My brother's voice echoed across the streets of Victoria like a foghorn. It had been damn near a year sence he'd reunited with any of us, and excitement shocked the air around us with the charge of reunion.
He hopped out of the truck he'd flown past in and attacked us with such powerful hugs that we almost suffocated in love. Sweet. Fernweh was back. We reminisced for a while, before the topic of substance abuse quickly arose. Our night quickly performed into a nostalgic blackout of belligerent proportions.
We awoke the next morning, enetirely usnure of where we were. Our abode consisted of a mass of plastic and tarpaulain surfaces all blowing up against our personal bubbles. Once our hungover minds had ascertained that all seven of us were curled up in a collapsed 4 person tent, we decided everything was okay.
That was, until Fernweh awoke and dove out of the tent. At that moment, the soft serenity of seven soothing breaths was ruptured, like our dreams, by obnoxious screams of "CHIPAW!" and "AWRHHGFH." His voice could rouse a comatose person.
Not one to miss out on the chance to wail and flail, I jumped up from the slumber and joined Fernweh in a storm of shouting. People slowly crawled out of the dilapidated tent, struggling to squint through the blinding glare of the sun so they could see the beautiful bluffs adorning the coast of Victoria. Once everyone awoke, we realized that we'd fucked up.
We'd made the biggest mistake in the book.
We'd awoken before the liquor store was open.
We wandered the streets, abject and depressed, before we realized something: we could spend our money on things besides liquor!! As we came to this realization, a curry restauraunt crested over the horizon and we found ourselves heading towards it. The deal was set: 14.95 a person for all-you-can-eat curry. We all split the bill evenly to ensure everyone could have their fill, then plopped down at a table.
The atmosphere of the restauraunt - beautiful, slick, regal - was so different than us - homeless, festering, and filthy - that the contrast almost impeded on us. We paid no heed though.
We were quick to make a mess, quick to pop the cap off a bottle of cider we'd forgotten we had and share it in the restauraunt, and quick to fill ourselves up. As mangled as we were from the night before, we decided it would be a good idea to purge ourselves so we could eat twice as much. As if the restauraunt was an Roman vomitorium, we headed to the bathrooms to spew chunks relentlessly.
Once we'd released ourselves from the grip of curry, we found ourselves in the brightness of downtown Victoria. Aids started spewing chunks on the sidewalk - apparently the curry, the remnant LSD, and the alcohol didn't mix with her. We felt bad because she was clearly embarassed, so Scrib and Fernweh jammed their hands down their throats and began to puke with her.
Nauseated by the scene, the two other girls with us stepped back in horror as the puke projected itself forward like cannonfire. I wanted to help - I felt it my duty - though I couldn't puke without some due cause. I grabbed a potato from the mass of vomit and dropped it on my tongue. I retched for too long.
Once the scene was finished, we decided we should probably leave Victoria. We'd made some fantastic friends, we'd had some crazy times, and we were reunited with our crazy brother. We figured the last few days we spent before starting our journey would be spent in Nanaimo - a place we could all call home.
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