Tod Marshall has settled into a nice little routine: Smoking weed at his buddy Thrasher's beat-down apartment in Wichita, Kansas. Doing a little speed now and then. Listening to tunes and watching Thrasher deal pot to a steady stream of visitors. It's around Christmas, six months after high school graduation.

An older neighbor named Kenny, just out of prison, is hanging out, too, when a couple of Marshall's high school classmates — on holiday break from college — pop in to buy some weed. Not long into the impromptu reunion, Kenny pulls a long knife out of his sock, freaking out the college boys who promptly make their exit. Marshall, though, stays behind even as Kenny pulls out a spoon and needle. And while he decides not to shoot heroin, Marshall parties all night with Kenny and Thrasher before starting the long walk home in the eerie predawn light, his exhaustion and intoxication not enough to keep his mind from working the night over in his head.

"Holy Jesus, is this going to be it?" Marshall recalls thinking to himself. "I may be afloat. I may not know what's next. But I need to avoid living in a place like this with a knife in my sock"/Dan Nailan, Inlander. More here.