Chapter 6 — Brownies
And thus begins Chapter Six.
Now.
There I lay.
Half asleep.
Half conscious.
Halfway between a dream and reality.
Which, if we’re being honest, describes most of my twenties.
The council nods.
Accurate.
Now.
As I drifted through that strange limbo,
I smelled something.
A familiar smell.
The council immediately knows.
Correct.
I opened my eyes.
And hovering directly above my face like some sort of blessed hallucination.
was a joint.
The council applauds.
A traditional mountain alarm clock.
Now.
Following the joint downward,
I discovered its owner.
Gunman.
And beside him.
Beard Man.
The sequel.
The council cheers.
Children.
The temporary pack had returned.
I took a puff.
Accepted the summons.
And off we went.
Back to the Spot.
By now the Spot had become more than a location.
It was headquarters.
Campfire.
Embassy.
Sacred gathering ground of cryptids.
Now.
We sat.
We smoked.
We existed.
And then destiny added two more members to the story.
The council leans forward.
New arrivals.
Fresh travelers.
Fresh stories.
Temporary family expansion pack.
Unlike the Unbegun,
these two possessed functioning social skills.
A trait I observed with fascination.
One introduced himself.
The other introduced himself.
The council waits.
Children.
By this point I barely remembered my own name.
I am not about to pretend I remember theirs.
So naturally,
they became Bald Man and Ponytail.
The council applauds.
A naming convention as elegant as it is lazy.
My specialty.
Now.
The four of them immediately began planning.
Scheming.
Strategizing.
Doing whatever socially competent people do.
Meanwhile,
I sat there puffing away like a decorative gargoyle.
Listening.
Observing.
Archiving.
The council nods.
The archivist’s natural state.
Then came the revelation.
A rave.
The Pirates of Parvati.
The council erupts.
A title so dramatic it sounds fictional.
Children.
The rave was in two days.
Not tonight.
Not tomorrow.
Two days.
Which meant the planning phase had begun.
The council applauds.
A quest had appeared.
Now.
With the mission established,
the conversation shifted to more immediate concerns.
The council already knows.
Food.
One man declared.
“Brother, I’m hungry.”
A reasonable statement.
Another declared.
“Brother, I’d rather get high.”
Also reasonable.
And thus democracy commenced.
The council nods solemnly.
Now.
The beautiful thing about democracy is compromise.
The terrible thing about democracy is compromise.
Because eventually someone arrived at a solution satisfying both objectives simultaneously.
The council braces.
Eat food that gets you high.
The council erupts.
Children.
A masterpiece.
A diplomatic triumph.
The sort of negotiation future governments should study.
Now.
Before anyone panics,
it wasn’t the pancakes.
The council visibly relaxes.
Nothing in this universe was convincing me to repeat that experiment.
No.
This was something gentler.
Something kinder.
Hash brownies.
The council applauds.
A sensible choice.
Relatively speaking.
Now.
We ate.
We got high.
We laughed.
The others talked.
Stories flowed.
Conversations wandered.
Friendships deepened.
And I.
recorded a plant.
The council pauses.
A plant?
Children.
It was blue.
At least I thought it was blue.
A magnificent blue plant.
A discovery worthy of documentation.
The archivist activated immediately.
Phone out.
Camera rolling.
History preserved.
Then eventually I realized something.
The council already knows.
The plant was green.
The light was blue.
The council collapses.
A tragic misunderstanding.
One that lasted approximately twenty minutes.
Now.
The day drifted onward.
Slowly.
Comfortably.
The sort of day where nothing extraordinary happens,
yet somehow it becomes unforgettable.
The council smiles.
Because those are often the best ones.
Now.
By this point we had become friendly with the owner of the brownie shop.
Friendly enough that we effectively colonized the place.
The council applauds.
A traditional traveler strategy.
We sat there for hours.
Talking.
Laughing.
Existing.
Until eventually exhaustion arrived.
The mountains had their adventures.
The rave awaited.
The road continued.
But not tonight.
Tonight belonged to the pack.
Thus concludes Chapter Six.
Gunman.
Beard Man.
Bald Man.
Ponytail.
The Unbegun.
The Brownie Shop.
And the Day A Green Plant Was Mistaken For A Blue One.
Proof that found families do not require years.
Sometimes they require only a shared table,
a few stories,
and enough time for strangers to become familiar.
And children,
those families are every bit as real as the permanent ones.
Even when they last only a handful of sunsets.
