Our town’s boundaries gave way with a quick walk in any direction to woods where early autumn displayed its full spectrum, endless colored ways, every leaf’s a flower and the golden hour glowed soft and red. Walking uphill, northwest from the college, leads to steep and lofty cliffs overlooking the river and train tracks running parallel beneath the sprawling neon forest that rose on ridges from both sides.

“Max was telling me about his friend Alex who fell off his freshman year while he was kicking out an ember from their campfire,” said Paul.

“Had they smoked something?”

“I assumed.”

“Was he okay?”
“Yeah, Max said he got real lucky and landed in those bushes down there. They had to cut through the brush with machetes to get him out on a stretcher.”

I crept to the edge and looked down at the bottom where stonesilver jutted from the bramble; could’ve cracked his humpty head. Better step back from the dreadful summit, call of the void. I looked up across the riverbed at the southwestern sky where the last sliver of direct sunlight squinted through the trees on top of the ridge across from us, refracting acid-mauve tints off the high cirrus clouds.

Paul coughed a few times and then sneezed explosive, “Blecch, you don’t have a tissue do you?”

I checked my empty pockets.

“Never mind, these birch leaves will do.”

“Birch leaves?”

He shnucked out the snot and wiped.

“Yeah man, they’re more papery absorbent than other leaves that are more glossy, good for toilet paper too.”

“Sun’s goin’ down, wanna walk to the grocery store and get a couple things to bring to the potluck tonight?”

“Yea, I’ll text Max and see what they need.”

In a couple weeks, we would all go home for Thanksgiving but on this Sunday night, Max had invited us to the EcoHouse’s harvest gathering, “Forager’s Feast,” which he had advertised by tacking up a few fliers on bulletin boards around campus, plugging it during his radio hour “Turn on Tune in,” and posting an announcement in the college’s daily email that morning. We started south back towards town with fungus underfoot, woolly bear caterpillar crawling on top of the lichen on the log, light breeze through the clinging leaves on boughs above.

“Wasn’t that funny last night when Skye raked the leaves on the patio into a peace sign, and then the gust of wind scattered them and we awed in disappointment, but then he said ‘it’s okay brothers, now the peace will spread everywhere!’”

“Ha ha, yeah, I wanted to laugh it was so corny, but his earnest optimism just made me smile.”

Pleasant lack of self-conscious filter made possible by the small audience, less chance for mob judgment. Sunday brunch in the dining hall this morning full of gossip about the night before, tribal contemplations of boundary allegations.

“Max said it’s a forager’s feast so we’re not allowed to pay for our contribution.”

“Uhh, okay, so what do we do then?”

“He said just come over and he’ll explain.”

We emerged from the woods and crossed under the telephone line clearing into someone’s backyard, might get yelled at, no right to roam. Nice houses, high up the hill. As we continued south towards the EcoHouse we passed over an outlook where the trees were cleared in a semi-circle for the college’s observatory, and from where we could see the town curving along the river between red and orange ridges, skinny awkward land.

“Man I’d love to take an Astronomy class next semester, could take care of a science requirement with that. Do you know when we register for classes?”

“I saw something about it in an email, I think it’s the week before final exams.”

Light pollution in the city, can’t see the stars, only celebrites. We continued downhill and saw Max on the garden lawn of the EcoHouse playing hacky sack with Skye. Beanbag dropped, “Getting hard to see it now,” then Max noticed us,

“What’s up guys, are you ready for a delicious evening?”

“Haha, yeah, that’s what we’re here for,” said Paul.

“Hey there brothers, great time last night.” said Skye, as he came over and gave us sweaty, unctuous hugs.

“I gotta drive over to Nick’s farm to pick some veggies for the dinner tonight. You guys can come help,” said Max.

“Are you sure you don’t need anything from the grocery store?”
“Yes! The point of a forager’s feast is to declare our independence from distant and fluctuating markets.”

“It’s just a couple blocks away.”

“Their dumpster, on the other hand, has banquets of food that they determined are past expiration without inspecting whether or not there’s mold, and we’re in the middle of one of the poorest counties in the state. Some get nothing though there’s plenty to spare, right? Anyway, we gotta go to Nick’s farm while there’s still a little light left.”

“I’m gonna go pull some sweet taters from the student garden, I’ll catch you guys when you get back,” said Skye.

Paul and I got in Max’s brown station wagon, he started the engine and inserted a cassette, Please allow me to introduce myself, I’m a man of wealth and taste…

“How far is Nick’s farm?”

“Just a little ways out, 15 minutes or so. Wait ‘til you see his place. A little homestead with an acre of land to produce all this climate has to offer, and his old lady to keep him company. Some kind of idyll he’s made for himself.”

We drove past the silent campus, vacant quad on a chilly Sunday evening, probably watching football.

“So who all’s coming to dinner tonight?”

“Craftsmen, prophets, healers and minstrels are all invited. Not sure how many will show up, probably a handful. Maybe more if word spread around campus.”

“Well I can’t wait for a break from the cafeteria food.”

“Damn right, that food they serve is a crime. Definitely don’t eat their meat, you heard, antibiotics, laxatives, all kinds of gross shit.”

Out of town, pine trees lining the winding road, muted rays straggling into the aisles of the woods, family of white-tailed deer bounding away from us into waning western sunlight. We turned off the two-way road onto a curvy single lane.

Oh help me, please doctor, I’m damaged…

Twang like a hillbilly.

“This doesn’t sound like a British invasion.”

“Yeah, more like appropriation. The Stones are at their best when they’re rockin’ bluesy Americana, they have Gram Parsons to thank for that.”
“Who’s that?”
“Sweetheart of the rodeo, the man responsible for giving psychedelic rock some grounding in country, he hung out with the Stones’ and then their music got better, they leaned into Americana.”

We turned down a gravel road, crunch under the wheels, that eventually disintegrated into a rutted road of dirt, where we finally pulled up in front of a motley homestead, the grass was short and gray and a shady sycamore grew by the door, porch rudely carved and full of tools and rust, chicken wire enclosing the cultivations. We walked up the porch, boards creaking underneath, the screen door opened and Nick emerged with two bulging burlap sacks.

“Hey thanks Nick, thought we were gonna pick ‘em,”

“First frost last night, had’ta harvest, don’t worry about it though, I owe ya.”

“Are you gonna come join us?”
“I can’t make it tonight, Rosie’s ready makin’ dinner.”

“Alright, well thanks for these. Come get left overs tomorrow if you want.”

“Will do, y’all wanna sit and have one of my homebrews before ya go?”

“Ah man, that IPA you made was great, but these guys still gotta contribute something for the dinner tonight, what time is it, six?”

I looked at my cellphone, no bars, off the grid, 5:14, “quarter past five actually, daylight savings, sun sets early now.”

“Just makes it that much easier to go diving,”

“Ha, you guys. Alright, good luck then, be careful.”

“You know it. Thanks Nick.”

We turned back and got in the car, I sat in the back seat with the bags.

“Did you say we’re going diving?” asked Paul.

“That’s right, you guys can help me out. My buddy Logan tipped me that the grocery store is gonna put out a bunch of perishables tonight. He’s on shift and he’s gonna open the lock on the gate around the dumpster, I need one of you to keep an eye on the parking lot, and then another to help me dive.”

“Like a thief in the night,” said Paul.

“It’s not stealing, throwing stuff away means they relinquish ownership,” said Paul.

“Has anyone been caught before?” I asked.

“Yeah, a couple years ago, the cops just told him to go home. It’s not like we’re tryna be unabomers or the weather underground. The food’s gonna get picked up by the garbage truck in the morning anyways. We’re helping to absolve them of their institutional gluttony. Their reasoning is why let ‘em have it for free if they might pay you for it, so they just throw out tons of good stuff, they’re not even trying to compost, tons of waste, and the supermarkets still bring in huge profits. You say it’s a living, we all gotta eat.”

I peeked into the burlaps: potatoes and onions in one, tomatoes and kale leaves in the other.

“Nick gave us a nice haul,” I said.

“But we didn’t work for it, so we still need our own contribution,” said Paul.

“That’s right. No kernel of nourishing corn can come from land you did not till,” said Max.

“Till when?” asked Paul.

“Till, you know, farm… did you guys blaze before coming over?”
“Ha, yeah, that stuff you gave us is potent.”
“Should be, grew it myself.”

“No way, really?”

“Yeah man, saved some seeds and put ‘em in the ground.”

“Where did you grow it?”

“Off in the woods behind my hut, some bushy grove that no one knows about.”

“How did you water it?”

“There’s a stream that runs about a hundred yards downhill from there, I brought water up with plastic milk jugs, no one saw.”

“You have a hut?” I asked.

“Yeah man, that’s where I sleep, on green leaves pillowed. I’ll show it to you sometime.”

“Even in the winter?”

“Yeah, I can heat it up with a fire. I lived in the dorms freshmen year ‘cause it was mandatory, but it was an awful barn for the rent we pay, $600 each every month to split a tiny room in half, you could rent a whole house downtown for that. You guys are lucky to have each other cause my roommate sucked, he was a sophomore football player who was too late to register with his teammates, and plus all the other noisy neighbors in the hall. And you don’t even get a kitchen so you have to rely on the overpriced prison and airplane food in the dining hall, which they make you pay for regardless. And on top of that they kick you out of your own living space that has all your stuff in it over vacation, even the foreign exchange students, they tell ‘em that they don’t have to go home but they can’t stay here. It’s such a racket.”

“What about when it gets cold out?”

“I’ve got a polar explorer’s sleeping bag, so I can hang, but yeah, I crash at the EcoHouse sometimes in the winter, like right after Thanksgiving when rifle season starts, the first week kids get out for school, last year I saw two kids that must’ve been eleven or twelve shooting stray bullets into the woods, and then the second week all the dad’s get drunk and can’t shoot straight, so I don’t like being out there when it’s dark.”

We parked in the lot behind the grocery store, closest spot to the dumpsters. Daylight fading, grapy dusk, nip to the air.

“Alright, Logan said there should be some good stuff. Come then, my gentlemen of the shade, minions of the moon, who’s diving with me and who’s lookout?”
“I’ll dive,” said Paul.

“Alright let’s go, we’ll just walk back through the playground to the woods if anyone comes,” said Max.

“I’ll hootie hoo if I see anything.”

I got out of the car and paced through the parking lot as if I had a destination, so as not to look sketchy. I huffed visible steam onto my cold cupped hands. A blue pickup truck turned on its humming motor, letting it warm for a moment before driving away into the minimal traffic on the street ahead. I looked in through the glass of the grocery store, two open registers, maybe that’s Logan. Why don’t they send their past-expiration, but not yet rotten food to the soup kitchen? Ambiguous amalgam in the melting pot, call it army soup to instill patriotism. Good way to use day olds: breadcrumbs or croutons, extend the shelf-life. Yesterday’s bagels are free, great deal, a stale steal. Feed pigeons in the park at the very least. Overripe fruit are good fodder for a juicer, Doc said I should get one, vitamins without fiber. What about the college buffet? Leftovers to landfills? Would make good worm food for a farmer. An SUV rolled steady down the road in my direction, headlights in my eyes, no cherry top. I looked back at Max and Paul loading the station wagon. The beige SUV passed, mom in the front seat and pre-teen passenger. No cops, easy enough. I walked back to Paul and Max.

“Alright, decent haul, got some bread and cheese, two bottles of fruit juice, loaded with preservatives, not the healthiest but it’s tasty and not gonna go bad, and we hit the jackpot with these bags of clementines, immunity boost for cold season, here try one, they’re still good.” Max tossed me one, still firm. I peeled and popped the seedless wedges, sweet citrus, saved from squander.

We drove back to the EcoHouse and parked behind the garden. On our way Max picked a few of the remaining sunburst tomatoes from the garden.

“Tomato season’s just about over, but in the future if you ever see anything ripe in here please pick them so that the next one can grow, good for the plant. We must cultivate our garden.”

I threw my clementine peel into the compost bin and carried the two burlaps inside, Paul carried the dive’s treasure. Coming in from the cold, Max walked ahead of us and welcomed the half-dozen companions that had gathered, giving them each a sunburst tomato.

“Thank you all for your contributions tonight, extra props for those that were gathered raw from the wood and stream, and welcome to our third Forager’s Feast, are you ready to imbibe delight through every pore?”

“Nothing tastes better than free grub,” replied Paul as we walked our haul back to the kitchen, where Skye was watching a cast iron pan of sliced sweet potato sizzle on the stove and brewing a pot with fresh fragrance beside it.

“Free of charge though not of toil. He who does not work shall not eat. These were all earnestly gained by the sweat of honest labor, isn’t that right?” said Max.

“That free meal from the Church of the Brethren tasted pretty good,” said Dave.

“Not as good as this will though. My bush tea is almost ready, nettles, lemon verbena and mint, sweetened with stevia, all picked fresh from the student garden, along with these sweet fries,” replied Skye.

“Woah, nettles? Stinging nettles?” asked Paul.

“Yeah man, that’s right, they’re so good for you.”

“Don’t they sting if you pick them? What about drinking? What happens to the stingers?”

“Haha, I actually harvested a bunch in the spring before they matured, and then let them dry over the summer, so they’re totally harmless. After they mature you can usually pick some of the top leaves anyway,” said Skye.

“What’s nutritious about them?” I asked.

“So many I can’t even name off the top of my head. Vitamins, calcium, protein, iron… and other stuff too, this shit is elixir man, fresh to keep you from death, try some,”

He pressed a small cup into the steaming leaves and handed it to me, I put down the burlaps on the kitchen counter.

“Whatcha got there?”

“More stuff for the frying pan from Nick’s farm.”

“Niice,” said Skye as he looked in the burlaps. I took a sip of the tea, dominant mint, and handed it to Paul, “tastes pretty good.”

I grabbed a cutting board and put a knife to onion.

“Alright, let’s get some tunes goin’,” Max walked over to the dinosaur Victrola and spun a vinyl.

I hear you talkin when I’m on the street…

“So what pots have we lucked into tonight?”

“I brought a sulphur shelf, Chicken of the woods, that I found a couple days ago,” said Emily.

“Where’d you find it?” asked Dave.

“In a secret spot, not too far from your hut Max, but I ain’t tellin’.”

“You got it from that giant rotting oak tree on the north side of my hill, didn’t you?” asked Max, “I saw it starting to bud a couple months ago and noticed someone had harvested when I went back.”

Emily mimed a lipzip in response.

“Okay fine, but you’re sure these are safe to serve right? Definitely not Jack-o-Lanterns?” asked Max.

“I’m no novice, underside had pores not gills. No poison, they’re an anti-inflammatory.”

“And you dried them out properly?” asked Max.

“It’s baking in the oven along with some spaghetti squash from my dad’s garden if you wanna inspect yourself.”

“The last time she vouched for some mushrooms it worked out well didn’t it?” said Tara.

 “Yeah, that was fun, you have any more of those?” asked Dave.

“Naw, ate ‘em all. We can get more in the spring though, plan for lilac time,” said Emily.

“Does anyone want a slice of zucchini bread?” asked Ariel.

“I won’t ask where you got the flour and eggs for that,” said Max.

“Well the zucchini came from the college farm, and I actually found the flour and some baking soda in the student lounge, but yeah, don’t ask about the eggs,” said Ariel.

“I’m gonna imagine that they came from the farmer’s market and take a slice, thanks Ariel,” said Max.

“Oh, I almost forgot, I got these from the farmer’s market, they need to be chopped and baked too, but I wanted to show them to everyone first,” Dave took three heads of broccoli out of his bag, “check ‘em out.”

“Woah, those are beautiful, what kind of broccoli is that?” asked Paul.

“Romanesco, some people say it’s cauliflower. But yeah, look how trippy, it grows in fractals, Fibonacci spirals, like galaxies,” said Dave.

“I almost don’t want to chop it,” said Paul.
“That’d be wasteful,” said Max as he brought them over to my cutting board. I marveled for a moment, prettier than an artichoke, before putting a knife to its perfect shape.

“And what are these? More hors d’oeuvres?” asked Max.

“These are pumpkin seeds from our Jack-o-Lantern that I baked and salted,” said Ariel.

“Delicious,” mumbled Max, as he munched a handful and walked back to the kitchen where Paul and I had chopped a heap of onions and potatoes.

“That’s a nice pile, probably good for now. Thanks for choppin’, I’ll take it from here.” Max slid our heap into a bowl and mixed in olive oil with his hands. Not sure if he washed them after dumpster diving. I walked over to the table and made a small plate with pumpkin seeds and zucchini bread.

“I brought wine that we made in viticulture class with grapes from the college vineyard, mulled it up in the crock pot with some orange, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, lilac and a couple other things, give it a sniff! Would you like some?” asked Tara.

I leaned my face into the warm air over the electric cauldron and inhaled, sweet and heady.

“Thanks, I’ll have a touch.”

 I ladled some of the burgundy colored wine into a blue ceramic goblet, and sat down in a large cushioned chair next to a worn brown couch with an open guitar case on top. Such a cozy room, I took a sip as I gazed over tie-dye tapestries of rich and royal hues, floral mandalas, Whole Earth Catalog sticking out of a packed mahogany bookshelf with devil’s ivy crawling down its side, a canoe paddle mounted on the opposite wall, Tibetan prayer flags trimming the light-blue ceiling, pale yellow walls, next to the light switches white stickers with green print: “Conserve Energy Turn off the Lights.” A brush on my leg, white cat with black spots rubbed its cheek against my thigh.

“Oh, hey kitty,”

“Mkgnao,”

It lithely leapt up onto my lap and settled down into a mellow puddle.

“Who’s cat is this?”
“That’s Pangur, she’s a town cat, but we let her in for some lovin’,” replied Tara.

An excuse to sit for a minute. I took a bite of zucchini bread and washed it down with another sip, settling into the cushions as a warmth sank through my body, mystic heated wine. A sensation that I had missed—a comfy seat, sizzle and steam from the kitchen, gestures and mutters around a table, domestic warmth I had not felt since arriving at college. Different though, sitting slightly outside the circle of familiar friends. Try to contribute a graceful word at some point, have another sip. Docile homeless cat, soft strokes atop its spine, purrumble. Wonder who’s sleeping with who in this circle, possibly polyamorous, probably all have history with one another. Maybe Tara’s different, idiosyncratic beauty, saw her strolling across the quad before I knew who she was, flowing in colorful clothes as sunlight plays upon her hair. Still, senior girls don’t go for freshman boys, biological clock. I feel unready, must come into my own first.

“Alright,” said Max, “grub’s ready as it’s gonna be, come n’ get it.”

As I started to lift from my seat Pangur jumped up, then immediately settled back into the warm spot I had left. I crossed the threshold from living to dining room and sat down at the table, chair next to Tara, in front of a giant bowl of salad: sliced tomatoes, peppers, onions, corn, chicken shrooms, broccoli, basil and kale, dressed with olive oil and balsamic. Next to the salad a baking sheet with stringy spaghetti squash and multi-colored potatoes, seasoned simply with salt and pepper. Can see each different ingredient, no secret additives hidden in the “dish,” decommoditized. Max stood up and cleared his throat, “I wanted to say something to, uhh commemorate… hang on,” he fumbled through his backpack and pulled out a ball of loose leaf, “I’ve got a couple notes…” he unwrinkled the paper, did a quick scan and began:

 “Okay, so this is probably the last harvest before winter withers our gardens, so I’d like to thank you all for joining us tonight, and for your continued support to the EcoHouse. Let’s take a moment to remember the founders, Julian and Grace, who, having graduated last year are no longer with us. Their mission was to forge a lifestyle that maintains balance with nature in our increasingly digitalized and thought-tormented age in which the right to make a dollar at whatever cost is seldom challenged, and to remind us that the fruits of the earth belong equally to us all. Our forager’s feast is a way of paying credence to the noble savages who lived in nomadic foraging societies when the earth, in its natural uncultivated state, was the common property of the human race. We usually think of our agrarian shift as humanity’s great epiphany, however it created the fallacious idea of land ownership and as it is now implemented on a capitalist’s industrial level it has led to environmental decay with slash and burn tactics, overuse of synthetic insecticides, as well as government subsidized monocultures such as corn, which have somehow made it cheaper to make sugar from corn than from sugarcane, and I won’t get started on GMOs. And by eating plants we can also boycott the condemned meat industry, with its endless horrors, such as factory farms feeding antibiotics to livestock so they can stay alive in overcrowded, unhygienic conditions, allowing them to sell cheap meat that foster resistant bacteria which can go straight into our guts. Meat is also the least efficient food source as it requires produce, water, and other resources that get converted into a small percentage of edible food. We could feed about half of the humans on earth with the produce that we feed to livestock, and yet there are starving people in the modern world. While eating this food tonight, which we have gathered from gardens and the woods as opposed to Mallwart, let us savor every bite as we retreat from profit and remember that engaging with bountiful mother earth on our own terms and bypassing all of the middlemen and their spidery machinations will prove more fruitful and allow us the ability to be self-reliant, since dependence begets subservience and venality. Emerson says, ‘All our progress is an unfolding, like the vegetable bud. You have first an instinct, then an opinion, then a knowledge, as the plant has root, bud and fruit.’ If you rely on someone else for your fruit you are relying on their knowledge as well, and though our brains and abilities differ, our stomachs are essentially the same. So, anyways, here we are again, gathering at the EcoHouse, which, as a microcosm of our college, continues to be a seed of liberalism in the blank wall of mediocrity, and at least our institution is one that teaches us to question institutions, and provides a haven for the devisers of new values. So, let’s be grateful for our comfortable house, this feast, and our friends, and let’s drink to the salt of the earth.”

“Preach!” yelled Skye.

Sips from our raised ceramics. Max walked over to the record player and flipped the vinyl disc. Food passed around as I piled my plate with potato, side of salad, tried to take a portion without mushrooms, don’t want to be seen picking them out.

“Should we leave some salad for Eric and Leah?” asked Skye.

“They said they have work to do, so they said they can’t join,” replied Tara.

“Probably fooling around. Should be mandatory to partake in household events if you live here,” said Max as he served himself.

“So are you guys gonna apply to live in the EcoHouse next year?” asked Ariel, “We’ll need people to replace the graduating seniors.”

“You have to apply?” I asked.

“Of course you have to apply,” said Max as he chewed, “we can’t have just anybody living here, they need to realize that we’re all hitched together with everything else in the universe and not just go off by themselves all the time. They didn’t even compost their husks yesterday. Can you pass the ladle?”

Thank you for your sweet and bitter fruits…

“How do you apply?”

“Three hundred words telling us about your favorite vegetable,” said Ariel. Chew the salad thoroughly, easy to forget at social meals. She continued, “But it’s mostly coming to events like tonight and helping out with the garden and the student farm. There’ll be a lot of chores to do in the spring when we’re reviewing applications, but it’s not hazing or anything, we work as a team. What’d you guys gather for our feast tonight?”

“They earned their Novice Diver Certification,” said Max.

“Oh yeah?” said Skye. “With flippers and everything? Did you guys find anything? Last time was pretty bare.”

“Yeah, we got a tip from Logan that they were gonna put out some good stuff,” said Max.

“I thought they replaced the cashier jobs with robots?” asked Skye.

“Town petitioned against it. Maybe they’re starting to realize that computers are taking their jobs and not immigrants,” replied Max.

“In Economics the professor was telling us about basic income, where the government gives everyone like a thousand dollars a month to live on, and he said it’s the only way to hold our middle class together as more and more blue collar jobs become automated,” said Dave.

“Free money huh?” asked Paul.

“Well, it’d come from tax dollars,” said Dave, “since the jobs that the robots take used to be someone’s job who paid taxes, but now it just falls back to the business owners who can probably hire an expensive accountant to find all their tax loopholes, so, effectively, the robots pay taxes and that money goes back to the people whose jobs they’ve taken.”

“I’d let a robot sponsor my student loans,” said Skye.

“My dad has been telling me that all the bankers have been fucking up and that they’re all gonna go to jail, he sent me an article from the Times about shady mortgage loans that are getting foreclosed all over the country, kicking people out of their homes,” said Dave.

“No home in this world anymore, nothing left to lose but their chains,” said Max.

 “So Max, have you heard from Julian and Grace at all? Where are they at?” asked Emily.

 “Yeah, they’ve gone west. Drove across the groaning continent together after graduation and landed in Big Sur for a while. Grace has been woofing up and down the coast, said she just found a small communal farm in Humboldt county that she really likes and is banking a bunch during the harvest season doing trimmings.” Work for every single hand, pick oranges right off the tree, or grapes, I took a gulp from the goblet to wash down. “Jules kept going west though, made it all the way to Hawaii, he’s been crashing on the big island O’ahu, they call it the gathering place. He says it’s paradise and he’s happy to not have to deal with winter this year.” Sailing on a summer breeze and skipping over the ocean like a stone.

“Does he have a place or is he just bumming it around?” asked Dave.

“He found a job at a juice shack, and he throws up his hammock on pineapple trees at night, he thinks he has to find a place for the winter though, but he ain’t got the do re mi,” said Max.

Paradisical flaws.

“He’s pretty resourceful, I’m sure he’ll figure something out,” said Tara.

“Looks like we’re ready for apple crisp,” said Emily as she went to the kitchen and brought a trey out of the oven. She placed it on top of an oven mitt on the table and served generous helpings with a spatula.

“Is there ice cream?” asked Paul.

“No, your body will have enough trouble with the processed brown sugar, no need to throw a bunch of saturated fat and dairy on top,” said Max.

“It’s delicious,” said Ariel.

Warm, sweet and soft, comfort food.

“Was anything foraged?” asked Dave.

“Yea, my attempt to procure some apples was successful, they were gonna go to waste, someone wasn’t harvesting the tree in their front yard,” said Emily.

“Does anyone want to finish off the wine?” asked Tara. 

“My pleasure,” said Max, “leave no lees behind.”

Empty bowls and plates, starve the trashcan. 

“If everyone washes their own dish, cup, and one pot or pan, we’ll be all set,” said Max. 

Everybody do your share; clank clatter, soapy swish, among the ammonia a whiff of weed, I looked over to the brown couch where Skye was finger picking apart a large nug on top of the guitar case on his lap, while Ariel riffed an acoustic tune.

“Hey Max, you have any papers? I don’t know where I put mine.”

“On the side table there.”

“Uh oh, only five leaves left.”

“Don’t worry, I’ve got more out at my hut.”

Table cleared, dishes done.

“Digestif anyone?” asked Skye as he twisted, “let’s take a walk.”

“Let’s go to roundtop, it’s clear out tonight,” said Dave.

“Yeah, let’s do it, think you could get us into the observatory?” said Max.

“Shit, not after last semester, no one turned themselves in so the whole department is under stricter rules,” said Dave.

“Man, one guy hotboxes the observatory and everyone has to pay for it, huh?” said Skye.

With sweaters and jackets we left the warmth of the EcoHouse, out of the backdoor and into the brisk evening spread out against the spangled heaven with a sliver of crescent moon, breathe deep the gathering gloom. We walked north, back up the hill to the observatory.

“Too bad we can’t get into the observatory and find Neptune in front of Aquarius in the southern sky, it just went direct in time to concentrate for finals, Mercury too,” said Emily.

“Don’t be a lunatic, the change in a star’s direction isn’t a celestial sphere in reverse, it’s a parallactic illusion from earth, which definitely doesn’t govern our conditions,” said Dave.

“Okay, so you go ahead and take your Ritalin,” said Emily.

“The idea that everyone born in the same month has the same life is obviously bogus, we don’t need to rehash this,” replied Dave.

“There are many factors besides your sun sign,” said Emily.

“Seems to me like it requires the same belief as any religion,” said Tara.

“Except the stars are real and observable entities,” said Emily.

Streetlight fading as sidewalk ended, eyes adjusting, sky darkening, stars into focus.

“Those five that make the letter M seem like they should be connected, is that a constellation?” I asked as we climbed north.

“Yeah, that’s the throne of Queen Cassiopeia,” said Emily.

“Far from noise and disturbance,” said Max.

“Where’s the big dipper? I saw it a couple nights ago.” I asked.

“Hiding behind the trees in front of us,” said Emily.

“Ursa major is just below the northern horizon right now, you can see it later at night,” said Dave.

“I spy the little dipper though,” said Tara.

“Which one’s the North Star?” asked Paul.

“Can you see the little dipper? It’s kind of hard to make out because not all the stars are so bright, but it’s the end of the handle,” said Dave as he connected the dots with his index.

“Follow the drinking gourd,” said Ariel.

“But beware of the bears,” said Skye.

“No worries, Orion’s got our back,” said Tara.

“He’s busy keeping Taurus at bay,” said Max.

“There’s no mention of Orion being a matador in mythology, just a hunter. But he can walk on water, ‘cause Poseidon is his father, he walks on the Eridanus river,” said Dave.

“Mortals can skate away on it when it freezes,” said Ariel.

“Where is the Eridanus then?” asked Emily as she looked up.

Dave pointed to the east while he walked up the hill, “Can’t see all of it right now, but you see the two bottom stars that frame his belt? The second star to the right is supposed to be one of Orion’s two feet, and that star, Rigel, is also the head of the river Eridanus, so it’s like he’s walking on it. So when you find Rigel then you can try to follow the constellation down, they’re kinda dim, it curves a couple times, I guess it’s a little convoluted, but it’s up there,” said Dave.

“River bank will make a mighty good road,” chanted Ariel.

Navigable with a bum leg. More sustenance by a water source as well. We reached the top of the hill, and turned around to look out southward, sprawling glow of electricity from town, mild light pollution beneath the nightblue fruit of the heavens where Orion’s belt gleamed a vivid trinity. Skye huddled for a moment at the side of the observatory to block the breeze as he sparked the joint, puff puffed and passed into orbit.

“Directly below the belt there you see his sword’s sheath? New stars are forming there, around the second star, that’s the Orion nebula, see how it’s like a luminary fog, means somethin’s brewin’,” said Dave.

 “If the universe is infinite then it’s just statistical probability that someone else is out there,” said Paul.

Pixelwinks of energy from something other than oblivion.

“But if we never find them it doesn’t matter,” said Max.

 “If a star explodes in space but we can’t see it, does the sound resounds?” asked Skye.

Brighter before they die, a last gasp or an atomic explosion?

“No, there’s no sound in space cause there’s no molecules to vibrate. Nothing that we could hear anyway,” said Dave.

“Thanks for droppin’ knowledge on us, Jai Guru Dave,” said Skye.

“Actually, the main problem is knowing an alien when we see one. I’d say we’ve already made contact, and you all are digesting some alien right now,” said Emily. Blanks. “The fungus is among us! Spores are from space! They’re aliens!”

“Ha, ha. It’s not alien if it grows in the earth,” said Dave.

“Well they’re not plants because they breathe oxygen and exhale carbon dioxide like animals, and also they don’t use photosynthesis,” replied Emily.

“Okay, but animals aren’t extraterrestrial,” said Dave.

“But also mushrooms aren’t animals because they don’t ingest their food, they release enzymes to break down the organic compounds that they’re going to absorb,” said Emily.

“Just cause they’re unique doesn’t mean they’re aliens,” said Dave.

“Well their spores have an electron density that is similar to metal, and there’s no real need for that except to survive harsh elements, like radiation or interstellar travel on comets or meteors, so that they can have their virtue multiplied among the stars…”

Foohwhissshhhusss huhhhhhhhhhnnnh

Bustle in the hedgerow behind us. Scheming sheriff? Ariel licked a finger and fizzled the charring cherry. We scanned the haunted frightened trees in back of us, no light, only an owl who-whooing.

“What was that?” asked Dave.

“Just a gust, the wind and nothing more,” said Max.

Sound that a ghost makes, cold shivers.

“This spot makes me nervous sometimes, too obvious,” said Dave.

“We’re hiding in plain slight, and plus we couldn’t see this view if we hid in the trees,” said Max.

“Not like we have a bong, can always ditch a joint into the woods if someone comes,” said Paul.

“Yeah man, I only use unbleached papers, totally biodegradable,” said Skye.

“True that, you got that little light of yours? Ember’s out,” said Ariel.

“Watch out for the whispering wind,” Skye replied as he tossed the lighter.

Flick, flick, flame! All fears of the forest are gone, no police, bears, stray dog, or escaped convict, or ghost. Tableau vivant: from this unbright cinder we looked up in perfect silence at the stars, ring around the moonlight, lustrous on silver faces in the night, no screen or ceiling, small faces unbound, uplifted into infinite space far above the world through endless skies, burning for the ancient heavenly connection leads us from this world to another, light from sources which possibly had ceased to exist before our presence, memory of nature through millennia of light years, hereditary skies, find one and name it after an ancestor, to my grandmother, Florence, buried ninety miles northwest of here, thank you for this weight. A moment to offer your own prayers. Thanks for the semester, hope my health holds for seven more. Thanks for Paul, he has been great, and this new group of comrades he introduced me to. Help me get good grades on the term paper and final exams. Could’ve been better this semester, concentration lulled as it wore on, have to final exam cram. Saved all the heavy lifting for the last two weeks, professors should spread the workload. Brief candle began to burn down to pinching thumbs and indexes, so Skye flicked the ember on the ground and smudged it under his moccasin.

“We shoulda brought our sleeping bags up here and spent the night, haven’t done that yet this year,” said Skye.

“Yeah, didn’t realize it was gonna be so clear. There’s a halo around some of the bright ones,” said Max.

“It’s like the shining ones stretch,” said Tara.

“I’d go get my sleeping bag if I didn’t have to be out at the field station at eight in the morning,” said Skye.

“Yeah, I gotta get up early and start throwin’ at the pot shop. We’re gonna start firing up the anagama tomorrow, so it should be good to go by Friday if anyone wants to come and hang out,” said Emily.

“I’ll be there, I threw a vase for the dining room table,” said Tara.

“Oh, and if anyone wants to come to the coffee shop on Thursday night, Skye and I will be performing,” said Ariel.

“Nice, what are you guys playing?” asked Paul.

“I’m doing guitar and vocals, and Skye’s bringin’ his djembe.”

“I mean what kind of songs?”

“I’ve got some new originals to try out, so you’ll have to come and see!”

“Alright, sounds good, I’ll try to make it if I get enough of my work done,” said Paul.

“Thanks for the dinner and the joint.”

Good night moonlight ladies, sweet ladies goodnight. 

“Of course! Stop into the EcoHouse anytime, door’s always open,” said Tara.

Invitation?

“Alright, thanks again everyone for all your contributions tonight,” said Max as he turned and walked north into the night while the rest of us dispersed to the security of our respective domiciles. Upperclassmen back to the EcoHouse and off-campus dwellings, Paul and I back to Sherwood.

“I’m glad we did that, I think they like us now. Is your stomach okay after that meal?”

“Yeah, it feels good, thanks for asking, I forgot what a home cooked meal tastes like after all that cafeteria food.”

“For real, my body was craving that, I can tell, gonna sleep well tonight,”

“It’s been a full day.”

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