Zee Novak reflects on the ear­ly spring of 2014, when he and Cyrus Shams were shar­ing a mod­est apart­ment in Indi­ana, just a year removed from their grad­u­a­tion. Dur­ing this time, their rela­tion­ship was defined by casu­al dat­ing, exces­sive drink­ing, and rou­tine activ­i­ties that, despite their chaot­ic nature, brought a sense of sta­bil­i­ty. How­ev­er, Cyrus even­tu­al­ly decid­ed to make a dras­tic change by embrac­ing sobri­ety, mark­ing the begin­ning of a shift in their shared expe­ri­ences. One such shift involved their week­ly vis­its to Jude’s house, where they were tasked with doing yard work, a pecu­liar rit­u­al that had tak­en on its own strange sig­nif­i­cance. Ini­tial­ly, they went there look­ing for “fresh gro­ceries,” only to dis­cov­er that Jude’s offer of gro­ceries in exchange for labor was lit­er­al. The sit­u­a­tion became more sur­re­al with Jude’s silent obser­va­tion from a run-down lawn chair, an ever-present fig­ure that both sym­bol­ized and con­tributed to the absur­di­ty of the sce­nario.

Jude him­self, a man with a disheveled appearance—balding hair and wear­ing worn-out underwear—was the epit­o­me of dis­ar­ray. As Zee and Cyrus car­ried out var­i­ous tasks in his yard, they couldn’t help but engage in drunk­en con­ver­sa­tions that added anoth­er lay­er of humor to their already strange exchange. Both men were high on fen­tanyl, which made the mun­dane tasks even more sur­re­al and dan­ger­ous. The ridicu­lous­ness of chop­ping wood, a task that requires pre­ci­sion, became a comedic back­drop for deep­er reflec­tions on their lives. At one point, Zee and Cyrus jok­ing­ly pon­dered whether their labor could be seen as sex work, an unspo­ken exchange of effort for goods that, while humor­ous, high­light­ed the com­plex­i­ty of their sit­u­a­tion. Their ban­ter, filled with self-aware­ness, show­cased a dynam­ic where they both found humor in their dis­com­fort, illus­trat­ing how they coped with the real­i­ty of their lives.

The sit­u­a­tion took a dra­mat­ic turn when Cyrus, while chop­ping wood, suf­fered a severe injury to his foot. The deep cut caused sub­stan­tial bleed­ing, and both men, already dis­ori­ent­ed from the drugs, strug­gled to respond with the seri­ous­ness required in such an emer­gency. Zee, the only one present to tend to Cyrus’s injury, found him­self in a state of dis­be­lief, caught between the shock of the injury and the sur­re­al nature of their sit­u­a­tion. Despite the grav­i­ty of the moment, the sit­u­a­tion almost seemed to be reduced to farce, with Cyrus’s injury becom­ing a top­ic of absurd humor rather than con­cern. Jude, the home­own­er, was even less help­ful, con­sumed by his own pan­ic, unable to offer any­thing more than min­i­mal assis­tance. This dark humor per­sist­ed as they strug­gled to man­age the injury, rein­forc­ing the theme of detach­ment and absur­di­ty that runs through­out their expe­ri­ences.

After the blood had been staunched and the imme­di­ate dan­ger passed, Jude hand­ed them a mix of cash, com­pen­sat­ing them for their trou­ble, and gave them an unex­pect­ed gift: a pair of wind chimes. The chimes, as strange as they were, sym­bol­ized the odd­i­ty of the entire inter­ac­tion, becom­ing a reminder of the sur­re­al nature of their exchange. That evening, with the cash in hand, Zee and Cyrus decid­ed to throw a par­ty, eager to escape the monot­o­ny of their exis­tence and add some excite­ment to the sit­u­a­tion. As they shared the sto­ry of Cyrus’s injury, the tale grew more exag­ger­at­ed with every telling, as they infused it with humor to make it more enter­tain­ing for their guests. The fol­low­ing morn­ing, the after­math of their par­ty left the apart­ment in dis­ar­ray, a reminder of the chaos that defined their lives. Cyrus, still slumped on the couch with his injured foot uncer­e­mo­ni­ous­ly dis­played, embod­ied the cul­mi­na­tion of the absur­di­ty that had come to char­ac­ter­ize their exis­tence. This moment, both humor­ous and uncom­fort­able, encap­su­lat­ed the strange blend of fleet­ing plea­sures and the inevitable con­se­quences of their choic­es. The chap­ter end­ed on a note that ques­tioned the nature of their lives—filled with chaos, humor, and a sense of helplessness—and the strange bonds that hold them togeth­er.