Excerpt: A World of Two Halves

Prologue:

It was the height of summer--hot and simmering, the trees across the road wavering at their roots in a heat-daze. The two boys sat under the cool shade of an overhang, hands clutched around cold drinks shining with condensation. They talked of inconsequential things, lazy with the heat, and the long line of buildings, flush to the horizon, rolled out their certain, immutable futures.

"Want to see something special?" one boy asked, back against the wall. His throat worked as he tilted his head back and drank. Above them, the birds chattered and hopped on the canvas, in a flurry of little scratching sounds.

"Sure, if it's good enough," his friend said, bored and ready for something to take away that boredom.

They leaned close together, heads touching. "You can't tell anyone," the first boy said, sing-song and secretive, and the other boy looked at him with growing interest, an appreciative audience. A promise was quickly extracted, and upon tossing their empty cups into a trashcan, the two went down the burning street hand in hand. A passing bicyclist waved at them--the two were well known faces, in the tiny neighborhood--and they waved back, smiling and cheery and ignorant. Then they reached the top of the road, and pausing an instant, made neat black cutout silhouettes against the bright sky.

That was the last time they were ever seen together.