Magic Mountain

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Dramatis Personae:
Major Characters
Ruy Maldonado: Heir to some indeterminate Venezuelan fortune, he'd
grown up in suburban Fort Lauderdale, Florida, before attending a board school
in New Zealand for a year or two before deciding he'd had enough, but not
before meeting Marcus.
Marcus Ground: Having met the affable Ruy during his time at ___, he'd
too had enough and had been shipped over to attend the same school as Ruy.
He was a year younger, and good-tempered and quick-witted.
Alex Nazar: Somewhat of a witzfigur under the students, Alex Nazar
was from Los Angeles, California and had bounced from school to school before
finally coming here. There was nothing Alex loved more than weed and
smoking it, which led to considerable conflict with the administration.
Jakub Lich: A sweet, if somewhat paranoid man from Prague, Czech
Republic. He was in the same year as Marcus, and led a tightly scheduled life
which had very specific times for each cigarette.
Deniz Onol: Known mainly by the upperclassmen as Ruy's girlfriend,
Deniz was a year younger and hailed from Turkey. Very vocal in airing
grievances, she soon found herself with dedicated haters among the students,
but, true to form, seemed to care little.
Ania Juszczyk: Ania came
Ben Munch: Coming from either Canada or Germany (the answer
switching frequently, depending on his mood), Ben had stumbled into the
school, following in his sisters footsteps. Possessing a bone-dry wit and harsh
sarcasm, his character was somewhat of an acquired taste.
Brendan Bigelow: The son of two faculty members, Brendan was from
Denver, Colorado, and had never left the state before attending the school. For
Brendan, there were no colours better than red, white, and blue, and little
wrong that America could do in the world.
Desmond Andrews: One of the school's many “diplo” kids, the child of
two diplomats, Desmond was sent here to avoid a posting in Bumfuck, Africa.

Ruy had been craving a cigarette all day, and finally his classes for the
day were over. He dropped his schoolbag off in his room, and grabbed his
smoking supplies out from the clever little spot he'd devised for them. He left
his room, and ran into Marcus, who, like Ruy, suffered from an addiction of the
nicotinic variety. Marcus, too, was headed outside with a cigarette-packet
shaped bulge in his front pocket, so they left together. It wasn't safe to smoke
right beside the school, what with all the teachers flitting about like spectres,
so they had to go further out and into the woods that covered the mountain.
There was a little spot, surrounded by graffiti-plastered pines, only barely
obscured from the road that ran below the forest. The spot was widely known
by most teachers, but provided there wasn't anyone too obnoxious
accompanying them, like Nazar, there was little risk of discovery. While making
their way to their little smoke spot, Ruy made sure to keep ahead of Marcus by
a stride or two, to ensure that he would get his favourite spot on the rock.
Marcus knew exactly what Ruy was doing, but he wasn't really the
confrontational type, and he didn't mind standing, so he let it slide. Ruy, upon
sitting down, whipped out his gear: a pouch of rolling tobacco, a bag of filters,
and his rolling papers. Ruy took pride in rolling his own, he considered it an art
form – and, to his credit, he was very good at it. Marcus, on the other hand,
didn't care much either way, and just plucked a Marlboro Gold out of his pack,
and he was almost half way through it by the time Ruy lit his work of art. After
smoking in silence for a time, Marcus began to reflect on the events of his day:
“Mr. Weldon told me he'd give me an infraction if he caught me using the
cog entrance during lunch,” he said, speaking with a mild and measured, but
unplaceable accent that must have come from somewhere in the
Commonwealth, “but I honestly don't think that there's any way he's going to
-”
Ruy interrupted, as usual; hurling in his two cents in with little regard for the
one speaking.
“Weldon is such a fucking faggot, sitting there in his office all day and
just telling us what we can and can't do. He needs to take the stick out of his
ass and realize I don't give a fuck what that bitch boy says, I'll do whatever I
want.”
Marcus rolled his eyes; he was used to this sort of thing.
“Right, Ruy. Whatever you say.”
A snapping twig marked someone's approach, and they both snapped their
heads to see who it was. Through the trees, one could catch a few glimpses of
the faces as they approached, and this time it was Jakub.
“Ah, no worries, it's just Jakub,” said Marcus, nodding at Jakub as he
joined the two in the clearing.
“Hi guys. How's it going?” asked Jakub, who lit the cigarette he'd
thoughtfully already put in the corner of his mouth.
“Pretty good. I was just telling Ruy about how Weldon was threatening
me with that infraction for using the cog entrance during lunch.”
“Oh, that's right, Marcus, you told me during Core. You think he'd actually
do it? Like, I've heard he's pretty mean, who knows what he'd do if he caught
us smoking during lunch,” Jakub said, widening his eyes in a way that showed
it definitely wasn't sarcasm and was actually genuine paranoia. Ruy, however,
waved the idea off:
“Ugh, shut up, Jakub. Weldon just sits there and jerks off Johnson all day,
and then sometimes he has to send out some e-mails.”
“Yeah, Jakub, I wouldn't be too worried about Weldon. He's always busy
with other stuff. Printer seems to have nothing to do other than to fuck with us,
so I'd be worried about him,” added Marcus. Jakub took a long drag on his
cigarette, then paused for a while, considering, before exhaling.
“I dunno,” he said in a voice lowered by the smoke, “maybe he's just
keeping a low profile. Being sneaky about it.”
“Jakub, you're being ridiculous,” admonished Marcus, “Weldon doesn't
care what we do, so long as we're not smoking right in front of Belle Epoque.”
More twigs cracked underfoot as two figures struggled up the hill, already out
of breath.
“Ruy! Come help me!” screeched one of the figures, and scarcely had the
words registered as Ruy hurried over to help his girlfriend, Deniz, up the steep
incline. She then turned and helped the other figure up, before walking over to
the clearing and sitting on Ruy's lap, whispering in his ear. The other figure,
now plainly recognizable as Ania, joined the fold.
“Ah, Ms. Juszczyk! Hello!” said Marcus in a jovial tone.
“Hi Ania,” added Jakub, not wanting to be ignored.
“Hi you guys. Does anyone have a cigarette I can borrow?” she asked.
Marcus and Jakub pulled their packs out at the same time; Marcus with his
Golds, and Jakub with whatever was at hand. This time, he held out a pack of
Parliaments covered in warnings in Cyrillic.
“I bought these off Arman for 10 francs. They're pretty good, do you want
to try them?” Jakub held out his pack.
Ania considered for a brief moment, then chose the Parliaments. She plucked
one out of the pack and leaned in as Jakub lit it for her.
“Sorry Marcus,” she said, “but I always have Golds. Russian Parliaments
are something different.”
Marcus nodded and opened his mouth to respond, but before he had the
chance, Deniz let out a shrill “RUY!” and Ruy burst out laughing. Everyone
glanced at them, but this was standard, so after a second or two they
continued on in their conversation.
“Ania,” said Jakub, “do you think Mr. Weldon knows I smoke? I don't want
the school to tell my parents.”
Ania narrowed her eyes and shook her head wearily, as though she'd heard
this many times before.
“Jakub, you need to stop being so paranoid all of the time,” she said.
“Yeah Jakub!”, added Ruy, who ceased necking to deliver this message.
Ania glanced at Ruy before continuing.
“Weldon doesn't care. I'm more worried about Printer. Do you know that
he knows about this place? Apparently he comes up here and checks
sometimes.” Ania looked around, presumably for dramatic effect.
“Yeah, look, he even left us a little present,” said Marcus, gesturing at a
little plastic ice cream tub already containing its fair share of cigarette butts
and packaging, “it's like a sweet little ashtray.” Ruy eyed the tub, before
throwing the butt of his second cigarette on the ground beside the container.
“Fuck Printer,” Ruy said, “such a little bitch.”
“Yeah!” started Jakub, “he came into our room yesterday and started
saying that it smelled like smoke and that we'd have to take the smoking
course if it didn't stop.”
 “Why don't you just say that Thomas is the one smoking, not you?”
suggested Marcus. “Doesn't he smoke dokha off the balcony at night?”
“Yeah, he does,” chuckled Jakub, before frowning. “Doesn't that smell
totally different, though? He must know it's me!”
“My God, Jakub,” said Ania, “it's not such a big deal. As long as you don't
let Printer catch you smoking or find your cigarettes, you will be fine.” Just
then, Ruy found himself receiving a phone call, and said:
“Everyone shut up – oh, it's just Nazar.” Everybody sighed, and Ruy
picked up.
“Nazar, man!” said Ruy, putting on the thickest stoner voice he could
muster, “At Top Spot? Who else is coming? Okay. At four. Sweet.” Deniz
narrowed her eyes.
“Ruy,” she said, “be glad I have swimming today. Meet me in The Cave at
5:30?”
“Okay--” he began as he leaned in for a kiss, getting cut off once he
made contact. Deniz pulled out her phone, checking the time.
“Oh, I'd better go, I need to catch the bus. I'll see you guys later?” she
said as she left the clearing and maneuvered her way down the sudden steep
hill.
“Bye, Duh-neeze!” shouted Ruy in her wake.
As Deniz left, another figure approached. As it got closer, it became clear that
the figure was Ben, with his camera slung over his shoulder.
“What's up, guys?” he said, which was met by various nods and
greetings. He searched around a little, before settling to toss his coat on the
ground and sit on that. Ben squinted at Jakub as he retrieved his pack of
cigarettes from a pocket in his coat and patted his pants looking for his lighter.
“Got some of those Davidoff Browns there, eh Jakub?” Ben said, while
taking a cigarette of his own out of his pack.
“Heh, no. I bought these Parliaments off Arman, he brought them back
from Russia,” said Jakub, “they're not bad. Better than those awful Davidoff
Browns.”
“Ech,” said Marcus, making a face of disgust. “Those literally tasted like
shit. I don't understand who would buy them.”
“Well,” began Ben, “I tried them when you had them, and granted, they
tasted bad, but they didn't taste like literal crap.”
“I don't know, Benjamin,” said Ania, “they were pretty awful.” Ania took
her phone out of her purse, checking the time. “I should probably get going, I
have a lot of work to do for history, and a math test tomorrow, and Rusher
wants a piece by the end of the month.”
“I should get going, too,” said Jakub. “I need to read most of We for next
week.”
“As should I,” said Marcus. “You probably don't want to know what I need
to do.”
“I don't understand why all of you guys work so hard,” said Ruy. “I do like
no work, and I get by fine.”
“Well, Ruy,” quipped Marcus in a voice that said Valley Girls go to New
Zealand, “we can't all be as lucky as you.” The trio waved as they made their
way back to the school. Ruy turned to Ben.
“Yo, I'm meeting Nazar, Brendan, and Desmond at Top Spot at 4,” Ruy
said. “Do you want to come?”
“Of course,” said Ben with a mock sneer. “What else is there to do
around here?”
“True!” shouted Ruy in the deepest voice he could muster. “Let's go.”
There was a steep and winding path that made its way up from the clearing
where they had been, dubbed Circle Spot, to another, more secluded location,
named Top Spot. Covered in loose soil, the path could be treacherous. The
exposed rock was covered with a layer of green fur, as was most of the
surrounding terrain. With the exception of a few, lichen-crusted trees that
oozed sap, there were no handholds to speak of. Ruy and Ben, however, were
seasoned veterans of this trail, and ascended with chamois-like dexterity and
grace. They reached the top of the path, then turned right, and followed a path
that led them to Top Spot. Much like Circle Spot below them, Top Spot was a
clearing - only much bigger, with a sizable fire pit surrounded by wet and
mildewy logs that served as seating. Ben and Ruy had arrived before the
others, and so they made themselves comfortable, wiping the dew off the logs
and throwing their coats over the log to cushion them a little.
“Dude, should I roll one before they come?” asked Ruy.
“Why not?” said Ben, and so Ruy set about performing the complex task
of creating a piece of art. This time, from the depths of his coat, he produced a
larger package of rolling papers, as well as paper filter tips.
“Could you go grab the shit?”
Ben jumped up and went to where they hid their supply. Walking around a pile
of logs stacked high, he crouched and removed a few well-placed rocks and
chunks of bark, revealing their surreptitious stash. Ben removed the plastic
bag and brought it back to Ruy.
“How much do you need,” asked Ben, opening the jar and readying the
grinder.
“Here, I'll put in as much as I'll need,” said Ruy, placing a couple of small
nugs into the grinder. Ben started twisting like a madman, while Ruy took out a
cigarette from a pack he had reserved for just such an occasion. He took the
cigarette, and, starting at the top, began to twist it between his hands onto the
rolling paper. Before long, the paper had a thin layer of tobacco inside of it.
Ben finished the grinding, and Ruy gestured for him to pour the weed onto the
tobacco, but as slowly and evenly as possible. Once he was finished, Ruy
covered the weed in more tobacco, and began to roll the spliff between his
fingers, moving them up and down and along its length. He licked the glue
strip, which faced him, and tucked the strip under the other side, beginning at
the bottom with the filter. He tamped the weed and packed it tight, and then
ripped the excess paper off. Finally, he twisted the top into the iconic little
stem, and crimped it to ensure it would burn off easier. Indeed, it was done
with such sure-handedness and finesse, it looked simple, but it was clear that
this was only possible with a great deal of practice. Ruy tucked it behind his
ear, and rolled himself another cigarette.
“Where the fuck is Nazar?” said Ben, “He's always fucking around, he
takes ages to get his shit together. He was supposed to be here like 10
minutes ago.” Just then, three figures crested the pebble covered hill, heaving
and panting. The trek wasn't always an easy one.
“I don't know why we always gotta' come all the way up here, man,” said
the lead figure, clearly Nazar, to the figure behind him, “no one ever goes to
that place down there”. Ben and Ruy glanced at each other, shaking their
heads. Neither trailing figure replied, but Nazar took little note and continued
talking. “Like maybe Mr. Leonhard would, walking out here to smoke up. What
if Mr. Leonhard walked in on us? I would just be like 'Hey man, come hit this!',
that would be great, man.” Ruy and Ben exchanged greeting with the two
other figures, Desmond and Brendan, while Nazar flopped down between the
two on the log. Ruy took the spliff out from behind his ear and held it out for
inspection.
“Nice,” said Brendan, and Desmond said nothing, but nodded in
approval.
“Wait, waitwaitwait – let me see,” said Nazar, rubbing what little stubble
he had on his chin, “Uh-huh, uh-huh. Not bad, Ruy. Light that baby up, dude!”
Ruy glanced at Nazar, but obliged, holding the flame at a distance to burn the
tip off cleanly. Then, he torched the front and gave it a few tentative puffs,
before taking a massive pull and driving the hit into his lungs with a gasp of
air. Exhaling slowly, he examined the spliff, sipping from it, before passing it to
Brendan, who nodded as thanks. He watched the cherry glow as he fed it with
air, squinting and holding it further away as what it fed him in turn
overwhelmed him. He waved it in Desmond's face, who removed it from
Brendan's hand with unexpected delicateness. Taking a series of shallow hits in
rapid succession, Desmond screwed up his face, and passed the spliff off to
the next one in rotation, Ben.
“Wait!” said Desmond, his voice and eyes betraying an edge of concern,
“is there tobacco in here?” He looked around and locked eyes with Ruy, who
grinned and nodded. Ben grinned too as hit the spliff with more care, drinking
in the smoke and relishing in it, before handing it off to Nazar, who sucked it as
hard as he could, puffing out his chest and holding it in as long as he could.
Nazar, after exhaling and stealing a few quick hits, passed it on to Ruy, and the
cycle began anew. Sporadically, Desmond forgot that he was holding the spliff,
or Nazar started off on a tangent, and the spliff would go out. Ruy, ever
vigilant, sticks out his hand, and demands the spliff of whomever has it,
holding the flame just so, and return the fire to us; Promethean. The head rush
from unfiltered, strong tobacco hits you hard and fast, providing the shock,
while the marijuana comes up a little slower, more subtly, but soon
overwhelms the tobacco, and provides the awe. Conversation veered from the
quotidian to the absurd as the spliff made itself felt in everyone.
“So wait... what was Mao all about? Like did he just declare himself China
Master and all the little Chinese people started worshipping him?” asked Ruy,
to anyone who would listen. Desmond, hearing this, guffawed, and a goofy grin
spread across Ben's face.
“Naw, man. Mao was being chased by the nationalists all over China, and
so a bunch of people just straight died, and basically any opponents that he
didn't already kill died of starvation or exposure or whatever, man.” Ben was
taking a history class, and had a head for facts. Desmond and Brendan were in
the same class, and, remembering at least some of that, nodded.
“Wow, man. That's a total bummer for those people, dude,” said Nazar.
“Yep, total bummer.”
“Ben, Ben, tell Nazar the Japan story,” said Brendan, eyes gleaming.
“Wha – what Japan story?” replied Ben.
“You know, the one where they get nuked,” said Brendan, as Ben
furrowed his brow, thinking hard.
“Yeah man, I wanna hear about the little Japanese guys getting nuked!”
Nazar, as usual, showing little tact. Desmond was half Japanese, but if it
bothered him, he didn't show it.
“Oh, that's right. I know the one you're talking about. Alright, alright,
fine. This is for Nazar, right? Alright, Nazar, get ready for this,” said Ben,
clearly attempting to order the events correctly in his intoxicated brain. “Okay,
so, it's a clear August morning in Japan. All seems well. You're a radio operator
at the Japanese Broadcast Corporation. A little bit after 8:15, you notice that
the radio station in Hiroshima has gone silent. You try to reconnect with it
somehow, but you don't get a response. A little bit after that, workers at the
Tokyo railroad telegraph center notice that a bunch of lines north of Hiroshima
have also gone silent. Trains that were supposed to come in from Hiroshima
haven't. You start getting reports of some crazy fucking explosion that
apparently happened in Hiroshima from minor train stations that were a little
outside of the city proper. People start trying to talk to the Army base in
Hiroshima, but they get nothing but static – strange, because there weren't
any large munitions dumps or a huge air raid or anything like that. Finally,
someone tells a guy to get in a plane and check it out, and report back to
Tokyo. So this dude gets in a plane and flies towards Hiroshima for a while, and
while they're still like 100 miles away from the city, they see this huge cloud of
smoke over where it would be. Aww, shit. They get closer, and the city is gone
– totally wiped out. Something totally just flattened the entire city, the only
thing left is what was built out of reinforced concrete. The Japanese have no
idea what the fuck just happened to this city, and whether or not this would
keep happening to cities, until Truman sent out a broadcast like a day later.”
Ben cocked his eyebrows at Nazar, waiting for his reaction.
“Damn, man. Damn.” Nazar, for once, was at a loss for words.
“Yeah dude, could you imagine? Like, they'd flattened Tokyo, but that was
with like a million firebombs. This was one bomb. One bomb,” said Ben.
“They fuckin' had that shit coming, dude. They were totally asking for it,”
said Brendan, his patriotism knowing no bounds. Ruy, breaking out of his
reverie, looked from side to side.
“Where's the joint at?” asked Ruy. Desmond, eyes glazed, took a moment
to respond, but held it out to him, shakily. Ruy examined the burnt remnants of
one of his oeuvres, gauging if there was enough left for a toke or two. He made
up his mind, and gestured for everyone to huddle up.
“Ambulance,” he said, the rest nodding. He restarted the spliff, take a
quick and shallow hit, before holding it out Brendan, who followed suit. Next
came Desmond, Ben, then Nazar, resetting the rotation. Ruy, Brendan,
Desmond, Ben, Nazar. Ruy, Brendan, Desmond, Ben, Nazar. Desmond was the
first to crack, coughing and gasping for air, the weight of three hot and
consecutive tokes breaking him. Brendan was next, hacking with eyes
watering. Ruy, Ben, Nazar. Ruy, Ben, Nazar. Ben blew up, shooting out a fetid
cloud of stale smoke, head between his knees. Ruy, Nazar. Ruy, Nazar. Ruy had
lungs of steel, and if the amount of smoke building up within him bothered
him, he didn't show it. Nazar, on the other hand, collapsed into wheezes and
coughs, spurts of smoke issuing from mouth and nose alike. Ruy, Ruy, Ruy,
Ruy, taking hit after hit after hit. Eventually, the joint ran out of fuel, and he
looked around at the group.
“... Fifteen,” said Ruy, spewing smoke as he spoke in a voice more suited
for a creature of ash and ruin than a highschool senior.
“Right on, man! So, uh, what we gonna' do now?” asked Nazar,
straightening his back, “Have another jay?” Ruy eyed Nazar with suspicion.
“Alright, but only if you pitch for it,” he said. Nazar reluctantly produced a
baggie containing a couple of smallish nugs, and took a few out.
“Match it, dude,” he said. Ruy glanced at the amount and eyeballed a
few nugs in the jar, plucking a few out and dropping them onto Nazar's hand,
who transferred them into his grinder, and began twisting vigorously.
“Ey yo,” said Desmond, “could you guys make it a pure one this time? I
don't like it when there's tobacco in there.”
“I guess,” shrugged Ruy, “but it won't be as fat then.”
“That's fine, nigga,” said Desmond, “s'all good.” So, Ruy once again
pulled out his supplies and set about rolling the joint.
“So guys,” began Nazar, “I watched a documentary about this stuff
called DMT that apparently makes you trip seriously hard, man.”
“Yeah,” said Ben, “I've heard of that stuff.”
“Yeah, man,” said Nazar, “And the human brain produces it, and when
people die, it's released, so that the last moments of peoples lives are spent
tripping, dude... Isn't that awesome?”
“... Nazar, that's not true,” said Ben, “That's not what happens when you
die.”
“Yeah, it is, man!” exclaimed Nazar, “Trust me, they said so in the
documentary!”
“Nazar, that documentary is bullshit, then,” said Ben, “look it up. DMT
isn't produced in human brains.”
“Whatever, man. You're not always right, you know, dude. Sometimes
you're wrong, too.”
“Well, you're right about that, Nazar,” said Ben, “Sometimes I'm wrong.
But not this time; this time I'm definitely right.” This send Brendan, who had
been shaking from trying to keep his cachinnation contained, over the brink.
He burst into peals of laughter, which rung through the forest. Desmond
looked up from his feet for the first time in several minutes, confused at what
had triggered this outburst in Brendan, while Ben grinned openly. Ruy glanced
up from his joint, by now almost complete and as sleek as ever, and a small
smile played over his lips. Nazar didn't approve of Brendan's mirth.
“Shut up, man, it wasn't that funny. Yeah, DMT, man....” he trailed off,
before turning to Ben. “Fuck you, Ben!” At that moment, Ruy held the joint out
for inspection. As usual, it was near flawless. He put it in his mouth, lit it, and
started puffing away, admiring the clouds and blowing smoke rings. Ruy
passed it to the next one in rotation, and the cycle began anew. As the joint
went around the circle again and again, the groups posture took a marked
slump, and laughter became even more frequent than before. Their spirits
were lifted even higher than before; they swam around in a circle above their
heads, weaving in and out of each other.
“Shit, what time is it?” inquired Desmond, looking from face to face.
“Why don't you check your phone, dingus?” said Ben, grinning without
malice, while Desmond obliged. “... And?”
“Oh! Uh, it's four forty-five,” Desmond, glancing at his phone and then at
the ground, at length.
“Man, I really want to play some GTA 5 right now,” said Nazar, springing
up and looking around at the group expectantly.
“Alright, I'm down to chill for a little bit in Nazar's room,” said Brendan,
standing up too, but taking more time. “Desmond, what're you thinking?”
“Uh, yeah, I'll chill with you guys,” tearing his gaze from the ground and
regarding Brendan.
“I told Deniz I'd meet her in the Cave at 5:30, so I think I'll go there in a
bit,” said Ruy.
“Mrhmm, I think I'm going to stay out here for a while with Ruy and then
go take some pictures.” said Ben, flicking his camera to life for effect and
examining the screen, fiddling with dials and buttons.
“Awright, we'll be going then,” said Nazar, gesturing at Desmond and
Brendan, who nodded and patted their pockets, making sure everything was
where they'd left it. With that, they said their farewells and headed off the way
they'd come, single-file. Ben felt at the pockets of his coat, before finding his
packet of cigarettes and fishing one out. Holding his hands around it as it hung
from his lips, he lit the cigarette and hollowed his cheeks, sucking. Seeing this,
Ruy's own addiction kicked in, and with a flourish he rolled his own, and stuck
it into his mouth. Twin clouds of smoke rose from the two, mingling, thinning,
and drifting off between the trees.
“Fuckin' Nazar,” began Ben, “I swear, I can only handle that guy in
moderation.”
“Mhmm,” Ruy with two lungs full of smoke, “if he didn't pitch, I don't
think I could chill with him.”
“That's kinda fucked, though,” Ben shaking his head, “keeping him
around only for the weed and not for him.”
“Whatever,” Ruy shrugged, “if he wasn't so fucking annoying all the time
it might be easier to hang out with him.”
“That's true.”
“Why do you think he only hangs out with freshmen?” said Ruy, eyes
hard, “They're the only ones that haven't found out how shitty he is yet.” Ben
screwed up his face, cringing, leaning back in his seat as though this remark
caused him physical pain.
“That's fuckin' rough, dude.”
“Yeah, but it's true.”
“Fuck me, Ruy,” said Ben, “take it easy.” Ruy chuckled hollowly and
shrugged with his whole body.
“I don't care, dude.”
“Right, of course. I don't know what I was thinking, Ruy.”
“Sometimes I wonder if you even know me at all, Ben,” said Ruy,
grinning.
“Sometimes I don't think that I do,” Ben, not looking at Ruy, but checking
his phone for the time instead.
“What time is it?”
“Uh, five-oh-five. I think I'm going to take to the mountain,” Ben,
standing, stretching, and gathering his coat from the damp log.
“Alright, dude. I'll see you later then,” said Ruy, sticking out his legs and
rolling up, pulling his phone out of his tight pockets. Ben nodded, and went off
down the mossy path, taking care to watch his step, lest he lose his balance
and tumble down the side of the mountain. Passing the steep path back down
to Circle Spot, he continued on the one he was on, going off to some other part
of the mountain in his search for interesting subject matter. Ruy watched the
figure pick its way across the terrain until it passed behind a misshapen stump,
and breathed out. He went over the rocks and between the logs, stepping
heavily onto the loamy twigs and needles, bouncing back. Where Ben had
gone straight, Ruy went right, and navigated his way down the perilous path to
Circle Spot. Dropping from a rock and running some to arrest his fall, he made
it down safely. At Circle Spot, he looked around, thinking about whether he
wanted a cigarette or not, and, choosing the latter, proceeded down to the
road and returned to the school.

---

Ben peered through the viewfinder of his camera, then held the camera
away for a second or two to adjust some setting, before holding it up again to
his eye. Something, perhaps the way a tree framed the mountains or the
clouds, or maybe a peculiar pattern of mosses and lichens on rocks and trunks,
caught his interest. The shutter snapped open for an instant; the sensor
drinking in the light bent by glass and choked by the aperture, reading it and
translating it to something we can understand. Ben examined the photograph
on the rear LCD. No, something still wasn't quite right. His fingers pushed out a
pattern, well-worn through muscle-memory, telling the camera to forget that
this picture had been taken. Ben furrowed his brow. Something was wrong, but
he couldn't figure exactly what. Ah-hah, of course, that's what it was. Let's see
– dial that back, bump that up instead, take the picture again. The camera
went through the process it had already done untold thousands of times, and
this time – yes, this time the photo looked fine, at least on the LCD. Satisfied,
at least for now, Ben flicked the power switch and slung the camera over his
shoulder, moving on.
He wasn't sure which way to go now. A path wound off up the side of the
mountain, flanked by pines. It was hard to see the exact trail, identical as it
was to the needle covered ground. All that set it apart was a slight depression,
a lack of viridian weeds or tiny flowers that could be found sprouting
everywhere else on the forest floor. Off to the right, a different path continued
along, level to the ground. A blizzard of twigs stretched over the path, what
was once a stump but now little more than a mass of rotting matter and moss
blocked the path further down. A branch reached over the path, forcing those
passing to stoop to the ground and shuffle for a ways. He took the first path,
passing upwards on a carpet of soil and pine, under a blanket of green held
aloft by pillars of bark and sap. Despite the beauty surrounding him, nothing
caught and held his interest enough to prompt him to unsling his camera a
take pictures. This was a problem that plagued him, he drifted through
landscapes of unending beauty and couldn't find something that pleased him.
(PLEASE FINISH THIS CHAPTER AT SOME POINT)

---
They'd agreed to meet at the bottom of the steps inside the main
entrance, over-wrought and almost nauseatingly neo-rococo. The columns that
held up the curlicued ceiling appeared to be of a nice red marble, but upon
further inspection on would find that they were in fact painted. Someone had
had the bright idea of installing automatic sliding doors, maybe thinking it
would be slick and modern, but it was pointless; the slightest movement and it
would slide open and shut several times before coming to rest again. He'd
arrived there at the exact minute they'd arranged over text little over an hour
ago, owing perhaps to his German nature, or more likely than not to his
upbringing, which placed a great deal of emphasis on timeliness and
promptitude. Of course, she wasn't there yet – she never was on time, of
course – so he decided to have a seat on one of the two chairs that sat in the
entrance. An enormous mirror backed up against the chairs, separated by a
table that held a vase overflowing with a fresh flower arrangement every
week, a small detail that admittedly did improve the atmosphere of the room
some. The office where a secretary guarded the school on weekdays was
walled off by windows, dark, and filled up with all sorts of boxes that needed
signatures. A sign above the office and a huge carpet, both emblazoned with
the name and emblem of the school, placed great emphasis on the purported
worldliness of the school by setting the images on a map, but showed the
reverse through a quite disgusting disregard for geographic accuracy. A few
other leafy objects could be found at the base of the columns that surrounded
the room on all four corners; they could not be called trees or shrubs or bushes
for they weren't, and it seemed as though the person who'd designed them
had been perhaps described a tree in some detail, but had never actually seen
one. Plus they were plastic, and it didn't seem like they really tried to hide it,
unlike some other, better, fake trees, and instead flaunted their heinous plastic
existence to all those who passed by them. Meanwhile, he'd been staring at his
phone, probably trying to combine numbers to make bigger ones or put shapes
on a board and make them disappear, and he hadn't really been paying
attention to anything going on around him.
Footsteps of people approaching would, of course, snap him out of his
electronic reverie, but only long enough to confirm that it was a pack of Turks
or a band of marauding Russians before going back to his phone. Then, a good
ten minutes after 5, ten whole minutes after they'd agreed to meet, a fact that
kind of bothered him but he accepted, a sort of jingling rang out in the hallway
that broke off from the entrance to the west. Soon thereafter, a tuneless but
nonetheless melodic humming could be heard accompanying the jingling. This
was a sort of fanfare marking her arrival, at least to him, and he shut his
phone off immediately and sat up, before slumping back down and turning the
phone back on, to appear less alert (and what amounted to, in his mind,
predatory) and perhaps more easy going. She rounded the corner, visible for a
moment, before being obscured by the “leaves” of one of the plastic
aberrations, then emerging on the other side. He sprang up, and greeted her.
“Hey.”
“Hi,” she said in reply, looking at him and smiling. She slowed from what
must have been a considerable pace and allowed him to catch up.
“So which way are we going?” she asked as the doors, for once, opened
for those passing through them instead of those moving beside them, and as
they heaved open the heavier doors beyond them. They stopped for a moment
on the top of the granite stairs, flanked with planters that contained geraniums
that bloomed seemingly perpetually and covered by an arc of steel and glass
that served as a roof. The paint on the sides of the stairs, on the half-sized
walls holding granite slabs as railings, was covered in air bubbles and peeled
in several places. A little pond, off to the left, was far too clear and round and
nude to be natural, was fed by a pump that gurgled and was edged by a
carefully maintained lawn that stretched away on either sides of the road at
the bottom of the stairs. Someone had been far too gung-ho while pruning the
trees that lined the road, and they had become these strange, wizened,
goblinoid creatures with massive trunks and burls, but with tiny branches that
came out of the scars of many chainsaws through many years. Off in the
distance, another mountain at around the same height as their own was furry
with conifers, save for an antenna that stuck out, needle like, from the very
top. Further back, behind that mountain, blued and blurred by the distance, a
chain of mountains scraped upwards, capped in snow, before dropping off into
a valley and scraping upwards again. There was a series of peaks off to the
southwest that jutted out like fangs and dominated the landscape. They
carved through any clouds that dared approach them, calving off wisps that
vanished into the sky. He blinked.
 “I don't really care.”
“Me neither.”
“Okay. We'll go right, then,” he said, gesturing to their right, and the road
that wound that way. She nodded, and they passed down the steps. Before
them was a statue, rendered in brass, of a chamois, perched on two slabs of
rough-hewn rock. It was surrounded by a pool of smaller stones and pebbles,
and a garden that someone had truly cared for it or had been paid well for it.
They continued down the road, passing beneath the trollish trees, alongside
the cars of various makes and years that the teachers must have gotten good
deals on. On their right loomed the crown jewel of their school's empire. A
massive building that had been built during a time when the town had been
booming, the construction was sprawling and had been added to over the
years by various architects to varying degrees of success, and the result was
not strictly speaking cohesive. The boy's dorm was the original sanatorium,
standing tall and boxy, with a smattering of burgundy balconies adorning the
face. To the right, on the ground level, was an angular addition that held many
of the classrooms in the building, with huge square windows facing the south
and peeking out from under the slanted roofs. To the left of the boy's dorm was
a much older addition to the original, painted a pinkish orange and gaudy in its
design, stretched out and closer to the ground, but still . Behind double-paned
windows were the library, fairly standard in its arrangement beyond the
embellishments that remained from the building's past, and the cafeteria,
done in wood paneling that covered every surface, including the pillars and the
ceiling. Beyond the cafeteria, visible to the outside through enormous windows
with stained glass at the tops, was a huge room, the Grand Salle, which the
school would use for assemblies but also to host various musicians that piqued
the interest of the family that owned the school. Growing out of the top of the
building that housed these three rooms was the art room, a matte, metal
paneled construction with blinds that were supposed to go up and down
according to the angle of the sun, but would just go up and down whenever
they pleased instead. Far to the right of the boy's dorm, separated by the
housing the cafeteria, library, and Grand Salle, was the girl's dorm. Taller than
the boy's dorm, with balconies on each floor that reached all the rooms that
faced out the the south, capped by roofs of a severe angle, distinctly Swiss in
their look, with greebeling on all the railings, posts, and columns. Up the stairs
from The Cave, the school lounge beneath the Grand Salle, a group of students
ran out, laughing, with them leaking out the sound of exotic but Americanized
pop music that was standard fare there. The group passed by the two, with
some of them nodding, waving, or greeting, turning left instead of right
towards the favourite spot of smokers, who preferred to avoid any trouble with
the teachers. She turned towards him, eyes wide, the sun catching her hair in
a yellow silhouette.
“You stopped smoking, right?” The corners of his mouth widened, and he
grit his teeth for a moment, thinking how to approach this.
“Well, you know how it is. I try, and then I get all stressed or whatever, or
I see other people heading to the bench, and I can't help it.” She frowned, and
looked away, towards the mountains.
“I thought you told me you didn't have any cravings anymore.”
“Well, yes, I did tell you that, but I was exactly telling the truth.” She
shook her head.
“Ben. I don't want you to smoke.”
“I know, I know. I don't really want to either, but I like it.” He shivered,
and paused to zip up his coat. She examined him.
“Maybe you should find something else you like that won't kill you
slowly.”
“I suppose I should. Until then, though, I'm sticking with my cigarettes.”
She rolled her eyes.
“Ugh. You're the worst sometimes, Ben, did you know that?”
“I did know that, actually, Genna, and I take pride in it.” She punched his
shoulders, and he hopped away, wincing in exaggerated pain.
“Shut up.” He grinned at her, and she did her best to stop herself from
doing the same. By now, they'd walked past the girl's dorm and were passing
along the road that ran below the driveway running to the owner's home.
Gargoyles of mountain animals, carved crudely by chainsaw into stumps,
sprouted from the ground above them, long relieved of any trees it may have
had. The owner's house itself was perched above the intersection of the road
running to the school and the road running further up the mountain, ever
watchful. It was newly built, but had clearly been designed to evoke the classic
Swiss home. Four generations lived in the house, one of the founders of the
school still clinging to life with surprising vigour, her son and his wife, their
children, and then their children – the founder's great grandchildren. What
manner of drama that must have played out on a daily basis in such a
household was the matter of speculation, parody, and rumour among the more
bored students. A retaining wall stopped the mountain, and the house, from
collapsing onto the road. Colourful signs of various sizes and shapes denoted
paths and trails for the more adventurous of visitors to the village. They
paused for a moment at the intersection, ensuring that a taxi wasn't coming
speeding around the corner, before turning to the right and continuing up the
road. To their left were what amounted to apartment buildings, but also
constructed in a quintessential Swiss style. To their right, the mountain
continued upwards. Long grasses lay flat, pressed down by some long gone
snow, and red clay crumbled off in chunks where the grass no longer had a
hold. Perhaps through some trick of perspective, the pines seemed to stretch
out, shooting off into the sky. Between the slope and the road, small flowers
had been able to push through cracks in the asphalt and bloomed in little
flourishes. Genna watched her feet as she walked, Ben stared ahead.
“Archer seemed really pissed today,” he started, glancing over. She
looked up from her shoes and nodded slowly.
“More so than usual, you mean?” she said. Ben frowned.
“More so than usual?”
“Well, yeah. She always has to deal with like Nazar and Ruy's bullshit on
a daily basis, you know, but Nazar was especially dumb today.” Ben chuckled,
thinking about Nazar's antics this time.
“And I mean Maddie wasn't helping, shrieking about whatever it is that
she shrieks about - “ “AH-LAYN-AHH,” interjected Ben, mocking Maddie's
mockery of Alayna. Genna paused, laughing quietly, before continuing: “ and
just playing Tetris on her computer all class. I bet Archer hates us.”
“Correction; Archer hates some of us. She loves others, like Ruy,
remember?” Genna frowned for a moment.
“I bet you he's fucking her,” she said, and Ben chuckled.
“Wouldn't that be great – well, maybe not great, but you get the idea.”
She seemed to consider this for a moment, then looked at Ben with some
disgust.
“I know what you mean, but that would be awful,” she said, and he
shrugged. They approached a fork in the road, with the left option continuing
on, relatively flat and without incline, and the option on the right going up
further and further with a steep slope. Ben looked at Genna, pondering for a
moment if he'd ought to ask her input on the direction, but getting a feeling
that he knew what the answer would be, non-committal, he decided to go left.
The road was hedged in on either side by hill and forest, and was so narrow
that even a single car would have problems navigating it. Someone had built a
little enclosure for their mailbox, complete with mossy roof and wall, and had
attached the whole affair onto a tree beside the road. They walked past this
sort of tower, a four cornered building that was taller than it was big with a
steep, pointed roof, but no more a tower than that, stuccoed for some reason,
a tower that had no known purpose to the students, some claiming that it was
a utility shed, others that it was storage of Christmas trees, an idea that should
have occurred to the claimant as perhaps not the most logical, but never had.
Hedges of trees, never once touched by shears, blocking off precipitous
property from precipitous property. Little concrete steps sunken into the
hillside, flanked by small alpine flowers and lush grass. Benches hewn from
solid logs, placed in recesses, carefully maintained, joined from time to time by
solar powered lamp, now glowing dry, ghostly blue in the light that seemed
suddenly much darker than it had been five minutes ago when they left the
school. They were now almost past the houses that hung like cornices on the
slope, the dog that had been chasing them couldn't go any further, rough sawn
lumber as fence posts along both sides of the road. Rocks that had rolled down
from the quarry sat, mossed over, on the field. Trees with barbed wire poking
out, gnarled and assimilated into the bark as they grew. A single, solitary
house had been built here, with a driveway made of pavers and a score of
additions made over its lifetime: garage, annex of some kind, what looked like
a sauna. They paid it no mind, having walked by many times. Ahead, further
along the road that had become little more than two tire tracks with a strip of
grass in the middle, going off into the trees and the horizon, was their
unspoken goal. A bench, more refined than the log benches, with broad slats of
treated wood bolted onto bent steel frames. They flopped down on the bench,
Ben leaning back and sighing, and Genna looking out at the mountains. He
looked at her.
 “So. How're you?”, hands behind his head, head barely turned, eyes
trying their hardest to look over.
“I'm alright, I guess. I don't think I did very well on my physics test
today.”
“Ah. What was it on?”
“Astrophysics, which I thought I knew really well, but then I guess
Hazenberg put a bunch of stuff on the test I didn't really know, so I think I
might have failed it,” an air of breathlessness showing she'd been giving this a
lot of thought. Ben raised his eyebrows and rolled his eyes a quarter of the
way around, and sat up.
“Genna, stop, I'm sure you did fine. Everyone feels shitty coming out of a
test, and then they always get much better marks than expected. You
especially, you always stress out and then get nineties.” Genna turned, small
smile playing on her lips, regarding him, shaking her head slowly.
“No, Ben, you don't understand. I totally fucked up this test. You should
have seen me when I was taking it, it was a total shitshow, trust me.” He
shrugged.
“You always say that.”
“Yeah, because it's always true.” Ben put his face in his hands, dragging
them along and stretching his face. He sighed, and reached into one of his
pockets and produced a packet of cigarettes, pulling one out and putting it in
his mouth. Ben looked at Genna.
“Do you mind if I have a dart?” She narrowed her eyes.
“Eww, what the fuck did you just call it? A dart? What's wrong with you?”
He took this as an implicit yes, and flicked his lighter to life, holding it up and
taking a drag.
“Leave me alone. It's a Canadian thing, Genna, you wouldn't
understand,” pausing for a moment to put on the greasiest Canadian accent
he could manage, “ooh yeah bud, just oot here ya know, hackin' a dart, yoo
know how it gooes. Fuckin' right, eh bud, just givin' 'er.” She laughed, ringing
sweetly and lingering in the air somehow.
“I'm more Canadian than you are, Ben.”
“We've been over this, Genna. Just because you're from Minnesota – or
wait, Wisconsin? Minnesota,” “Wisconsin,” interjected Genna, “-right, sorry,
Wisconsin, which, yes, is further north than where I live, doesn't mean you're
more Canadian than I am. You've never even been to Canada.”
“I have too! I've been over the border a few times.”
“Okay, but that doesn't really count, dude. C'mon.” Genna ran her hands
through her hair, sighing loudly. They fell silent for a moment, drinking in the
vista. From here, they could see the mountains without any obstructions. To
the east, the sun had finally slipped behind the cluster of shards and the sky
was glowing. Clouds passing nearby were set ablaze in orange and yellow, with
the sunset smearing from blue to purple to pink to red. Silence lay like a
blanket over everything, broken only infrequently by the far off tinkling of cow
bells and quiet birdsong, the condemned hotel looming over them on the hill
like some kind of spectre from days past. He exhaled, the smoke lingering in
curlicues and spirals and fading away slowly into the ether. She held her head
away, trying hard to avoid the cloud, fearing that the teachers could smell it on
her.
“I don't want this year to end. I'm going to miss it here so much,” he
said, as she nodded.
“I know.”
“I never would have thought I'd end up loving it this much here. It's
weird. This place is like some kind of strange science experiment where they
stuck a bunch of rich kids on a mountain and wanted to see what would
happen, and then we all end up developing Stockholm Syndrome or
something.”
“That's true.”
“I try to stay iron-hearted and stoic, but I think I'm going to really let the
waterworks loose at grad.”
“I think everyone will.”
“That's not true. Do you honestly think that Vova and Arman will be sad
that their five-year prison sentence is over? They might cry, but of joy.” She
seemed to consider this for a moment.
“Okay, maybe not everyone, but everyone who matters.”
“I'll accept that.” He examined his cigarette, contemplating whether he
could get another puff or two, and after trying tentatively, he decided the
answer was no, and held it up against the bottom of the bench, dragging it
about, putting out the ember, and flicked it onto the road.
“Let's go?” he said, standing up, and feeling himself up to ensure he had
everything. She hopped up.
“Sure.” By now, the sun had disappeared behind the mountains, and a
crepuscular air had descended on the mountain. Everything was bathed in a
pleasant violet light that pervaded. Lights had come on, perhaps
automatically, in the houses that could be seen, but no streetlights were along
this stretch, and the road was dark. They started down the road that was, in
effect, little more than a path. At some point, under a pine tree, the road
switched from dirt to pavement, and they were glad for having something
more substantial and regular under their feet.
“I don't want to go through there, it's too dark,” she said, grasping at his
arm.
“Okay, so what do you propose? Scaling the side of the mountain? It'll be
fine, come on.”
So they continued on, beneath the houses, braving the dark that was like
a curtain upon them. They were in a tiny Swiss village, there was nothing to
fear, no murderers or psychopaths to speak of, with the exception, of course,
of that one man that wandered around the village and yelled at everyone, but
he seemed harmless enough. Ben didn't mind that she was holding onto him,
in fact, there was a part of him that cheered. Before them was the tree
storage/ electrical house, stylized and looming, and the light from the lights on
the street above bled down. She let go of him. The tungsten light stained
everything a fluorescent kind of orange that hurt the eyes after prolonged
exposure. They walked past the little birdhouse and onto the main road, past
the chalets and the monumental trees, past the intersection and below the
founder's house, past the impressive facade of the school. They paused at the
entrance to the Girl's Dorm, covered with, like the Boy's Dorm, a strange
construction of glass and steel that clashed horribly with the rest of the
building's aesthetic. Considering for a moment, they went up the stair and into
the foyer. There were stairs that led, at 90 degrees, up into the dorm, and halls
that went off in branches to classrooms or to the cafeteria and Grande Salle. At
the bottom of the stairs, they stopped. She stood two steps above him, putting
their faces at equal level.
“Well, I'll see you tomorrow,” she said, as he nodded. He wanted to kiss
her, but settled instead with nodding.
“Uh-huh. I'm going to go to the Cave, see what's going on there.”
“I think I need to finish up some homework. See you.” She started up the
stairs, but, not hearing a response, paused, looking back. He'd been observing
her, watching her go, thinking.
“See you.” She smiled, and turned away, and continued up the stairs,
until she was gone, and out of sight. He looked at the carpet, and sighed.
---