Creative: New York Day Three

War plans have been texted. Specifics. Coordinates. Operation 420, Washington Square Park, 4:20 PM. The first tracer rounds come not in anger but in love. Great arching prerolls zip from ground level to high above the festive crowd. Outstretched arms rise from below, fingers splayed to the limit, eyes wide with potential. Green Dragon, Sour Momma, and Mind Sneeze, commanders in the war on attention. Local pizza parlors and doughnut shops dig in for the Forever War, fortifying their positions with last-minute air drops of flour and sugar. Olive drab trucks deliver barrels of red sauce. “We know they are coming,” a local store owner said. “We just don’t know when.” “But you can bet your bottom dollar, we will be ready.” “If those stoners think they can overrun us, they have a surprise coming.”

“Do I look high?” he asked.

“Ya, you look really high,” she replied.

“Do I look high?” he asked again.

“Ya, you look really high,” she replied with doubt in her eyes.

“I think I’m high,” he said.

The first attack came just after 4:30 PM. A tripwire just outside Alpha Company’s foxhole sent a burst of orange high above the advancing troops. Alpha’s commander responded with a pencil beam of high-intensity smoke. Meat waves of smokers jostled for position. The battle lasted less than five minutes. Both sides retreated to resupply.

Meanwhile, across town. Easter revelers piled things on their heads and posed for legions of local snappers who at times outnumbered the participants. Colored eggs, bulging Speedos, and face paint merged to form a festival of sorts. Although the display took place in front of a church, there was no trace of religion anywhere to be found. Authorities kept the crowd calm with cooling stations for Instagram parents who overheated after attempting to pose their children in front of every reveler, much to the shock and dismay of normal people who could be heard asking, “Why would they do that?”