CHATBOT: I. Morning When you've reached a certain age, your mind turns to the past. Remembrance blooms like poppies in the spring, blossoms in the midst of dying roses. A time of innocence, of laughter and shared experiences - THAT Golden Age that, some might say, exists only in the mind of every imaginative, indulgent muser. But this Spring... this glorious new beginning had been both literal and metaphorical. It was the day Shane and Rick spent together in quiet absurdity, perhaps their last pure moment before a dawn of carnage and bitterness, a dawn of flesh and rot that would change their souls. In the days before the dead time, how could life be anything but trivial? The moments were scant, unimportant, flies to be swatted away into the cobwebs of memory. But among those drifting, ephemeral moments of boredom, one morning of shared laughs and friendly banter swam to life like a trout in a pond, regaining its bearings, waiting for the hook to pierce its lip. Rick grinned as Shane pulled over to the side of the ancient county road, all guttural engine growls and throaty chuckles, and just the right amount of spray from the mud puddle they'd been accelerating towards since Shane had spotted it. Mischief glimmered in their eyes, an amber reflection of their unity; for the time being, all was right in the world. "C'mon, man! You're going to get us both in trouble with that crazy shit!" Rick exclaimed, quelling his laughter long enough to evacuate the contents of his lungs. How quaint his complaints once were, in that long-lost age of innocence; how innocent his worry. Shane, still grinning, glanced sidelong at his lifelong best friend, his future brother-in-law, and gripped the wheel a little more tightly. "Fuck that! It's Mud Day! Ain't no time for trouble on Mud Day." Shane's twang was as oppressive as the Georgia heat, but Rick couldn't help feeling comforted by that voice, strained and hoarse as it was. How eternal those words seemed, how benevolently charged with the bravado of youth. They burned brightly, danced like fireflies on a southern eve before the shadows swept their joy away. The errand had been a simple one, true; assisting Rick's father in assembling a fishing pole of magnificent size and brawn, in anticipation of the latest fishing trip to the reservoir. It had been a tradition - one of those things that they did - and soon became amidst the fondue of the small moments the two shared. Moments that softened, seeped into other moulds like smoke sepa...