:]

Right as I wake up there’s a nurse there who hustles over and says he’s glad he saw me wake up and tells me he’s giving me some pain meds and then he gives me IV Fentanyl and so I go from like “Ow ow ow ow awake awake awake” to “ooooooh fuck I’m floating on clouds made of rainbows” in like 6 seconds and so I was pretty out of it. The hospital had all the recently-post op patients all in one big-ass room, and they see patients for ALL sorts of surgeries, so I was next to an old guy who got his knee replaced on one side and some young 30-something dude with some kind of mechanism on his leg. So I asked him what happened since I was high as fuck and feeling kind as a result, and he said he broke his leg hiking off-trail when his leg went down a literal rabbit hole and snapped his shinbone. I say something like “damn dude that blowssssss” while giggling because I’m high as FUCK on actual fentanyl and he’s like “Yeah, for real, I’m feeling great right now though! What about you? What are you in here for?”

And I fully was not thinking like a person, I was thinking like a fentanyl-addled tgirl so I just go “Oh, haha, they cut my dick off!”

i was freezing cold and soaking wet so i took off my jeans and t shirt since no one else was there but a man walked in, in a full blue velvet tuxedo and when we saw each other in my state of undress we both apologized.

he said the men’s room was closed for maintenance and asked if i minded if he used the women’s and i said i didn’t.

he came back out of the stall and said he was tired and actually came in to rest for twenty minutes before he got back on the road and i said that was fine so he sat on the bench in the bathroom and closed his eyes and we were both silent for a few minutes and then he opened his eyes and asked where i was headed and i said i was meeting friends at some club and he said

“i don’t know why you’re going to the club when you could be going to Ravioli Night.”

i said, “to what?”

he sat up excitedly and began to describe what sounded like a black-tie ball, all centered on eating a multi-course meal of different ravioli dishes.

it was already ten at night so i assumed he’d just come from there. i said sorry i missed it but maybe next time.

he said, “it only happens every four years, but you’re in luck; the first course isn’t served until midnight.”

i said, “people gather at midnight to eat ravioli?”

he smirked mischievously and said, “until dawn.”

my dress was mostly dry so i pulled it on over my head and i said, “based on your tux, i think i’d be too underdressed.”

he said, “you can be my plus-one, and no one will ask.”

it seemed to me this man had some sort of major social authority in this mysterious, nocturnal world of ravioli.

i considered it, but i said, “sorry….my friends are waiting for me.”

he smiled sadly for a moment, stood up, and asked if i had a pen. i did in my purse. he wrote coordinates on my arm and said, “if you change your mind….”

then he left.

i walked outside and he was already gone. i got in my car and hesitated to turn the key, considering the thrill in my chest at the concept of so much ravioli.

Fish

i was incredibly dysphoric about my round face and softer features until i started looking at the faces of hispanic men and realized that those features weren’t feminine at all, they were ethnic features white supremacy had conditioned me to see as less masculine