This is Life

I sighed, waved my empty Gatorade bottle half-heartedly, and bid them all good night. Tired and tired of socializing, i wandered back down the line of doors, into the one in which i was staying, and up to the air mattress. Silence.

Bathroom time, pajamas, resetting. Reclined in "bed", computer in lap, i can relax without concern. Star Trek in one window, Warcraft in another, my friend in my phone, telling me about the new patch, i am at peace. I don't need to try, schmooze, wink, lie. I can channel lightning bolts at elves and laugh at early-90s space drama.

I am making my guild-mates laugh. I am chatting with an ex-girlfriend at the same time. I'm carrying on a conversation with Nate on the phone about the intricacies of arcane raiding. My shaman is dealing more damage than the rest of the Damage Per Second team combined.

Thunder crackles in the halls of the Nexus, ionizing the air and igniting the flesh of our enemies while i listen to the details of the Arcane Mage's proposed 400% mana increase for the last stack of Arcane Blast and i'm whispering a young druid that PMS is not a good excuse. The bizarreness of the situation is lost on me.

Later on, i am a mage wandering the woods of Feralas. Nate has left for the evening, the ex is talking about Kat Von D, i am keeping up a txt conversation with someone who needs me, and Matt returns from the outside world.

Years of practice allow me to read his mood in an instant. The mage is abandoned to die among the trees, the ex is told "brb" and even the friend in my phone is asked to hang on. Star Trek is paused and with it, the rest of my little bubble.

My fingers nimbly roll up two cigarettes, bits of tobacco scattered across the counter top. Matt has grabbed a couple beers and we climb out the window into the sky.

A tiny logic puzzle later and we have both opened our beers and lit our cigarettes, all while keeping one hand to the shingles so as not to fall off the little eave that is our veranda. The hot Georgia night air mixes with the smoke in my chest, only to be washed away by the soothing coolness of my beer. We talk about life and its complications in complex, abstract analogies and examples. Our words, formed by the careful locutions of our lips, flow out to mix with the smoke, blown away with the wind.

Everything is quiet on the roof and life seems to almost be understandable out here under the great Georgia sky.