In the dream, we’re floating on a broad white fluffy cloud. Crystal clear air around us, infinite miles of nothingness.
Sheila says, “Don’t fart. You might burst the bubble.”
“Shut up,” I say. “I’m not like that.”
“Dude,” she says. “You can totally rip one.”
“Dude,” I echo. “So can you.”
“Shut up,” she says. “I’m a lady.”
The glare I shoot at her could wither our cloud. “You can’t lie to me. We share a bathroom.”
“Not anymore,” she says.
“Long enough, though.”
“I can’t fart in the dorm.” She sounds wistful. “I mean, not as freely.”
“Now that you live with girls, you mean?”
“I guess. People I want to be friends with.”
“Your farts can be pretty foul.”
“Shut up. At least mine don’t sound like thunder.”
“A loud fart is a good fart,” I inform her. “I don’t go in for the silent-but-deadlies.”
She shrugs. “Smelt-it-dealt-it is a load of crap. That’s for sure.”
“If you have a load of crap, why are you farting anyway?”
Sheila narrows her eyes at me. “This has gone on too long. Farting is not a thing to discuss theoretically.”
I smack my fist into my palm. “You wanna go?”
“Hell yeah.”
“Anytime, anywhere.”
“Right here, right now,” she says.
“Loudest fart?”
“And smelliest. Scale of one to five?”
“Scale of ten.”
“Someone’s feeling ambitious.”
“I’ve been to middle school. You ain’t got nothing on me.”
“Three, two, one … Rip!”
We both fart as hard and loud as we can. I clench my fists and bear down like I’m dropping a deuce. It does sound like thunder, and in a matter of seconds the air smells like a gas leak, as it were.
“Eww,” Sheila says, fanning her nose. It’s not clear who won.
“Best of three?” I say. We rip, and rip.
Beneath us the cloud grows bigger and bigger, until we realize. All this time. We’re standing on a cloud of our own farts.
“Oh damn,” Sheila says. “That’s foul.”
I jump. The fart cloud bounces me like a trampoline. “Jump,” I tell her. “It’s awesome.”
She does. We bounce and flip and bounce some more. The laughter starts low, as low as the fart place in my gut, and spills outward. Sheila reaches across the crystal void and grabs my hand. We turn hysterical. We fart as we jump and the cloud gets higher and higher. We soar. The blank sky gives way to a starry night and we hang there, clear up in the atmosphere, just us and our farts and our laughter.