Spring Day
by Catharine Bell Wetteroth

It’s a beautiful day. This is the first day so far that really feels like spring. The air is clear and light, with a soft breeze, and the sky is azure blue. The sun is coming down bright. I don’t know why spring sunlight has a different tone to it than winter light does; maybe it’s the new angle of the rays, but whatever causes it, today there is that shade to the brightness that bespeaks spring. The ground has gotten soft, and the puddles on the cement from the rain last night glow all the way down to their bases. Little leaf buds are beginning to show on the trees, and flowers are opening. The scent of new growth is rich in the air. Birds are singing. And it’s warm. That’s the best part.

Sarah is visiting us for the week, and we decided to celebrate the nice weather with a picnic in the park. We’re on an open patch of grass, with a row of trees between us and where most of the other people are. While there’s a buzz of voices in the background, none of it is really distinguishable.

I’m stretched out on the blanket we’ve placed over the ground, my head in Daniel’s lap, he sitting cross-legged. We’re basically done eating; just munching on the last few things, lazily enjoying them for taste rather than sustenance. The wine and the sunlight are acting together to make me slightly drowsy, and so I’m just basking in the warmth as the rays beat against me, and listening to the two of them talk, only sometimes throwing in a comment. He’s lightly running the nails of one hand up and down my neck, sending shivery sensations along my skin. It would be a turn on, if I just shifted slightly into another mindset, but instead I’m merely enjoying it as another sensation, along with the sunshine. He’s also feeding me the occasional strawberry; he’s giving me one right now. They’re warm from sitting out, and that makes them even sweeter. Strawberries, and everything else, are finally coming into season, unlike the tasteless winter fruits. I bite the berry off near the stem, slowly savoring it. It’s delicious. It’s hard to chew and swallow, lying at this angle, but I don’t mind. Daniel eats the rest of the berry that I didn’t take.

"I still think he misses the point in his phenomenology of being," he says to Sarah.

"Say that again," I cut in.

"What, phenomenology of being?" he repeats.

"I love it when you talk dirty." I smile up at him. He leans down and kisses me briefly.

"Oh no, I don’t actually agree with him either," Sarah replies. "Every time he brings up a point of proof, it’s basically something he made up. He’ll say something like, ‘We see throughout history that...’ and I’ll immediately be able to think of at least three cultures where the opposite was true. I’m not saying Bataille’s accurate at all. I’m just saying that I can see the attraction in his theory of sacrifice."

"But you hate it when things are destroyed," Daniel responds.

"Exactly. So don’t you think I’d like to be able to see destruction as fulfillment rather than tragedy?"

"Well, if you’re looking at his theory aesthetically, then I can understand the draw. As a factual book ‘Theory of Religion’ doesn’t hold up at all. But as a work of art, it is emotionally compelling."

"Yes. Art has different laws of proof, and different standards of truth."

They kiss each other. I look up at them from underneath. This is a very odd angle to watch them at. I can see their necks going up, and then the undersides of their chins, and not much else. Well, ears, I can also see ears. And hair. They look like a ceiling, or maybe the arch of a cathedral door.

Most of my and Daniel’s friends here don’t quite understand. They don’t see how I can get along with my boyfriend’s girlfriend. But they were together before I met him. I wasn’t about to pass up the opportunity with the cutest and most interesting guy I’d met in ages just because he had a girlfriend, not once I learned that he felt the same, and that she agreed. So Daniel and I have been together for about a year and a half now, and living together for eight months or so. Sarah and I are friends, and I enjoy it when she comes to visit. I wish it could happen more frequently, because Daniel often misses her, and I don’t like it when he’s sad.

He’s now stroking my collarbone with his nails.

Their kiss breaks apart.

"Didn’t someone once say that there are two types of philosophers?" I ask. "One is like bees, and goes around gathering information like pollen, and then makes that into idea-honey, and the other is like spiders, just spinning webs out of their bodies and making everything up?"

Daniel chuckles. "Yup, someone said that."

"Who was that?" Sarah jokes, smiling. "William James? Or, like, Aristotle?" We all laugh. Don’t talk about philosophy while tipsy, kids, you’ll always start getting absurd.

"Making shit up is a classic method," Daniel adds.

Sarah breaks off another piece of baguette and spreads Brie on it.

"I always considered Bataille to be another one of the people who’s into the destruction of difference and separation, like Buber’s I-Thou relationships, or the Upanishadic realization of atman with brahman," Daniel continues, back on track again.

"Separation isn’t fun." Sarah and Daniel look at each other, a little wistfully, two sets of brown eyes meeting. I examine a cloud drifting across the sky. Even the clouds are somehow springlike, with nice textures.

Daniel reaches out and takes another strawberry. He dips it in one of the wineglasses, and then feeds it to me. It’s very sweet, with a little bit of alcoholic bitterness. I kiss his fingertips. His lip ring, placed exactly in the center of his bottom lip, shimmers in the sunshine, and so do his earrings, and his slightly chipped sparkly green-gold nail polish. Everything today is bright, with colors and textures and scents just seeming to do their utmost to be pleasing.

"Man," Sarah groans, "look what you did. Now there’s bits of strawberry floating in my wine."

Daniel smiles contritely. "I’m sorry. I didn’t realize that was your glass." He picks it up. "Here, let’s try something." He holds it out off the edge of the blanket, over the ground. "I’m going to sacrifice it." Sarah and I both watch intently as he slowly pours it out, a thin stream of glistening red liquid flowing down, pooling on the soft dark earth and starting to trickle away between the blades of grass before soaking in.

"Didn’t work for me. That’s just a waste of wine," she says.

"Hmm, it worked for me. I was there," I muse. It’s true. The wine fully transformed from its mundane nature as beverage-that-gets-you-drunk to an essence of pure, useless beauty, and I rather feel as if I had been poured out myself. Drops of it still sparkle red on the green grass.

"You’re also drunker than I am."

"And only half awake," I agree.

Daniel leans down over me, setting the glass back on the blanket. "You’re also less overly analytical than she is." God, Daniel’s beautiful. Even upside down and backwards, like he is right now. He’s got such a delicate face, and his chin length hair, which is currently dyed a dark, very fake looking blue-black, is dangling down toward me. Dangling-down hair always looks very sexy seen from underneath. Um. I think I’m still getting drunker.

He sits up straight again and grabs a banana, peeling it and taking a bite. A cloud moves in front of the sun for a moment, taking some of the brightness away, and stopping the force of the warmth on me. Then it passes on.

Sarah’s watching him, too, and I look over at her. She has a strong, slightly masculine face, and I do think she’s attractive, but I’m not really into girls. A bee lands in the basket where the last few strawberries are, as well as a bunch of strawberry tops and some grape stems, and she giggles, then starts singing. "A-buzz a-buzz a-buzzing like them killer bees, tell me this is not for real, please tell me this is not for real..."

"Oh no," I moan, "not Wild Mood Swings. I detest that album."

She giggles even more. "Detest it? You’re so extreme. Can’t you just dislike it?"

I shake my head, which is difficult considering that I’m lying down. "Nope."

Daniel leans down and kisses me again. "You taste like strawberry," he says when he pulls away.

"You taste like banana." I smile.

"I read a story once that involved people kissing after eating different foods, in order to make new flavors."

"Sounds classic. I bet that’s in a lot of stories."

He turns to Sarah and kisses her also. "Hmm. That doesn’t mix as well," he says.

"No," she replies, "Brie and bananas aren’t the best combination."

He takes another sip of wine, moving his other hand up to begin caressing my earlobe as he does so. It’s becoming slightly more of a turn on. Sarah takes the glass from him and drinks some as well. We’re almost done with the bottle. Daniel’s nails are just barely grazing my skin, the faintest whisper of touch, and a gust of breeze comes through, ruffling everyone’s hair. It blows my bangs into my eyes, and he pulls the bleached strands away and puts them back against the shorter, brown mass of the rest of my hair before I can reach up and do so myself. Sarah holds her long honey-colored hair down with one hand. The clouds are scudding across the dome of the sky.

"Can I have some wine?" I ask.

"Lying down?" Daniel responds. He ponders for a second, while I try to decide whether to sit up or not. He’s right that I can’t really drink in this position. Then he dips his fingers in the wineglass and places them against my lips, dripping. I quickly lick at them, sucking the wine off.

"That’s not very efficient," I say to him.

"But it’s fun. And if it’s not efficient enough, I suppose that means I’ll have to do it again." So he does. I suck his fingers more lasciviously this time, mimicking another action.

"Now, boys, we are in public, remember?" Sarah says, smiling at us.

"Not really," he replies. "Besides, whatever are you implying?"

I’m laughing too much to continue with his fingers. "I believe she’s referring to our culture’s suppression of certain actions, which it has otherized as improper for the public sphere of decency. The so-called dichotomy of the Apollonian and Dionysian elements of society is being brought into play here, with, um... drunken debauchery being inappropriate for children and intellectuals, who clearly embody the mind rather than the body, and we all know that... well, more dichotomy, and..." There are indeed children screaming in the playground on the other side of the trees.

"Now you’re the one talking dirty," Daniel chuckles. "That’s inappropriate for public."

"Embody the mind rather than the body?" Sarah puts in.

"Hey, it was totally impromptu..." I try to defend myself.

Daniel wipes his hand off on the leg of his black jeans, and starts to stroke my hair. Another bee lands on the strawberries. Sarah looks over at me. "The bees behind my eyes sing beware, but my bee-stung tongue wants in there?" she quotes. I shrug. That’s even more awkward than shaking my head.

"Bees," Daniel says, "see amazing things. I can’t even imagine it right. It would be so neat to be able to look at the world like that, just for a while."

"What I always wonder," I add pensively, "is whether we actually see the same colors even as other people. How are we able to really compare that from person to person? Haven’t they done studies that show that people don’t perceive colors identically? I always think it would be weird if it turned out that we saw things all shaded the colors of our eyes, like wearing different colored lenses."

"I don’t think that’s how it works, darling," he replies.

"Only in poetry," Sarah adds.

"You could paint it, too..." I’m seeing pictures in my head, of people with colored rays coming out of their eyes, washing the whole scene in their field of vision with their own color scheme. Daniel caresses my cheek with one hand, and reaches out and takes Sarah’s hand with the other. She clasps his fingers in both hands. They kiss again. I close my eyes, trying to imagine this picture more clearly. I lift my arms from where they’re resting on my stomach and bend them up over my head, wrapping them around Daniel’s waist at an odd angle. I really am getting more sleepy. Images are wisping apart in my mind, losing coherency. I can feel Daniel’s torso shifting as he leans. I sort of want to take a nap out here, and I sort of want to go back to the apartment. Of course, back there it might get all tangled up. Last night we all slept in the bed, but the night before that I slept on the couch, and if... Maybe I’ll just fall asleep right here, right now... Daniel’s fingers are twining in my hair. I wonder if we do see different colors, because I can’t imagine how they could ever test this, although I’m certain that they have anyway...

I hear voices whispering above me. "Is he falling asleep?" Sarah asks softly.

"I think it’s a great idea," Daniel whispers back. I feel lips and soft breath against my ear. "Ash, dear, mind letting me out?" I take my arms away from him and lift up my head as he slides out from under me. I turn over on my side and curl up. It’s all warm out here. I didn’t kick any of the food, did I? There’s noises like maybe Daniel and Sarah are clearing everything off the blanket, and then he lays down perpendicular to me, with his head at my stomach. Sarah snuggles up next to him, resting on his chest, and he puts his arms around her. I don’t see what’s so hard to understand about this, I think, it’s warm, and he’s so cute, and... What? Now I’ve confused myself. Oh right, colors... The golden sunshine and the red wine and my grey eyes which might be veiling everything and I don’t even notice, and the bee-striped clouds, and the strawberries floating in his kiss.... It’s simple really... It’s spring.