Summertime

Jenny moved her hand down her leg and scratched her calf. The sun shone through the side window of her room, making it's way across her bedspread. The light lit up her straight bangs, making strange rainbow flairs in her eyes. She closed them and saw red. The fan to her left whirred slowly, making the light flicker through the blades. Jenny tilted her head back and rubbed her pale neck, inhaling deeply through her nose and exhaling contentedly.

She rolled back down onto the bed, and turned her head on the pillow to look out the window. The dark, flecked sky was just visible through the leaves of her foresty backyard. The sun was warming her thin legs, so she shifted them into a more shady part of the bed. Jenny lazily draped her hand around a dripping glass of lemonade. She slowly moved it to her lips, and drank in long, slow swallows.

With an electronic blip, a message appeared on her wall-screen reminding her that she and her friends were going into Central Tube that night. Jenny sat up and stretched her legs all the way out, and spun them off the bed onto the floor. She walked over to her chest of drawers as she unbuttoned her top. She chose a new shirt for the night and walked over to her tall window as she pulled it around her head and over her chest. Jenny stared up, through the glass of the colony's domed ceiling and at the stars in the distance. Alpha Centauri shone brightly, and Jenny smiled.

"I love summertime," she whispered to herself, and waltzed out of the room.

-Lucas Thurston