Separate Ways

Connor Norton
Dancing with 300,000 people on a dusty field near San Francisco, Bryn had an out-ofbody experience. Her right arm was wrapped around a stranger who she had just met while her
left waved in the air. Their bodies swayed so naturally with the pulsating music that she began to
feel that the entire crowd was locked into a communal daze. In the fading light, Bryn began to
feel further detached from her body. Her field of vision broke away from her eyes and suddenly
she was watching the vast sea of festival-goers from twenty feet above the ground. Even from
this privileged vantage point, however, she couldnt find where her body stood.
The sun set and the moment passed. Bryn was back on the ground, staring at the sky
through her own eyes, breathing heavily and sweating. Riots ended the show prematurely. A few
people were still stumbling around the grounds, but they soon found their car and drove towards
the city. Bryn remained, contemplating what had just happened.
Five months later, before he had ever met his wife, James had a brief moment of cosmic
connection while walking through an arboretum on Stanfords campus. He noticed a sprawling
cactus, which, as he passed, seemed to resemble a human with its arms up in celebration. In a
flash he was mutually aware of the cactus, the arboretum, his own arms, the arms of all men, the
houses beyond the university, and the ceaseless waves of the western ocean.
His mind and body remained connected throughout this experience, but in the process of
tapping into the universes spirit his sense and understanding of self was greatly diminished. In
fact, the brief sensation proved to be a nuisance rather than an enlightenment. He spent the
majority of the next few months in his dorm room agonizing over which major to choose. When
his parents took him out shopping for his birthday, he wandered around the department store
without touching a thing. His exasperated father finally bought him another white Oxford.
Bryn and James married after meeting at some protest or counter-protest in Berkeley,
California. There is a photo from their first dance hanging in their living room and its early-70s
coloring provides feelings of nostalgia. Everyone looking onward is holding a glass of
champagne. Meanwhile, the couple in the center are embracing hand-in-hand, knowing what
theyve found.