so should you be!”
Nate bobbed his head as he chewed a fatty strip of bacon, cascading fatty droplets. He slid open the window screen, and waved for Cooper to prepare. On a fork taped to a broom handle, he speared a big, fat bacon sample.
“Incoming!” Nate leaned into the lightwell, as Cooper reached across.
“You look like crap, Cooper,” Nate judged, “You can’t handle the heat.”
“I’m wasting away, Nate,” Cooper admitted, “Only you can save me.”
“Outgoing!” Nate warned those below of grease flying off the bacon.
Cooper snapped it up as it wobbled over. Right then, a screech pierced the lightwell. He scissored the bacon tightly between his fingers, intent on securing the strip. After all, it was good food in company, a feature of his friendship with Nate. He had lucked out to find the friend with the food in a city colder than its tropical climate.
“You two better get ready to speak to the superintendent!” the mop barked from below.
A glob of grease had dripped onto his or her head poking out again. Nate made a face at Cooper. He smirked and began apologizing profusely.
“Infinite regrets!” Nate called, “Regrets a billion times a billion times by the lights of a billion stars!” so on and so on, with a certain charm.
Cooper snorted. Nate had a way with language arts. He slid over the oily globe slicker than his simpler friend Cooper.
