Toward, Against, Across, Down

"Noxious is poisonous, but obnoxious is annoying."

"Basically, yeah."

"So the ob lessens it."

"I guess?"

"How does that make sense?"

"Don't ask me, I don't make words. Gimme that joint." I handed the thing over to Justin. This is the kinda shit we talk about when we get high. Words become horribly fascinating.

"So... so... is, like, ob, is that Latin for less?" He was squinting hard, the kinda squint that really holds in a breath.

"I don't think so," I said. "It doesn't seem very Latin."

"There's a lotta stuff that doesn't seem Latin, dude, but it's, like, really Latin."

"What's the difference between Latin and really Latin?" I took the joint from him, finished my beer, opened another. We were drinking, too.

"You know what I mean."

"I don't! What is the different between Latin and really Latin?"

"It's like," he opened another beer, "It's like, there's Latin and there there's Oblatin." I tried to hold it in but beer shot out my nose. "Ha! Your aim sucks." He drank and thought for a second. "So... Which one of us is the ob?"

"What do you mean?"

"You know what I mean?"

I did. "You mean which one of us is the Objustin?" He nodded. "I don't know. I guess I never really thought about it. Why would I think about it? Have you thought about it?" He shrugged, telling me that he had. "How many times?" He shrugged, telling me no. "You think I'm the Objustin!" He laughed, and shook his head. "You're the Objustin?" He nodded, slowly, took a hit of the joint, drank from his beer.

"I," he exhaled, "am most definitely the Objustin." There was a length of silence between us. "I notice you're not jumping in to claim the opposite." We laughed. "Which is cool, ya know? It's fine. It's not a bad thing necessarily. I'd rather be annoying than poisonous."

We laughed again. I knew it. He knew it. What else can you do?

"Gimme that thing."