We had become the frenzied offspring of Jackson Pollock and Carl Sagan, flicking billions and billions of neon-green stars across the black canvas of the football field.
Michael’s mother had sent him to the party with a supply of glow sticks she had bought on sale at the Dollar Store. Michael never opened the bag while we were there. Instead, the four of us slipped out at midnight with the sticks in our hands, and snuck onto the grounds of the private school across the street.
Michael was the first to bend one until it glowed.
Soon, we were running around the pitch-black football field, throwing plastic glow sticks up in the air, and then at each other.
Nuclear Glow Tag was born.
There was something satisfying about the thwack of a glow stick hitting one of the others in the back. And it was equally fun to barely dodge an incoming neon missile, watching it skip across the dark field until it slowed to a halt on the grass, still glowing.
This went on for an hour or so.
Caleb, with his pale green eyes and his giant hands, was the first to crack a glow stick open by accidentally stepping on it. He gazed for a moment at the glowing green liquid seeping out and onto the grass, and then had a brilliant idea. He started flicking the slime onto the ground, creating bright green dots that shone against the field’s deep obsidian black.
Amazed by what Caleb had discovered, we all broke open our own sticks and splattered green ooze all over the field. We were the creators of our own galaxy.
We were like the Jacksons in the video for “Can You Feel It,” spreading bright green stardust from our godlike hands.
Predictably, we soon grew bored of this and found it more fun to start flicking the ooze at each other. We furiously chased each other, forming a next-level game in the process: Projectile Glow Tag.
It was short-lived.
Caleb screamed in pain and collapsed onto the grass. “Oh shit, my eye!”
The three of us stood paralyzed over him.
Together, we were four fallen demigods within the fading glow of our makeshift universe.