Free Futureproof by N Frank Daniels

of the lovelorn and cuckolded. We all end up just sitting on the floor, leaning against a wall in a hallway. In short order Trizden passes out with his head in Skinhead Michelle’s lap.
    â€œI like your shirts, guys,” Skinhead Michelle says after a long silence.
    â€œThanks, man,” Splinter says. We both look down at our shirts to see what we’re wearing.
    â€œOh, yeah, fuck Iraq.”
    â€œI don’t believe we should be fucking anyone, personally,” Skinhead Michelle says. “I think we’re only in Iraq for our own selfish interests and I figured that’s what you meant by the slogans on your shirts.”
    â€œYeah, well, that probably is what we meant when we made them, originally. But right now I couldn’t give a fuck, to be honest,” I say. “I’m tripping my brains out. I don’t even know what time it is, but I’ve eaten at least eight or nine hits since last night. And now my fucking girlfriend, who I am totally in love with—the slut—is at this very moment fucking two army rejects just because they could offer her a little cocaine.” I’m rambling but honestly do not give a fuck . “So to be honest, I wish there was a goddam war right now and they were right the fuck in the middle of it. Call me selfish.”
    Skinhead Michelle uncrosses then recrosses her legs, moving Animal Mother’s head to a more comfortable position. “Well, I guess I can understand that,” she offers.
    Splinter is soon bored and says so, asks if I want to wander around some more, but I’m done. Done in. I say I’ll catch up with him later.
    â€œYou wanna smoke a bowl?” I ask Skinhead Michelle.
    â€œSure.”
    We brazenly smoke right out in the hallway. I feel better. Less obsessed. Philosophical.
    â€œYou know how the hippies in the ’60s thought they were changing everything, all these stupid kids that had no real idea what they were doing or why they were doing it, dropping out of high school and making their way across the country to San Francisco?” I ask Skinhead Michelle. She is absentmindedly running her fingers through Trizden’s hair.
    â€œYeah, my parents were hippies, too. Now my dad is a securities broker and my mother has worked for IBM for the last seventeen years.”
    â€œMy mother was a hippie but she never got a real job when all the hype died down. Just married a lazy retard.”
    Skinhead Michelle hands the bowl back to me, delicious pot smoke leaving her nostrils and surrounding us.
    â€œLook,” she says to me. Her voice takes on a sentimental, soothing quality. “I know how fucked up you’re feeling right now. But you have to look forward, always. You think my parents are any better than yours? I never see either of them. Our entire relationship is based on some bullshit schedule they’ve designed around their careers.”
    I don’t say anything. I look at her eyes. Never leave her eyes.
    â€œLuke, nothing can stay the same forever. What you have to remember is that everything you do will one day add up to a specific, perfect you—the you you were meant to be. Everything we have done in the past, everything we will experience in the future will add up to the sum of its parts, at age thirty and thirty-five and forty and seventy. We have to consciously operate with that knowledge every day. That’s what I try to do anyway.”
    And then I’m crying and then I’m being kissed on the foreheadby Skinhead Michelle and then I’m running down hallways with no direction or destination in mind. Free fall. The fastest way to freedom.
    Â 
    The sun shining in my eyes wakes me. I’m under a black linen-covered catering table. There are only short flashes of memory as I wander around the now quiet hotel. In my head I see snapshots of myself stumbling into people. I hear their condemnations. I faintly recall sitting somewhere on the higher