Page 114 of The Token Yank

Rafe cocked an eyebrow at him. “I’ve always wanted to smokepot.”

“They don’t have weed back in theStates?”

“They do. But my friends never did it, so I didn’t either. At college, same thing. I just never found the people whosmoked.”

Eamonn laughed, and the laugh got bigger and bigger. Rafe sized himup.

“What’s sofunny?”

“Well, you know where we have to gonext.”

* * *

The sightsand sounds of Amsterdam were very bright but also very dark for Rafe and he felt like he’d been here for two weeks already but when he asked Eamonn how long they’d been out tonight, he said it’d only been two hours and forty-seven minutes. And when Rafe asked him how he could be so specific, Eamonn replied that Rafe had been asking him how long they’d been out every minute on the minute. Rafe pictured a minute on top of a minute. Could time stack on itself like that? Maybe it already was. Maybe our whole perception of time was all wrong, and we were just one of infinite parallel universes all balanced precariously on a single minute, and if there was the slightest shift in any of the infinite worlds, then we would all tip off the minute hand and fall into an abyss. But was there really anything like an abyss? Could an abyss even be possible because you couldn’t have nothingness. There always had to be something in the nothingness, and the realization struck Rafe like a shovel to the head, and his mind was incredibly clear as he had this amazing breakthrough and how could nobody else in this whole world have realized this it was soamazing.

“Eamonn, I’ve figured out the universe. I know what’s itabout.”

“No more weed for you.” Eamonn removed the joint from Rafe’shand.

“We are in a coffee shop, but we did not drinkcoffee.”

Eamonn laughed, and his laugh was the loudest it had ever been. It sounded like a Mozart symphony echoing in the grandest concert hall in all the world. The Sydney Opera house, like fromFindingNemo.

“Let’s go to Sydney,Eamonn.”

Eamonn just laughed again. What if he was so high that he lost the ability to talk and Rafe didn’t know Dutch and he couldn’t get Eamonn to a hospital and he would never be able to speakagain.

“Eamonn, please say something that is wordlength.”

“You are so bloody high,mate.”

People walked around them. They all looked so normal in their coats and their hats. Were they all high? Rafe wondered if people ever went low when they smoked, like if they sunk into the ground because we were all on quicksand technically. The earth that we think is the earth is just another layer and underneath are fossils and ancient cities. There were cities and worlds beneath their feet. How could people dig up ancient remains underneath without the cities above them collapsing in the hole? And rocks have been around for millions of years. The pebble Rafe just kicked could’ve been kicked by a dinosaur. Rafe wondered how those layers came into existence and became strong enough to hold skyscrapers. And would this road they were standing on be underground one day, beneath even biggerskyscrapers?

“We are blips, blips of history. There was a whole history before us, and there’s a whole history after us. We are just tiny cogs in human history. There are ancient cities under sinkholes, many of which were formed during the Pleistocene Era. The sinkholes, not thecities.”

Eamonn kept onlaughing.

A few hours later, Eamonn pulled him into a hug. All of Rafe’s skin was extra sensitive like he’d just been sunburned, and it was that moment after you shower when you realizeholy shit I’m sunburnt and my skin hurts. Why did that only happen aftershowering?

“Rafe, I don’t know if you’ll remember this, but I’m going to say it anyway,” Eamonn whispered in his ear. “I’ve never been happier than I am with you. You have filled my heartcompletely.”

The statement punctured Rafe’s high for a second, and it sent a wave of calm throughout his languorous body. No matter how high he was, and no matter if he remembered any of this or not, things would be allright.

“Eamonn, how long have we been outhere?”

“Two hours and forty-eightminutes.”

THEEND