Darryl peers at his murky reflection in the aluminium rim of can number two.
 
“One beer, per idea.” 

This’d always been their thing, him and Kurt. A six pack each, no one gets to start the next beer ‘til he thinks up a new idea.

The third beer, that’s where they usually struck gold. That’s where the giddiness took hold, where their imaginations crept out from under inhibition. 

That’s where Kurt had found their best (and only) pub con, AKA “bent elbow telepathy”. It was the birthplace of meat flavoured ice cream. 

It was at the tail end that things tended to fall apart. The recent Cling Film COVID Mask test had turned frightening as a panicky Kurt had bent double and coloured up, unable to make noise enough to distract Darryl from a five-can piss.

Darryl thinks of Kurt’s very last last ever idea. Popular opinion (popular between Kurt & Darryl at least) was that a duck’s quack was the only noise that didn’t echo. So Kurt came up with the idea of a secret code built entirely of duck quacks, something an invading army could use for covert communications. 

Darryl might have pointed out that he couldn’t think of a single canyon-based Special Forces operation which might benefit from this dark art, but the name of the game wasn’t nit-picking, No, the name of the game was sinking piss. And so instead Darryl made mad-sounding duck quacks as Kurt had cracked the last can of beer he’d ever taste. 

Darryl’s last, high-impact idea was to play rock-paper-scissors to see which of them drove home. Darryl had won.

He remembers Kurt standing on a dirt bank swaying gently in the moonlight, keys dangling from his fingertips. He remembers Kurt steering with one hand, pointing with the other, and the rumbling as the car crossed the median strip. Then he remembers nothing.

Darryl stands alone, next to the old state highway. He peels the lid from the can of Flame, and closing his eyes against the sun pours the contents to the asphalt.

One last idea for Kurt. He drops the Flame can to the ground, stomps it flat. He limps toward home, knowing this last idea might just be their best ever.