Nepenthe | Sapnap |

Licking Flames

Everyone was effectively wasted and gone. There were only a handful of people still drifting around the place. Many left to go sober up in their own beds instead of passing out in the grass and mud.

I stood slightly rocking on my feet in front of the massive fire that was slowly dwindling down with my arm crossed over my stomach, nursing a beer bottle that had only like two swigs worth of liquor left.

The fire that had to stand almost a story tall in the beginning of the night had sunk down to only a couple feet as it burned its structure away in the middle of the gravel road that led up to the stables. A once bustling party followed the route of the fire and had a couple stragglers making easy, drunken conversation.

Callahan and his new little electrical wires friend were sitting on the ground with their legs crossed, a bottle of Jack in hand, and waving their upper bodies to a completely different beat than what was pumping out of the stereo system that was situated inside the stables. It was nice to see him with a buddy that can understand all his wire talk.

Earlier, Callahan and his new engineering buddy were having a field day with wires and talks/notes of the solar panels in the water plant. Those two hit it off really quick, including her little apprentice that she was teaching and kept under her wing. She left hours ago but the boy hung around.

He was young. About our age, maybe a couple years younger. I haven't learned his name yet; I've only watched him fiddle with the stereo insides while a multitude of drinks muddled my brain.

Only thing I knew about him was his appearance. He had short, messy sandy brown hair with eyes to match. Circle glasses with a couple cracks in the lens rested on the bridge of his nose. A crack in his glasses almost matched the scar across the middle of his chin, which I can only guess came from a slash of some blade.

Shifting my eyes across the gravel street and on the other side of the fire, Luke was flat on his back. His breathing was barely existent. Only way I knew he was conscious was when he would every now and then bring the blunt between his fingers up to his mouth for a drag. Other than that, he looked dead to the world. You could probably place a bottle on his forehead, and it wouldn't move an inch.

Clay and George were probably the only ones still making active and productive conversation. Clay had his elbows on the fence with his back leaning against it. A joint of his own in his hand while George was slipping from a mug that someone let him borrow. It definitely had alcohol in it. The red flush in his cheeks were a dead giveaway. George sat on the top board of the fence, leaning towards Clay and nodding along to everything he said.

Karl and Alex were cross faded to no end as they tried their best to tell stories, but they weren't doing as well as Clay and George. They would burst out laughing after a couple words and laugh until they couldn't breathe anymore. Once they caught their breath, they forgot what they were talking about and moved onto a new topic only for the cycle to repeat.

I, myself, haven't moved from my spot by the bonfire in a while. Morgan left a while ago. Well, it felt like a while ago at least. I honestly couldn't tell. She said she wasn't feeling too hot and wanted to go lay down in her own bed before her body would be forced to choose the ground against her will.

I was feeling great though. The warmth from the fire in front of me but every now and then a cool breeze would blow by, allowing me to not get too hot. My fingers and brain buzzed in a way that was oh, so delicious. Suddenly remembering the joint that Nick gave me earlier that sat in my pocket, I squatted down and dug the end of my bottle into the gravel to fish out the drug. Lighting the end of it in the embers of the fire, I sucked in a long drag and let it go as I rose back to my feet.