In February 2011, I had a pretty bad trip on pot brownies.

I think the beginning of this chapter allows us to imagine another cliché scene from the movie adaptation of this story:

Turn off the alarm clock, cue the music, throw the sheets away and get out of bed to the rhythm and the beat of...

Well, we have captivating alternatives now, like The King of Limbs album by Radiohead, released the exact same day this part of the story takes place. There's a song in that album called Morning Mr Magpie—suiting name, suiting date—but I can't see the mood of the scene with that kind of soundtrack. Too experimenta Maybe we can pick something from Degeneration Street by The Dears, which had been released three days before The King of Limbs. In that album, we have songs like Yesteryear or Stick W/ Me Kid that could be used for a faster scene—or maybe a montage with a monotonous and lame routine? I don't know. It’s not just the name of the songs what I like but also the title of the album. Degeneration Street. It suits something that is going to happen in the next chapter.

Again, if you have the opportunity to listen to some of those songs would be great, but what was actually happening with music in the real world at the time was—sigh—fuck... Grenade, you know? Bruno Mars still on the fucking Billboard since the first week of January just to be replaced for... what? Black and Yellow by Wiz Khalifa? Fuck off! That was a 2010 song forced to stay relevant by releasing a remix for the Green Bay Packers at the Super Bowl XLV, and then a second fucking remix but now featuring Snoop Dogg and T-Pain. Jesus fucking Christ, the shitty soundtrack of our lives just like Whitney Houston back in 1993.

Yeah. Let's continue and cue whatever the fuck you want.

Yeah, uh huh, you know what it is.

It was early in the morning. I couldn't sleep the night before (as usual), and it was an important day for me because not only I was turning eighteen but I was also waiting to receive my high school diploma—that piece of paper which was the only thing preventing me from going to a music university far away from that snobby city. I was a little nervous about living on my own because there wouldn't be someone nearby in case of a mental breakdown or something like that, but during my therapy sessions, my cute redhead shrink suggested that a companion animal would help, so that got into my to-do list at the time.

It was a Friday morning, and the only thing I had to do that day was having to go to my high school to hand over some documents, and that was it. After that, I'd have gone back home and wait for my parents' instructions because they were planning to go on a quick weekend vacation, leaving me alone with my brother and my four nerdy friends to celebrate my birthday as we pleased. Maybe they thought we were only going to eat pizza all day and spend the night playing video games and Dungeons and Dragons—just like any other goddamned weekend. And they were right, but we also decided to bake some pot brownies because why the hell not? I wasn't any more on medication for any of my problems, and I wanted to do something special about it. Something different for once.

The thing is that I left home very early in the morning without having breakfast so I could finish my documentation on time. Everything was going according to plan, but instead of having a quick lunch before going back home, one of my friends showed up in his mom's minivan to pick me up, saying that my parents had just left, and they'd asked him to take me to Walmart to buy everything we needed to survive the weekend.

Not having breakfast that day turned out to be my first huge mistake, as I learnt later at night.

My friend decided to take a significant amount of time to send some texts inviting people to my house so we could have a more proper party, and he also arranged to meet with his new dealer to get the pot we were going to bake. That quest took us the whole afternoon, and it was getting dark by the time we got home. Strangers were already there, invited by the rest of my friends who arrived first. They were blasting music and opening beers.

After the many nice-to-meet-yous, the hugs and the happy-birthdays, a moment came when my friends started to question me about my social life.

"Dude, you're eighteen now, but this is literally your first real party. You've never come with us to other parties, you just stay in front of the piano twenty-four/seven. Don't you want a beer? And we've never seen you with a girl, by the way. You don't want to stay a virgin forever, right? Wait, have you ever kissed a girl? C'mon, man! You have to enjoy life a little bit more. It seems like you want to end up like a hermit. You just rant about everything—the music industry, the fashion industry... You see parties like primitive rituals. You just want to feel superior to the rest. And maybe you're right, maybe we're the best-goddamned thing that’s ever happened to that shitty high school, but don't let that idea turn into the masquerade for your insecurities. You're not betraying that punk spirit of yours if that’s what you feel, arsehole. Trust us. And you should learn how to dance, by the way."

They were right—about learning how to dance and everything else. I felt like I was the only one who wasn't growing up, and not only physically speaking. Others changed, but I felt left behind. And from that moment, having to raise up my eyes to meet theirs when talking started to mean something else—something that hurt.

And I never learnt how to dance.

But yeah, I'm about to explain what happened inside the house with the pot so, maybe I should also give you a picture of the people involved, especially my friends. I'm not going to use their real names for privacy purposes—I don't want someone finding them and telling them that one of their friends killed himself in a shitty flat because they're not my friends in this life. They don't even know me. I don't even know if they exist or... Shit, everything changes so drastically now. Maybe the foliage outside is purple, but I don't know—I boarded the windows up. Why does everything change except for this fucking room?!

Anyway, I'm just going to use the name of The Ramones to rebaptise my friends if I write about them for this story because…

Fuck. Forget that. I need another band. One with five members.

Shit. Now I cannot think of something else besides goddamned boy bands. I suppose that for this story they'll be the Backstreet Boys or those One Direction faggo... Oh! Cannibal Corpse, there we go. They were my Cannibal Corpse.

Vomit the soul.

The guy who picked me up in his mom's minivan was Barnes, a short white guy with glasses I met in middle school because he was also playing Pokémon on his Gameboy back in our first year. Remarkably intelligent that guy, to the point he had a hundred per cent scholarship. He was all the time hanging out with other smart guys—with me being the exception, of course. He was the one who introduced me to the rest of the group, all of them meant to be great in life.

We were the bunch no one else remembered at school—real friends growing up together and helping each other to become successful... and to stop being just outcasts—until my first suicide tore us apart completely. 

We were all there that night of February. One of my friends, Owen, was the one chosen to bake the brownies because he'd always worked and helped at his parent's restaurant. He was a shy, big guy who was rapidly balding. I know in another life he became a sucessful software developer and married a cute, nerdy girl... and he ended up being very bald, like a shining bright bald head type of bald. 

After the mix went into the oven, we started talking with the guests while having some drinks and listened to some music.

We waited for the kitchen timer to go off. I was trying to act natural—this was indeed my first real party, and I was all the time finding myself getting lost inside my head, overthinking.

Ding, motherfucker.

I ate the first slice, and it was at my third when I realised that I was actually so fucking hungry. That was my first meal of the day, so with nothing in my stomach but a ton of cannabutter, chocolate and sugar, a moment came when I felt my brain abruptly stopping and then hopping into a gyroscope rotating at full speed.

Do you remember what I typed about Degeneration Street? Oh shit, here we go...