The Great Wilderness in the Sky

We met in the basement of a house I didn’t recognize; a house belonging to a friend of a friend. I’m not sure who she knew, but I knew that I wanted it to be me. I approached her and tried to strike up a conversation, sloppily albeit successfully. She had no name, or at least none that she wanted me to know, so I came to find that neither did I. She spoke of hobbies that I can’t remember and books that I’ll never read. I spoke of movies and an unhealthy longing to write my own someday. We were selfish conversationalists. I asked questions so that I could answer them when she was done speaking. She batted her eyelids so that she could know she was attractive. We had hours until the ball dropped so we went on a walk. Chilly air stung my face and smoke my lungs. We were the rebellious youth.

“You can’t tell me John Stamos isn’t the epitome of cool though.”

“I wasn’t arguing that John Stamos isn’t cool, he’s undeniably cool”, she took another drag. “I’m only saying Uncle Jesse isn’t the most fuckable actor in the show.”

“Come on. If the mullet man isn’t then who is?”

She laughed. “Bob Saget.”

“You’re crazy.”

“You wanted my opinion I’m just giving you the honest truth. There’s something sexy about the dad role that just jumps my bones.”

“Jumps your bones? My goodness I’m talking to an old woman.”

“72 years young and counting.”

I didn’t know how old she actually was or where we were going. She’d mentioned it was her favorite place on campus. We came to a hill, large enough to warrant admiration but small enough to be mostly unexciting. She started running and I followed. We laid out and watched the stagnant night sky intermittently hide behind veils of clouds. She had switched to cigarettes now.

“…and that’s the big old sky snake. They say one day he’ll come and swallow the Earth whole, accidentally. Of course it’ll be our fault for having become much too bastardly. Terribly evil, us humans. I think we’ll get to the point where we don’t see anything wrong with being bad. But the snake will be there to consume us, an unnoticed breath of dust and other cosmic things. Gone and forgotten to time.”

“Spooky.”

“Yeah. What’s that one?” I was pointing to the sky.

“I don’t know constellations.”

“Neither do I, but I know how to make things up.”

“Oh in that case,” she pointed to a spot where I couldn’t make out any stars. Or maybe I couldn’t figure out where she was pointing. In either case it didn’t much matter.

“That’s the big old sky sheep.”

“Sky sheep you say?”

“Yeah, he’s a lot farther away so you can’t really see him.”

“That’s so sad.”

“It’s okay though,” she said with a smile. “He’s a lot faster than the snake, he has legs. And one day he’s going to catch up to the snake and stomp on him for what he did to us.”

“But who will stomp the sheep?”

She looked me in the eyes. “We will.”

We returned to the party. A joyous occasion marked with excessive alcohol and loud music. Precisely the type of thing you want to be involved with when you’re young and you’re aging. We played drinking games and she stood by my side, and she started to seep into my heart. Just enough that I knew who I wanted to kiss when the ball dropped. And when it inevitably dropped I made sure it was passionate. Just passionate enough for her to know I was enjoying the night and her company. And she laughed and smiled enough for me to know she was enjoying my company. And as things are wont to do the party became increasingly intense. And we became increasingly sozzled. Falling into and over and through one another like the souls of people who are supposed to meet. We had to lean on one another to stay standing. But we kept drinking because that’s what you do when you want to have a good time. I couldn’t call it love but I could call it happiness which is more than I could call the past few months.

“I have to go to the bathroom”, she said.

“Do you want me to come with you?”

“No, no, it’s fine,” and I hoped she’d come back.

I found the guy I came with. He wanted to know if I was having a good time, noted that he noticed I had been gone, was thankful I found my way back. He asked about the girl, said he’d seen her around campus but had never talked to her. I responded she was nice, kept it at that.

“You should get her phone number or something.”

“Yeah I’ll probably try.”

I woke up in my bed back home. A splitting headache in my skull and a terrible feeling in my heart. A sadness that I couldn’t place. That’s the last thing I remember. Making note of attempts. I grabbed my phone from the charger and checked my contacts with hopes of a nameless girl being found in the depths. Alas no nameless woman was to be found. I called my friend to ask what happened.

“She didn’t come back”

“What do you mean she didn’t come back?”

“I mean she went to the bathroom and that’s it. You looked all over but couldn’t find her. Then I lost you for about 20 minutes. Found you face down in the toilet. We called a ride and got out of there. You cried in the Uber.”

“Oh. Thanks.”

“Yeah no problem.”

So I tried to go back to bed, but all I got was a head full of regret and a longing for a name I’d never know. Still dizzy from the poison of the night before I thought of the stars and our tiny place in the universe. How small we all were and how silly decisions make us feel like shit. So all I could do now was wait. Wait for the ghost of a soul to find its way back to me and a giant snake to come swallow me whole. Wait for a sheep that would never come.