I picked Nathan up from being stranded at the
train station around 9pm. We went to
Del Taco, filled out bellies, and went back to his place after securing
bread and
orange juice for the journey ahead. My first impression, eating this drier-than-dry
powder was that it couldn't be unlike eating the ashes left after a
campfire stoked with cow pies. Mmmm. My stomach started rolling almost immediately, and that's where the bread and O.J. came in, settling the
maelstrom inside so the
poison could do its work.
After about 30 minutes of nausea, the
body high kicked in like a rush. Every nerve was alive and feeling nothing short of good. Nathan and I made sure to describe our experiences to each other thoroughly, and we were going through pretty-much the same thing, although our stages were timed different by a minute here and there. When the
visuals kicked in, it was just motion at first. Lying in a reclining chair, I was staring at the ceiling, watching the
stucco transform to several smoky layers and roil about above my head. It looked like white lava, and I just couldn't stop staring. Then the
colors kicked in. The elements of stucco divided into
purple and
green factions, tiny soldiers marching oblivious to each other, in time with the
radio Nathan had set up. This particular
hallucination occured only on the ceiling. I couldn't reproduce it anywhere else in the apartment.
After what seemed like weeks of staring, god-like, at the tiny world above, I began to check my other senses for effects of the
drug. The radio was
modulating in both
pitch and
tempo, coming in like waves and receding just so. My
skin felt like warm rubber, like a
dolphin's, and I felt slightly clammy, but every touch felt wonderful. We'd been in the room for weeks, years, and life outside was only a
dream. Ahh, to be a
druggie.
I'm not sure who stood up first, but we both learned the hard way that our limbs were
drunk and not responding properly at all. We stumbled about, laughing at stupid little things and treating
abstract concepts as tangible things. "
Why, oh why, didn't I take the blue pill?" The blue pill was an
Everlasting Gobstopper that wasn't even there. Nathan wanted to experiment with changes in lighting, so he went into his bedroom and stood in the dark for awhile. Calling me in, he alerted me to the fact that our skin was
luminescent.
Why, so it was. We realized that our eyes were far more
sensitive to light now, with our
pupils the size of dishes, resulting in our ability to detect even the slightest light
reflections on our hands and arms. I stumbled back into the living room, back to my
chair, my
throne. Nathan, after some
spelunking, found a
Japanese picture book called
Gon, about a baby dinosaur surviving in the wild. I read it out loud to him.
There were no words. After about 100 pages of this harrowing tale, the story ended, with Gon leading all the prey animals of the forest against a wolf mother and her two cubs.
I've never been so proud of a cartoon baby dinosaur. After more time experimentation, falling into the images of several magazines, and wishing I had a warm romantic
body beside me, three o'clock rolled around, and Nathan needed to get to bed. He helped me gather up my unused
musical equipment and carry it out to my car. We thought we were coming down.
We were wrong.
The path to the entrance/exit gate stretched for miles through a thick
jungle. When we arrived at the gate, I realized I had left my
cell-phone inside. I asked Nathan for his apartment keys, and began the long trek back to the room. As I walked, I passed by a thin black gentleman with a shaven head, nodded, and continued on my merry way. I grabbed my phone and headed back to the gate, where Nathan waited with all my guitar equipment. When I got there, Nathan informed me in
hushed tones that the gentleman I had seen and another were standing outside a red
Camero with an open and empty trunk, talking about us and all those 'big cases'. I told him we should head back inside, and figure things out. On the way back in, we passed by a
security guard, which made us feel just a bit safer, but not much. In his apartment, I decided I wasn't going anywhere that night, and now I had to come up with a plan to keep out of trouble with mom for not coming home. A glance in the
bathroom mirror confirmed my suspicions that I was still tripping heavily; my eyes being the sugar-glazed
saucers that they were. I got brave and called my mother from my cell-phone, informing her that scary-looking dudes were outside the
community gates, and that I decided not to bring my only
valuable possessions out into their midst.
She understood. I omitted the part about me having poisoned myself with
magic mushrooms.
She wouldn't have understood.
Now that sleeping arrangements were settled, Nathan had to get to bed. He went into his room, and crashed hard and heavy. I settled back into my throne, and became a
mighty oak, rooting down into the floor and the sweet sweet soil beneath. I listened to the sounds of electricity zapping about in the
fridge, the
air conditioner, and the
lights outside. They formed a
rhythm I could dance to, and my individual limb components started doing just that. I was
twitching for hours. A few strange
cartoons played through my mind. The concept of security was a
paper-doll cowboy running through a maze, looking for me while my dance continued,
unabated. When I finally did come down, I was on the floor wondering just how dirty that
carpet really was. I slept like a
rock.
The next morning, Nathan woke me up with a
grunt, and we went about getting ready to return to our daily lives. Nothing particularly interesting happened, except when a few dogs narrowly avoided a promotion to
roadkill status on
Roscoe Blvd.
The moral of the story, kiddies, is that
fungus is our friend, and though it is one of those friends you never want to give to much power to, it can be mighty helpful in passing a boring
Tuesday night. I hope you all enjoyed my
experience. I know I did.