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"Will the wind ever remember 

The names it has blown in the past, 

And with this crutch, its old age and its wisdom 

It whispers, "No, this will be the last." 

 And The Wind Cries Mary."

Mikey could hear the distant sounds of his mother's record player in the living room. The serene guitar melodies drifted down the hall and slipped into his bedroom door, which was slightly ajar. The music wrapped itself around his head, flowing in and out of his ears as he blew smoke out of his window, watching it drift a few feet into the air before being dispersed completely by the wind. 

"See now, this - this is real music, Michael."

His mother had popped her head inside his door, wearing yellow rubber gloves and holding a bucket in one hand, her face slightly rosy and dewy with sweat. She always put on her old records when she was cleaning the house. Very seldom did she actually sing along, though Mikey knew for certain that she had every last word memorized. 

"You know they make stereos now, ma? Machines you can actually just hook your iPod up to and play all the music you want?" 

"It sounds better like this," his mother insisted, raising her free hand to wipe the perspiration from her forehead. "And much better than that rap, hip-hop garbage you and your friends like to blast in the car all damn day. You'd realize it if you weren't smoking on that pot all day long, you know." 

"Yeah, yeah...." Mikey threw the last of the soggy roach out of his window and reached over to the desk next to his bed for his headphones.  

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This was hardly Eric's first time at the rodeo, as they say. He had walked through this park, eaten the greasy, overpriced food, and seen the animated princesses come to life well over a dozen times in his rather short eighteen years of life. Those princesses were something else. Eric wondered if they even looked like the same people underneath all that hair and makeup, underneath the garishly vibrant gowns. Even as a little boy, growing up and watching all those Disney movies with his sister, he never could see the appeal of these girls. And that's what they were: girls - not women; young girls with impossibly tiny waistlines and impeccable facial features. The way they moved and their mannerisms were even artificial.

He remembered every Halloween of his childhood, when his sister would insist on dressing up as one of the princesses - it didn't really matter which one, as they all had the same Barbie doll-like figure and features behind the different colors of hair and clothing. And then he remembered his mother, who would scoop up his sister in her strong, stocky arms when one of the neighborhood boys gave her a scare with their gory masks. His mother never objected to her daughter representing these fictitious images, perhaps because she knew the illusion of grandeur would soon dissolve with age.

Observing Joanie in juxtaposition to these idealized figures made her seem more real than she really was. Even compared to many of the girls at school, Joanie dressed for comfort, hardly ever did anything to her hair, and best of all - she was smart. It would be alright if these princesses had some brains to back up their looks, Eric thought. Maybe that's what was missing. He loved how Joanie had always been on the thicker side - plush thighs, round cheeks, substanstial arms. But even moreso he found it fascinating how she was always reading some obscure and fantastical literature; the last one she had been telling him about was by Deleuze and Guattari. She didn't have to read this stuff for any particular reason, she just liked knowing things that other people might not. Eric sure as hell hadn't heard about half of these people she was always rattling on about.

After they finished their meal of fried this and that, the pair stood to throw away their trash and exit the restaurant. Eric wrapped an arm around Joanie's sturdy hips, "Let's go, princess."