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Monday, April 20th, 2009
So it’s 4/20, and you know you’re supposed to be somewhere, maybe somewhere important, a meeting with someone significant, a major life event that decides the trajectory of the next decade, but you can’t remember where the place is, who you’re supposed to meet, whether you’re supposed to show up in jeans and t-shirt or if the suit you’re in is apropos.
Not amnesia or anything so dramatic, not that you’re so stressed out you can’t concentrate. It’s just that date has rolled around again, when you feel you have to show solidarity with your alternative friends, be a good little strait-edge and not toke up for as long as you can handle it.
You’re not stoned out of your gourd, and it sucks.
You didn’t have your usual 11 a.m. bowl – third of the day – that takes you from a nice, chill buzz to a dizzying, awe-inspiring, almost-falling-down-the-fucking-spiral-staircase noodle-bag. Instead, you’ve got this vicious clarity invading your mind. Sure, you do this on occasion anyway, once in a while, at parties maybe, sometimes before sex if your partner is into it. But this is different. You wonder if someone can O.D. on abstinence. You’re getting paranoid.
So when Bob comes through the door waving and telling you you’re late, won’t make it to the meeting, going to lose the deal, you just sort of stare at him. He stops mid-rant, eyes red, clothes disheveled.
“Dude,” he says. “You aren’t stoned.”
“Hey, you know me. It’s 4/20.”
Bob smacks his forehead. “Man, I forgot. But…uh, the meeting, you know?”
It’s one of those circular dreams you’ve had a million times except this time you’re not dreaming. Something important. No pot, the meeting, Bob. The meeting, that’s it. You begin to panic.
“I need to change.” You practically rip off your tie and jacket, search for fleece or tie-dye.
“Look, man,” Bob says. “You’re freaking. I’m thinking you smoke some weed so you can prep for the meeting. After we get the account, you can detox or whatever, you know?”
“Just a joint, OK?” you say.
“Cool,” Bob says. “That’ll take the edge off.”
So you’re dressed down, light up in the elevator on the way, feel your mind wander. Familiar territory, and as you walk in the boardroom, you’re greeted with a stack of charts, graphs, and a blown-glass bong.
You hit the points you need to and it only takes 5 hours. But as 4:19 hits, you get edgy. You can’t take it anymore so you duck out of the smoke-filled room and into the hallway.
You check your watch.
It’s time. You inhale.
The Mottled Disk
Friday, April 17th, 2009
Jordan watched the glass disk in the street very carefully. He was pretty sure it had not been there a couple of minutes before, and he was also sure that he hadn’t looked away from the pavement.
Finally he nudged it with a dirty sneaker. It looked awfully thin, and he was afraid to break it, but when he touched it with the edge of his shoe, it didn’t seem to budge. He squatted down and looked into it. It wasn’t glass like a windowpane. It looked more like that piece of volcanic glass that Mrs. Gubner had brought to school, except bluish, and with weird spots in it, that swirled and rippled even though he couldn’t see them move. He just knew they did.
After a while he remembered that he had to go to school, and realized that he was looking up at the houses along the street with great relief—they are still here, they aren’t rotted away and gone like in a time travel movie, came the thought. So he walked over to his skateboard and his backpack and kept going.
After a minute or two the glass disk rose as if someone underneath it were opening a hatch, which was pretty much the case; a man and a woman emerged, wearing orange business suits.
“Well, that was close,” said the man. The woman examined the street.
“Still using asphalt. We should go forward about a century,” she announced.
“You know best,” said the man, and they lifted the glass disk and climbed under it again.
A house finch swooping down to look at the shiny thing was rather startled to find it gone at swoop’s bottom.