“Coffee sounds great” His friend smiled.

The urge to find an excuse for his friend to leave slowly crept upon him. He simply took a deep breath and drowned the urge.

The kettle whistled loudly. Like a steampunk train as the engine is pushed to its limits, he thought, picturing the living room as a breakroom in a distant utopia reality where they were just workmates making small talk.

It had been so long since he had seen his friend. He had definitely grown a lot in the time they had last physically spoken. Like an elder tree, he had the height and the wisdom that comes with his skill set, but the drawback was that he walked like a newborn deer, as if he wasn't accustomed to being so high up. He even checked to see if his dear friend was actually wearing a pair of stilts. Exhaling out of his nose at the thought, knowing it was something he would most definitely do to cheer up his friend. But alas, his friend had not arrived as a peg-legged circus performer, though he did come over as a friend and that was enough to make him tear up a little.

And so the coffee was poured and words were exchanged, the unveiling of his fake progress towards a book he had yet to really begin. He pictured it almost like he was an exposition dump in a television show, telling the officers all the information they needed to know. Though this time the crime committed was a lack of commitment to his dreams and goals. He held his cup to prevent it from shaking.

Through all this, all the lies he had spoken, the half-truths, the times he had said he was okay and doing his best, he cried, he cried a pastel tear, as for him the only way for sadness to be accepted and not shunned is for it to be an art form of your emotion. And so he cried pastel, his mug slowly becoming a lake of multicoloured wonder to the eyes of a writer, but for him, it was glazed, smudged and foggy. As he placed the mug on the table and held his face in his hands, he felt an embrace, a looming figure, not one that would strike fear but instead a friendly giant looking to sympathise, even though he was as tall as a mountain, in the eyes of the writer he had a smile like a sun and eyes filled with determination that would put a TED-talk worker to shame. He loved that smile, it was radiant and contagious. It was how he came up with the nickname for his friend, both being Latin nerds but never knowing how to translate or learn it, they simply used google’s translations and found the word, Solis.

And from then on it stuck, to him he was always gonna be the Solis that kept him safe and sound. He was the fool that befriended the sun…

Solis held him but then let go and stormed into the kitchen. He had a devious smirk on his face that meant he had a plan or a practical joke he wished to play, sometimes it was both. Walking back in Solis had a rolled-up A3 piece of paper in his hands and a fistful of coloured markers. He was going to speak up and object to whatever plan he had in mind, but as he opened his mouth to shut the plan down, Solis jumped over the coffee table almost like a predator pouncing on their prey as he bounced back in his seat, slammed the paper down and just yelled “MIND MAPS!!!... IT’LL BE GREAT! LET’S DO IT OLIVER”

For the first time in a while, the room was not filled with empty dreams and discarded notes, but instead youthful laughing and idea-sharing and progress! With the distraction of friendly roughhousing and memories being shared over more coffee with marshmallows in them. Solis claimed that having marshmallows was important as it fits in with his personal philosophy that a marshmallow was the key to making even the most bitter times sweet.

That once broken melody being played on the keyboard the prior day was replaced with the serenading of angelic laughter and good times. It was another step in the right direction, a step with a friend was the right step indeed.