The stoner’s friends watched as he loaded his pipe: he picked apart his trees, sprinkled them into the bowl, and packed them down with his thumb until they looked like a well-kept garden.
Then he picked up the pipe, and he passed it to the left.
His friend to the left said, “Don’t you want to take the first hit?”
The stoner replied, “If I were down or late or off, then perhaps. But surrounded by friends, on a night like any other, I follow the 5th Rule of Thumb: Give the gift of green. For while the one who packs may hit if they please, they gain much by passing, as the grass is always greener when it’s smoked by a friend.”
So the friend took the pipe. She held a lighter to the corner of the bowl and inhaled. She held in the smoke, smiled, and exhaled a cloud.
She laughed, and then she coughed. Her eyes got red, and her smile turned, and she passed to the left.
And each of the friends in the circle smoked and laughed and passed. The stoner saw the clouds and smelled the trees, and by the time the pipe had made it back to him, he was already high in his mind.
And when he smoked, he soared.