11

11

Angus

I threaded my fingers through Newton's, digging the feel of the way we fit together. Maybe not the most efficient way to use a can opener, but a heck of a lot more fun than doing it alone. I squeezed his hand and he, in turn, squeezed the grip. Aluminum flexed. A bit more force, and then metal pierced metal. The can released its vacuum….

And then the air pressure shifted and the entire world seemed to inhale.

My breath left me in a gasp and my eardrums flexed. An involuntary yawn forced its way out of me, and then the sensation was over just as fast as it had come on, leaving me to wonder if I'd just dreamed up the whole thing. But the way Newton's soulful dark eyes had widened, I highly doubted it.

"You can't stop now," I said. "We're just getting to the good part."

Newton swallowed nervously, then gave the can opener a few good cranks. As the can turned, it shifted like there was nothing to anchor it down. It didn't just feel like it was lighter. It felt empty.

Wouldn't that be screwy—getting all worked up over a big can of nothing! But as the opener's blade circled around to its starting point and the razor-sharp lid lifted, I saw the can wasn't empty at all.

At the bottom was a single bean.

"Guess they don't call 'em the magical fruit for nothing," I said.

Newton rolled his eyes and groaned. "I can't escape them."

I tipped the bean onto the counter. It wasn't a pinto bean, or a kidney bean, or a garbanzo. Just a medium-sized, nondescript brown legume. "Well, Sir Isaac? You gonna eat it?"

"I'm not even sure it's food."

"There's only one way to find out." I picked up the bean, planning to feed it to him like a slave offering peeled grapes to his master. At the last second, though, I changed my mind and took it gingerly between my incisors, threading my fingers through his hair and pulling him into a weirdly intimate not-kiss. Teeth clashed as he clipped off his half of the Happiness, and we laughed into each other's mouths.

But then the bitten bean hit my tongue and dissolved…and reality went sideways.

Past, present and future collided in my awareness as, suddenly, I understood everything all at once. I was a zygote. I was an old man on my deathbed. And I was everything in between. It wasn't a historical list of dates and events I was experiencing, though, it was the emotion—but instead of the complex mire of disappointment and frustration that had colored so many of my experiences, I saw everything now through the rose-colored lens of happiness.

You might think you need the lows to appreciate the highs…but you'd be wrong. Each flavor of happiness is distinct enough to provide contrast, like a bag of mixed gourmet jellybeans you can't stop eating because each flavor is more tempting than the last.

I'd have to concede that anhedonia wasn't our natural state after all.

It was only a moment I hung there inside the allness—and yet, it felt like forever. I was so happy—so full—that it didn't even occur to me to cling. Grasping at the feeling would be like holding my breath. Doable for a while, maybe, but I couldn't hang on forever.

Letting go of the expansiveness was as effortless as breathing. And when I came back to myself, Newton's lips had settled fully against mine.

His eyes were closed. With a small gasp, he opened them and locked gazes with me.

The everything? He'd seen it, too.

I slipped my arms around his waist and bumped our foreheads together. A wayward breeze crept through a jenky window frame and raised goosebumps all over my naked self, and I nudged Newton toward the hallway so we could retire to the warmth of the futon. As I tugged him away from the counter, I caught sight of the can….

Which was no longer open.

Newton picked it up and gave it a shake. "It's…full again."

It might seem tempting to wonder if we'd ever opened it at all, but I knew in my gut that what we'd shared was one hundred percent real. Even if the flavor of that bean had vanished from my tongue just as soon as it had hit.

"So, what's the return policy at Val-U-Mart?" he asked.

"On the clearance rack? Usually, all sales are final. But I just so happen to know an employee who's notorious for bending the rules."

I could've talked him into keeping the can, but there was no reason to hoard the Happiness for ourselves. Because we'd seen it all—and while our paths might have only crossed in the recent past, our present and future were inextricably mingled.

And whatever happiness we'd shared, there would always be more to come.