a dude's den

[di-stri]

ｙｏｕ ａｒｅ ｍｙ ｍｏｓｔ

ｂｅａｕｔｉｆｕｌ ａｆｆｌｉｃｔｉｏｎ

there was nothing wrong about the way she looked at me - but then again, there was nothing inherently right, either.

[di-stri]

It had to be midnight at least, and the sky was as pitch black as the paint on Charlie’s new black Bentley, but they were still illuminated as brightly as if it had been day by the fluorescent lights of the petrol station interior. There was just the three of them - Charlie, Brandon and Alex - and the lady at the register. They had their cups under the slushy machine, making jokes about their lives when they were kids. It was nothing much, but it was everything to Charlie. She’d come to get fuel and they’d ended up getting drinks, which they then took outside to sit on the curb and discuss life. Sometimes it’d be small talk with them, all about the weather and the gossip, but sometimes Brandon and Alex would come out and discuss with her the universe and their plans for the future, and they were young and none of them understood much but their fresh minds and realistic attitudes with a hint of optimism were so refreshing sometimes she’d have to stop for a moment of surprised silence. Just sitting outside the petrol station, cringing at her brain freeze with two of her best friends in the whole world - that was all she ever really needed.
"Okay dude, but like, think about it this way," Alex said, continuing on his existential story, "in the grand scheme of things, we're just like... this little blue dot, you know? Like, in the sky. Like, if you could grow wings and fly out into space heaps far and look back at Earth, that's all you'd see. We are... like, nothing, bro."
"For one thing," Brandon responded, "you can't just 'grow wings' and fly into space. Alex, there's no air in space. You would die."
"Alright, but what if you were in a space ship with wings?"
"You mean like stabilisers?"
"What the dink is that?"
"Nevermind," Brandon exhaled. "Okay, so, wings. Space. Blue dot. Right. I get you."
"We are pretty... insignificant," Charlie chipped in.
"Thank you!" Alex exclaimed.
"But I mean," Charlie continued, "that's only if you're hundreds of miles away - you're so far you can see almost every star and planet around you. But like, here on Earth, we can't. This is the perspective we're given. Earth doesn't seem so insignificant when you're on it."
"Charles, man, don't do this to me," Alex said, gazing up at the roof in considerate wonder. "My brain hurts enough from the slushie."