Verruca and The Wildlings — Ep3: Mother Marijuana’s Teet
A boy who loves his bev meets a chick who loves her pot. He doesn’t like her bad habits.
“Two sticks, please.”
“Isn’t it great that you can buy cigarettes here by the stick?” Nico was impressed by this retail scheme. He was at a local convenience store to grab a few groceries when he bumped into a backpacker with a backpack on.
“I smoke more than 20 sticks a day but it makes me feel less of a degenerrr…degenerate…when I buy the damned things per piece,” the backpacker confessed.
“Whatever works, aye.” … “Where ya off to?”
“Going back to my country, man. I’m catching the night…bus…to uhm…to Skratispa. I have a flight out tomorrow. Can’t wait…get out of here.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Yehnnn man, I’m bored. This here is zombie town. I’m renting a room, right, and I barely left that room for sisss weeks and…uh…the few times I did go out…err-one I met was stoned. It’s fahcking depressing.”
“What to do, aye. People can stare at the mountains for three hours, walk around the lake for two hours, learn a language, count their hairs, scratch their nuts bald…and still have 12 hours left in their day…”
The boys paid for their goods and stepped out of the store. The backpacker lit a cigarette.
“I jusss get drunk. It’s woo-hay more fun. I jusss finished my fourts…no, fissst…actually, sissst beer…and I’m…uh…still on a roll.” Burp.
“You look like you’re on a downhill roll, bro.” … “What time’s your bus to Skratispa?”
“One hour enn half.”
“You can chill at my place for a while,” Nico offered. “It’s only two minutes walk from here.”
The backpacker obliged. Pixel was sitting on her balcony overlooking Nico’s house when the boys arrived.
“Who’s the new friend?” Pixed hollered across.
“We don’t know each other. He’s leaving soon.”
“You guys wanna come over for tea and a sunset joint?”
The boys walked over and made their way up.
A flock of bright yellow parakeets suddenly shot out of a nearby cluster of bamboo, flying out into the darkening sky. The birds and their hectic chit-chat disappeared in seconds just as the sun dipped behind giant mountains.
“Woah! Did you see that?!” Pixel and Nico exclaimed in chorus.
Meanwhile, backpacker boy is taking notice of me. Pixel caught him staring at the mini creature above her eyebrows.
“You like my little pet,” she jokingly asked while lightly caressing me.
His sour face brightened up but didn’t say anything. He couldn’t make peace with the idea that she’s just another one of those free-spirited folk he often met on his backpacking holidays: head full of queer ideas; a walking cliché. Disturbed and curious if she might redeem herself…
“What do you get from smoking drugs?”
“I get to fly.” Pixel giggle-snorted.
Nico interjected and took it upon himself to offer his wisdom.
“Wisdom, man. They don’t call it the bud wiser for nothing.”
“They also call it the devil’s lettuce,” the backpacker slurred.
“That says a lot, doesn’t it? The devil appreciates vegetables. I bet it was the devil who first called it a jazz cabbage,” Pix commented. “I tried smoking ciggies only, but I don’t get deep thoughts when I smoke ciggies. I just get a weird headspin. Someone told me once that cigarettes are just empty joints…”
“So you need drugs to have meaningful thoughts?”
“Not necessarily meaningful,” she replied. “Sometimes the thoughts are really funny, but when I think deep about them they are usually quite…penetrating.”
“When we smoke joints we drink from Mother Marijuana’s teet. It’s nature’s milk,” Nico added as he blew smoke rings out of his lips.
Fahcking dopeheads, muttered the backpacker under his disapproving alcoholic breath.
“And dash when I know isss really time for me to leave this place…” The backpacker stood up, took a few clumsy steps, and fell back down as his knees buckled.
“You ok, man?”
“I’m ok…I’m ok….” He rested his head, closed his eyes, and drifted off to Snore Land and in a few minutes.
Nico and Pixel placed a pillow under his head and a blanket over his body.
“He looks cosy as f*ck.”
“F*cked…but cosy.”
