Thread: "Going Around" 957 words (Language Warning)

This is short story that is part of a collection I have been working on for a while now. Any and all comments are welcome, thanks for looking and reading. Hope you enjoy!!

It’s the kind of thing where after thirteen hours you look at your phone and say, “So it’s nine in the morning and, uh, what the fuck?”

Everyone looks at you, their eyes so distant from the material world that the mention of something like “time” sets the wheels turning like an avalanche. You can practically hear it in their heads: “Time? What the hell is time?” It finally clicks with someone and they yell, “Holy shit! It’s been like thirteen hours!” and everyone stands dumbfounded, like fish slamming their heads against the aquarium glass saying, “what is going on out there?”

The real question, though, is: what is going on in here? Acid kind of puts you in a weird place. It’s a lonely drug. Even if you’re with a group, like I was, you’re still on your own, battling alone, while the others do the same. It’s funny. We spend so much of our lives seeking comfort in others, and then you drop a few tabs and realize that there is no comfort to be found there. We are all alone in our own heads. You have to figure it out for yourself.

I took two tabs around eight, along with everyone else. They came on slowly, a gentle distortion around the edges. Then the distortion spread like ink and there was no turning back. Your mind begins to rush through … the first word I think of is space, but not like outer-space space. It’s like when you enter a large room in the dark and you can just sense the expanse, but here you sense the space within. It expands and expands until you encompass everything and your mind, soul and body are overwhelmed with incoming sensation that seems to have no origin in normal reality. You want to know what it is you’re seeing and feeling, but there is no precedent. There is a sense of opened perception, of sensitivity to something that is always there but with a mind full of daily life is hard to grasp.

Some five or six hours later Ryan and I got in the car, me driving, to go and get some more.

“You got this?” Ryan asked, although he didn’t really seem all that concerned.

“This is how it’s going to be,” I said, watching the road ahead of me twist into a kaleidoscope, “ I am going to get us there and back safely. I don’t know how, and I don’t want to talk about it on the way. It’ll happen, this I know, but that’s it.”

And that’s exactly what happened. You’d be surprised what you can do if you just jump in, let the water rush over your head, and go swimming.

Ryan and I took two more tabs each and it was over. Any hold we had left on material reality we shed like old skin. It is a strange thing to lose your senses like that. You learn how malleable reality really is, how open to interpretation all things are. The mind controls all things, and not just what’s in your own head. The data coming in from the outside is not absolute, it isn’t the same for everyone. There are over 6 billion other points awareness wandering around out there, each with its own unique set of experiences and its own consequently unique perspective. What is a person supposed to make of that? How can anyone claim to know? I guess you just have to do the best you can.

Somebody had the idea to pop a movie in, to give us something to ground ourselves around. As the movie started we congregated to it like it had gravitational pull. The colors were so vibrant and real, the sound so clear. It was a comedy, full of people yelling and acting like fools. The idea of moving images caught me, and I wondered what it must have been like two hundred years ago, when the closest you got to a perfectly reproduced image was a painting. Now we can point our magic boxes anywhere and save a piece of reality for ourselves forever. And what do we do with this miracle? We film people acting stupid and selfish, we film things that are not real, but we do it so well that it becomes difficult to separate the movie from life.

“The real world isn‘t like this!” I said and went off for a walk. The world is difficult enough to make sense of. I decided then and there that I didn’t need movies muddling up reality for me anymore. There is so much out there that does nothing but confuse reality, and people worry about drugs. The best trick the devil ever pulled was convincing people he’s in weed, mushrooms, and acid when really he’s in music, movies, and TV.

My walk took me through a park nearby lit by old, yellow lamps and shadowed by huge trees. The white bark and dark foliage towered all around me. I walked through them like I would the legs of a dinosaur. In the center of the park was a large concrete stage and amphitheater. I walked down the stands from the top and hopped up onto the stage. On the back wall of the stage, there was an open doorway that led to the other side of the wall. I took a few steps toward it, intending to continue on through the rest of the park, but stopped short. I sensed some sort of threshold, as if passing through the doorway would cause something important to happen to me. I faltered. I was afraid. I wasn’t ready.

I looked at the doorway for a moment more before going around.

I love this work. I feel I'm a little less likely to drop acid after reading this--there's no need because you've shown me exactly what it's like. Not that I'd have any way of knowing. Heh.

Everyone looks at you, their eyes so distant from the material world that the mention of something like “time” sets the wheels turning like an avalanche. You can practically hear it in their heads: “Time? What the hell is time?” It finally clicks with someone and they yell, “Holy shit! It’s been like thirteen hours!” and everyone stands dumbfounded, like fish slamming their heads against the aquarium glass saying, “what is going on out there?”

I loved this bit. Although now that i think of it: " 'time' sets the wheels turning like an avalanche" . . . is that a mixed metaphor?

The real question, though, is: what is going on in here? Acid kind of puts you in a weird place. It’s a lonely drug. Even if you’re with a group, like I was, you’re still on your own, battling alone, while the others do the same. It’s funny. We spend so much of our lives seeking comfort in others, and then you drop a few tabs and realize that there is no comfort to be found there. We are all alone in our own heads. You have to figure it out for yourself.

Brilliant. This is my favorite part.

I took two tabs around eight, along with everyone else. They came on slowly, a gentle distortion around the edges. Then the distortion spread like ink and there was no turning back. Your mind begins to rush through … the first word I think of is space, but not like outer-space space. It’s like when you enter a large room in the dark and you can just sense the expanse, but here you sense the space within. It expands and expands until you encompass everything and your mind, soul and body are overwhelmed with incoming sensation that seems to have no origin in normal reality. You want to know what it is you’re seeing and feeling, but there is no precedent. There is a sense of opened perception, of sensitivity to something that is always there but with a mind full of daily life is hard to grasp.

Love it. Hmm. Well, "Then the distortion spread like ink"? Maybe spread like ink on cotton? Or spread like ink in water?

“You got this?” Ryan asked, although he didn’t really seem all that concerned.

“This is how it’s going to be,” I said, watching the road ahead of me twist into a kaleidoscope, “ I am going to get us there and back safely. I don’t know how, and I don’t want to talk about it on the way. It’ll happen, this I know, but that’s it.”

And that’s exactly what happened. You’d be surprised what you can do if you just jump in, let the water rush over your head, and go swimming.

Love the dialogue. Seemed funny and absolutely dead-on to me.

There are over 6 billion other points awareness wandering around out there,

Should probably be:
There are over six billion other points of awareness wandering around out there,

The idea of moving images caught me, and I wondered what it must have been like two hundred years ago, when the closest you got to a perfectly reproduced image was a painting. Now we can point our magic boxes anywhere and save a piece of reality for ourselves forever. And what do we do with this miracle? We film people acting stupid and selfish, we film things that are not real, but we do it so well that it becomes difficult to separate the movie from life.

No, this is my favorite part!

It’s the kind of thing where after thirteen hours you look at your phone and say, “So it’s nine in the morning and, uh, what the fuck?”

I think this is your weakest line. Not that it's bad--I hesitate to even bring it up--but it doesn't seem to match the quality of the rest of your piece.

Great story!