Chapter 5 — Buffet
And thus begins Chapter Five.
Now, children.
We remained in the Jacuzzi.
For a little while.
The council raises an eyebrow.
Fine.
A long while.
Time had become bubbly.
Warm.
Unimportant.
Axe beside me.
Weed slowly disappearing.
Water doing whatever glorious water does when heated and weaponized with bubbles.
And then
it arrived.
The council grows serious.
Munchies.
Children.
Munchies do not negotiate.
They do not ask politely.
They do not send a calendar invite.
They arrive like an invading army and declare:
FOOD.
NOW.
The council nods.
So we exited.
Eventually.
Dragged ourselves out of heaven.
Dried off.
Got dressed.
And left the room.
High as fuck.
The council looks us over.
Eyes?
Red.
Movement?
Slightly delayed.
Reality?
Soft.
Children.
We were not fooling anyone.
Not that we particularly cared.
We wandered through the resort.
Or
more accurately
I followed Axe.
Because remember.
Axe possessed approximately seven percent more operational capacity.
Which in this condition made her our designated navigator.
The council nods.
I have no memory of corridors.
Turns.
Signs.
Doors.
From my perspective,
I followed Axe
and suddenly
table.
The council pauses.
Teleportation?
Basically.
One moment:
walking.
Next moment:
restaurant.
Or dining area.
Or buffet hall.
Whatever expensive resorts call the room where food lives.
Children.
I sat.
Axe sat opposite me.
We waited.
The council looks around.
And waited.
No waiter.
We looked at each other.
Waited some more.
Still no waiter.
The council becomes concerned.
Was service bad?
No.
Service was fine.
We were idiots.
Because children
it was a buffet.
The council goes silent.
Oh.
Yes.
Oh.
The food was already there.
All of it.
Waiting.
Rows.
Trays.
Containers.
An entire kingdom of edible things.
And we had been sitting at an empty table like royalty awaiting servants.
The council collapses.
Eventually,
one of us noticed.
Perhaps Axe.
Probably Axe.
Seven percent advantage.
And there was that horrible little moment.
The realization.
The glance toward the buffet.
The glance back at each other.
The silent:
Ah.
Right.
The council laughs.
Now.
Until that moment,
there had perhaps been some hope of camouflage.
Maybe people thought we were tired.
Maybe our eyes were naturally red.
Maybe the excessive smiling had innocent origins.
Children.
That illusion ended the moment we returned to the table with plates.
The council stares.
Plates?
No.
Food structures.
Our portions did not resemble lunch for two human beings.
They resembled emergency provisions for a small town preparing for monsoon isolation.
The council erupts.
Mountains.
Heaps.
Layers.
Things stacked upon things.
Food touching other food that society had clearly intended to remain separate.
Children.
The buffet had made one catastrophic mistake.
Unlimited access.
And munchies had made another.
Existing.
The combination was devastating.
Did people look?
Probably.
Did staff look?
Almost certainly.
Did they know we were stoned?
Children.
Look at the plates.
Sherlock Holmes was not required.
The council nods.
Could we have exercised restraint?
No.
Would we?
Also no.
And besides
who cared?
This is an important principle of University Nuo.
Around people I know?
I rarely care.
Around people I do not know?
I care even less.
And around people I will almost certainly never see again?
Children.
Lol.
The council accepts this as a complete philosophical framework.
So we ate.
No.
Correction.
We gorged.
The council braces.
I cannot tell you what dishes were present.
Not because eleven years destroyed the memory.
Children.
I didn’t know then.
I never checked.
There was no:
Ah, this appears to be
No.
My entire culinary analysis was:
Food.
Take.
Eat.
I would stab or scoop some unknown portion from the mountain,
transfer it to my mouth,
chew,
repeat.
The council watches in horror.
No sequencing.
No concern for flavour profiles.
No appetizer.
Then main course.
Then dessert.
Children.
All of it existed simultaneously.
Something sweet beside something spicy beside rice beside meat beside something creamy beside whatever the hell that was.
One bite contained multiple courses.
The council pauses.
Fusion cuisine?
Violence cuisine.
The council laughs.
Chomp.
Next.
Chomp.
Next.
Somewhere in the heap,
dessert might have entered halfway through lunch.
Did that stop me?
Children.
Munchies do not respect categories.
Axe across from me?
Surely she was embarrassed.
The council waits.
No.
Of course not.
My glorious other half.
Children.
Same energy.
Same mountain.
Same complete disregard for public dignity.
She ate like someone had informed her the buffet would be erased from existence in twelve minutes.
And I looked across the table at her
and thought
perfection.
The council smiles.
This is compatibility.
Not matching clothes.
Not anniversary captions.
Not shared playlists.
Two people high in a resort restaurant,
both independently deciding portion control was government propaganda.
The council nods solemnly.
Beautiful.
We ate.
And ate.
And somehow kept eating.
Infinite food.
Infinite hunger.
The equation should eventually have failed.
It didn’t.
Children.
The body is capable of astonishing things when the brain believes every dish is urgently important.
At some point,
the plates became less mountainous.
Then empty enough to justify another expedition.
The council groans.
You went back?
Obviously.
Buffet.
The word contains permission.
So:
again.
Load.
Return.
Chomp.
The details dissolve here.
Not because the scene was unimportant.
Because it became one long memory of satisfaction.
Food.
Axe.
Laughter.
More food.
The pleasant absurdity of having nowhere else to be.
No schedule.
No one expecting us.
No university deadlines.
No romantic itinerary demanding we immediately move to Activity Two.
Children.
We were doing exactly what we wanted.
Which happened to be consuming an unreasonable percentage of resort inventory.
Eventually
the munchies surrendered.
The council gasps.
Defeated?
Finally.
We leaned back.
Both of us.
Full.
Extremely full.
The sort of full where the human body becomes less organism
and more storage container.
The council nods.
I looked at Axe.
Axe looked at me.
And we smiled.
No words.
Just satisfaction.
Children.
There are smiles that mean:
I love you.
There are smiles that mean:
That was fun.
And there are smiles that mean:
We have committed crimes against digestion
and regret nothing.
This was the third.
The council laughs.
And honestly?
Perfect anniversary so far.
Road trip.
Dogs.
Resort.
Cloud bed.
Jacuzzi.
Bong.
Buffet conquest.
Children.
The shit show promised earlier appeared to have forgotten our address.
The council becomes suspicious.
Never say that.
Fine.
Because then
we met them.
The council leans forward.
Who?
Another couple.
Names?
Children.
Please.
This is an ancient file.
Names were among the first casualties.
But the naming system survived.
He wore a hat.
She had a ribbon in her hair.
Therefore
Hat Guy.
Ribbon Girl.
The council nods.
The ancient classification system.
Efficient.
Reliable.
A little disrespectful.
Perfect.
I don’t remember exactly how conversation began.
Maybe they sat nearby.
Maybe one of us said something.
Maybe the sheer spectacle of Axe and Nuo eating enough buffet food to destabilize the kitchen created a social opening.
History has removed the introduction.
But somehow
they entered the story.
Hat Guy.
Ribbon Girl.
Another couple.
At the same resort.
The council looks between both pairs.
Now, children.
There is something dangerous about meeting strangers while travelling.
Most strangers remain strangers.
A nod.
A sentence.
Maybe a cigarette.
Then gone.
But occasionally
someone steps across that invisible line.
Conversation lasts longer.
Plans merge.
And suddenly people who did not exist in your life ten minutes ago
become characters in the Wandering.
The council grows quiet.
Hat Guy and Ribbon Girl had just crossed into the Archive.
Did we know that yet?
No.
Of course not.
At that moment,
they were simply
people.
Interesting enough not to ignore.
And after an amount of food that should have rendered us medically unavailable,
Axe and I apparently still possessed enough social energy to engage.
The council nods.
The anniversary had begun as:
Just us.
And already,
the road was doing what roads do.
Adding people.
Children.
That is the trouble with Wanderings.
You can leave with a party of two.
The universe reserves the right to expand the cast.
Thus concludes Chapter Five.
The Munchies.
The Invisible Waiter.
The Buffet Revelation.
The Small Town Food Supply.
The Destruction Of Culinary Order.
And The Arrival Of Hat Guy And Ribbon Girl.
Children.
Axe and I had entered the restaurant hungry.
We left the table barely capable of movement.
And somewhere between the second mountain of food and digestive surrender
two strangers appeared.
Hat Guy.
Ribbon Girl.
The council looks toward the next chapter.
And Malpe,
apparently,
had decided our romantic weekend required supporting characters.
