Freshly Made, Just for You

Dispatches from the Splinters of My Mind

The Hippy Ice Cream Man – Entry VI

The gulls owned the rooftop. They had claimed it long before we arrived, staking their kingdom in feathers and shit, in the low, guttural croaks that echoed like laughter. Their wings tore at the sky when they rose, dragging it open, only to fold it back into silence when they landed again. From where we sat, the sea spread out in every direction, a pewter sheet without reflection, as though it had swallowed the sky whole and kept it hidden.

The castle wasn’t a ruin, not completely. The stones still held their shape, still resisted the erosion of wind and salt, but there was moss clawing at the edges of the turrets, lichen freckling the slate roof. A place caught between being kept alive and being abandoned—much like us, though neither of us wanted to say it out loud.

We sat against the cold wall, the slick tiles beneath us daring us to slip. My legs dangled freely into the air, careless. Hers stayed tucked close, knees pulled in, heels dug hard into the slate as though bracing against gravity itself. That was always the difference between us: I trusted the drop, she feared it. We hadn’t spoken in nearly an hour. Silence was easier, and for a while, we both pretended it was enough.

The gull on the chimney watched us. A single sentinel, yellow eyes sharp and patient, as though waiting to see which one of us would fall first.

When she finally spoke, her voice startled me.
“Why are you always trying to get me to eat ice cream from the hippy ice cream man?”

The words felt too light for this place, too absurd to belong among these stones. They scattered in my chest like startled birds.
“What?”

She smirked, though it didn’t reach her eyes. “You heard me. Every time we’re close to something—like this—” she gestured vaguely at the impossible balance of us on the rooftop, at the thin margin between sitting and falling, “—you start talking about him. That van, his cones, like it’s holy salvation or something.”

I wanted to deny it. Pretend she was imagining things. But the image of the truck rose instantly, absurdly: parked at the seawall below, pastel paint catching the last orange spill of sunlight—music tinkling, distorted and tinny. The words freshly made just for you ” were painted across the side like a promise no one believed. And that small golden rectangle of light from the serving window, glowing like a portal to somewhere better.

“Because,” I said slowly, “that’s the only place left where nothing is asked of you. You hand him a coin, and he gives you sweetness. No questions. No history. Just sugar. Just cold.”

She turned back toward the gull. It hadn’t moved. Neither had the crows on the far chimney, who leaned in as if listening. “You think that’s all I want? To be numbed?”

I didn’t answer. The air had thickened, and even the sea seemed to press closer.

Her voice cracked against the quiet. “Sometimes I think you’d rather eat someone else’s lies than deal with the truth of me.”

I swallowed. My throat was raw from silence. “Maybe. Maybe because the truth of you is heavier than this whole damn castle.”

The gull flapped its wings once, dislodging flecks of stone dust, then settled again. Watching and always watching.

We had been here before. Not this rooftop, not this particular edge of stone and slate, but here—in the place where one of us demanded something the other couldn’t give. It always ended the same: with me retreating into sweetness, her retreating into anger.

I remembered the first time I saw the van. Not here, but further down the coast, years ago. I was walking alone after midnight when I saw its colors under the sodium lamps, too bright for the hour, too hopeful. The man inside was still serving, though there was no one in line. He had his arms crossed, staring at nothing. His face was older than the paint job. I almost walked past, but he caught my eye and tilted his head, and I bought a cone out of guilt.

The first bite had been a revelation. Not because it was good—it wasn’t—but because it was simple. No hidden meanings. No debts. Just a mouthful of something cold that melted away before I could question it. I never forgot that feeling. I wanted it again. I wanted her to have it too.

But she wasn’t built for simplicity.

“You don’t see it, do you?” she said now, pulling her knees tighter. “That ice cream man, your savior, he’s just another ghost. Another liar in pastels. You think his sweetness is freedom, but he’s trapped just like us. Debt, sorrow, God knows what. You want me to believe in him because you’ve already decided you can’t believe in me.”

Her words landed harder than the wind.

I tried to picture the man’s face. His tired smile, the scars along his hands when he passed me the cone. She was right—he wasn’t free. None of us were. And yet, he had given me that moment of quiet, that small reprieve. Couldn’t that be enough?

“You’re probably right,” I said. “But at least his lie tastes better than ours.”

Her face twisted, something between grief and rage. “That’s the problem. You’ll settle for sweetness just because it doesn’t cut as deep. You’ll choose the hippy ice cream man over me every time.”

The gull lifted suddenly, wings beating, filling the air with a violence that wasn’t its own. The crows scattered from the far chimney, black streaks against the sea. For a moment, it felt like the whole rooftop would shake apart under their departure.

When the noise faded, she looked at me again, eyes shadowed, unreadable. “You don’t even realize it, do you? You’re already halfway down there, coin in hand.”

Her words hollowed me out.

I wanted to argue, wanted to tell her she was wrong. But the image rose again: the van humming with light below the seawall, music spilling like a broken memory, waiting for me to step down from these stones and pay the price for one more mouthful of sweetness.

The castle groaned in the wind. The slate shifted beneath us. The sea waited, patient and endless.

We didn’t climb down together.

By the time I finally left the rooftop, she was gone. Whether she had climbed down first or vanished into the stone, I couldn’t say. The gull had returned to the chimney, and it watched me with something like pity.

When I reached the seawall, the van was still there. Lights glowing, window open, music playing. The man inside didn’t speak as I handed him a coin. He just nodded, passed me the cone, and turned away.

The first bite was as cold as always. Sweetness dissolving before it could mean anything.

I stood there in the glow of the hippy ice cream man, alone, licking at something that was never going to save me.

And above, high on the castle rooftop, the gull croaked once more.

Author’s Note:
This story was inspired by Sadje’s What Do You See? #303. I took the provided image as a doorway into something more fractured and unresolved, letting the rooftop and the gulls become the stage for a conversation that had been waiting too long in silence. As always, these Dispatches are fragments—splinters of something larger I don’t pretend to fully understand. They aren’t answers, just echoes.