(relatively so, at least) for us as human beings to take shots on a Sunday
night and not really give a shit about our responsibilities for the next day.
I chide myself for the former judgments passed upon my peers, and do an
imaginary cheers with them in the air. This one is for you, flag guy. And
this one is for you, trashcan girl.
As time goes on and our blood alcohol content goes up,
things start getting philosophical. The dregs of our cups are a bleak
foreshadowing of our soon-to-be empty, adult lives. The horror with
which we approach scheduling next semester’s classes is a sure sign that
our futures are destined to be great looping train tracks of nothing that
lead nowhere because we can’t seem to figure out where we’re going. Plus,
we agree that we would just suck at being train conductors in general. We
couldn’t pull off those hats they wear. After this realization, there is a brief
respite taken in the fact that we have ruled out one career. We will not be
train conductors. We have made one decision.
Naturally, the night leads to a trip to interpret the stars. My
roommate and I walk down the stairs and out the door much like the
handsomely clad American flag boy before us. Stumbling and singing we
head outside into a darkness marred by light. The stars are few in number,
and the fluorescents that surround us have dimmed them. They are duller
than they should be, grey and blunt like traces of chalk left on the slate
of a blackboard. Like some scraps of a lecture a teacher failed to erase.
Nothing important. But it doesn’t matter; we lay under them anyways,
searching for meaning like a million people before us. We figure the
secrets to life are up there somewhere, sneaky and hiding, and everyone
else has just been too stupid to find them.
***
I’m not quite aware of what it is we discovered as we rambled
on about the stars and their existence as well as our own. Though much
of it was profound, I’m sure. It is an unfortunate coincidence that our
memories of said discoveries were damaged beyond repair, along with
several brain cells that were sorely missed during my chemistry exam
the following day. I did learn, however, that my friend would always be
willing to drop her books for me and tequila, even on a Sunday night,
and go lay in damp grass with me, discussing alien life forms and love and
if, perhaps, an alien life form could ever love us.
And some evil overlord had probably taken over my perch and
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