Chapter 1

first 3 pages or so of my 30 page story. i'll definitely be posting more. more thanks for reading

I felt nauseous in the car.  I felt hot, and sticky, and nauseous.  It made sense, after all we were packed pretty tightly into the SUV, and all the windows were rolled up…but still, it felt strange.  The pit of my stomach was boiling; I knew at any moment all my juices could froth up, pour over the capacity of my stomach, and erupt viciously out my mouth onto the back of the person in front of me.  Fortunately, it wasn’t to be, but my stomach continued to bubble as we drove down the busy street toward our destination, Central Park.

Sweat beaded on my back, stomach, and face as I looked out the window, suddenly craving the fresh air outside. The heat in the car seemed to be coming from outside of me, like some hot, muggy breath of air from within the warm, sticky lungs of a giant.  The SUV had become a hot, sick sauna, and was filled with steamy, dripping sweat by the time we reached the park. I felt trapped inside the car, and was overwhelmed by the urge to escape the backseat; I wanted to be free of the walls, and the heat, and the restriction.  I longed to feel the wind on my face and the ground beneath my feet, and to walk.  I wanted very much to walk.

We arrived at the park and finally emerged from the SUV.  The cool air was refreshing; it dried my sweat and cleared my mind of the horrible heat and congestion inside the car.  I entered the park on a familiar dirt trail I often used.  There were tall, sad, lonely willows hanging around the outside of the path, and the great glass library way off to the left on the other side of the parking lot.  We went straight into the heart of the park, and came to a fork in the road.  At the fork we were faced with a choice, we could go right, and sit down and relax-chillin, we called it-and wait and see what would happen to us there, or we could go straight, and continue following the path into the park, toward what I knew was a small, stagnant pool with foxgloves sprouting from beneath its surface.  Most of the guys wanted to fork to the right, and take a comfortable seat in the amphitheatre, but I hated the thought of sitting still, my body felt far too free for such things. 

I was trying to make a decision about whether or not I should stay with the group when I caught a glimpse of the sun peeking out from behind the willow trees.  I couldn’t help but stare at it. To describe its orange color as having been brilliant was to say the moon was far away; it was a grossly insufficient description.  The sun was so luminously orange that I cannot accurately express the depth with which I perceived its iridescent color.   The sun glowed orange and I stared; I turned my face away from it, for fear of hurting my eyes, but soon returned.  Again I pulled away, this time because my eyes were beginning to strain and water.  In spite of the pain and the tears, I could not divert my gaze from the bright orange sun.  I have not beheld one sight in my life that was visually comparable; in seeing that sun, I experienced color to an extent that is unnatural and unfathomable to the unaltered mind, or, the mind in an unaltered state.  I must have done ten double takes, looking at, and then away from, Apollo’s fiery chariot.  I was not going right at the fork, to a relaxing seat in the amphitheatre.  I needed to go into park; I needed to walk.  The mushrooms were beginning to take effect. 

After finally prying my eyes from the sun, I began making my way toward the small, stagnant body of water at the park’s heart.  One of the guys, we’ll call him Hai-the only other one who was feeling the effects of the psilocybin-decided to push on as well.  The beautiful, golden sunlight caught my eyes as it shined down on the gloomy willows, and bright, warm beams of sunshine shot through the open spaces between their branches.  Hai and I stood still under the canopy with our eyes up and our mouths hanging open, captivated by the beauty of the leaves; each one-every last leaf-was somehow in focus, clear as crystal, as if it were the only object in view.  I found that I was seeing the tree in its entirety. For the first time in my life, I was looking at something and seeing it all at once, rather than piece-by-piece; gone was the distortion caused by the mind’s ability to look at a small piece of an object with the eyes, and fill in the rest from memory. My mind was free to look through my eyes and explore the tree exactly as it was, and thus, to appreciate each part of it exclusively within the appreciation of the whole.  The ability to break pieces of a scene into smaller sections enhanced my mind’s aptitude for observing details; I could have counted the leaves on the tree, down to the very last, if I’d been possessed with the necessary patience; it was an illuminating experience. The ability to look at something with as many shapes, lines, and fine details as are contained in the mind’s visualization of a tree, and see that picture as a whole, and yet also with such fine detail in every last piece as to deride the very notion of a prominent part, was certainly a shock to the system.  The idea of an experience of that nature was not something I had never considered possible, or even thinkable, but still, it was happening.  Psilocybin has that effect on the mind-all psychedelics do in some respect.  The user experiences a unique mindset that allows him to perceive the world in ways he may never have imagined to be conceivable; colloquially, we call this state of altered perception ‘a trip’.

We emerged from the canopy, after urinating in the bushes for what seemed like forever, and walked in the direction of the black, stagnant pool.  Upon reaching the water, we found it to be intensely reflective; the black pond was a rippled mirror that produced ruffled, undulating reflections of our stretched, shroomy faces.  The surface of the pond was taut and tense, and appeared to be completely solid; yet it moved and flowed just as fluidly as water ever did.  The look of the pool was nothing when compared with my own perception of it; the whole place was gray and sinister, and stuck out among the trees and green of the park like the creature from the black lagoon sitting down at an elvish tea party.  Had I been placed there by God, or lowered in, blindfolded, by some giant mechanical claw, and before anything else, beheld the murky blackness of the water, and the gray dirt at its bank, and all the reeds shooting out of everyplace looking so wild an unkempt, I’d have thought I’d been dropped into the everglades.

Fortunately though, psilocybin is friendly to the user, most especially in a place where one can feel comfortable.  I felt comfortable in Central Park, in part because of the fact that I used to run there on a biweekly basis, but also, and I believe my feelings to have been shared by the others as well, because of its natural feel.  The entire park was canvassed with grass and open walking areas, but also had a path that meandered around its two major sections. The park was bisected by a busy street-and wound under the cover of trees and near playgrounds before wrapping snugly around the two large ponds.  It was a perfect place to take mushrooms for the first time; the natural feel gave us a sense of being free in the wild, but its proximity to home and convenient location, comforted us, and made us feel safe.

“This is excellent.” I told Hai after we left the black pool.  “I feel so good.”

“It’s pretty awesome.” He replied. It was a short answer, but he was right. “Let’s go back and find the others.” 

We decided to head back toward the amphitheatre to check on the other guys, but the path was gone, and that meant things could get a little odd.  It wasn’t that we needed the path to find our way back to the amphitheatre, but leaving the path would place us in unfamiliar territory once again, and when you’ve eaten a handful of dried shrooms, you tend to be a little excitable.  We hadn’t gone far when a wall of reeds sprouted up on our right side.  I thought it was unusual, so I eyed it to its end out of sheer curiosity, until my gaze fell on a slimy monster wriggling in the long, wet grass adjacent to the wall of reeds. 

“Dude, that looks like a f*****g anaconda!” I yelled....

...to be continued....

Author's Note

please let me know what you think: good or bad. I'll trade reviews if you read. thanks a lot!!

Reviews

[Marie]

I don't know what to thinkjust yet. I don't do boooks as a rule, but I'd like to read another chapter of this. An altered state experience is not likely to hold my interest, unless it mixes with other things.