Chapter 14 — Memory
And thus begins Chapter Fourteen.
Now, children.
Eventually,
the kissing stopped.
The council pauses.
Eventually?
Children.
Time had become a theoretical construct.
Minutes.
Hours.
Entire geological periods.
I do not know.
What I do know is that eventually,
we looked around
and discovered a problem.
Darkness.
The council nods.
You see,
there are places where being caught outside after dark is mildly inconvenient.
A city.
A beach.
A road.
And then there is:
Inside an enormous banyan tree,
in the middle of nowhere,
accessible only through rocks,
streams,
grass,
and Kosmo vaguely pointing toward nature while saying:
“That way.”
The council becomes concerned.
Children.
Even through acid,
even through ecstasy,
even through whatever chemical romance had temporarily replaced common sense
we understood.
Time to leave.
And so,
Laia and I returned.
Hand in hand.
Back through the roots.
Back through the living corridors.
Back toward Paul.
Paul had apparently completed his spiritual merger with the hammock root.
The council nods.
Tree Mode deactivated.
And beside him stood Kosmo.
Waiting.
Talking.
Planning.
Possibly discussing our return.
Possibly discussing something entirely unrelated.
Children.
I had learned by this point not to interrupt Paul and Kosmo logistics.
Civilization functioned better when I remained uninvolved.
We joined them.
The four were reunited.
And the trek back began.
The council sighs.
Rocks.
Again.
Streams.
Again.
Ledges.
Again.
Grass.
Again.
Children.
The return journey always seems longer when your body has realized the adventure is finished.
Kosmo moved effortlessly.
Paul followed.
Laia and I behind them.
Occasionally helping each other.
Occasionally laughing at absolutely nothing.
Occasionally stopping because some leaf had become cosmically important for approximately forty seconds.
The council nods.
Acid.
Eventually,
against geography,
fatigue,
and the increasingly vocal objections of my cooked leg,
we saw them.
The scooters.
The council cheers.
Civilization.
The Abomination stood exactly where we had left it.
Still somehow alive.
Children.
At this point I had begun to suspect death itself was afraid of touching that machine.
Paul and Kosmo mounted.
The Abomination protested.
Then surrendered.
Laia climbed onto her scooter.
And I climbed behind her.
The council grows quiet.
Same position.
Arms around her waist.
Chin near her shoulder.
Head partly hidden beneath her hair.
And off we went.
Now.
Children.
Earlier,
I told you the kiss beneath the banyan was one of the most euphoric moments of my life.
The council remembers.
One of them.
Because there was another.
The ride back.
The council pauses.
A scooter ride?
Yes.
Children.
I know.
Not dramatic.
No rave.
No giant tree.
No kiss under psychedelic geometry.
No extraordinary event.
Just a scooter.
A road.
A girl.
And chemistry performing a collaborative assault on two nervous systems.
The council nods.
But gods.
That ride.
The road stretched ahead.
The Abomination rattled somewhere in front of us,
Paul and Kosmo reduced to silhouettes in the fading light.
The air cooled as evening settled.
Trees passed.
Roads curved.
And I held onto Laia.
Not because I was terrified of falling.
Though historically,
that would have been reasonable.
I simply wanted to.
The council listens.
My cheek near her shoulder.
Her hair brushing across my face.
Every now and then,
I would say something stupid.
She would laugh.
And children,
that laugh
with the acid still bending the edges of the world
and the ecstasy turning affection into something almost physical
felt like being struck by sunlight.
The council grows quiet.
I made another joke.
She laughed again.
I tightened my arms around her slightly.
Not possessively.
Just
closer.
And sometimes,
when her hair moved near my face,
I smelled it again.
The council raises an eyebrow.
Children.
Apparently scent had become a direct route to heaven.
Every time,
the same wave.
Warmth.
Affection.
Euphoria.
The ridiculous certainty that nowhere else in the universe could possibly be more comfortable than exactly where I was.
The council nods.
Chemistry had opinions.
Strong ones.
But even knowing that now,
even years later,
I cannot reduce the memory to molecules.
Not completely.
Because chemicals can amplify a moment.
They cannot invent the moment from nothing.
The council listens.
There was still a road.
Still her laughter.
Still my arms around her.
Still that absurd little feeling of safety.
Still the knowledge that this would end.
Perhaps that knowledge was already hiding beneath the euphoria.
I don’t know.
Old Nuo rarely performed emotional analysis in real time.
He was busy enjoying himself.
The council applauds.
A rare talent.
And slowly,
far too quickly,
That Krazy Hostel appeared.
The council lowers their heads.
The ride ended.
Children.
Some journeys are strange because you cannot wait for them to finish.
Others become strange because you wish the destination would stop approaching.
This was the second kind.
The scooter slowed.
We arrived.
Kosmo parked the Abomination.
Laia parked hers.
Four idiots returned from the sacred banyan.
Older?
No.
Wiser?
Absolutely not.
Higher?
Moderately.
The council nods.
Accurate.
Naturally,
we rolled one final joint.
Because apparently closure in Goa required rolling paper.
The four of us sat.
Passed it around.
No great debrief.
No council meeting.
No discussion of the final boss.
No attempt to explain whatever Laia and I had experienced beneath that tree.
Just smoke.
Fatigue.
The quiet satisfaction of people who had spent an entire day somewhere impossible.
Eventually,
Paul stood.
Kosmo followed.
Dorm.
Sleep.
The council watches them leave.
And then,
once again,
Laia and I remained.
The council grows quiet.
We found a bench.
Sat.
Talked.
Not for long.
There was no need to stretch it artificially.
By then,
morning had acquired meaning.
I would be leaving.
The council listens.
I told her.
“Tomorrow morning.”
Or something close to that.
Children.
Ancient dialogue is difficult.
She nodded.
Then told me she and her friends were leaving tonight.
The council pauses.
Tonight?
Tonight.
And suddenly,
there it was.
The end.
No dramatic countdown.
No warning music.
Just two departure times crossing each other in conversation.
Children.
We had met by accident.
Spent perhaps a day together.
Maybe less.
And now the roads were separating again.
Before I had even learned to call roads roads.
The council grows quiet.
So we rolled one last joint.
And by “we,”
this time,
I truly mean we.
Because I forced Laia to roll it.
The council becomes concerned.
Children.
A final examination.
She tried.
Produced something structurally offensive.
I stared at it.
She laughed.
I considered fixing it.
Then decided against it.
The council gasps.
Growth?
No.
Sentimentality.
This was her terrible joint.
It deserved to exist exactly as created.
The council nods solemnly.
A relic made of poor craftsmanship.
We lit it.
It burned badly.
Naturally.
We smoked anyway.
And somehow,
that made it better.
The last one did not need to be perfect.
The council listens.
Eventually,
nothing remained except the goodbye.
We stood.
Looked at each other.
And hugged.
Tightly.
The council grows quiet.
Not a polite hug.
Not the kind given to someone you might see next weekend.
The kind where both people know there probably is no next weekend.
Her arms around me.
Mine around her.
For a few seconds,
neither moved.
Then we separated.
She looked at me.
Smiled.
And kissed my cheek.
The council says nothing.
Simple.
Small.
And somehow,
that is one of the details I remember clearest.
Then
we parted.
Now.
Why didn’t I ask for her number?
Why didn’t I ask for her social media?
Why didn’t I make some attempt to keep the connection alive?
Perhaps she expected me to.
Perhaps she would have given it happily.
Perhaps she was waiting for me to ask.
Perhaps she wasn’t.
I will never know.
The council nods.
Because I didn’t ask.
Not because I forgot.
Not because I was too high.
Not entirely because I was awkward.
I remember thinking something.
Something strange.
Something I understand much better now than I did then.
If this remains a memory,
it remains perfect.
The council grows quiet.
Children.
People change.
Conversations become ordinary.
Distance creates effort.
Expectations appear.
Someone fails someone.
Someone replies too slowly.
Someone says the wrong thing.
Life enters.
Reality does what reality always does.
It adds days to moments.
And days are much harder to keep beautiful.
But a memory?
A memory is preserved.
The council listens.
That night beneath the stars.
Her awful joints.
The shared trance.
The stick duel.
The scooter ride.
The kiss.
The way she smiled at me the morning after the rave like we’d known each other far longer than we had.
Nothing could happen tomorrow to alter yesterday
if tomorrow never happened between us.
Was that wise?
Children.
I don’t know.
Perhaps cowardly.
Perhaps romantic.
Perhaps simply the logic of a boy who had no vocabulary yet for temporary people.
The council nods.
Years later,
I would learn.
Campfire families.
Roadside brothers.
Strangers who enter a chapter,
leave before the next,
and still remain real.
I would learn that permanence is not the measurement of importance.
But back then,
I understood it instinctively.
Not elegantly.
Just:
Don’t touch it.
It is perfect where it is.
The council grows quiet.
So I let her leave.
No number.
No username.
No promise.
No:
I’ll find you someday.
No attempt to force the road to continue after the road had ended.
That was the last time I saw Laia.
The council whispers the name.
Laia.
The fellow Pinballer.
The female Unbegun.
The stranger from the rave.
The girl beneath the stars.
Children.
I have met many people since.
Loved people.
Lost people.
Been understood.
Misunderstood.
Held.
Left.
Returned.
But there was something about that tiny fragment of time.
Perhaps the drugs.
Certainly the drugs contributed.
Let history remain scientifically literate.
The council nods.
But not only that.
Because chemistry does not explain why I remember her laugh.
Why I remember that smile in the morning.
Why I remember her listening while I spoke about stars.
Why I remember feeling no need to perform.
No need to become louder.
Funnier.
More charming.
Something about her made me feel
seen.
The council listens.
Heard.
Warm.
All at once.
Maybe that was why I refused to ask for tomorrow.
For one day,
I had exactly what I wanted without knowing I wanted it.
And I was terrified that asking for more would somehow reduce what already existed.
So I chose the archive.
Before I even knew I was an Archivist.
I chose memory.
The council smiles sadly.
She walked away.
I watched for a little while.
Then turned.
Walked toward the dorm.
Opened the door.
Paul and Kosmo were probably already asleep.
I found my bunk.
Climbed in.
Pulled the cover over myself.
And lay there.
Children.
No sorrow.
Not yet.
No regret.
Just exhaustion.
The good kind.
A body completely emptied by too much living.
My leg hurt.
My head still floated slightly.
My chest felt warm.
And somewhere outside,
perhaps Laia was packing.
Perhaps already leaving.
Perhaps laughing with her friends about the strange boy who talked about stars and insulted her joint rolling abilities.
The council smiles.
I never found out.
I closed my eyes.
And slept.
Thus concludes Chapter Fourteen.
The Ride Back.
The Last Terrible Joint.
The Kiss On The Cheek.
And The Girl I Chose Not To Find Again.
Children.
There are people you build lives with.
People you spend years learning.
People whose stories become tangled permanently with your own.
And then there are people like Laia.
A collision.
A day.
A night.
A hand beneath the stars.
A memory preserved before ordinary life had the chance to touch it.
The council grows quiet.
Perhaps if I had asked,
we would have stayed friends.
Perhaps more.
Perhaps nothing.
Perhaps six months later we would have stopped talking and she would have become another name buried beneath old messages.
There are entire timelines hidden behind questions we never ask.
I do not know which one would have happened.
I only know the one that did.
For a brief little piece of Goa,
there existed two cryptids.
The Unbegun before he knew his name.
And a blonde stranger who seemed to understand him anyway.
We found each other inside chaos.
Sat peacefully while a rave screamed around us.
Met again when the music was gone.
Lay beneath ancient stars.
Walked hand in hand through a banyan.
Fought with sticks.
Kissed on a log.
Rode through Goa wrapped around each other.
And then
goodbye.
No sequel.
No epilogue.
Just memory.
The council listens.
Years later,
I would learn that some things are beautiful because they survive.
Others are beautiful because they end exactly where they should.
And Laia?
She remains where I left her.
Young.
Smiling.
Eyes wide beneath an impossible sky.
A terrible joint between her fingers.
The road waiting beyond her.
Untouched by everything that came after.
Children.
Perhaps that is selfish.
Perhaps it is foolish.
Perhaps it is one of the gentlest things Old Nuo ever did.
I still don’t know.
But when I remember Goa,
I remember her.
And the memory remains perfect.
