I laid on the grass beside him, close enough to touch but not touching, far enough to flicker my eyes towards his every so often and wonder what he was thinking. With each blade bright green to the tip and the ground dry and hard, the grass had a synthetic sameness. The sky, overshadowed by the brilliant lights of the shopping center, held a dull blackness. It lacked the brightness of a starry night sky and instead, had two or three shining bulbs scattered here and there, like a child had been picking up the spill from a fallen glitter bottle but had missed the last few sparkles.

He pointed at a twinkling light within their line of vision.

"Hey, I think it's a star."

I focused my gaze on it for a few moments, responding with a touch of amusement.

"I'm pretty sure that's an airplane,"

We proceeded to stare intensely at the mysterious object, trying to tell whether it was traveling or not but never being quite sure, searching for signs of movement that may or may not have been present. Our brief investigation ended when I turned my head to watch a group of energetic elementary-school children to the side, singingly chanting "Ring around the rosie. Pocket full of posies. Ashes ashes. We all fall down!".

I looked back at him with a mischievously playful grin.

"You think they know what the song's actually about?"

"Oh don't tell them", he scolded jokingly. "You don't want to ruin their childhood."

I gave him a smile accompanied by a nervous laugh, and we fell into an awkward silence, leaving the conversation hanging in the air.

And as I laid there on the grass that wasn't grass, looking at the star that may or may not have been a star, hearing the kids sing nursery rhymes of death, next to the unfamiliar boy I felt I had known all my life, a singular thought formed in my  mind: I am absolutely certain of nothing. And I have never been more sure of this.
After this moment of great insight, I had clearly used up all I brain power because I broke the silence, making the intelligent observation that "the sky is really black, like REALLY black".