The sky flared off and in the distance like a light bulb. There was no thunder or rain. I noticed the lightning, saw the clouds flicker blue and white with the lull, minus the pop. No one else at the party seemed to notice. I walked along my parents’ patio inhaling from a marijuana cartridge, telling everyone it was an e-cigarette. The few people that asked for a drag inhaled only once, and each time coughed up great billows of smoke (a special contraption combined both tobacco and marijuana), giving whichever circle they were in the courtesy of turning their head for view of a wide backyard. My parents’ backyard encapsulated an acre of land, a nice buffer from the nearest neighbors, thus providing quite a lot of space for view of the sky above. This made it easy to phase out when I found myself in the middle of a conversation: I’m not exactly sure how I got there, but I was there and gauzy and lackadaisical and bored. And it was still early in the evening, around 11pm when I phased out of another conversation, looked off into the sky and noticed the clouds rearranging themselves into shapes one could easily associate with certain things.

Yet every other person here seemed indifferent to the dragon breathing fire, wicked flames spilling from its mouth in sharpened wisps. Not even when they exhaled and coughed did they think to notice the clouds in the sky or mention anything to me. Which seemed to telescope my focus further toward the tail-end forming a mouth. The clouds above spaced out two mismatched eyes, one larger than the other, while the other was more obscure and mashed like a liquid vial spilling into the surrounding clouds moving a bit too quick. My eyes naturally zoomed out further for two more eyes levitating above those orbs as nostrils. The initial dragon was now a tongue. Further factoring in the surrounding quiver reconfigured it as an arrow. The arrow pointed towards a head, a bulbous and bald head, somewhat slanted in one direction. A spray of clouds slivered from the nose as if blood.

I was balding myself, and my nose had been broken. Although my cheeks weren’t so fat, I could see myself losing control of my weight.

So I sauntered off. Off until upon the side of my parents’ house I reached a spiral staircase connecting to a roof deck. The steps here were made of some flimsy type of metal that, although had no real chance of breaking, echoed in such a fragile way the bedrooms on the other end of the house were notified, which included my parents’ bedroom directly below. This would thus trigger a habitual remark from my mother:

“I heard you last night. Oh my god what were you doing Joe?”

It was a natural reaction to take things slow, not let anyone know what or why I would walk a much more vertical than horizontal direction. Either because I didn’t want anyone at the party to follow, or it reminded me of the days I used to sneak out and smoke bud under the glitter of the night sky. Before this space surrounding us became homes, there used to be wild cows and horses walking through during our mornings. We’d eat breakfast and notice and wonder. I’d listen to the coyotes howling throughout the night.

I’d sneak off real quiet for the lawn chairs up top, just like they are now, inclined and angled as if for perfect view of the sky. I’d inhale from a glass pipe then like I inhaled from a marijuana cartridge now. This time it wasn’t light pollution which veiled the countless tinkling specks but clouds: a single overwhelming behemoth, distinctly and subjectively a face, distant yet drawing closer, materializing as if looking down on me, veins adorned somewhere just around the outer edges of the eyes wended like DNA strands up and into the ears. Except the left eye, now that I took a good moment to inhale and look, had this periscope device on me like it was targeting and zooming in, forward and ever expanding this face seemed to creep ever closer.

Emotions sutured an amiable and slow escalation, which lifted my brain into space. I felt so warm listening to the distant and constant chatter of the party below, like city noises in a place that still wasn’t very much developed. The buffer was an acre of land, and the light pollution did take away view of space, but the sound here was presence. The alien was smiling, all zerg like that Starcraft video game. A harbinger visiting our planet and watching us listlessly. Targeting me of all people. How could I leave such a spot? Who would want to?

The face enveloped what felt like the entire sky within the parameters my own eyes allowed.

It was what my father said at the counter. I stood at the bar. He wasn’t looking at me as he said this, and I forget what we were discussing at the time, but the memory almost immediately effectuated just as I figured those clouds couldn’t creep any closer, “You don’t know what type of technology the government has.”

Said with that universal constant. What people all seemed to know—-something I used to know even in my youthful ignorance—-before the world turned mean and hypnosis became a thing. It was that underlying universal truth that the government was shit. It’s not about sides. It’s the system as a whole. Experiments on citizens provide useful and reusable data.

I felt right then a manufactured mental turmoil sutured to a few quick and sporadic memories that made it almost impossible to accept the severity of my actions. So I stood up, took one last lingering look at the lightning storm cycling off to the East, and wandered off, down the steps, and returned to the party.

It wasn’t until later that weekend when I decided to leave when YouTube recommended a song: Title: Kawaii Razor Blades; Artist: Sewers Lvt for class president. The image attached to the song was a bit more interdimensional imagery less zerg-like face drifting in a night sky. But it was, without a doubt, the same face I saw then, floating closer, whispering at such a low frequency I confused it for my own thoughts.

And as I drove away, listening to that song for the first time with the smell of dead leaves after a heavy rain spilling into the car, there were clouds off and in the distance sailing a blue sea shaped as Triremes.