From a Safe Distance

        Nathan, Brian, and TJ were well into their high.  A smoky haze lazily gathered near the ceiling of the basement at Brian’s parent’s house.  The room smelled faintly sweet with the distinctive aroma of Amathin, a hallucinatory drug that had only been developed a few years ago.  The boys were all juniors at Melbrook High School-that was where they had met.  For three years they had suffered through classes together and snuck off after school to smoke Amathin under the bleachers at the football field.  A boy named Devin in the grade above them ensured they were always well-supplied with the drug, providing they had the money of course. 

There were usually four of them, but Alex had to help over at the auto repair shop his dad owned before joining them.  The three boys had gotten tired of waiting and had started without him.  Brian’s parents were out of town for the weekend, so the boys were making the most of having an empty house at their disposal.  TJ slowly exhaled the smoke in his lungs, watching the thick, milky smoke undulate upwards like a water snake in its natural habitat.  Everything was slowed down.  It was all so graceful and beautiful when one had the time to look at the way things moved. 

Brian slowly unfolded from his chair and sailed gently across the room like an ancient galleon.  He bent down as if bowing to a queen and changed the CD in the stereo system.  After a year of silence, sound again spread through the basement and flowed through the boy’s bodies.  TJ felt the magic of the music come to life-something that he could only fully experience with the help of Amathin.  He could see waves of color flow through the air, making shapes and scenes that dispersed as soon as he thought he could make out what they were.  It moved him, made him feel like everything was connected in infinite ways.  TJ couldn’t see the connections when he wasn’t sharing Amathin with his friends.  Without the drug, the whole world seemed out of sync and he felt so alone.  
       Brian felt the magic too.  He raised his hands out in front of his face and marveled at their complexity.  The fingers moved separately in a complicated dance, yet they worked together to help him do so many things.  Their friend Nathan, sitting motionless on a couch, was obviously experiencing the magic too.  His head was tilted back and his eyes were closed as he let the song envelop him.  They were all having their own private interlude with the magic, but they were still connected in beautifully intricate ways that the normal mind couldn’t begin to fathom.  Amathin awakened extraordinary awareness.  It opened sectors of the mind that slept at all other times.  It was sad, TJ thought to himself, that every day people walk around wrapped up in the busyness of their own lives without ever seeing as he was seeing now.

            Brian crossed the room, still exploring the versatility of his hands, and reclaimed his favorite armchair.  Finally he lowered his hands and became absorbed with the way smoke rolled out of his mouth when he exhaled.  He tried unsuccessfully to make smoke rings, but it didn’t really matter.  Nothing mattered really, it was all just experience.  Doing and not doing.  Everything just was, it didn’t have to be good or bad or be anything more than itself.  Nothing was dangerous or safe, either.  Amathin was supposed to be an extremely dangerous drug, but nothing bad ever happened to them.  All that talk of danger and risk was just society’s way of restricting their thinking.  The adults didn’t want them to feel this way or know the things Amathin helped them to understand.  No-they wanted to trap their youth into tiny lives and small thinking.  Everything was structured and pretty-nothing out of place.  That kind of world didn’t belong to them, and they didn’t belong to it.  They belonged to this.  They belonged here.  They were the children of now.  They didn’t have to face the world their parent’s formed for them.  They could exist in glorious harmony down here in the basement for the rest of their lives. 

            There was a knock from somewhere at the edge of the universe.  Then Alex descended the stairs to the basement looking for all the world like Jesus floating down from the clouds to collect His children.  He waved at them and went to sit down next to Nathan, who was still caught up in the music and hadn’t even opened his eyes when Alex arrived.  Alex stopped in front of Nathan and leaned down over him, studying his face.  TJ tried to suppress a giggle.  He couldn’t wait to see what Alex would do to mess with their friend.  From far away, like from the end of a long tunnel, TJ heard Alex say Nathan’s name.  He repeated it, shaking him this time.  TJ wanted to tell him to leave Nathan alone and let him enjoy the moment, but he couldn’t remember how to make words.  Then he lost himself to wondering about how strange it is that lips, teeth, tongues, and vocal chords interact with each other and enable people to understand what each other is saying.  Alex was shouting now, but it didn’t matter.  It was too far away.  There was nothing to be done except let it happen.  What did shouting mean anyway?

            TJ was dimly aware that Alex left and sometime after that people flooded down into the basement.  He was irritated that they would dare come in and violate the sanctity of their world.  Some adults were asking Brian questions but he was too confused to give the answers they wanted.  Everyone was so rushed.  They all just needed to slow down.  Brian was starting to get upset, like a hibernating bear being woken from its sleep too early to find that the world is still cold and barren.  He stood up and started pleading and shouting.  Brian’s parents couldn’t find out about this world they’d made for themselves.  Nathan was all right-he was always all right.  Why were they making a fuss?  He was just caught up in it.  Just shake him-say his name-then he’ll open his eyes.  Brian clumsily made his way over to Nathan and tried to touch him, but the intruders were keeping him back.  Why wasn’t Alex doing anything?  TJ thought to himself.  Why did he let them all in?  It all was getting to be too much.  The basement was crowded.  He had to get out.  He couldn’t breathe in here.  Why wouldn’t they all just get out?

       Nathan’s funeral was on a Saturday.  It rained that day but the three boys didn’t have umbrellas with them.  From their sentry position on the hill they looked down on all the people gathered around the hole in the ground.  All of them had black umbrellas to protect them from the cold droplets that fell down from the clouds like tears.  Brian, TJ, and Alex weren’t protected.  They felt every drop that burst and scattered on their heads and shoulders.  Alex looked down at the funeral party with a stony face that knew how the world was really like.  Brian stared at the hole his friend would be lowered into with disbelief and vague terror.  TJ was numb, unable to sort it all into a shape that would make everything okay again.  No one outwardly blamed them for Nathan’s death, not even his own parents, but the three boys banned themselves from the funeral party anyway.  If they joined all those mourning people, reality would come smashing down and destroy their fragile illusions.  Without that, they’d be lost.  So the three stood on the hill looking down at the world from a safe distance while the rain pelted their faces and slowly soaked through their clothes.