My brother gets it cheap, she said.
The laptop is on the table and Alan is across from me shrouded in dark. Andre and Wes walk into the kitchen. Alan tells me the rabbit hole always goes deeper, they don’t tell you that in school but it’s important—what’s good to do and what’s not, the need to help others, no, to not demonize. She presses play, voice raises from a laser. Somebody said: she always picks the best music, always.
Sunshine, my only sunshine, you make me happy when skies are gray, you’ll never know dear how much I love you, please don’t take my sunshine away, as Alan reads over my shoulder. She’s been to the dispensary. You’ll re-gret tak-ing my sun-shine a-way.
Sixty dollars, she tells Alan, three and a half grams for thirty bucks. Same deal if you buy sixty dollars’ worth you get seven grams. Gotta go higher, Alan says. There’s a dude I know in my town, (they’re selling clones), the prices you’re saying, at seven grams it costs sixty but the stuff you have is probably better than the stuff he had. Government growers. There are people who are legally allowed. My only sunshine.
A week or two ago at Psychonauts, I said. You know Psychonauts? You had to ask the right questions, maybe. The guy was, yeah, I went in there to buy a grinder, various things. I got a ten percent discount. I doubt it applies to the awesome clothing. I’ll math it out or something and split it up. I spent all the dollars on all the things. The summer sounds like love.
Matty surprised me once, Alan said. He got it from a friend. Medical quality. And it’s cheaper. Summer sounds like love. A hot dog on the Barbecue. I have a bottle. Okay, yeah. He loses a bit, but I’m going to scoop up everything and it’s probably going to be more. It’s also from like, they have a cookie tray and they use a Dixie plastic cup. Here come the summer sounds, the summer sounds like love. There’s this abundant feeling all around.
Alan was talking about climbing hills where love is found, where it never rains. My world was dubbed, he added. Apparently. Apparently it’s easy to do, if you know—she was saying—if you know how to detect if there’s a problem. If somehow, she said, it might be super obvious. She lit a match and the room went dark. Basically, if you misjudge that it’s okay when it’s not. The dark went out. Last month was picking season … unfortunately a lot of them are quite toxic. Crazy toxic ones that will kill you in an instant. I wanted it. No, no, no, I’ll take it. I should have let it … just bad vibes. By the fact that I was looking for my pestle and mortar.
I remember your mortar and pestle, Wes said.
Then I found it where I left it in the cupboard. I sing to you each morning. The quality has been increasing over the years. I make mistakes. I used to be more into research. We were both very much like that. I remember googling “what can ecstasy cause.” And I’ll be on my way. And I had gone my way. This is what you say. We sang in the sunshine, we laughed every day, then she went on her way. She turned the light on. We made love every day, then she went on her way.
I feel safer in the forest than in Montreal, Alan said. A year ago. A year ago or so. I was starting to see, I don’t know, shadow entities in the apartment, and I don’t know who’s living there. But I broke out with my heart and called for whoever was out there to help me. I felt this interesting divine presence. The air in the room changed altogether. All I had to do was ask.
Andre on the couch, laid down like raw meat. Generally, I’m a very negative person and I feel shit about myself, he said. It’s a simple drop of a hat. When you change rooms something changes. I went into another room and heard laughter, I thought they were all making fun of me. They locked themselves in the bathroom. Andre stands up, walks to the CD rack, runs his finger down it like a drop of rain. Everything talks to you even if it doesn’t. I saw myself on a timeline. There’s multiple parallel universes. I saw my life and I felt, okay: here’s your life, blow it up.
Life keeps going, Andre said, I’m capable of self-love. There’s multiple trajectories. I am capable of channeling pure love. Everyone’s here together. It sounds very cheesy but it’s actually very encouraging. A very positive experience. I love this song. Yeah, I know.
I need something energetic. Andre pulled something out and stared at it. White Stripes, he said, yeah, I guess so.
I can always chant and do a mantra whenever, Alan continued. I was on a hill in the forest, naked as it rained. I put my clothes back on. It is not a good idea to lose your clothes in the forest when it’s dark. You’re surrounded by wilderness and you can do whatever you want. Where horses live. They have a really big landscape with trails and everything. There’s this perfect spot within a sand pit and you don’t hear the party at all. There will be many more parties there.
It’s the one who did the house theme, kind of trip hop. I’ve just gotta figure out what the prices are, each of them kind of. That’s eight dollars fifty-seven cents for this. There’s, uh—I should get a pencil or something, think I’ll write it down. I’m going to Wichita, far from this opera forevermore. Make the sweat drip out of every pore. All the words are gonna bleed from me and I will sing no more. Time to go back home. I opted for that one because hybrids are also kinda my favourite things. We have some of that too, it’s called shatter or butter or, there’s another one called creamy. It’s that yellow gummy thing. No, it’s not sticky. It’s for what’s called dabbing. This straight THC hit.
You’re sounding exhausted. I don’t know. Probably. How come you were up until, like, eight? Remember we had energy drinks last night. And also I don’t even know how I’ve been sleeping and I haven’t been getting proper sleep because people keep coming over. Welcome to my life. God damn my fucking phone. Everyone’s addicted to their phones. It’s not like we have a scale anywhere. It will be by eye anyway. My cousin told me about this one guy he saw in Montreal this one time, this trench coat guy, they called him Santa Claus. Then one time he got mugged badly. Santa Claus got mugged. Now he carries a gun.
I just kinda want a little tiny bit of most of them. Cool. Perfect. I just brought out a bunch I think. Did I walk out of the room with them?
Conservative furry groups on Facebook, pro-race realism, pro-furry, safe haven groups. I’d like to write a book sometime where the main character and narrator are close, so close that sometimes you can’t tell the difference between them. You’re the protagonist and the narrator at the same time and it would all be true stories based on actual experiences. But it would be like in a video game, like Pokémon. Yes or no. All you could answer is yes or no, yes or no. I reject your gender social mores. I prefer not to define myself by gender. I have two cents to throw in on this subject. In my mind I have always been some kind of dragon or magic entity. I’m something different every day. Genderfluid otherkin. I’ve been asking a lot of questions since a long time ago, so I can relate to everyone. We’re all entities.
Yeah, no chocolates. Make me feeling bad. But I’m not with you. Maybe, maybe I’ll get a small laptop sometime for just writing. Alan, can you pass me the remote control for the TV? If they don’t, they’re dead. We are the sons of empty sky.
Taylor Gray Moore was born in Vancouver, BC, and has lived there all of his life except for four years spent in Montreal getting a literature degree. He started writing things in high school and has been unable to kick the habit since. His subjects of choice include senses of place, anxiety of belonging, and the struggle for personal meaning & transcendence in a world that is chaotic, corrupt, and largely incomprehensible. He writes the kind of stories that he would like to read, and tends to prefer stories that defy easy interpretation—this approach does actually work out okay now and then.
See more at Tumblr or visit his official Facebook page.
Math Lamarre is a suburban-raised painter, photographer, and skateboarder. He explores what it means to be confused and expresses the overwhelmingness of the constant pressure dropped on people to gather information and get things done. He playfully renders intuitively felt notions and ideas into a chaos of abstract movements with no discernible start or end, as well as always being on the lookout for possible mistakes that could hint towards a better idea. Nostalgia, Anguish and Pareidolias. Confusion, Restraints and Explosiveness. Moving on. Find out more at @mathamarre.art.
