Steely walks down a street with the pace of someone with some place to go but who has left early enough to get there. He holds a rectangular metallic card smaller than his palms with grooves on its surface. The street is quiet, the sidewalk clean. As he walks, he occasionally slows to peer inside the windows of parked cars. The cars have a familiar look though it's obvious their designs are several generations ahead. The elegant lines, the materials and tech apparent in the construction are the result of years of engineering advances beyond the present.
The city feels simultaneously old and new, weathered by time and progress, lending it a distinctive quality. A modern city embracing technology but somewhat overtaken by nature, still trying to find a balance. There are pick-ups and wagons amongst the luxury cars, very democratic. Steely peers into a car with a cigarette in the ashtray. Using the metallic card, he swipes it against the car's access strip and gains entry. He steals the cig, lights it and walks a few cars down. He notices a hanging air freshener in another car and decides he likes it, breaks into that car as well taking the fragrant contraband. The stillness is mesmerizing, you can barely hear the autobahn in the distance or the steps of his companion just a few feet ahead.
Caged court centered in a park somewhat densely populated with live oak trees, their limbs perfectly frame rather than reach above the court. Clark is around 5'10” or 11”, lean but strapping and towering compared to a seemingly younger Steely who just beamed a ball at Clark and nearly landed a punch before Robb and Matthew body-blocked. Clark would have hurt him, badly, obviously, as Steely is a few years younger and developing a physique to match his mental toughness.
Robb: ‘Whoa whoa whoa level down…'
Matthew: ‘Kiss and make up, friends. It's a contact sport.'
Steely: ‘Nah, miss me with that, he always tryna big man somebody.'
Clark: (Checks his face for blood. Spits.) ‘Game point.'
Steely steps up to guard him, placing his hand on Clark's side to telegraph his movements. Clark crosses him, drives and lays the ball up, winning the game.
Clark: ‘Whoo! (RIC FLAIR voice) Did you feel that? Did you sense the sublime finesse and technique just then? You should be grateful. You should be grateful for me. Here.'
Steely: ‘Blah, blah, blah.' (Shrugs and mimes, picks the dead basketball up off the ground and does a tricky slam dunk with excess energy.)
The quiet of the morning scene continues, Steely and Shoobie continue walking as if in a dream. No birds, no other people, no sounds of cars. You see cars though, and you can hear a faint wind occasionally disrupt the silence as it pa**es between the rubber of the vehicles and the concrete. The skyline is a blended ecosystem of the natural world and school buildings. Tall structures of gla**, steel, brick and mortar raised on stilts of a hard clear substance. Limbs of trees reaching out through some windows, you see entire floors made into greenhouses and pocket jungles sprawling off rooftops. They approach a park where we see a sculpture of a child hanging from the sky from a string that goes up forever, touching the surface of a never ending rippling pond below with the tip of his finger. There are no paths of stone or concrete, the grounds are riddled with ever so slight inclines and valleys. There's a large Olympic sized pool built with Carrara marble, students ice skate it during the winter and skateboard in it in warmer months.
Shoobie walks slowly ahead of Steely, carrying a slate of metal, head held high, inhaling deeply and gratefully from a harmless, flavored steam cigarette. She squints her large eyes eyes on a toke and looks back at Steely going inside of someone else's car. The colors of her eyes change. She keeps walking. Steely catches up and throws his arm around Shoobie — he quickly takes his arm back to himself then grabs both her elbows and turns her toward him.
Shoobie: (Bobbing her head to music that isn't playing, she sings) 'That's the way everyday goes, every time we've no control...'
Steely looks up at the sky. A wide, flat translucent aircraft is coasting slowly above, leaving clouds in its wake and filtering sunlight into beautiful prismatic refractions onto him.
He's looking down at Shoobie, she's wearing radiation protective gear. Her helmet is mirrored orange and red, the suit has a white body. He focuses on her and not the campus being destroyed behind her by fire.
Steely: ‘Is d**h a high? I heard it's like DMT. The guy who told me that isn't dead. Maybe it's worth dying. The high I mean. Worst part about it though. We won't remember being so tight you know? Look at us!'
(Brushes imaginary locks from his face)
Shoobie: ‘...uhh?'
Steely looks down at his feet and there's ice on the gra** though it's summer. Steely pulls his head up to say ‘snow' but doesn't even make the begining sounds of the word. A single ball of alloy, white encoded with ice, spins around them like a tether ball to its pole. Shoobie still mouthing the words to a song playing in her head. ‘If you could fly then you'd feel south, up north's gettin' cold soon…The way it is were on land — still i'm someone to hold true'.