Keeping a Stiff Upper Lip

"Yesterday, something strange happened."

"Yeah? Like what?"

"I found this stone."

"Wow. Sounds exciting..."

"Shut up. It glowed. Black."

"What?! How can something glow black?"

"I don't know. It just did."

"Show it to me."

"That's the thing. That's the strange thing that happened."

"Something stranger than finding a stone that glows black?"

"Yeah. Losing something is a lot stranger than finding something sometimes. Where do I begin..."

"Where did you find this stone?"

"I guess that's a good place to start. At work. I was taking the trash out to the dumpsters and found it lying underneath a half-eaten slice of pizza."

"Sick!!! You actually touched it?!"

"The bottom was glowing black. Of course I touched it. Anyways, I picked up the stone, and something just... came over me. I stared at it. For hours."

"What?! Are you serious? Hours?! At a stone?"

"Yeah. I was snapped out of it because one of my coworkers came outside to throw something away. They thought I had already left since my shift was over, but they said I was just standing there, staring at something in my hand."

"They didn't see the stone?"

"No. As soon as they called my name, I hid it from view. I walked to the park afterward. I sat at a picnic table overlooking the lake and just stared at the stone some more. It was beautiful. Otherworldly."

"Are you saying it came from, like, space?"

"I don't know where it came from. But have you ever heard of anything like that before on earth?"

"No. But it's not like I'm a geologist or anything. It could still be from earth. Anyways, how did you lose it?"

"I'm getting there. Anyways, it was getting late. Real late. And dark. So I got out my lighter to look at the stone more."

"Man, how long were you staring at the stupid thing?"

"A long time, OK. I couldn't help it. Anyways, I took my lighter out and the weirdest thing happened. Almost as soon as the light was made, it was sucked into the stone."

"What?!"

"Yeah, I know, right?! But, what was even weirder was that the fire was still there. A flame was still burning, but it had no light. Only heat. I was kind of creeped out-"

"Obviously!"

"-by the whole thing, so I went inside the bathroom area in the park to wash my face, you know, to regain my composure. Even though I was doing this, though, I couldn't put the stone down. It wasn't like it was glued to my hand or anything, but I just felt no reason to put it down. So I washed my face and rested on the mirror above the sink. I put the hand with the stone near the light above the mirror. And again, the light went out! It was absorbed into the stone!"

"What the hell, man. Are you shitting me? Is this some sort of joke?"

"No!! What would I gain from lying to you?"

"Whatever. Keep going."

"Anyway, I got freaked out again. I had no clue what to do. I went back home to my room and turned my light on, making sure to keep the stone as far away as possible from the light while still being able to look at it. I wanted to see if absorbing the light had changed it. And it did. I know this sounds weird-"

"Dude, this whole story is already weird."

"-but the stone was... blacker. But not. It's hard to describe. It kinda felt like seeing a new color that's not in the rainbow. It was- God, I hate using this word again- an otherworldly black. And it just made me stare at it more. I don't know why, but something in the back of my head kept telling me to give it more light. So I went around my entire house turning on all the lights and putting the stone next to."

"What about your family? Didn't they hear all of this?"

"My parents sleep through everything. I could be being hacked to death with a chainsaw by a serial murderer and they'd keep on sleeping. And my brother is away on his stupid 'retreat' (a.k.a. an excuse to get shitfaced in the woods) this weekend. So yeah, no one noticed me. I took it to every single light in the house. Even the light of the TV, the light coming from my alarm clock, the light from my laptop. Everything. Everything that put out the tiniest bit of light. Finally, after I went through everything I could get my hands on, I went outside. The sun was just coming up, but not enough to see anything well. So I went to the Starbucks down the street."

"Did you go to get coffee?"

"No, idiot. I went to look at the stone some more. I was completely into the stone. The employees gave me this weird look when I just went and sat down at the table directly under the light. I looked into the stone. It had changed again. It was........."

"Hey!! Are you OK? You just blanked out."

"Sorry. It's just... It was like looking into everything in the world all at once."

"What does that even mean? Sounds like some stupid ass cliche."

"I don't know. But I only looked at it for ten seconds before my eyes hurt so much."

"Like how?"

"Like when you've been in darkness for a really long time and you turn the TV on and it hurts your eyes. Like that, but times 50."

"Oh yeah, I know what you mean. What happened next?"

"I put the stone down to rub my eyes. I even screamed a little, it hurt so much. Those employees must have thought I was some sort of freak. It was weird rubbing my eyes, though. As soon as I had put the stone down, I felt some sort of emptiness inside me. Like I ceased to exist. So I picked the stone up and stumbled to the door, trying to open my eyes as little as possible."

"Wow. Emptiness, you say? Did it 'fill up' after you picked the stone up again?"

"Hmmm... Not really. It was kind of 50/50. It definitely felt different. I looked back down at it after rubbing my eyes and it looked different as well. Still glowed that otherworldly black, but just... different."

"But wait, that must of happened just a couple of hours ago. How could you lose the stone between then and now?"

"That's the thing. When I looked back at the stone, it started burning my hand. I dropped it, because it hurt so much."

"What?! You have to be making all this up. All of this from a stone?"

"Anyways... I poked it on the ground to see if it was still hot, but it seemed fine, so I picked it up again. I decided to go back home to figure things out. But as I was walking over there, it happened again. It burned me at least four times. See, look at my hand. And each time I picked it back up, it looked different again. Still utterly captivating and otherworldly, but more real and distant, if that makes any sense. Finally, I dropped it one more time... But it landed in the storm drain..."

"Fuck!!! What did you do?!"

"I just sat there and cried..."

"Cried?! Over a stone?!"

"You didn't see this fucking stone, OK. It was so... beyond anything. Beyond the world. I don't know. Everything I'd say not would just seem like a shitty cliche that doesn't really mean anything. But it'd be true. I can't do it justice. You'd have to have seen it."

"Geez. I'm sorry. I wish I had seen it. If it was that amazing."

"Yeah... I wish I could see it again too..."

"What happened after that?"

"I went back to my house. I walked in and my parents were up. They were really pissed off. They asked me why all the electronics were on in the house. I didn't give a shit. But I looked at everything and could only see a faint light coming from things. I knew they were normally much brighter. But now, every thing of light just seems darker to me. The sun, even. It's like I'm wearing permanent sunglasses."

"What the hell? That's so bizarre!! I wonder where that stone came from. And where it is now. And why it could do all of those things. Man, how do you feel after all of this shit?"

"Beyond dead."

--Till then...