Masterpiece

Masterpiece

The swarms were migrating towards the city square, blankets and tents hanging on their backs, bags of food, water, clothing, and anything else were weighing them down to the ground. They were all beasts in the concrete jungle.
         Nina practically ran to the lip of the fountain, laying a blanket on the ground to claim their spot. Hans walked slower, not in any hurry to catch up.  She was now nervously setting up her things, warding off anyone who threatened her place.
         “Hurry up!” She called to Hans. “We need to get the tent up!”
         Hans drug his feet on the ground until he got to their usual spot. “I don’t know why you’re in such a hurry. We have all night.”
         Nina ignored him, and pushed his own tent back into his arms. “Set this up please.” Reluctantly, Hans took the bag, containing the makings of their tent and got to work.  Nina watched as he attached plastic sticks to fabric and hammered pegs in the ground, while everyone on either side of them was still choosing places or chatting with neighbors.  To her, this was art: the pitching of a tent. It made her think of the stories she had heard of ancient America when families would go camping, just human beings pretending to live in a forest, leaving the city and all of their obligations behind.
         “Done,” Hans said, stepping back to get a good look at their creation.
         Nina hugged him enthusiastically, still looking at it. “Beautiful,” she whispered. Hans didn’t understand her attraction to The Campout, but he admired it.
         “Hans Rocker! Is that you?” Nina and Hans both turned around as a man in plaid Bermudas and a polo shirt made his way toward them, stepping over and around people.
         “My boss,” Hans mumbled to Nina. “Mr. Morris, nice to see you here.”
         “Sure is,” he said, finally approaching them. “It’s a nice spot you got here, Rocker.” He was eyeing the statuesque fountain that acted as the backdrop to their camping spot.
         “Well Nina uses this spot every year. Sort of like a tradition of hers.” There was a short silence as Mr. Morris turned his gaze to Nina.
         “Oh yeah. Sorry. This is my good friend, Nina,” Hans said.
         “It’s nice to meet you,” she said, gripping his hand. Hans could see that she was annoyed with Mr. Morrison. It wasn’t that he had done anything wrong, just that she was loosing precious seconds.
         “I’m here with the girls, myself. My wife wanted the house to herself.” Hans didn’t respond outside of a polite nod in attempts to hurry the conversation along. It only took about forty seconds of awkward silence before Mr. Morris took the hint. “Speaking of my daughters I should probably get back before they worry or something.”
         “See you Monday!” Hans called at him as he began the obstacle course back to his tent.
         “Finally! I thought he’d never leave!” Nina resumed her task of rolling out sleeping bags and unpacking miscellaneous belongings.
         Hans pulled the cell phone out of his pocket. “He was only here for  2.6 minutes.”
         Nina let out a frightened squeal and tried to grab the device from Hans. “No phones!”
         “Jeez. I was just checking the time.”
         “It ruins the experience.” Hans groaned but decided to humor her, shutting off the device and burying it in one of the duffel bags.
“It’s already sunset!” She was dashing the whole two feet to the red picnic basket and pulling things out. “Help me!” So he did, stretching his arms out to take hold of everything she shoved at him from the depths of the basket, and taking the articles of food out to the opening of the tent where they had a clear view of the sunset over the cities. He was soon joined by Nina who had kicked her shoes off and was carrying a bottle of wine in her right hand.
         “No glasses this year?” he asked curiously.
         “No. I want it to be authentic, you know? And I wasn’t sure if they used glasses back in the olden days, so I figured I’d leave them behind this year.” Hans thought that if they had wine bottles back in the “olden” days, then surely they would have had glasses, but he dared not ruin Nina’s fun. Instead he put his arm around her as she happily uncorked the bottle.
         As they passed the bottle back and forth, she wondered what it would have been like to be living back then, sitting under the open sky, surrounded by trees.
         When the sun went down the retired back to the tent and told ghost stories using an antique flashlight. Then they stayed up for half of the night talking until they fell asleep.
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Hans awoke the next morning to see half of the square cleared out. Everyone else was packing up or migrating back to their homes with the exception of Nina who was submerged under the water of the fountain, imagining what it would be like to swim in a pond or bathe in a creek.
“Nina, we have to be cleared out in an hour,” he called. Suddenly she was right next to him, drenched from head to toe.
“Hans, you should have seen me. I was up at the crack of dawn just like a real camper!”
“Sounds…glorious,” he said though not at all convinced of his own words.
“It was!” she cried, zealously, beginning to re-wrap and pack things, soaking them all with water as she did. “This was the best year yet.” Hans began to help her by dismantling the tent. He turned just in time to see Mr. Morris ushering six bubbly little girls (all messaging on their corresponding phones) to their house.
         “Bye, Rocker!” he called.  “I look forward to next year!”
         “Yes.” Hans answered. “Next year.”
         Nina began humming the melody to Kumbaya as the two continued to gently destroy the masterpiece.