I’m content. I can feel it. I welcome it in, letting it push everything else away. It takes another moment, but then all of my thoughts are there.

It’s early in the morning, so early that the sun is barely even up. It’s beautiful out, clear and warm without being hot. It’s one of those days, early in summer, when you can just tell it’s going to be an amazing day. Great weather can do that.

School has just gotten out, summer break’s only a few days old and it’s just…magic. So many free days are ahead of me, enough to make me forget about school at all. It’s a feeling of freedom that you can never really return to again.

We’re on our bikes, gliding along single file down a long, winding street. Birch street. Dan’s in front and Emily’s behind him. The speed at which we go, the ease at which we do it…

I naturally panic when I close my eyes and tilt my head back. The road really is winding, it’s dangerous. Though it’s been clear, a car could come at any time. But, on the bike, I’m calm. To me, there’s no risk at all. Only the warm air on my face and the delight that comes from the blind movement.

I open my eyes. I see the life, so much life, all around me. Tall and sturdy trees with wide canopies loaded with healthy green leaves. Purple, pink and blue wild flowers growing in sparse but frequent patches along the sides of the road. Expanses of lawns that break the lines of forest here and there. A pair of rabbits dart across one. Unseen birds sing overhead.

I smile, enjoying it, but I move along so fast. I wish I would take my time, I could spend an entire day taking any bit of it all in.

It’s a good ride to the Donut Kitchen, long. Over ten miles. I remember having my mom measure it once. It’s something we started doing the summer before. Traveling so far on our own and paying for the fresh donuts ourselves. It made us feel so grown up.

We turn off of woodsy Birch and onto East. East is an interesting street: it starts off as a suburban neighborhood street, becomes industrial, then a swampy marsh and eventually reverts back into a neighborhood street again. It makes for interesting scenery and the journey feel even longer and more satisfying. In my head, I pretend I’m passing into a different kingdom each time the road changes. It’s nice to be a kid.

When we arrive at the parking lot of the Donut Kitchen, we chain up our bikes in the rack next to the walkway in front of the shop. I lock eyes with Emily and when she smiles at me my stomach flips. That’s recent. To be that age, to feel this for the first time…I’d like to say something to her, and I wish I had, but I don’t. I’m afraid to. But I’m happy to be there with her. To be there with both of them, my best friends.

It’s always wonderful, that first step inside. For me, now, it’s almost too much. Overpowering, but still wonderful. So much sweetness, all there in the air. That mixed with the bitter scent of coffee. I’ve missed coffee. I smile as I breathe it all in.

Kathy’s behind the counter. She usually was. She’s gotten to know us.

This is the summer I planned on trying a different donut each time. I order a powdered lemon and Kathy adds a chocolate, my favorite, to the bag on the house.

“Just in case,” she says with a wink.

I appreciate her.

Outside again, we sit at our usual spot. The walkway in front is raised a step above the parking lot. We sit on the walkway’s edge, next to the bike rack.

Dan and Emily watch as I take a bite of the powdered lemon and laugh when I put it back in the bag and take out the chocolate. Sometimes nothing is better than the familiar.

We sit there in comfortable silence, eating our donuts and watching traffic. I enjoy their company and I savor each sugary bite. I can’t think of anything I’d rather be doing right then, neither one of me.

The light begins to dim and soon the morning has become like twilight. I enjoy every bit of the memory until it fades entirely to black.

…

I feel the pain of its bite even after it’s released me. In the flickering light from the torch’s fire I see the spider scurrying over to my offering. I sit there for a while, thinking about the memory it sent me into. How simple it was and how perfect. Everything I’d accomplished in my life, my life before it all happened, and it’s almost always memories like that. It knows what I need, it follows the agreement. 

I reach into my bag to put some of the new ointment I traded for the other day onto the weeping wound on my forearm. My forearm, now covered with scars. This ointment is supposed to be better at cleaning out the venom. I wince at the sting it causes when I rub it on.

My old joints pop and ache when I pull myself to my feet. I’d been sitting on the cave’s floor for too long. I grab my torch from its spot on the wall and leave the great spider to its meal. I’m lucky to have found it, there aren’t many of them left anymore and even fewer open to such agreements. I can’t say I blame them, not after the ways they were used in the war.

Soon I’m at the mouth of the cave. I extinguish the torch, put on my sunglasses and step out into the desert beyond.