(For reference, no, this is not a story about a drug trip.)
It was a derelict building. An old farmhouse with no windows and one door standing next to a barn that had been caved in by some long forgotten fire. It was layered in years of field burnings and crop dustings, the former white paint now a rotten yellow-brown with smoker's teeth black shingles to match. Ruined palm trees stood bent and crooked over the dead fields and only added to the debris littering the small clearing in-between the dead farmhouse and the deader barn.
Along the road that passed a good distance from the house sat a tan sedan, covered in dust and holding a group of teens all searching the ruins for some hidden depth. They were five in total, five youths coming to the middle of nowhere just to be somewhere. That's all they really ever did, that or wander through the places that had names and no meaning. They disembarked from the car and removed a few blankets and towels from the trunk, making their way to the surprisingly lush green clearing in-between the buildings.
They cleared away what they could and ignored what they couldn't, and laid out their makeshift cots all across the available space. One of them, a dark, brooding boy with brown hair hanging over his deep-set eyes, sat up and lit a cigarette that immediately assaulted everyone with the strong smell of grape and tar. His female companion snatched the cigarette greedily from him and laughed noiselessly when he pulled her close and laid his head on her stomach, content. Another boy, lanky and stoop shouldered, sat up and hummed to no one in particular, pulling out the longest strands of grass that he could find and twirling them in his fingers till they crumbled into nothing.
A girl across from him tightened the strings on the black hoodie she wore, her blond, red and green dyed bangs bunching up over her sight and concealing her thousand yard stare piercing the gathering stars. The last of them, a solid looking boy with puppy dog eyes and a crooked smile, spread out his arms as if he were accepting some unseen visitor, his fingers stretching out straight to feel and accentuate the moist grass and it's oddly prickly tips.
The sun fell finally over the craggy mountains in the distance and sent out the cold blanket of cooling air that usually follows, making the spread out group bunch up closer together on the wet, matted down grass with a few patches of rich soil. They all lay with their heads on another's lap or stomach, all of them close and warm from something other than their tired heat. As the sun's wavering veil of degraded browns, yellows and purples began to fade and give way to the deep blue canvas of a moonlit night, they all ceased their mingled conversations and laughter, and looked up.
The silence about them created a background ambiance that only enhanced their insignificance in it all. Their eyes became black wells of wonder that swallowed starlight and held the moon as their iris, smiles of inner amusement crossing their faces one after the other and fading just as fast, continuing in an odd, aware loop that circulated among them. The lanky one with the long, bruised fingers reached one hand out to catch the satellite sailing across the stellar landscape, trying to be one with this object made by hands like his yet so far removed from the toils that made it. The girl with the technicolor bangs curled up in a near fetal position next to the sorrow eyed boy with the accepting arms, her back pressed to the grass while her hips remained turned to face the boy, her body contorting to allow the discomfort for just this once.
The smoking pair were in a close embrace, the boy's head pressed to her breast in a sleepy dream with her arms around his shoulders and his leg looped with hers. She hushed his startled breathing and held him closer to let him hear her heart, it's steady, reassuring beat calming him and sending him back into his stargazing awe. Her hair was splayed behind her like a splatter of hay-colored paint on a green background, her pale skin glowing in the soft light emanating from the distant, yet ever caring stars, she trailed her thin fingers along the goosebumps of the dreaming boy and felt them all like pinpricks, her motherly hushing making them vanish as she led her hand across.
The world around them seemed to be falling, sinking, the farmhouse's windows lighting up with some ghostly memory of former life and the barn moaning in it's agony. The structures groaned and stretched and twisted as the small grassy pedestal the five occupied rose up to the heavens, the earth trying to keep them still. The boy with the sad eyes chuckled a mournful chuckle and brought his hand to his face, feeling the damp sweat that had come over him, his fingertips smudging his features like a fresh painting still waiting for eternity to set. He turned his head and kissed the technicolor girl on the forehead, her hair lighting up in almost neon colors that drenched everything and everyone in over-exposed tones. The lanky boy tried to sit up, but found only his arm continuing without him, stretching further and further up into the sky. His outstretched fingers wavered like wisps of smoke and turned the colors of the farthest reaches of space, fine dusts of amethyst, auburn, bistre, deep cerise and heliotrope all converging on his earthly flesh and leaving him sick with color.
The boy in the dream that was awake stirred and looked to the stars again, ignoring the steady shushing sounds coming from his now ash grey compatriot, her color flushing and returning with every slight draw and exhale. One eye rotated while the other stayed shut, his mind swimming in a tunnel cavern of thoughts and improbabilities.
This swirl and dance of awareness and disillusionment confounded all their logic and forced it to be silent as they lay in innocent, adventurous and always distant childlike wonder at the multiverse just beyond their farthest reach.
They lay there, in aimless comradery for a century, brought out of infinity only by the loud whooping of a lone police car. The group shot up and stared with cloudy eyes at the black and white vehicle in the middle of the road. A tall man in a black uniform with a bright flashlight called to them from the far off road, "You kids need to be heading home, its past curfew."
Satisfied that he need not bother with further warnings, he walked back around his car and climbed back in, whooping the silent road once more with his siren and driving off, kicking up stones and pebbles in his wake.
The group stood in a stupor and awoke back to the chilly night that was around them and laughed among themselves, heading back to the car and returning to their conversational demeanor. As they all climbed back into the sedan, the boy with the sorrowful eyes looked back to the windowless farmhouse with one door, and saw the faint light from some distant room beyond his sight. He clenched his eyes shut and looked again, the light slowly fading as the edges of his vision cleared. His crooked smile cracked itself across his face and he shook his head, climbing into the now rowdy car and driving off with the group of dreamers.
In the clearing between the dead farmhouse and the deader barn, near the dry field and the sagging palms, were the depressions of several wondering children, their warmth still clinging to the lonely plot of earth they had filled with fantastic visions and wondering thoughts.
And up above, soared the same satellite a young boy with sky-high arms had just clutched for moments ago, still unaware of it's own, cold freedom and inspiring ambiguity.
The end.
X's and O's,
Eraqio.
PS. Dream with your boots on.
