"You know, you shouldn't smoke that much", Jackson said, after he had taken another sip; "It isn't good for you." The Jackal handed the Joint over, which was taken by Rusty to be immediately put into his mouth. "And you shouldn't start", the yellow dog replied; "Besides, life's too short to not smoke." Then again, he took a few sips and handed it back to Jack, who slowly sipped on it for another time. After only a few minutes the second Blunt was gone as well, what was left were two boys philosophizing about life, reason, and food. It wasn't until 7 am until Jack noticed what he originally was about to do when he saw the bus arriving at the station.
"Oh yeah, … I gotta catch that bus.", Jack pointed at the bus station where they met with quite a stressed expression while getting up again. His feet, however, had other plans, they practically felt like stones. "There's no way I'm letting you ride a bus at this time, stoned", Rusty looked quite worried into Jacks eyes, while holding him on his shoulder; "You need sleep? You can sleep at my place, I can't sleep anyway. Besides, you said you are hungry, I have chips if you want some." Their conversation didn't last long, Jack knew exactly that it was quite a stupid idea to ride a bus in his condition, especially since he can't really keep his eyes open. Since both of them were already standing, they decided to head into the building as long as their feet would still work. So, both of them grabbed their stuff and walked directly towards the great entrance of the ZP-Academy. During his walk, Jack felt different, like he wouldn't be facing Golgotha anymore, but something much better, like heaven. All of a sudden he remembered what Rusty just said about living.
"Is this living", a rather fulfilling thought came up in his mind; "Living may only be sitting on a bench for several hours with your homie and sipping on a Joint. Living is to experience life on its greatest extent, to broaden your own horizon and for this it only needs one night with one guy I originally hated? Ain't that wealth? Ain't that lucky? Could this actually happen to me? Luck?" With bright shining eyes and for the first time in his life, confidently, Jack took each step with absolute joy and when he reached the stairs of the main entrance, it was like he wouldn't only move upwards, on them, but also metaphorically, as they would lead him out of the darkness of the night. And so it was, almost immediately, after Rusty and he walked into the school, the lights went on and Jack was able to see the great hall in complete luminosity, as beautiful as he never has seen it before. It may have only been a school hall filled with the usual amount of light but for Jack it was paradise. The mixture of the old lamps with the newer LED models and especially this difference of color activated an ecstasy of emotions when the light gently touched the teens' eyes. You could compare this feeling to the satisfaction of a need you'd have for quite a long time now. Like on a hot summer evening, when finally, a fresh breeze of cold air hits you or the feeling you had as a child on Christmas Eve, when Santa had visited you after having to wait a time which didn't seem to end. Furthermore, all of these feelings were combined ten hundred times due to the amount of THC in his blood. However, it didn't feel like something which was evoked by drugs, but like an emotion buried deep behind the wall of reason, but his mind was finally freed. "We consist of emotio and ratio", again, the teens' thoughts brought him a total understanding of what Rusty meant back at the park; "One thing can't work without the other. We are hell and heaven, we are sin and holiness in person. The systole can't work without the diastole, we bear reason, but have a sexual drive as well. All of us were created by God, but we also came from the animal and we can't completely cover ourselves with the reason society and our own insecurity dictates us, as we can't only live primitively, we need to achieve a balance in life to get to the goal of true happiness. Therefore, wouldn't it be reasonable to back down with what I've regarded as reason for such a long time to also give space for my innermost drive?" Still walking, Jack watched everything in a rather curious way, like he'd be a scientist who has found a portal to a new world. They were marching through the west wing corridor and the Jackal inspected the beautifully decorated walls and the dainty ground in which there were some shells manufactured into. Some of them looked like they'd be smiling at him, which brought an even greater grin on his own face. It felt like he finally arrived at his destination he was trying to reach in his misery at the airport. Such beauty of life was never expected by Jack and again the many colors of some of the paintings went directly through his eyes to kiss his soul and hug it tight. He could have sworn that these lights actually were alive and followed him all around, to give him comfort, to tell him that he's not alone and to warm his frozen heart. At that moment Jack was looking at Rusty who was walking next to him in quite an improvised manner, the Joints have completely kicked in for him as well. As they were walking through a bridge corridor which connected the main building with the B-building Jack looked again through the windows to see the sun now being completely visible in the sky. Tears were formed in his eyes again, but he didn't feel like crying, it more likely was an attack of happiness he hasn't felt for a while now. Continuing through the tall corridors of the B-building both of the boys were quite silent, you could have only heard their steps and the heavy breathing of Jack who just entered a different world. The E-building was reached soon as well to which Rusty has had a key, with which he opened Jack the door to the residents in the school. While entering the teens tried to keep quiet since other people were sleeping at this time. Hence, they carefully sneaked through the entire corridor, went left to take the stairs to walk through another corridor until they finally reached Rusty's room which he slowly opened to make sure that he wouldn't make any noise. Whereas Rusty directly went into the now opened room, Jack was still quite insecure and waited for Rusty to make a movement with his arm that he could go in there as well.
What he saw was quite a surprise for Jack, he expected dirty laundry and magazines filled with boobs into Rusty's room. Kind of shocked Jack froze at what he saw, which was a really enormous rack filled with all kind of literature. It contained everything from Kant to Schopenhauer, from Hoffmann to Goethe, from Kafka to Camus, from Dumas to Dostojewski, from Orwell to Bradbury. "Have you…", Jack needed to clear his throat again while pointing at the tremendous amount of books; "Have you read all of them?" Rusty looked at his rack, then back at Jack while slowly scratching his head: "Ehm … yeah …, I mean, I ain't a nerd alright. Just something I do and I'll break your spine if you tell anyone!" Apart from the threat he just got, Jack was pretty impressed how literate Rusty actually is. In fact, he always judged him as being narrow-minded since he hates learning as he has always put it. "Rusty, that's amazing, I never expected you liked reading, what's your favorite book?" With still a quite defensive position, Rusty gradually considered, you could see him frown, to finally reach out his paw just to take out two books of the rack. Looking clearly embarrassed by his hobby, the yellow dog held Steppenwolf from Hermann Hesse and Faust Part I from Johann Wolfgang von Goethe in his paws. With quite an excited look his counterpart attentively inspected those books in front of him and took one of it into his paws to read the summary which is usually located on the back of a book. To his disappointment, there wasn't a single word printed on it, so he had to ask Rusty what the book is about. "Ah, Steppenwolf, quite a sad book to be honest.", Rusty sat on his bed while inviting the Jackal to sit there as well, which Jack gladly accepted; "It's a psychoanalytical book which plays in the Republic of Weimar. Basically the time in Germany between the world wars. The protagonist, Harry Haller, is a quite educated man and he sees the signs for the Second World War. Sadly, society doesn't really seem to care, since they are too lazy to follow his thoughts which brings him into a deep depression. Fortunately, he finds a woman who helps him out of it and shows him how to laugh and all in all that he shouldn't take himself too serious. Like I told you earlier, we shouldn't take ourselves too serious in life, we can't change the inevitable. You won't get lucky if you expect everything to work as you want to have it. However, he learns that we don't consist of one or two souls, but thousands of souls, which all make us what we are. Thinking about them as unity ultimately leads to destruction and mania. Therefore, we need to bring all these parts together so that they get integrated into a whole. We all are parts of a whole Jack and we need to accept that. In the end, he doesn't manage to integrate his souls, he even kills one of them, but the fact that he learned how to do it, how to live, brings me hope for the future." Quite speechless, Jack just sat there with an open mouth. "Rusty the poet! Who would have thought something like that about him?", in an admiring way his eyes gazed into Rustys, while his mind still sorted out what to say now; "He really is cute. What should I do, should I say something? Oh my god, he's looking at me, I need to do something, now or never!"
In his rush, Jack leaned in and kissed Rusty on his mouth, which was immediately returned by the yellow dog. Jackson's tongue formed its way through Rusty's mouth and their tongues were united in a dense hug between the two of them. "Make two parts a whole", Jack chuckled and continued kissing his counterpart. Both of them started to sweat and obviously were enjoying what was happening until Rusty freed himself from Jack to reply. "Jack, we are stoned. We shouldn't do this now", the yellow dog squeezed the other boys paw; "We should get some sleep now. You … you can sleep in my bed, I just go into the common room and read, I couldn't sleep anyways." When, he was about to go, after having grabbed a book, the Jackal stopped Rusty. "Rusty, I'm really sorry, it probably was the drugs, I'd never do such stuff. I promise!", Jack cried. "Don't worry Jack", Rusty has put his paw on the teen's shoulder again; "You don't have to apologize, you did what I told you. You tasted life and did something unconventional. I'm proud of you, you've learned about this subject more in one night, then I have in years, but you should get some sleep now. Goodnight." Having heard this, Jack carefully nodded and with that Rusty left the room. Still shaking by what just happened, Jack slowly laid into the bed and covered himself by the sheets. Trying to get some sleep would get hard, he knew. Now he was even more confused than on the airport, what was he supposed to do now. With his eyes being wide open, he still focused on a specific recapitulation on what just happened to him. "Fuck, 5 minutes ago I had problems holding my eyes open, now I can't get them to shut.", the boy rubbed his eyes; "What was that he said about souls? Everyone consists of thousand souls, was that just one of my souls speaking, when I kissed him?" In a struggling act, the boy turned around. "That's gonna be a long night", Jack sighed, while looking at the light coming from the window.
