To Come Home

Chapter 3: Bucky the Herbalist

*A couple hours before Phentyssa arrives in Vancouver*

Bucky was awoken at 4:12am by the nonstop buzzing of his phone. It was his work phone, well his 'night job' phone - the small black Nokia block phone with the green screen he kept locked away in his bedside drawer, along with his other illegal contraband.

Bucky?

Bucky man, I need stuff 2day.

Like now.

C'mon dude, plz answer

Ill pay u double.

It was Ronny, he was always hitting Bucky up at odd hours, and always with the same order: an 8-ball of coke, an ounce of any Indica, and ten xans. He needed his uppers, and his downers. Bucky struggled to muster up enough consciousness to sit up, the room felt as if it was quite literally spinning. He was drowning in a pile of books, pages from different books were stuck to him all over, from his cheeks to his feet. He had fallen asleep smoking a joint and reading up on some mythological history books and Sartre essays. He finally found enough energy to sit up and answer his phone:

Meet me at the usual spot in 15.

He grabbed the tray from his bedside table and rolled a joint, then throwed on his favorite hoodie: a baggy white hoodie covered in cartoon characters from the Mr. Men kids books' series. He navigated his way through his small and messy apartment to make his way to the front door. His place was just a basement suite, with one bedroom just large enough to fit a queen-sized bed and one bedside table only. He kept his dresser in his living room and used it as a 'coffee table' too. The kitchen, the living room and the 'dining room' (which was actually just the living room) were all condensed into one very small area. And it certainly didn't help that the whole place was littered with half drunken bottles of tequila, open books, pizza boxes, dirty clothes and joint butts.

He didn't like leaving the house without his tequila bottle lately, because being awake and sober always led him down one inevitable and painful path, a path going by the name of Lauren Atkins. But in his hungover haze, he forgot to grab one this time, so he'd just have to content himself with the powerfully suppressive powers of marijuana for the time being. Little did Bucky know that in the next couple hours and weeks, his whole life would be turned upside down, and Lauren would end up being one of the very last things on his mind.

The streets of Kitsilano were cold and empty at this time. The ground was still sparkling from the remnants of snow of the night before, the thin layer of ice glistened against the glow of the streetlights. Bucky walked over to his usual spot by the parking lot of Kits beach, where all the big trees were. He leaned against a tree, pulled out a cigarette from his pocket, and lit it as he awaited Ronny's arrival.

"Bucky!" a distant voice called. Bucky pulled out his earphones as Ronny appeared into his field of vision.

"Yo man, how's it hangin'?" they said as they greeted each other in the traditional 'bro' fashion handshake.

"How are things at the office?" Bucky asked as he pulled the coke, weed and xans out from his pocket.

"oh you know, they're going. This is the only thing getting me through, thanks man." Ronny replied motioning to the drugs, before handing Bucky a handful of cash.

"you wanna smoke up man?" Ronny asked.

"Nah man, I think I'm gonna head back and sleep."

"okay cool man, thanks again." Ronny said then walked away to his car and drove off into the growing luminescence of sunrise. Normally Bucky would never say know to a J, but he already had his own and his head was spinning too much to deal with Strung-Out-Ronny at that moment. He sat down at the tree, facing the beach, and enjoyed his joint. With every puff, trying hard to remind himself not to think of Lauren, better known in his mind as: She-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named.

Maybe I should've gone off with Ronny, at least then I wouldn't be alone here with my fucking thoughts, Bucky thought to himself. His mind, as could have been expected, did not comply with his desires. Flashes of images of Lauren's silky blonde hair trailed across his mind, leaving behind only the footsteps of the pain she caused him when she trampled all over his heart. He buried his head into his knees, his eyes welling up with tears filled with a pain he wasn't ready to face yet. He hit the joint hard, and long through his heaving breaths, making him cough a lot. He just wanted to be able to think about anything, anyone else.

At that moment, he looked up to the sky and saw the most beautiful thing. He had no idea what he was witnessing, but it certainly cleared his mind of all his troubles. The sky above the ocean lit up with aurora-like lights, lights which filled the whole sky with colors and blinded you to the sight of the stars and the rising sun. It looked the way Bucky hypothesized energy to look like during one of his epiphany-worthy acid trips. The green, blue and white lights seemed to float in the sky, as if the sky were made of water and lights were dispersed into it, scattering their energy throughout the night sky. It was an ocean of lights in the sky, waves of energy dancing with the clouds. The lights travelled downwards from the sky, moving like a wave in the direction of the beach. There would be occasional bursts of electricity-like energy that would erupt from the clouds, like a circuit in the sky had blown its fuse in multiple places. This whole moment must've lasted all of thirty seconds, but Bucky felt as if he was watching it all unfold in slow-motion. Something about it felt like more to him than your usual unexpected light show in the sky, something about it made him feel freer of worry, a little warmer in his core, he couldn't really explain it.

In the finale of this grand light show, the wind around him started to pick up violently, making his long blonde hair dance wildly to the wind's powerful song. Then, a blinding, bright white streak of light seemed to fall from the sky, like a lightning bolt, and land in the sand, causing a large explosion of light which echoed throughout the whole city that day.

When his vision finally returned to him, after the initial onset of the unexplained bright light, amazed by the beautiful event he had just witnessed in the sky, his instinct was to run towards the area of the beach where he had seen the ball of light fall from the sky, he was curious as to what might turn up, maybe an asteroid or something?

As he approached the part of the beach where he had seen the ball of light fall to, he could perceive a figure in the sand in the distance, almost touching the ocean. It looked like a large, white rag. As he got closer, he was able to discern the figure of a woman, in a dirty white dress, lying in the sand. Her dark, curly hair contrasted aggressively with the light tones of the sand. As soon as he saw her, he began to run towards her, urgently waving his arms around in the air and yelling out, "hello? Hello? hey lady!" He had to make sure that she was okay.

When Bucky decided to head in the direction of the mysterious ball of light - a beautiful, raven-haired woman is the last thing he ever expected to find. Well, not a woman, but a Witch.