"In a mist of mystery"

Last night we went over to Marilena's (visiting grad student from London, although she herself is Italian) apartment up in student housing to watch David Lynch's Inland Empire. Because Nat forgot the directions inside the apartment (twice) and i left my book behind, and because i hesitated right before we were to run across the busy road in front of traffic, thereby saving us from having to wait at the crosswalk, we missed the bus by just a smidge. Just enough that we even began to run for it at the next stop, 2 blocks away, only to realize that the bus was making all the lights and that we were not.
Already late, this left us fuming. We walked back to our original stop, cooling off a tad along the way. i decided we would pass the time by playing the Alphabet Game, and that if one of us missed a letter, that person would have to do the chicken dance; like, really get up and just bust a move in front of all the idling traffic. Nat chose insects as our category, which i must admit i was not expecting. Fruits, vegetables, band names- almost anything else was easier, as it turned out. i didn't get very far before i had to ask him for a hint (1 per game), suddenly very fearful of having to get up and flap my elbows in front of twenty or thirty cars waiting at the red light across the street. We ran along pretty smoothly until N, (probably the fact that we decided 'insects' would include all bugs, worms, spiders, and anything else remotely creepy-crawly), and then the game sort of went to hell. Unfortunately, we were both too cowardly for the chicken dance, instead letting ourselves off the hook with cop-outs like "North American Something-Or-Other" and "Quick-jumping Spider", to name but two.

Once at our destination, Marilena poured us rum and cokes and we all sat down for the film.

Two absolutely bizarre but riveting hours later, we were all on our second drinks and retired to the porch to discuss all of the madness. As we talked about Lynch's symbolism (red lamps, a particular shade of green, lonely letters of the alphabet, and so on), a thick fog began blowing around the sleepy student quarters, causing fat drops of moisture to fall from the trees, tall eucalyptus that leaned in above us in the moonlight. The stars disappeared.
Inside, after the cigarettes, Marilena casually brought up the Salvia Divinorum she had been smoking recently. Nat raised his eyebrows, for he had heard of the sage, a shamanic vision-quest herb. i watched as they both smoked some out of a miniature purple bong. Nat said he felt like a string was attached to him, pulling and jerking him slowly back into the sofa. It seemed pleasant and mild enough, but i still refused. i'd had enough drugs in high school, thanks. Later he sheepishly told me that it was almost like he became one with an inanimate object (the couch).
Around 4 am Marilena drove us home in her roommate's beat-up Volvo. The fog was menacing. As we approached the freeway on-ramp, it was almost like driving through a glass of water with milk in it... we couldn't see more that 15 or 20 feet ahead of us at times. Luckily we were on the road at an ungodly hour, so not a single car passed near us. It was rather frightening, actually. Suddenly the moon came into view, the full glorious moon, and Marilena pointed it out with a start.

The fog lifted!

Suddenly, the road was there. Our surroundings were there. The world was back! A huge relief for all of us, and very strange indeed. Why such a clear line of demarcation? Were we skirting something dangerous?

I remember a long time ago, when my sister and i still lived in our mom's house; we would buy beer and Wyder's Pear Cider (for me) and drive up to Grizzly Peak in the old VW bus. It all started when one night she asked me: Do you want to see The Nothing?
It was a reference to a favorite childhood movie of ours, The Neverending Story. i was so intrigued, of course. So we hopped in the car, and wound up through the misty eucalyptus trees and UC-affiliated laboratories, until suddenly the car pulled over to the side of the road. Someone opened the van's side door for me, and there we were. At The Nothing.

If you walked out a few feet from the car, there was a tree that sort of hung off of the cliff, reaching out into the void, heavy with leaves. The fog was dense, and a bright light somewhere far below us lit up the massive sea of mist, dimming out somewhere just above our heads. i felt charged, and scared, and like i was on a fantastic movie set somewhere. You couldn't see the drop below you, but knew it was there, and that it was great. Kind of like a movie i once saw where a character who was blind visits the Grand Canyon and describes simply feeling the vast expanse of empty space. It was like that. We could have been anywhere. The edge of the world.