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Morning Glory and the Chai House
Chapter 1 @a1-shroom-spores/morning-glory-and-the-chai-house-chapter-1
Chapter 2 @a1-shroom-spores/morning-glory-and-the-chai-house-chapter-2
Chapter 3 @a1-shroom-spores/morning-glory-and-the-chai-house-chapter-3
"Darkness?! What kind of racist nickname is that?," I said laughing. Ellie sat there chuckling with a red face. "That's not what I meant." She put her hand over her face. "Actually, I kind of like it," said darkness. He took a cigarette out of a red pack and lit it. He took a big drag and let out a huge plume of tobacco smoke.
The way he dressed was never fully civilian. He wore shoes with camo shorts and an army tee shirt: Or dickies with a button up and boots with a "we are strong" hat. Once he even had a strange military suit. He looked like he was attending a military funeral. Sometimes he was in full camo with green or black boots.
Every once in a while he would just dress like a teenager; which he still was. He looked so strange when he dressed "normally." We would sit in a big circle in the park and all smoke joints and cigarettes. Darkness would rarely talk but he would have this big smile on his face after he got stoned.
He brought a friend to the park one day during the summer.
Darkness went to QFC to use the bathroom. We all sat there in the grass next to the "Ballard bowl;" which was a relic of the old skate park; which used to be where the park was now. The "park" was just a huge strip of grass with these weird statues that shot out water during the summer that kids played in. Then there was the giant concrete bowl that the skateboarders shredded in.
In the corner of the park there were a few pine trees by an electric generator that was far enough away from the kids that we could smoke weed without the neighbors harassing us. "You have to tell me the deal on Darkness before he comes back." I leaned over to Darkness' friend and whispered to him. "We hang out with him everyday and don't know where he lives, where he went to school, what he did during the service. We've never seen him with a girl, or going to work or anything.
"No one has seen him around here before. He doesn't look like a traveler or a homeless person and he doesn't work. He isn't on SSI and he pays with cash for everything. He spends a lot of money on alcohol, clothing and weed but he doesn't sell drugs because he hangs out all day and never gets phone calls."
"Listen," said the strange friend. He leaned even closer to me. "You didn't hear this from me okay?" He looked at away from me while he whispered. "Darkness worked a drone during a military invasion. He killed people from a computer screen like a video game. He made a lot of money in a short peroid of time because its a very elite job opportunity ... so to speak."
"Be nice to Darkness. He carries around a lot of guilt. "
I could't really process that I was friends with a drone operator. This young kid who was so in love with his country. He had clean clothes and a kind face. Maybe he feelt guilty about the act of murder: Even if it was just. Maybe he did it all for the money and then realized there was nothing really that amazing about a big pile of cash. Then he became addicted to the bottle.
Maybe the whole story was total bullshit and this drunk and stoned young man was just fucking with my head.
I never asked.