shopped for hours. The shapes and colors and textures of everything seemed so new and unique, as if I’d never seen them before. It felt like an hour before we stumbled back out of there, bags bursting with late-night snacks. We staggered through the parking lot, passed our car and all instinctively sat down on the sidewalk together, shoulder to shoulder.
I reached into the shopping packet and ripped the closest things I could find open and shoved whatever they were into my mouth. “Oh, my flipping, holy hell,” I said, my mouth full. “I have never tasted anything so good in my entire life!” I shoved another handful of salt-and-vinegar chips and Jelly Tots into my mouth. “Mmmmm,” I moaned, as another burst of sweet, salty stuff filled my mouth. “This is amazing. Like, why don’t they make this, you know? Like, this flavor, and sell it in a bag. Salt, vinegar and Jelly Tot.”
“Dude, totally,” Hoodie Three said, reaching into the bag and grabbing a handful of chips and Jelly Tots himself. He put them in his mouth, followed by some peanuts and raisins. The food combinations made so much sense to me. Of course, that would all taste perfect together. And this was confirmed when Hoodie Three let out a long, loud moan.
“Dude, this is better than . . .” He paused and squinted, as if he was looking into the distance to try and find the word.
“Sex?” I offered, and they all burst out laughing.
We sat there on the sidewalk, eating and watching the cars pass. Every time one did, Hoodie One would make the loud noise of a racing car—“Vrrooooom”—and we would all laugh. I don’t know why this was so funny, and why it was so funny after all the times that he’d done it, but it bloody was.
“Oh my God, you guys.” I jumped up off the sidewalk and held a Galaxy Bar in one hand and the Ritz crackers in the other. “This—this—is the best!” I put another Galaxy-Ritz combo in my mouth.
“I know what would make it better,” one of the twins said. I was still unable to tell them apart. “This!” She took a bite of the Galaxy bar, added some Ritz cracker and then sucked two Hula Hoops off her fingers.
“Oh my God, Noah, you have to try this!” I said, bending down and balancing a Ritz cracker on top of the chocolate and then pushing it towards his mouth. He blocked it with his hand.
“Uh . . . no, thanks,” he said with a smile.
“But it’s a taste explosion in your mouth,” I pressed.
“I’ll take your word for it. Besides, I haven’t exactly taken anything to make these flavor combinations work for me.”
“What do you mean?” I fell back onto my bum, ripping a bag of Smarties open as I did.
“You’re stoned,” he said.
“What?” I looked at him, and then at our travel companions. “No, I’m not. I feel perfectly normal!” I emptied the whole box of Smarties into my mouth then filled my mouth with orange juice and chewed.
Noah laughed. “Uh, I have some news for you: you are totally stoned.”
“Nooooo,” I said, little bits of orangey chocolate shooting from my mouth as I spoke.
“Totally,” Hoodie Two said, and soon all the others nodded in agreement.
“But I don’t even feel anything!”
“Yeah, but you also think that Galaxy chocolate and Ritz crackers are a good flavor combination. Definite sign that you are stoned.”
“Really?”
“In real life, this probably tastes like crap,” one of the twins said, sipping on a green-and-purple-mixed Slush Puppie.
“Wait, is this not real life?” I asked, going wide-eyed and looking over at Noah.
He laughed. “Definitely not.”
“But if this isn’t real life, then what is it?” I stared at everyone, feeling like I was having some deep epiphany, as if I was tapped into something big and far off that was telling me things. Noah laughed even more, and so did everyone else.
“Are we, like, living in a parallel universe or something?”
The question stopped the laughing and Hoodie Two came closer and whispered, “Sssshhhh. Don’t let them know that we know that.” He looked dead serious.
“Who? Who mustn’t know?” I asked.
But Hoodie Two didn’t say a word, instead he simply looked up and pointed at the sky. We all gasped in unison and gazed up, staring into space.
I heard a loud laugh. It was Noah’s, and it sounded like he was laughing in a totally different voice now.