By the time they figure out what went wrong, we'll be sitting on a beach earning...

[Shinsou Vaan Osiris]

Every now and then when your life gets complicated and the cats start closing in, the only cure is to load up on heinous chemicals. Little did Shinsou know it, but the party from the other night had served more than ale.

There was nothing more helpless and irresponsible and depraved than a man in the depths of an acid binge.

Was it five years ago with the cats? Six? It seems like a lifetime, or at least an era —the kind of peak that never comes again. Whitevale was a very special place to be a part of. Maybe it meant something. Maybe not, in the long run, but no explanation, no mix of words or music or memories can touch that sense of knowing that Shinsou, Storm and Breaker were there and alive in that corner of time and the world. Whatever it meant.

History is hard to know, because of all the hired bullshit, but even without being sure of “history” it seems entirely reasonable to think that every now and then the energy of a whole generation comes to a head in a long fine flash, for reasons that nobody really understands at the time—and which never explain, in retrospect, what actually happened.

"Right," Shinsou determined, "Fuck the cats. Where's this floor lava you're so fucking girly about? Let's deal with that first. Actually, no. Let me tell you a story first, about that time in the future."

The two men momentarily paused before nodding their solemn agreement.

"My central memory of that time seems to hang on one or five or maybe forty nights—or very early mornings—when I left the Silver Stocks half-crazy and, instead of going home, aimed Slepnir and myself across Radasanth. I must have been travelling at a hundred miles an hour wearing shorts and a sheepherder's jacket."

There was madness in every direction. Whilst Shinsou rambled on about his event, there was a fantastic universal sense that whatever the three were doing was right, that they were winning.

And that, they believed, was the handle—that sense of inevitable victory over the forces of good and evil. Not in any military sense; they didn’t need that. Their energy would simply prevail. There was no point in fighting on any side. Shinsou, Storm and Breaker had all the momentum; they were riding the crest of a high and beautiful wave.