Fate

"Hey dude, you want a beer?"

"Sure," I said. I had been walking on my way out the party to go home, but I could not refuse a beer. I took the beer from an Asian guy. He was standing against the refigerator that contained the beer. I opened the beer can and nodded at him and said "Thank you."

Outside on the back porch of the house there were several dozen people smoking cigarettes or talking to people smoking cigarettes or standing awkwardly in a circle of conversation and not saying anything. I saw my friend James talking to a couple of girls. I walked over towards him.

"What up dude?" he said when he saw me.

"Not much," I said, "Just chilling."

He introduced me to each of the girls and I told them my name, but then thirty seconds later I realized I had forgotten their names already. They seemed to be talking about Buddhism or something. I stood there and watched. Nothing ever struck my mind in terms of something that would be worthy for me to say.

I scanned the crowd and saw a dude named Ted from a sociology class I had taken the year before. He was talking with a couple other guys. One of the guys was seated at the table. It looked like he was rolling a joint. I walked over and said hi to Ted and then I went inside.

I saw a girl who was a drug dealer in the living room and I asked her if she had any good pills. She said all she had were shrooms and pot.

I said, "Fuck."

The party had seemed to die down somewhat suddenly in the past fifteen minutes. I began to leave the house and on my through the kitchen I saw the Asian dude again. He was still standing alone by the refigerator. It seemed he had decided that his fate for the night was to be the gatekeeper to the beer. He asked me if I wanted another one. I said no. By fate for the night was to go home and sleep alone.