Bright Ideas

Bright Ideas

It was a time when we were all together, a time when friend stood by friend in the fields and by the rivers while one of us thought of harebrained adventures. It was usually me that came up with the ideas, but every once and a while Barry would think of something totally wacky that even now I can still remember vividly. A good example would be the time when we found an old tire - a wacking great big one, one that was obviously off from a naked lady lorry or something enormous. Of course we did what anybody of our age would have done: we each took turns to clamber in while the rest would roll us down the steepest hill we could find. Safely coiled within the inner part of the tire, you would see the world go topsy-turvy, round and round until the tire ran out of momentum and you came to a stop.

It wasn’t until it was Barry’s turn that he had one of his “bright moments” as he used to call them then. Behind us, was a thick bit of woodland that eventually came to a busy road that lead into our village. What interested us was the budding rubbish tip that was slowly growing thanks to lazy people in cars leaving lots of crap and shit, such as old mattresses, broken Tvs and the occasional clump of porn mags. The latter was what obviously attracted us to the dump every fortnight.  You would find some pretty good top shelf rags every now and then, which we took turns to keep and each have a shifty shuffle over. That was until Barry got it into his head to wave it around during Geography one afternoon, which promptly got taken away, and him being suspended for a week. This time however, Barry managed to find an old sheet of corrugated steel and a couple of rusted barrels at the dump. His plan was to construct a ramp using the two barrels to support the sheet so that the tyre could run over it.

Surprisingly it managed to work, Barry went flying through the air at least a couple of metres off the ground. The next we saw of him was him crawling out of the bushes, scratched and beaten from the fall, but nothing serious. It never occurred to Barry that he should of test ran the tyre before putting himself in it, otherwise he could of landed anywhere; miles away from where we stopped without the ramp. That was Barry all over: he was far too busy being, well, Barry, to think of the consequences.

All of that is different now as I sit with Jake and Harry as we ponder over what to do with ourselves.

“No weed on you I suppose?” Harry asks us as if he already knows the answer.

“Not really,” I mutter.

“If we did have some, do y’think Barry would like us to get stoned while he talks to his shrink about his funny turns?” Jake asks.

“Well this is Barry…”

“Doesn’t matter I don’t have any on us,” I conclude.

“If Barry was here…”, starts Harry.

“Look, shut the hell up about this. OK?”, I glared at him.

I looked out to the quiet town precinct it was late afternoon and already school kids were pouring out onto the streets. Some were obviously looking for the nearest burger bar, while many were gathering around the newsagents like we used to did.

“Just like we used to did,” I say out loud.

“Eh?” asks Harry.

“Kids are making a bee-line for the newsagents.”

“What about it?”

“Because they….I mean - look! Isn’t it strange how everything has changed so suddenly? We all end up in sixth form with Barry, and soon after Barry gets all funny; won’t come out of his house and mess about with us. Spending most of his waking hours in a darkened room. It just ain’t right.”

This of course was all true though neither of us could explain it. One minute we had this devil-may-care character that was always suggesting us fantastic adventures and throwing amazing parties. Then the next minute he barely turns up to classes and when we ask him to come out, he tells us from his window that he isn’t feeling well and could really do with some sleep. On bad days he tells us to fuck off and leave him alone.

“Do you think he’s got a girl?” asks Jake with an innocent look on his face.

“Unlikely if he hardly ever goes out,” mentioned Harry.

We decided to cut our losses and out of lack of anything better to do, decided to go round Jake’s place to play Dungeons and Dragons. I called Dungeon Master since I was the only person in the group that was sad enough to remember most of the rules. It had been over a year and half since we discovered underage booze and the opposite sex that we left the “Forgotten Realms” alone for a while. Luckily we managed to remember where we all stashed our character sheets.

The game was a good one, only Jake was being a bit of a dick during the game by constantly whining that he didn‘t have enough spell components, so I got a random gypsy to put an evil curse which gave Jake’s character halitosis; which was somewhat bad for him; seeing as his character was a bard that had a proficiency in singing. But despite all the arguments, the dice being caught down the skirting board and wedged there; the game was a success. Something that we all felt was really worth our time in an odd nostalgic way.

I leaned back on my bad with my head in the palms of my hands. I looked up at my timetable: English Lit’ and Lang’; Geography and Maths were up there, but the only one that I was certain that I was going to pass was Maths, but that was only because I’m good at mental arithmetic. I can ace the tests without working up a sweat. English is a no-go, mainly because I hardly even bothered to open the textbook; and geography I hardly turned up to. I keep being told that I can do better, and I nod and agree with them and set myself to it, but then realise that I’m better off doing something else and get distracted.

Out of blue he called me.

“Doing anything tonight?” came a strangely familiar voice at the end of the phone.

“Jesus!” I cry.

“No Chris, it’s me Barry. Jesus left this place a long time ago.”

I laugh. He sounded like the old Barry.

“What’s up with your voice?”

“Pills the doctor gave me seem to be working, it’s just that they make my head all strange.”

“So you’re better now?”

“Something like that, yeah. Look, do you want to do anything?”

“Um, well it’s funny you should mention that, ‘cos me and the lads were going to the pictures. Dunno what we’re seeing.”

“That’s great. What time?”

“Somewhere around 7ish I think round my place.”

“I’ll see you there then.”

At seven on the dot Barry turned up. He didn’t look good at all, he just looked so tired and pale. Yet at the same time there was the old, crazy Barry with the lop-sided grin dying to come out; but something was holding it back in - his illness.
We went round the back of my house, down the alley and smoked a bit of weed. He didn’t say much except the odd cryptic comment about his doctor and how much he hated taking his pills.

We turned up to the pictures and watched some film, can’t remember what it was, since I fell asleep at the back. Barry started chucking popcorn at me for no reason, while Jake started farting loudly while Harry was trying to burp the theme tune of the film. In the end we got kicked out which is surprising considering how long it took for them to get their act together. They must have gotten use to us by now.

The streets felt cold for the first time this year, and then I remembered that it was soon to be autumn, yet everything looked stale for some reason. The streets looked the same, yet at the same different. Barry was walking along sullen with his head down, there was something definitely wrong with that lad. I looked out towards the countryside: there was a beautiful sunset lighting it up. It was the kind of sunset that just made you want to ride out towards it, or perhaps go up and meet it.

Not today though, maybe tomorrow I thought.