One of the most annoying experience in the world has got to be waking up happy after going to sleep sad. The utter gall of your mind to move on, without your conscious input, from one eminent emotion to another. It was as though your previous feelings were wholly invalid, and while you were sleeping, your brain had had time to reset itself and get rid of the bugs in its system. And the trouble didn’t stop there, unfortunately. Because the rational person, recognizing that their psyche had been diverted without their say so, would naturally begin to feel anger at that fact. Which, of course, would have then resulted in an oxymoronic spiral as the person began bouncing back and forth between being mad at being happy and not being mad because they were happy.
“Screw this.” Sam cut off the flow of his natural thoughts by throwing the blanket off of him and getting out of bed. “Stupid bloody magic brain.” Half an hour later, he left his room for his lesson with Lin, as ready for the day as a centenarian could be.
For once, Lin was already there waiting for him with the same two identical pairs of spears from before. Evidently, Lin decided to take it easy on him today because they only spent half of the session with physical training. The other half was spent on more on the theoretical art of fighting, with Lin instructing him on the rationale that should be guiding his footwork. They parted after a longer session than their two previous ones. Sam had a quick shower before grabbing breakfast and something small for lunch and heading back to his room.
Once back on home ground. He finished the next chapter that he had forwent yesterday. And proceeded to divide his studying time into some nice hour and twenty minutes segments with a ten-minute break in between. He was already quite ahead (although still very much behind) on his elven history, so he dedicated his time towards completing the lesson plans for the other subjects he was already familiar with. Still, he couldn’t help it but peek ahead a little and see for himself whether he made sense of his supplementary material. He didn’t, although there was a difference between his levels of his bewilderment, ranging from “I think this makes sense, I’m just lacking some more basic knowledge on the subject” to “Yeah, I have no idea what they’re talking about.”
The hours came and went, and before he knew it was already four. Scratch that, actually, it’s no use lying to the self. The hours did come and go, but he definitely recognized their passing and the arrival of four o’clock. It would have been great if he’d have been able to just ignore the passage of time and give studying all of his focus with nary a raised eyebrow. But he just wasn’t that sort of person as yet. Maybe he never will be, which wouldn’t necessarily be a bad thing in it of itself. Point is, he was more than happy when his alarm rang, signifying that it was time to get ready and head down to meet his friends.
Armed with naught but his phone, (it was, after all, a picnic, so water was not required. And he was meeting his friends so conversation would provide a sufficient substitute for his need to distract himself from his own mind) he made his way down the stairs and was surprised to discover that he was the first one there. He checked the watch; it was four on the dot. He checked his phone; no messages indicating that the appointed time had moved. He checked the sky; it was still there, mocking him with its false portrayal of home.
That bloody fucking sky! It was even worse because it truly was a beautiful day: blue as far as the eye could see and the few clouds that were there only served to accentuate their backdrop’s grace. Warmth was shining down on him in a Goldilock fashion and the birds were certainly enjoying it.
“What are you frowning at the sun for?” Felix’s voice sounded and brought him out his hate filled contemplation.
“Those fucking skies, mate! They’re taunting me. I hate them! With their ocean blue color and picturesque clouds. It’s all fake!”
“They’re literally shaped by the collective conscious of every sentient being onworld, so you’re really going against the grain here. Also, the clouds aren’t fake, they’re real. We don’t control the weather, unfortunately.”
“What are you, some sort of sky apologist? Face it, you’ve lived all your life in a terrarium with a digital top and you just don’t realize that there’s something wrong with that. You’re sounding like a real cave dweller, by the way.”
“What do the cavemen have to do with this?”
“It’s not—”
“Hey guys!” Sarah called to them with a cheerful wave, a bright smile, and a bag on her shoulders. “Sorry I’m late. I just had to finish something.”
“I’m fine with it, but Felix is seriously offended that you dared to waste his time.”
“Tell Felix that he’s just gonna have to grin and bear it.”
“You hear that sky-lover?”
Felix laughed. “Yvessa said that she’s getting the stuff ready in the car, so we should go meet her.”
“Yeah,” Sarah said, “she wrote me just a couple of minutes ago.”
“What?” Sam cried. “Why was I the only one that was not informed? I was waiting here like a schmuck.”
“How’s that different from usual? Ow!” Felix massaged the back of his head after Sarah’s retaliating strike landed on him. “That was uncalled for.”
“I agree,” Sam said. Sarah ignored them and began walking towards the car park. Exchanging looks, Sam and Felix turned to follow her. “So who’s driving?”
“Yvessa,” Felix answered. “She’s the only one with a driver’s license after all.”
“Sam also has one.”
“Really?”
“Yeah,” Sam said. “But no way in hell am I driving. Now or ever. I just wanted the card as an ID.”
“There is an ID card, you know?”
“It’s always good to have a replacement on hand. So how come you to can’t drive?”
Felix shrugged. “Didn’t seem like it was worth the money for driving lessons growing up, and it’s not like we actually needed a car anyway.”
“No use for me as well,” Sarah said. “Unlimited money for cabs and whatnot.”
“Don’t you think it’s funny that out of the four of us, Yvessa’s the only one that can drive a car?” Sam asked.
“Why?” Felix said. “Because she grew up in the kingdom? That’s just racist, man. She loves driving. I don’t know why, but she does. It’s old video games and fast cars, her only two Terran indulgences.”
“What about listening to me provide a one-sided and inaccurate overview of a historical event?”
“Mate… I got bad news for you. She doesn’t listen to you. It just goes through one ear and straight out the other.”
“I never got that idiom,” Sarah said. “It makes no sense. If it goes through both ears, then it still passes through the brain.”
“What if your brain is really really small, so that if the sound travels in a straight line, it misses it?”
“Are you saying that Yvessa’s brain is really really small?”
“I definitely am now.”
Sam was about to voice his own opinion on the matter, but he was stopped by the sound of his old ringtone coming from his phone. “Yeah?”
“Sam,” Yvessa said. “You guys coming?”
“Yeah, we’re almost there. I think. What’s the deal? You tell everyone to meet you by your car in a different format?”
“I wouldn’t have to if Sarah answered my messages.”
“She says that you didn’t answer her messages.”
Sarah took out her phone with a blush. “It was on silent.”
“She says it was on silent.”
“Yeah, I figured as much. So are you coming or wha—Oh, there you are.”
“Where? I don’t see you.”
“I’m coming towards you,” she said and disconnected the call. Sam still didn’t see her until Felix caught his eyes and pointed at her. She was really far.
“Let me guess,” Sam said with a sigh. “There are also patterns for better eyesight.”
“There are,” answered Felix. “But none of us have any yet. Maybe I never will… Some people say that just regular nourishment is good enough. We’ll see.”
“You’ll get one eventually,” Sarah said. “Not worth the risk of not having one when you need it.”
“I don’t know… The imprinting seems a real hassle. Even for a simple one. And it can apparently be very disorienting.”
“Would you rather be a little dizzy or very ambushed?”
“Ooh! Can I take this one?” Sam asked. But by this point, Yvessa had already reached them. The four of them stood there for a second, looking at each other.
“Well?” Yvessa asked.
“We’re waiting for you, Yv,” said Sarah.
“Yeah,” Felix said. “We don’t know where your car is.”
“Then why were you just waiting here for me to come all the way here?” Yvessa frowned.
“Why didn’t you just come to pick us up in your car?”
“How lazy are you?”
“Is that a rhetorical question?”
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“OK guys.” Sam took it open himself to be the grownup in the situation this time. Sarah looked like she was having way too much fun to step in. “I’m all for finger pointing and arguing, but let’s do it in while we’re inside the monstrous steel contraption because I only ate a snack for lunch today and I’ve gotten used to having three full meals in the last week.” Any by grownup, he meant letting his egotistical tendencies drive him to action.
“Follow me.” Yvessa turned back the way she came from.
“Are you sure you can’t come pick us in your car?” Felix asked with a smile.
“I can drive you over if that’s what you want.”
“Yvessa!” Sarah’s outburst surprised all three of them and stopped them in their tracks.
“What?” Yvessa asked, with clear hesitation in her voice. Sarah didn’t respond verbally but lightly nudged her head in Sam’s direction, her eyes telling Yvessa all that her gesture left unsaid. All heads turned to look at Sam, which was obviously too good an opportunity to let miss by not turning to look obliviously in that direction as well.
“What are we looking at us?” he asked.
“I think you, mate,” Felix said.
“Seriously, Sarah, he’s not a six-year-old.” Yvessa sighed with exasperation and resumed her walk.
“You alright Sam?” Sarah asked him.
“Yeah. I’m pretty sure my PTSD started getting overwritten once I got my legs back. And I very much doubt that it was ever anywhere close to being so bad as to be triggered by a joke about vehicular manslaughter.”
“Hold on now,” Felix said. “In Yvessa’s defense: she didn’t threaten to kill me, just run me over a little.”
“You’re right, but I don’t know the criminal term for that.”
“Really? Isn’t that what happened to you?” Sam saw Sarah massaging her temple in at attempt to calm herself.
“No. I fell down a manhole. Didn’t Sarah tell you the story? Stephen King’s van and whatnot?”
“Even if it wasn’t true,” Sarah said. “I wasn’t going to tell it to other people without your permission.”
“Well, it’s not true, so you could have at least told other people in order for them to experience my comedic storytelling genius.”
“Who’s Stephen King?” Yvessa asked. “Is he a famous driver?”
“What?! A driver? How dare you? Stephen King has never done an honest day’s work in his life.” I’m sorry Mr. King! I know that it’s not true, but the joke was just right there. Please don’t come back to haunt me.
“Oh, so he was an ambassador,” Felix joked.
“Ha ha,” Yvessa drawled. “Speaks the child prodigy who only got his first paycheck once he enrolled here.”
“Hey!” Sam objected. “Don’t knock off people who don’t start working before college. Or during college. Or even a little bit after college.”
“We’ll see about that… Here we are.” She stopped and pointed at a very fancy car, walking to the driver’s door and getting in.
“Now this is a conundrum,” Felix said. “Who wants to sit in the front next to the speed-chaser?”
“You are.” Sarah pushed him to towards the sit but was nice enough to open the door for him. She then opened the back door and gestured Sam to get in. “You got everything?” she asked Yvessa once she buckled her seatbelt, the last one to do so.
“No…” Yvessa said. “Was I supposed to bring something?”
“Yvessa, this is no time for jokes!” Felix chided her. “You heard Sam. He’s hungry; he hadn’t eaten anything for lunch.”
“I brought enough food for six of us and enough drinks to get all of us properly drunk. Except Sam obviously.”
“Three questions,” Sam said. “What’s properly drunk? What about the drive back? And are there any non-alcoholic drinks? For those of us who actually have a sense of taste and haven’t managed to trick ourselves into thinking that alcohol tastes good.”
“There’s wine if you don’t like hard liquor—I’m joking. There are plenty of alternatives. I’m not planning to drink, for example.”
“Well, that answers my second question. What about my first?”
“I’ll leave that to Felix to explain,” she said as the car began to move.
“I’ll be more than happy to,” Felix said. “So, Yvessa is obviously familiar with my definition of properly drunk, but I’ll tell you and Sarah my truths on the matter.”
“Wow.” Sam turned to Sarah. “Is this the first thing that I’ve been told that you also didn’t know?”
“It might be.” She laughed. “A hundred more of those, and I’ll know what it was like for Felix and Yvessa not to know what happens at level 8.”
“Will you drop that already?!” Felix groaned and Yvessa supported him with her grumpy rumble.
“Yeah, Sarah,” Sam said. “Leave it for after he tells us the thing. That way, we might be able to make fun of him for two things at once.”
“Hey! You also didn’t know about level 8.”
“That has got to be the weakest clapback that I’ve even been on the receiving end of. That’s like making fun of Socrates for not knowing anything. By the way, did I mention to you guys that Farris just took for granted that I knew how to get to level 9 and 10? You two might be the only child prodigies in the history of the Web to not ask about it when they were like nine.”
“Hey! Didn’t you just say that you’re not going to make fun of that? And nine? That doesn’t make sense. No one can be a child-prodigy at nine. Whatever. Do you want to hear my definition or not?”
“Will it allow us to make fun of you?” Sarah asked. Sam gave her a thumbs up.
“You know… I don’t like you as much ever since Sam came into the picture.”
“I think you already said something along those lines yesterday,” Yvessa remarked.
“Whose side are you even on?”
“Just tell them about your optimal theory of drunkenness already.”
“Fine! So here it is. The proper level of being drunk is drinking all the way until you are about to blackout and then stopping completely in order to maximize your enjoyment of your buzz.”
“That’s absurd!” Sam called.
“How would you know? You don’t even drink.”
“I was actually making a reference. But I have to take offense with your assertion that I don’t drink. I do, I just hate the taste of it, so I’m forced to spend the big bucks on cocktails.”
“Mhm… I love cocktails.” Sarah pursed her lips. “Something sweet to wash away the day with but also makes you feel physically better. They’re great.”
“No cocktails, sorry,” Yvessa said. “Unless you guys consider vodka and orange juice as one.”
“I don’t…” Sarah pouted. Sam squeezed her shoulder for comfort.
“Wait.” He tapped Felix on the shoulder. “Was that really the entirety of your treatise on alcohol?”
“Yeah… What else is there?”
“I don’t know. How about drinking water? Eating beforehand? Designated driver? All you said was to drink a lot and hope you don’t blackout. There’s nothing smart about that plan.”
“It’s about discipline and knowing the self. Any idiot could tell you that if you want to get drunk, just drink as much as you can. But to truly appreciate it, one must walk the fine line between oblivion and sense. You try it if you think that it’s so easy. Anyone can go over the brink if given enough drinks. It’s stopping right before it. That makes life worth living.”
“OK, now you’re just doing it on purpose.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. Same goes for drinking water. Why would you need to drink water when you’re already drinking beer? It’s all water at the end of the day.”
“What? What the fuck are you one about?”
Sarah cleared her throat. “There is a level 2 pattern that can almost guarantee that you won’t have a hangover.”
“Damn right!” Felix said. “I never got a hangover in my life.”
“That just means you didn’t start drinking until you were level 2,” Yvessa said. “Did you wait until you were eighteen?”
“Of course I did. Mom wouldn’t waste money on alcohol, and I wasn’t going to fuck around with doing something illegal.”
“And what a good boy you are. Well, if you bothered trying to get drunk before you were level 2, you would have found out that why it’s so important to drink water.”
“Oh yeah? Do you know that from personal experience?”
“Yes. My fourteenth birthday. It’s why I don’t like drinking.”
“Really?” Sam asked. “It’s not because of the disgusting taste? The high price? Or the fact that one shitty can of beer sets you back a whole workout calories wise?”
“No. I’m rich. I exercise enough to eat whatever I want. And I actually like the taste of alcohol. That’s why I brought non-alcoholic beer for myself.”
“Holy shit, what kind of psychos did you make me friends with, Sarah? These are the kind of people who wouldn’t be swayed by my coke after work argument.”
“What’s your coke after work argument?”
“I’m glad you asked Yvessa. Even if you are the sort of person with a demented enough taste for my argument not to work on. And Felix, please pay attention. This is what actual opinion formulating looks like.”
“Get on with it.” Felix reached back with his hand and tried to smack Sam but was too slow for Sam’s awesome agility and his Sarah Mark I’s own smacking capabilities.
“Fine. Let me formulate this as simply as possible for you two weirdoes. Two assumptions: First, a bottle or can of coke has the same or roughly the same amount of calories as its beer counterpart. Two, coke is tastier than beer. What must follow is that the habit of ‘just grabbing a beer,’ as can be seen in many TV shows, e.g. Friends season six episode seventeen—”
“Do you really remember the exact episode?” Yvessa asked.
“No, of course not. Those days are long behind me. I was just making that up in order for you guys to think I was smart.”
“Smart isn’t the word I’d use,” Felix said.
“Good memory? Lightning-fast intellect? Wait… Is it handsome?”
“Sad.”
“So the trope goes, and I have designated it as a trope even though I know people who do behave in that way, is that a person will just grab a beer when they’re thirsty. A single beer, in the middle of the day, just pop it off in front of the TV and drink that crap. Now, does that make sense to you based on the two assumptions that I’ve previously presented? Don’t answer that, of course it doesn’t. Why would a person choose to just drink a single beer if there was a better alternative in the form of coke present? One beer isn’t going to get them drunk, so there’s much less pleasure to be had in ‘grabbing a beer’ than in the much more reasonable ‘grabbing a coke.’”
“Only if your assumption that coke tastes better than beer holds true,” Yvessa said.
“It does.”
“Maybe for you. I don’t even like coke all that much in the first place.”
“Which is just another reason for my initial designation of you two as complete and utter psychos.”
“Hey, I’m with you Sam,” Felix said. “I’d rather have a coke than a beer if I’m not planning to get drunk.”
“When are you ever not planning to get drunk?” Yvessa asked.
“I wasn’t planning to get drunk today until I found out that you brought alcohol into the picture. I didn’t know that you could bring drinks to a picnic.”
“Of course you can. Wine is like the quintessential drink for a picnic.”
“Is it?” Felix turned to look at his fellow passengers in the back. Sam curved his mouth downward and shook his head while Sarah just shrugged with a smile. “I don’t think we’re going to give that consensus.”
“I don’t care what you think. It’s wine with some nice cheese and sandwiches. That’s the ultimate picnic.”
“Question,” Sam said. “Do I propose before or after we drink the wine in your cliche picnic?”
“Obviously after.” Felix scoffed. “You want to get their inhibitions lower so they’d be more likely to agree to marrying you. That’s basic stuff.”
Yvessa shrugged. “You guys can laugh all you want, but I’m right. And since I’m the one that prepared the food and drinks for today, you’re just going to have to eat what I give you.”
“As long as you’re not planning to propose.”
“I’ll propose throwing you off the cliff. How about that?”
“We’re going to a cliff?” Sam asked.
“We’re going up the mountain,” Sarah explained. “There are some great spots there that I know of from when Maurice took me as a kid.”
“Will there be a cliff?”
“If there is, you’re not going anywhere near it.”
“Damn… I really wanted to dangle.”
“Dangle?”
“Just my legs.”
“If you want,” Felix said, “I could pick you up later by the hip.”
“Before or after we throw you off the cliff?”
“That was just a proposal. We haven’t voted on that.”
“Wow. How big a proponent of popular democracy are you, to let yourself get killed by the whims of the majority?”
“You were going to vote me off the cliff?”
“Do you even need to ask that?”
“That’s it. I take back all the nice things I said about you.
“I don’t think you’ve said any.”
“Not true. I told Yvessa that I liked you after the first day we met.”
“He did,” she confirmed. “But I personally wouldn’t take that as a nice thing. He likes a lot of questionable figures.”
“Name one.”
“Sam Anders.”
“Name two.”
“Mallor Asionalu.”
“OK… But can you name three?”
“That depends… Do you still like Farris after having met him?”
“And remember,” Sam said after having just looked up Mallor Asionalu (some Imperial prince who posed nude for a couple of pictures apparently), “that’s my mentor you’re talking about.”
“How come you never hit her for making fun of Sam?” Felix asked Sarah instead.
“If I did it now, then I’ll also have to hit you for agreeing with her.”
“In fact,” Sam said, “one could say that without your cooperation, her joke would have completely fallen flat. That would give you the majority share in the fun making.”
“I feel like we’re forgetting the fact that I said Sam was a nice guy while Yvessa explicitly called him out as ‘questionable’”
“He’s right Sarah. It would only be fair to throw both of them off of the cliff.”
“We’re not going anywhere near the cliff,” Sarah said. “We’re just going to find a nice hilly spot with a good view and sit there. And no one’s getting too drunk. Tomorrow’s a weekday, in case anyone forgot.”
“I did manage to forget that for a couple of blessed hours, thank you… Do you guys want to hear the manifesto I wrote about why it’s wrong to call just a Saturday the weekend?”
“No,” all three of them answered in unison.
“Great. So I’d like to start us off by examining one of the great party animals of the ancient world, Aristippus. A philosopher whose name I did just have to look up because there’s no way I’m going to waste precious storage space on remembering a pre-modern hedonist. And the only reason that I’m willing to give the modern ones a pass is that my boy Mill could be counted among their numbers. And speaking of Mill, and that’s really funny that you guys brought up Mill cause just yesterday I was thinking of his weirdo mentor… So do you guys know who Lenin is?”