Did nobody bring any matches? What are we to do now?
The sun sets in a beautiful wash of pink, orange, and yellow hues. The air gets chillier as the night comes for us with the rising of a full moon. Heat from the bonfire rises against the beautiful backdrop of flickering flames dancing around freely and entirely unincumbered. Swirling around as they so wish. They don’t call it ‘Magic Hour’ for nothing.
Out comes the box. The Golden Box. Handcrafted with love, care, and an acute dedication to an artistry that’s long gone unappreciated. Inside, contains the dopest dope that will ever be smoked. The amount of respect we have for the perfectly rolled joints is nearly ritualistic in its collective reverence. But wait, where’s the lighter? Did we also not put a lighter in the box? How did we plan on smoking these most glorious of rolls without any flame-heavy instrumentation? Did nobody bring any matches? What are we to do now? Hold up! The answer is staring us all right in the face. Maybe try, oh I dunno, the large bonfire?
With the skilled precision of a spinal surgeon at the top of their profession, I gingerly pinch the prized cannabis from its most ostentatious box. I slip the joint in between my lips. The heat from the fire rises, as my face comes in spitting distance of being utterly immolated. The joint ignites, and truthfully, I don’t think I’ve ever looked cooler than I did in that exact moment.
The moment of pure bliss vanishes, just as quickly as it first appeared. A clicking interrupts the moment. I ignore the auditory distraction. I suck the smoke back deep into my lungs. The clicking returns. I turn to see what’s going on. Nobody else seems to hear anything. The clicking increases in numbers and volume. Suddenly several grasshoppers burst forth from the flames, flying forth like one of the Egyptian plagues of Old Testament. The ground shakes and trembles. The bonfire disappears through a large sinkhole in the ground. I turn back toward my friends; they seem frozen in time. Nobody’s reacting in any way that they should be. A loud shriek pierces the night. A large grasshopper the size of a skyscraper flies out of the sinkhole. What is going on?!
I look at the joint in my hand. What’s in this thing? Might be the strongest cannabis I’ve ever sucked back deep down in my lungs. The only word that leaves my mouth is one syllable and just three letters. R-U-N. Instead of heeding the overly simplistic warning, my friends suddenly become dinosaurs. Some are stegosaurs, some are t-rexes. Others are long-necks or raptors. I run. As fast as my feet can carry me. I haven’t moved a muscle. My legs are now chicken legs. Feathers start sprouting all over my body. I run as fast as my tiny, little chicken legs can carry me. The night sky lights up with large fiery apocalyptic rocks foretelling of a great doom. What year is it?!
A farmhouse appears in the distance. The giant grasshopper keeps hopping. Its body so large, the ground shakes with each bounce of its monstrous legs. All I want to do is hide, and yet my body keeps betraying me. A trail of eggs laid by yours truly give away my current global positioning system. I make it to the farmhouse and slam the door shut.
There’s another door. In the floor. I grab the doorknob and turn the handle. Just as the roof of the farmhouse rips off its foundations. I jump down through the door, and the world suddenly becomes an acid-flashback world, where nothing at all makes any sense. I see a chicken running around with its head cut off. It’s hard to describe. All I can say is it feels like swallowing sparkling water while your foot falls asleep. Scratchy TV static and pins and needles.
Just as I try making sense of this new-formed world, I wake up and take a few moments to process what even just happened. It was all just a dream. I think. Just one giant hopper of the grass monster-movie dream. I feel something alien in my mouth. With my thumb and index finger, I reach down to the back of my throat without triggering my hyper-sensitive uvula. Out comes a little white chicken feather. Wait, am I still dreaming? A dream within a dream? It can’t be. Oh, wait. No, I’m awake. I see bite marks and other small white tufts of down from my super comfy pillow. Tufts of down that are entirely ensconced in a disturbing amount of my own saliva.
Out of tensive, Pavlovian habit I reach for my phone, on the bedside table. A friend texts me. It’s nice to get texts. So long as they’re not carpet-bombing me with notifications on a consistent basis. That’s truly exhausting. It’s both a blessing and a curse to be so popular.
What does the text say? I’m getting invited out to partake in a game of Puff, Puff, Pass at The Bonfire tonight. Yeah, I think I’ll pass for tonight. I got enough cardio in my dreams, thank you very much!
Mary-Jane
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