Shari ’s After Hell

by Patrick Hurst

There are maybe eight of us sitting in the back of the truck this evening. The sun is setting at the usual lackadaisical pace it takes on summer nights, leaving us with the warm feeling of freedom that can only come from watching the sun set. It had taken us almost too long to get here, for here is in the middle of bum fuck Egypt. After a mile or two of paved country roads there is another mile or two of un-paved country roads, each of which may or may not have led to a place containing anything from an angry red neck with a shot gun to a furiously lazy cow that won’t get out of the way. We ran into none of those things but the fear of the bovine was deep in our hearts.

Yet, after a few wrong turns and a stop at a gas station for a couple of gallon jugs of water we have safely arrived at Hell. That is our locations you see, and after a description it becomes apparent why it was given an unappealing name. When coming through the dilapidated gate guarding this land there is a grove of trees that reveals a shack, no, it is more of a memory of a shack; a wisp of a memory that has been left behind by the maker of the shack and time itself. This memory could be housing anything from musty spider webs to Satan himself. But since no one has yet had any interest in finding the later it remains a mystery. The dark windows and crooked door of the shack peer at you through the trees and various abandoned fridges and washing machines as you drive by. It has an expression that says no one cares if you are here. That’s why we are here. We had little interest in any one that would have any interest in our presence.

There is finally some music coming through the rear window of the cab of the truck and I am sitting behind the driver’s side next to the cab so that I can hear it better and at last the fun begins. My charismatic and oddly attractive friend Sage loads the first bowl and takes the first greens, passing it on the left hand side with one love. Bob Marley was a great man and his genius is found swirling in the smoke of Hell. After a full circle and a reload or two I am holding a gift from the earth in my hands and I kill it all in one long breath. After the first round, the need for the water becomes apparent and the jugs get passed around and drank with fervor. Laughter ensues as sage takes his lighter and has it rise from behind his hand like the sun while singing the lion king theme song. Stop time is beginning to engulf my vision and other senses, like the frame rate for the universe is now slower.

Somebody has at last put on Miles Davis, it might have been me but no one is really keeping track, and my brain starts to operate purely in metaphors as the strings that connect all our lives and the energies of the universe entwine in an eternal dance. God lives in all of us and we live in God and the space between shatters into a million to the power of infinity pieces. Miles plays a particularly peculiar tune to make the pharos dance which in turn makes the sun set at an alarmingly slower pace than before. It’s like the eye of Sol looking down at us, envying what we are. I then see the other side of the cosmic fence: we wish to be free like the gods but they wish to be free like us. I now realize the power that comes with being a “mere” human.

The sky turns to a deep purple and it comes to light that Jimi’s haze was not nearly as thick as mine and that that peculiar sound is actually coyotes or wolfs or demons answering Satan’s call from the shack not one hundred feet away. But by the time I realize that I was terrified I realize that we are already driving away and by the time I realize that we are trying to get away from that god forsaken place I am resting a fluffy piece of s’mores pie on the pillow that is my tongue. There is nothing quite like seeing the universe ten frames an hour, ten chews per pie, ten licks per lollipop and ten winks to the cutest girl you’ve ever seen sit on the tail gate of a truck. It’s hard to say how many nights have been spent like this, but then again who’s keeping track?

Patrick Hurst is a Junior at Fairhaven College studying creative writing and music.