Painting

With a sudden thud the soft blue paint burst out of the balloon that had been the target of the teenage girl with a handful of darts. Laughter and upbeat music filled the backyard as the friends threw darts at water balloons filled with paint. The day had been fun with clear, cloudless skies and a refreshing swim in the pool. Paint continued to drip from the balloon, looking like the ocean’s waves crashing on the shore. More colors began to fill the canvases creating a world of colors from the blank space.

The sky was a soft black, due to the city wide power outage. The friends had nothing to do now that the city had gone dark, ideas were given but none were chosen until someone suggested that they fill paint in water balloons and hit them with darts. Everyone agreed on that and got the supplies they needed and headed out to the backyard. You could see the midnight sky and the twinkling stars now that the lights were out in the city.

Yellow paint was smeared on the face of one of the girls as she stared with a mischievous smile at her friend. Soon her friend had green pain running down her face. It was then that paint fight had officially broken out. The laughter sounded bright against the dark night like the morning sky. Music blared and paint flew and neighbors grew irritated but endeared by the nonsense reminding them of what it was like when they were stupid teenagers keeping their neighbors up late at night. Candles lit up the scene in a soft glow; paint was everywhere and the friends were covered from head to toe in colors.

One of the girls had slipped away unnoticed but leaving footprints in the green grass. She had slipped around the corner of the house and turned the hose on that resembled a garden snake resting in the mint that grew in her mother’s garden. She quietly stepped over to her friends, and then the laughter stopped and was replaced by shrill screams as cold water poured onto her friends. Birds flew from the trees around them, startled by the abrupt screams. Laughter soon followed as the hose was pulled from the girls hands and pointed towards her. She immediately turned on her heels and ran toward the pool gate and past the swing set that’s colors always reminded her of the forrest. She opened the pool gate and quickly shut it only to have it swing open again. Her friends followed her in but before the cold water could hit her she was in the air for just a second until the water split beneath her feet and splashed on the sides of the pool. She was followed by her friends who all laughed and swam and ignored the lights that had come back on slightly lighting the pool’s water around them resembling a dark seaweed color.

The girls swam until the sun came up, painting the sky orange. The reflection hit the pool illuminating it in the sunrise’s bright colors. They all laid in the pool chairs and once the sun finally rose they all threw on clothes and made a trip to go get breakfast. After they ate they drove home and crashed from the nights lack of sleep. The night wasn’t what they had originally planned but it was infinitely better than they could have thought. Maybe sometimes the most fun you have is when you let fate decide what you’re going to do.