i’m just, like, destratifying, i say as i look out the window, broken, destroying my gaze into a million pieces

like, none of it really matters anyways so why stay stratified? life is itself a series of measurements of uncertainty, God makes damn sure of that. i take i big gulp of something i’m drinking and look over at the table. Right?

what the fuck are you talking about? i don’t know man, it’s all just communing. it’s all communion, all the way down. i don’t know what else to tell you. lay in the grass in the sun and tell me the world is the same when you get up. to use some big words that are gonna go over your head, ontology is always a tenuous agreement on part of stuffy-nosed academics that rarely takes its objects into meaningful relationships

you’re right, you’re so smart, that totally went completely over my head. i’m so dumb compared to you, i wish i would listen to you more. your wisdom is like, totally confounding. what’s ontology?

~

we’re all walking now, to somewhere. the sun bleeds past the horizon as we’re getting into downtown and the mood is off. this is typical, as far as that goes.

we hit some diner on the edge of downtown that someone swears up and down is cheap. it is, he was right. we eat what i can only describe as scraps off the table, though. we’re getting served fucking leftovers.

guy who said this place was cheap explains himself, saying he has a deal with the manager or something where we can get other people’s food for next to nothing when they don’t want it or finish it or whatever and we sort of scoff at him. like, just steal it dude. no point in fucking around like this. he gets all sheepish and apologizes but the tension is residual, and we don't talk after that until we leave.

~

we go to the bookstore. its basically a custom at this point, to go scrounge for things we haven’t read. and some we have, of course. always a good balance in there somewhere.

we hit the b in the fiction section and i sigh in frustration as they, again, don't have the copy i want of that one burroughs novel i can't remember the name of anymore. everyone else seems relatively unbothered though, and i can't help but wonder if perhaps i've overreacted in some embarrassing way to something that's dumb. by the time i turn to ask they're all down near the w's anyways.

everyone is gathered around a weird, rare copy of infinite jest in a glass case above the shelf. the cover is completely yellow, the text is all black, weird font. you think this was his idea? we all chuckled at that but kept ogling at it. someone whispered something about how bad the book was, looking over his shoulder as he did so. more chuckling.

a vast emptiness consumed the room behind us as we left, the floor and the books and the shelves and the people browsing all falling into it. no one else noticed but me.

~

suddenly realizing you’re alone in a huge crowd of people. surrounded by your friends, too.

nothing will fix it. not even the hand of God may intervene anymore, it’s all fucked, it’s all up to you, something.

mr. beat poet at the front of the room won’t quit fucking shouting, it’s really obnoxious, we can’t even hold a conversation. he keeps glaring at us which only makes the whole thing funnier, honestly. i wanna tell him that stagger lee really was bad at gambling, everything happens for a reason.

someone else at the table busts out a bluetooth speaker and starts playing something stupid. the guy on the stage gets up with such ferocity his bun comes undone. the table is in full hysterics by this point, and it’s great. people at other tables are glaring back at us and it doesn’t even matter.

~

i’m just, like, idunno, disappearing. what do you mean by that exactly? i mean idunno man. idunno. like, imagine your skin just becomes invisible and, like, idunno, on the cold nights i still feel it. but mostly it’s just gone, it’s gone off me like water, just draining out from around me finding its mold and shape and space and that and it’s gone before i even know it. like a breath or a breeze or a kiss. it’s away, unreachable. it’s really hard, i can’t expect you to understand it. all deep and poetic and that, yknow? yeah, man, i get you a little bit. i remember i knew this girl who’d only ever look at me. i thought she mighta liked me even but idunno either, like she’d look at me some kinda way once or twice and then she’d just glance from time to time. i always wished that she would come over and talk to me, or better yet i would pluck up and go talk to her but no such luck of course we just stared, and glanced, and went on with our lives.

i sat and thought about this for a long couple minutes

i mean, sure you wished something would’ve happened, but isn’t that beautiful? engaging in something you dont understand at all and just leaving it at that? isnt it magic? i can’t get your point on it, mostly because i think you gotta value what you have asit comes, right?

he stares blankly at me. yeah man, totally.