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Jonas pedaled alongside Asher on his bike, the metal machine rolling steadily forward with every push. As they turned a corner, dark eyes met his pale ones for just a moment. Asher smiled, and Jonas thinks he did too, though he can barely remember. Everything’s foggy, like his memories are fading away, replaced by the new ones he receives each day.
Then, they were home, diverging paths as they did every evening.
There was a memory, not quite Jonas’s, that took place in a vast library of memories. Jonas, a — what was the word? Oh, right — librarian, lent books to those who came by. Asher visited regularly, reading through heaps of books about color and animals and that snowy hill with the sled. Jonas would point out his favorites, and Asher would say that they were his favorites, too.
Every day, the metal machine that was the library cart rattled and squeaked between shelves as Jonas put them up again for others to enjoy. Asher made lively commentary as he helped, putting up books as Jonas rolled by the proper places for the books to be.
It was quiet, and it was nice.
In a dream, Asher's hands touched his as they stepped onto the sled together. The sled was red, the shade of Asher's mouth as he smiled in the cold. The wind rushed around them and blanketed them like the comforting grasp of a parent, and their shrieks of delight echoed into infinity. The sled was a metal machine also, just like the bike, carrying them on and on.
In some universe, maybe they just kept on riding and never, ever, stopped.
In another world, Jonas and Asher just talked.
They sat at a neat little shop, each with a warm drink in hand, and talked on for hours. They told each other about their favorite places, their hobbies — all of the small things. They asked about their favorite colors, which was weird — how did Asher know what those were, anyway?
That didn't matter. Jonas and Asher, talking, were all that did.
The night before Jonas left the community, he thought he heard Asher's laughter in response to a joke — what it was, he couldn't remember, except for that it was funny. It must have been, how Asher's radiant dark eyes scrunched with amusement and speckled with a joy so bright and infectious that it glittered like gold. The sound of his laugh was wreathed in a glorious frame of rustling, which Jonas found emanated from the wrapper of the present he held in his hands. He began to open it eagerly, seated next to his — no, their — very own golden dog that laid underneath a tree draped in gleaming ornaments.
The wrapping was a beautiful, rich red, shiny and perfect despite its haphazard arrangement around the box it covered. "Sorry, Jonas," Asher had said apologetically. "I'm no good at wrapping gifts."
Jonas told him honestly that he didn't mind at all.
Jonas thought about Asher, for a moment. As he left the community behind, bike rolling over little bumps that brought him farther from his family and friends, he thought of Asher. Warm hands in his. Dark eyes to pale eyes.
No, he couldn't bear to think any longer.
He just continued to pedal on, wheels turning round and round on that little metal machine, and that metal machine, reliable as ever, carried him farther and farther away.
In some universe, maybe it never, ever, stopped.