Chapter 9 — Sky
And thus begins Chapter Nine.
Now, children.
We descended the wrong mountain.
The council nods.
A sentence which implies there was a correct mountain.
There was.
We had simply elected not to be on it.
Carlos crawled downward.
Paul at the wheel.
Kosmo attempting to restore his reputation as Navigation Department.
Wing beside me.
And Nuo
royal passenger.
Joint in hand.
Responsibility nowhere in sight.
The council sighs.
Reality still bent softly around us.
Not aggressively anymore.
The mushrooms had passed whatever great crescendo they possessed.
Now they simply painted over things.
Edges breathed.
Lights stretched.
Trees seemed deeper than trees had any right to be.
Cold air entered through the windows.
And children
I was in bliss.
No idea what Paul was experiencing.
No idea what Kosmo was seeing.
No idea whether Wing had fully recovered from being psychologically assaulted by Cannibal Holocaust.
The council checks Wing.
Status still pending.
But me?
Perfectly content.
We drove.
Down.
Around.
Through bends and darkness.
Then
I looked up.
The council goes quiet.
Children.
City people have seen stars.
Of course we have.
One there.
Another there.
Perhaps five if the power goes out.
Maybe a particularly ambitious constellation fighting through sodium lamps and apartment lights.
We call that the night sky.
It isn’t.
Not really.
The council looks upward.
Goa had given me a preview.
Remember?
Laia beside me.
Blanket.
Forest.
Her fingers between mine.
Ancient light overhead while I explained stars until any reasonable person would have requested a different conversation partner.
That sky had been beautiful.
Very beautiful.
But Kodaikanal
gods.
Children.
Kodaikanal showed me the scale of it.
I looked through the window
and forgot whatever conversation was happening inside Carlos.
Stars.
Hundreds.
Then more.
Thousands,
or what felt like thousands.
Tiny ones hidden between brighter ones.
Clusters inside clusters.
Places where I thought there was empty darkness
until my eyes adjusted
and discovered the darkness had been crowded all along.
The council falls silent.
And then
the galaxy.
That pale,
impossible wash across the sky.
A faint river of light.
Not some clean photograph with contrast turned up.
Not an astronomy wallpaper.
Something subtler.
More fragile.
But there.
The great smear of our own galaxy stretching overhead.
And suddenly,
children,
I understood how insulting light pollution is.
The council murmurs.
We built enough lights to forget the universe was above us.
Whole generations can grow up beneath the Milky Way
and barely know what it looks like.
I had seen photographs.
Obviously.
Space idiot, remember?
I had consumed documentaries.
Facts.
Distances.
Stars.
Nebulae.
Black holes.
Galaxies.
I knew intellectually what the sky contained.
But knowing something exists
and looking directly at it
are different species of knowledge.
The council listens.
I pressed closer to the window.
Probably looking ridiculous.
Mouth slightly open.
Joint temporarily forgotten.
And the mushrooms?
Oh,
they loved the sky.
Children.
They did not invent the stars.
Let us keep one foot in reality.
But they amplified everything.
The depth.
The color.
The impossible feeling that the sky was not a ceiling
but a direction.
Up did not end.
The council grows quiet.
The stars seemed layered.
Some close.
Some impossibly far.
The darkness between them felt enormous.
And every now and then,
with Carlos moving beneath me,
branches crossed the view.
Black silhouettes against all that light.
Then gone.
Stars again.
Children.
For perhaps the first time,
space did not feel like something I was interested in.
It felt like somewhere I was standing inside.
The council pauses.
Tiny.
That was the feeling.
Not insignificant.
People confuse those.
Tiny.
There is comfort in being tiny.
The council listens.
Your grief feels enormous when it occupies your entire world.
Your mistakes feel enormous.
Your fears.
Your plans.
Your little disasters.
Then you see a proper night sky.
And for a moment,
your world remembers that it is sitting inside something incomprehensibly larger.
The weight didn’t vanish.
It just stopped pretending it was the universe.
The council grows very quiet.
Bongo’s collar sat around my wrist.
I noticed it again.
Not dramatically this time.
Just there.
Against my skin.
And I looked upward.
Children.
Another world.
Another piece of the promise.
I’ll show you the world.
Perhaps this counted too.
Not a place beneath our feet.
A place above our heads.
The council smiles.
And I watched.
Carlos descended.
Road curved.
The others existed somewhere around me.
But chronology disappeared.
Children.
I cannot tell you how long that drive took.
Not in minutes.
Not in hours.
Not even in joints,
which means the Archive has truly failed us.
The council gasps.
Severe corruption.
I remember only fragments.
Stars through glass.
Cold through the window.
Dark trees.
The faint galaxy.
Bongo’s collar.
A breath.
Another road.
More sky.
And something inside me slowly filling.
The council leans forward.
Filling?
Yes.
Because here’s the strange part.
Eventually,
we approached civilization again.
Lights multiplied.
Buildings returned.
Street lamps.
Shops.
Homes.
The darkness above us became lighter.
The stars began disappearing.
One by one.
Not actually disappearing.
Of course.
We simply blinded ourselves to them again.
The galaxy faded.
The great sky shrank back into the ordinary city version.
The council grows quiet.
And I expected sadness.
One more glimpse.
Wait.
Stop Carlos.
Go back.
Just another minute.
Nothing.
Children.
I was content.
The council pauses.
Content.
That word matters.
I had spent so much of Old Nuo’s life wanting more.
More intoxication.
More intensity.
More novelty.
More altered consciousness.
If something felt good,
increase dosage.
If a night was fun,
extend it.
If a moment was beautiful,
cling until it broke.
The council nods.
But the sky disappeared
and I did not chase it.
I had seen enough.
Not enough forever.
Enough for then.
Full.
Satisfied.
Like some empty place inside me had been poured into
until it reached the top.
The council smiles.
Perhaps that was the mushrooms.
Probably helped.
But even now,
years later,
I remember the feeling.
Not craving.
Not loss.
Completion.
The stars had not been taken from me.
I had been given them.
The council listens.
And that was enough.
Eventually,
Carlos found the correct mountain.
A monumental achievement.
The council applauds Navigation Department cautiously.
The villa returned.
Our eight hundred rupee palace.
Mith,
presumably having enjoyed the wisest afternoon of all of us,
was there.
And now we faced another issue.
Time.
The council looks toward the darkness.
Late.
Too late.
The original expedition was supposed to be twenty four hours.
Go.
Mushrooms.
Trip.
Return.
Simple.
But driving back now?
No.
The council nods firmly.
Even our deeply questionable planning department apparently possessed a boundary somewhere.
So the expedition was extended.
Morning.
We would leave after dawn.
Children.
A bonus level.
The five of us gathered around the table.
The sacred table.
Perfect rolling height.
The council lights imaginary candles.
Ceremony commenced.
Paper.
Pot.
Hands doing what hands had done all day.
Joint passed.
Then another.
Talk.
Silence.
Random revelations.
Things which felt profound for four minutes and vanished before anyone could preserve them.
The council smiles.
Slowly,
the party retired.
Someone stood.
Bed.
Another disappeared.
Then another.
Paul.
Mith.
Wing.
Kosmo.
Until
only the Unbegun remained.
The council looks toward me.
Children.
Remember:
this was before the title.
Before the council.
Before I consciously understood solitude as anything other than circumstances.
But there I was.
Again.
Everyone asleep.
Nuo awake.
A table.
A cold mountain night.
And enough remaining pot to create a future diplomatic crisis.
The council becomes concerned.
I rolled one.
Smoked.
Sat.
Thought.
Rolled another.
Smoked.
Thought harder.
Another.
Children.
The night became a private symposium with an attendance of one.
I contemplated stuff.
Important stuff.
Unimportant stuff.
Space.
Bongo.
The flower garden.
The cliff.
The sky.
People.
Death.
Reality.
Probably whether ants understand traffic.
The council nods.
Critical scholarship.
I theorized.
Realized things.
Forgot them.
Realized new things.
Forgot those too.
The Archivist could preserve images.
Apparently not every revelation survived the loading screen.
And still
roll.
Smoke.
Think.
Repeat.
Until the darkness outside began changing.
The council notices.
Dawn.
Children.
I had been awake all night.
And more importantly
I had consumed most of the remaining pot.
The council goes silent.
Most?
Most.
The council erupts.
Children.
This was not sabotage.
This was not greed.
This was simply what happens when you leave:
One Nuo.
Unsupervised.
With:
Accessible weed.
For:
Several hours.
The council begins disciplinary proceedings.
I object.
On what grounds?
Negligence.
The council pauses.
Not yours?
Theirs.
Children.
They knew me.
This is important.
You cannot leave a bowl of pot within reach of Unsupervised Nuo,
go to sleep,
return at dawn,
and then behave shocked that the ecosystem behaved according to established natural law.
The council stares.
Weaponized incompetence.
Exactly.
A powerful defense.
Perhaps not an ethical one.
But powerful.
Morning arrived.
Doors opened.
Footsteps.
One by one,
the party reassembled around the table.
The council watches.
Someone saw the pot bowl.
Then saw me.
Then the bowl.
Then me again.
The council grows silent.
No yelling.
No outrage.
Just
head shake.
Children.
The tired disappointment of men who knew exactly what had happened before asking.
Nuo is Nuo.
The council sighs.
They sat.
Eventually,
the departure ritual began.
Everyone packed.
Bags.
Clothes.
Whatever responsible travellers bring.
I looked around.
The council waits.
Phone.
Wallet.
Charger.
I pocketed the charger.
Packing complete.
The council applauds minimalist excellence.
Then someone removed the remaining pot bowl from my reach.
The council pauses.
At last.
Supervision.
Growth had arrived twelve hours late.
We stepped outside.
Cold morning.
Carlos waiting.
The Duke nearby.
Kodaikanal beginning to wake around us.
And the formation changed again.
Mith had slept.
Mith was refreshed.
Mith possessed functioning eyes.
The council rises.
Mith returned to the driver’s seat.
Children.
A decision so beautiful it nearly restores my faith in this expedition.
Paul settled in.
The others found their positions.
I returned to my rightful throne.
The back seat.
Far from steering mechanisms.
Far from important decisions.
Bongo’s collar around my wrist.
A mountain full of strange new memories behind us.
The council grows quiet.
Mith turned the key.
Carlos woke.
And slowly
we began the descent.
Thus concludes Chapter Nine.
The Real Sky.
The Correct Mountain.
The Night Symposium.
The Great Pot Disappearance.
And The Return Of A Sober Driver.
Children.
I had gone looking for mushrooms.
Instead,
I had found a flower garden.
A tree.
A promise.
A cliff.
A galaxy.
And somewhere between all of them,
something unfamiliar.
Enough.
The council listens.
For once,
when beauty ended,
I did not demand more.
I watched the stars disappear into civilization
and felt full.
Then naturally,
I stayed awake until dawn and smoked nearly all the remaining weed.
The council collapses.
Enlightenment,
children,
is rarely linear.
And with Carlos pointed downhill,
the Fourth Wandering began its final descent.
