Chapter 8 — Laia
And thus begins Chapter Eight.
Now, children.
There I was.
Freshly ricocheted into a woman.
Blonde.
Foreign.
Accent.
Pretty.
Very pretty.
The council leans forward.
And naturally,
I prepared to apologize.
Because despite everything you have learned about the ancient Unbegun,
I was occasionally capable of basic social behavior.
I opened my mouth.
Then she spoke first.
“Sorry.
I bumped into you.”
The council pauses.
Children.
Incorrect.
I had absolutely collided with her.
The Pinball leaves evidence.
But then she continued.
“This is just how I dance.”
The council goes silent.
I stared at her.
She stared at me.
The council slowly rises.
A fellow Pinballer.
The council erupts.
CHOSEN BY DESTINY.
Children.
Do you understand how rare this was?
For years,
I had believed my inability to remain within a predictable section of a dance floor was simply incompetence.
And here stood another.
A believer.
A practitioner.
A fellow disciple of momentum.
The council applauds.
My people.
Now.
We started talking.
How long?
The council waits.
Excellent question.
Children.
Time was currently being managed by chemistry.
It had abandoned conventional measurement.
Perhaps ten minutes.
Perhaps an hour.
Perhaps civilizations rose and collapsed during the conversation.
I do not know.
We talked.
A lot.
Or maybe very little.
The memory contains impressions more than transcripts.
Her accent.
Her smile.
Her laughing at something I said.
Me probably speaking with the confidence of a philosopher and the coherence of a malfunctioning radio.
The council nods.
Standard.
Then the music changed.
She stood.
I stood.
And we danced.
The council becomes interested.
Pinball?
No.
Strangely,
no.
Children.
For once,
I remained roughly in one place.
Mostly.
She moved.
I moved.
We attempted rhythm.
Together.
Two cryptids trying to interpret music using limbs neither of us had fully trained for the task.
And gods.
From inside my head?
Elegant.
The council raises an eyebrow.
Elegant?
Children.
Pure elegance.
We were synchronized.
Perfectly.
Every movement made sense.
Every turn arrived exactly when it should.
The beat moved through us.
The lights stretched around us.
Her hair caught colours that probably did not actually exist.
The room seemed to breathe with the music.
And somehow,
inside all that noise,
the two of us moved inside our own little pocket of reality.
The council grows quiet.
Now.
I am aware of the probable truth.
From outside?
Horrendous.
The council collapses.
Two intoxicated strangers flailing enthusiastically beneath psychedelic lights.
Perhaps completely off beat.
Possibly endangering nearby civilians.
Children.
I accept this.
But memories do not come with security camera footage.
And in mine?
We were magnificent.
The council applauds.
History belongs to the archivist.
For a while,
the rave disappeared.
Not literally.
The music remained deafening.
People remained everywhere.
The acid continued folding corners of reality.
But my attention narrowed.
Her.
The song.
Movement.
Children.
It felt like a shared trance.
Not romantic destiny.
Let us not summon violins prematurely.
Just two strangers becoming completely absorbed in the same moment.
And for once,
I wasn’t thinking about what came next.
The council listens.
No acid.
No mission.
No Goa.
No burnt leg.
No Abomination.
No understanding that Paul and Kosmo technically remained responsible for my continued presence in this city.
Just now.
Then
the song ended.
The council sighs.
Reality has terrible timing.
The final beat faded.
And whatever tiny trance had formed between us broke.
We stopped.
Looked at each other.
Probably laughed.
Then the next song began.
But the spell had changed.
So we sat.
The council nods.
A tactical retreat.
I reached into whatever pocket still contained useful objects.
Pulled out a joint.
Offered it.
She accepted.
Then handed me her lighter.
The council smiles.
Children.
The ancient peace treaty.
I lit it.
Inhaled.
Passed it to her.
She smoked.
Passed it back.
And there we remained.
No need to dance.
No need to shout over the music.
No need to manufacture another moment because the previous one had ended.
Just sit.
Smoke.
Rest.
Eventually,
her head settled against my shoulder.
The council grows quiet.
So I rested mine against hers.
And that was it.
Children.
Nothing happened.
Which is why I remember it.
The council listens.
Around us,
a psychedelic rave continued attempting to destroy conventional reality.
Bass shook the ground.
Lights sliced through smoke.
Strangers danced.
Someone somewhere was almost certainly discovering the secrets of the universe and forgetting them immediately.
And in the middle of all that
stillness.
A tiny one.
Her head on my shoulder.
Mine against hers.
A joint moving between us.
No conversation required.
No performance.
No urgency.
The council smiles.
Years later,
I would learn that wanderings contain these moments.
Little islands.
The world can be screaming around you,
and somehow,
for a few minutes,
you find a place where nothing is demanded.
But back then?
I had no philosophy for it.
I simply knew it felt nice.
Very nice.
Now.
Paul and Kosmo?
The council looks around.
Children.
My friends had become mythology.
I vaguely remembered arriving with people.
There was a Paul.
There was a Kosmo.
Probably.
The council erupts.
YOU FORGOT YOUR ENTIRE PARTY?
Not forgotten.
Temporarily archived under:
Not Currently Relevant.
The council sighs.
At some point,
I would need to locate them.
Presumably.
But Laia was there.
And the music was there.
And the world was bending beautifully.
Future logistical concerns could remain with Future Nuo.
The council nods.
An ancient tradition.
I don’t remember exactly what we spoke about while sitting there.
Perhaps nothing.
Perhaps fragments.
Where she was from.
Where I was from.
Why we were in Goa.
The usual temporary stranger questions.
But I remember the feeling more clearly than the words.
Comfort.
Children.
That surprised me.
Because everything else about the night was excess.
Too much energy.
Too much colour.
Too much sound.
Too many substances.
Too many people.
And somehow,
inside all that too much,
there was something gentle.
One stranger.
One shoulder.
One shared joint.
Enough.
The council grows quiet.
Perhaps that’s why the memory survived.
Not because she was pretty.
Though
very pretty.
The council nods.
Archive accuracy maintained.
Not because we danced.
Not because of the acid.
Not even because she was apparently the only other human being on Earth who had independently developed Pinball Theory.
It survived because for a brief moment,
amid all that chaos,
I felt completely at ease beside someone I had only just met.
No history.
No expectations.
No future required.
Just the moment.
Children.
Later,
I would come to understand that temporary connections can be real without becoming permanent.
That something doesn’t need to last forever to matter.
But the boy at that rave did not know any of this yet.
He simply sat there.
High.
Happy.
Head resting against a stranger’s.
And thought:
This is nice.
The council smiles.
Sometimes wisdom begins as considerably simpler language.
Eventually,
of course,
something would have to happen.
The song would change.
Someone would move.
Paul and Kosmo would presumably return from legend.
Reality would resume its assault.
But not yet.
For now,
we sat.
Thus concludes Chapter Eight.
Laia.
The Fellow Pinballer.
The Shared Trance.
And The Quietest Moment Inside The Loudest Place Imaginable.
Children.
Goa had given me exactly what I came for.
Acid.
MDMA.
A rave.
Complete chemical nonsense.
But hidden inside the excess,
it gave me something I hadn’t asked for.
Stillness beside a stranger.
The council grows quiet.
Years later,
Rishikesh would teach me to recognize that feeling.
To sit beside rivers.
To stop moving.
To let a moment remain simple.
But perhaps,
long before I knew stillness had value,
I had already found a tiny version of it.
At a rave.
With a blonde stranger named Laia.
While reality melted around us.
