NaNoWrimo2006: I: the Novel

I: the Novel.

2006-12-08T01:44:00.000-07:00

I used to think that when you died, it was all over, but boy… was I ever wrong.

[ Chapter One: Just Another Day ]

[ Chapter Two: Small Signs ]

[Chapter Three: Character Development ]

[ Chapter Four: And It Starts... ]

[ Chapter Five: The Ride Home ]

[ Chapter Six: It Comes and Goes ]

[ Chapter Seven: What's Going On ]

[ Chapter Eight: The Second (and third, and...) Coming ]

[ Chapter Nine: Ignorance is Bliss ]

[ Chapter Ten: Boot Camp ]

[ Chapter Eleven: Jay ]

[ Chapter Eleven-and-a-half: Rumination ]

[ Chapter Twelve: Lessons ]

[ Chapter Thirteen: Careful What You Wish For... ]

[ Chapter Fourteen: Growth ]

[ Chapter Fifteen: Awakening ]

[ Chapter Sixteen: The End. ]

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Chapter Sixteen: The End

2006-11-30T18:03:00.002-07:00

"And so, I'll leave you all with one last question." Danny smiled at the small crowd that was gathered around him at the old church that had invited him to speak. He was an old man now, and barely ever gave talks any more, instead concerning his self with preparing the end of his life in his own private school and community in southern America.

"And that question is: If you knew...If you knew that when you died, you would gain allllll the memories of every person and thing, of all that you currently see...If you knew that this would come to you upon death; how would you live your life differently, now?" He looked around at the group, slowly scanning, makin eye contact with all that he could.

He added, "And don't think it wouldn't work both ways, now. If you get theirs, they would also get your own. Will those memories be a positive contribution?" He paused another moment and took a drink from the glass of water placed next to him on the podium.

"Now, go on, thank you so much for having me here and listening to the ravings of an old lunatic like me." He winked, smiled, and slowly climbed down off the podium as the crowd stood up and the church halls were filled with the echoes of clapter.

The church's minister put his arm around Danny as he made his way to the back room, and reached out to shake his hand. "Thank you so much, Daniel. It was an honor to hear you speak."

"Oh, thank you very much, the pleasure was all mine. Quite the congregation you have there." They smiled and Daniel made his way to the back room to gather his things.

The room was empty at the moment, so he took the time to sit down on a chair and just experience this place. He smiled, straightened his back, and reached out from his soul until his spirit filled the room, greeting and honoring every thing in it.

It had been a long journey, he now knew. Over the years he had realized many things, and he knew that he had no fear of death, should it come at any time. It had been a long time since he'd been the sunlight of a star, and there were many lessons learned, forgotten, and learned again. Now, he truly felt like he was able to answer the question he had posed to his father long ago, and it made him smile to think of the dear dad of his, and the wisdom that he had sparked.

Who was he before he was born? Who was he now? He chuckled to his self acknowledging both the naiveness and wisdom of those words. He now knew that the question itself was the stumbling block. Who am I?

He laughed as he closed his eyes and sank back into the chair. He felt his whole self expanding past the room, and out into the open air beyond; he was greeted and acknowledged by each point that he passed. He smiled and continued, relaxed and unafraid as his body sank farther into the chair, no longer supporting itself.

His spirit expanded out into the world, past the stars, and into the universe as it filled everything with it's loving light. When the last bit of heat had left his body behind, there was no more void, only the fullness of all that is.

The End.

Chapter Fifteen: Awakening

2006-11-30T18:03:00.001-07:00

It was late at night, and the entire field where Danny's tent was set up was bathed in a bright, pale moonlit glow. Most everyone was asleep in the small city of tents and hovels that had formed around the event from the followers that had come just for this occassion.

Danny looked around a little bit, taking in the scene and wondering to himself, as he often did, how oh how did I end up here? he had sat alone in the large tent for almost an hour after everyone had left and his father had gone to sleep; it was hard work attempting to heal those that society's medicines had given up hope on. it would take about a week for Danny's own self to feel back to his normal, strong self. he would need much rest as it was easy to catch bugs and viruses in the days following a mass healing.

Looking straight up in the sky, Danny saw the bright light of the moon. He always smiled when looking up into the heavens, seeing the familiar rabbit's head that captivated his imagination when he was younger. The moon was one of his favorite things to gaze at, often keeping him company during long, sleepless nights. Again, the contrast was profound and he heard himself ask again, just how did I end up here?

His mind wandered back to a very special day in his childhood, the day that he believes was his first actual healing. They had had a pet goldfish for years, a promotional item that some restaurant was giving away when they first opened in his home town, that had turned into a companion for almost two years.

When they first had set up the goldfish bowl, Danny had been captivated by it: a real, living creature living it's entire life on his dresser! It was magical. As it happens with kids though, as time passed, so did his interest in the little fish in his room. Cleanings weren't as often as they should have been, and food was always an afterthought, either on his way to school or if not then hopefully before the boy went to bed.

One afternoon after classes were over though, Danny came into his room and saw his little aquatic friend swimming in circles, sideways, it's gills gasping for air; Danny knew that it was about to die, and it made him sad. His young mind thought back to all of the times that he knew he should have cleaned the bowl, knew he forgot to feed him, but didnt' do anything about it, and he cried. What could he do? Would his dad be upset?

Thoughts of his dad led him to thoughts of a conversation he'd had with his dad a couple of years earlier, the conversation about when he was the Sun. He thought of life, and his life, and how if he had come from the sun, then hadn't everybody else? If he used to be the sun, then it made sense that everybody else must have been the sun at one time, also. But, if everyone was the Sun before, then wasn't everyone really..him? His tiny brain grasped at the stated question; the idea hanging out in the middle his mind, but no paths connected to it to lead to actually understanding the concept.

He looked back at the fish flopping around in it's polluted home, and he thought, "did you used to be me, mr. gold?"

Danny thought about what it would be like to be a fish, to be Mr. Gold. He imagined his arms as fins, how they would feel as they glided, moved, pressing through water. What it would be like to breath out of his neck, and feel the rush of water past his chest instead of air. His butt wiggled as he imagined the large, single fin as his legs, propelling him through the water, whichever way he wished. It was all so real, he really lost himself in the idea of he, as a fish and he giggled at the thought.

He opened his eyes and saw the fish again. He didn't know exactly what he was doing, and wouldn't have been able to put it into words if anybody else asked, but he took that feeling of being a fish, and projected it onto Mr. Gold in front of him; being the fish while he was still being Danny. It made him sad as he mapped his own feelings onto the image of the crippled and struggling fish.

Danny could feel what it was like to be using only one fin, stuck spinning in circles. He could feel the hard gasping of gills as he tried to forcefully move water through them to gain breath. He felt the awkwardness of malfunctioning balance, tipping him to the side; it was all so sad, Danny wished he could do something for his poor companion.

Instinctively, the boy tried changing what he felt, so that it was more normal. He stared intently at the fish, while forcing his own fishness into correctly working again. he relaxed his image of his broken fin, feeling strength return to it just like it had been in his first daydream imagination. He smiled and turned relaxed his entire belly, balancing himself back to right side up, easing his feelings into his gills, forcing them to slow down and take in a steady stream of water. He felt good, it was no longer the harsh sadness of mapping his thoughts onto the body of the injured fish. He looked back at Mr. Gold and sighed as he bit his upper lip. "I wish you could feel that way again, mr. gold." Then he heard his dad call for him, and all thoughts raced out of his mind as he darted out of his room and down the stairs.

It was later, when he got back to his room after dinner, that he noticed that Mr. Gold was swimming around his fish bowl, back to normal.

Now, eight years later or so, here he was; in a camp surrounded by the sick who had come to him for help. He was able to see over four hundred people throughout the day; tomorrow he would have to try and see the rest. It was a pretty successful series of sessions, actually, people standing up out of their wheel chairs, cancer patients having the color return to their face and enjoying their first full meal in years, the elderly breathing freely, cotatonic siblings opening their eyes...it was a day of miracles.

They weren't miracles as Danny saw them, he didn't do anything that they weren't capable of doing themselves, he just helped them along and showed them the way. He had the easy job, it was up to them to choose health in the future, keeping a careful eye on their own energy systems now that they had been reminded what healthy feels like.

Danny made his way through the moonlit night into the rather large, tent which was almost taller than Danny, that had been set up for the holy man, Sri Ekman Easwain. There was one of his followers keeping watch outside of the tent door, when he saw Danny approach he quickly stood up and then fell to his knees, bowing to him.

"Um, hi, uh, no need there, hello. He told me to come see him when I was all done."

The follower stood up, bowed his head towards Danny again, and then opened up the tent flap, allowing him to enter.

"Ah, come in my boy, come in!" The old man was sitting cross legged on a pillow a few feet away at the other side of the tent, motioning for him to enter. Danny walked in, leaning over a bit so as not to rub his head against the top of the tent. The old man motioned for him to sit on another pillow that was set up right next to him, Danny nodded and sat down in the same manner as the old man.

"Very good work today, my young friend." The holy man was beaming a broad, toothy smile at Danny. "I saw most of the sessions that you performed, it was very exciting, a very promising time for us all. You are so young, and already a great, great healer!"

Danny nodded humbly, not sure what to say and still exhausted from the day.

"I am sure you are exhausted, please, please sit down. I will do all of the talking" he gave an exaggerated wink at the young boy. "i have a meditation I would give to you, passed down from my master's master's, to me and now, to you."

Danny's eyes widened, he didn't expect one of the greatest spiritual teachers in India to be passing down secret teachings to some kid from America.

"Yes, it is a very special gift, but I was sent here with the hopes that you would be ready, and now that I have seen you there is no doubt in my mind that you are." He shifted himself a little bit on his meditation pillow and put his arms out in front of him into a mudra, a hand formation, this one with hands clasped, his index and middle fingers pointing straight up.

"This meditation was developed by ancient buddhist monks, who would set up camp in graveyards, just to watch the dead bodies in their transformation from life to death, and back to life again. It took many years to develop, and even then it was kept very secret, only passed to the most worthy masters. Close your eyes, and I will lead you through it."

Danny's stomach filled with excitement, he had never been in the same room alone with such a highly renowned master, let alone taught anything secret by anybody! Everything he did, all of his meditations, healings and spiritual work were all his own creation, or combinations of various things he had read. To be here, right now, learning..! He closed his eyes.

"Now, this is called the glowing meditation of body-death. Please place your attention onto the big toe of your left foot. Now, imagine the flesh being eaten away, burning off into flames until you can only see the pure white, glowing warmth of the bone beneath." Danny visualized in his mind the flesh burning from his toe. The bone beneath was burning bright white.

"Now, go to the other toes in the foot, watching each one's flesh disappear until all that is left is the bright white of bone shining straight into your soul. Then continue, so thta your enire foot is bone." Danny did this, the master continued.

"Now, the other foot, beginning at the toes just the same, but stil holding the image of your bright skeleton that you have already uncovered." Danny felt like his feet were disappearing from his body, and held the image sharp and vibrant in his mind.

The master lead Danny through the same visualization for the rest of his body, melting all of the flesh away from his entire torso and extremities, until he was holding the image of a pure bright white skeleton all the way up to his skull. It felt amazing, Danny's inner eye was caught in an almost blinding brilliance of beauty.

"And now..." the master continued, "bring your attention back to that left big toe. Watch, as the bone disintegrates into nothing, into ash which is blown away by the wind..." Danny felt a surge of energy in his foot as he followed this next step. He was completley engrossed in the meditation, following attentively, without any other thought held in his mind.

"Now, the foot...and the other foot...watch as the bone pulverises and disappears into the wind all the way up your legs, your hips, arms, up your spine and into your rib cage, it all disintegrates and blows away..." The energy was surging now right below Danny's neck, he could feel it almost like an anxiety, a fear, pure love, anything, it was welling up and he felt like he wasn't going to be able to hold on.

"And now, follow it up..." Danny's ears began to hear a rushing sound, "your neck..." his head was pulsating with energy, the master's voice somewhere in the background behind the raging river, "And finally, your entire skull, until you are nothing, you have disappeared..."

Danny pictured his skull vaporizing into the wind, and suddenly he was overtaken with a violent rush of energy! He was gone, the world had disappeared, and only pure energy was left.

Danny's entire visual field was surrounded by an infinite, swirling void of fullness. It was beyond words, so empty of everything, yet so full of the entire existence of the universe. It spun, he felt it pulling him to the left, it unfolded in front of him, layer upon layer rushing by like the wind, yet him going nowhere; he was at the center of the spiral yet he reached out in all directions, feeling his self fill the entire void.

He felt that it was a delicate balance that he had achieved, and he could feel the slide in all directions for it to slip away, but his years of his own guided meditations and visualizations gave him the fine tuned control to let it carry him away without struggle, to fully experience the fullness of emptyness that he was now at.

The swirling stopped suddenly, and all was motionless, yet motion raged on just beyond his center, and he felt it. He was at the center of the universe, and that center was...he. The furthest, deepest point of his self that he could achieve, and it was filled with the entire universe around him, all existing at the same instant of time and space.

After balancing and experiencing the void, he gently tested nudging his self in a direction; the space unfolded, petal upon petal peeling back around him, and he could see the inner workings of that point, that specific area of his self, that point of space and of time. It was consciousness, awareness, each little speck. He zoomed in, and experienced the state of an atom of gas floating in a cloud, he zoomed out and was filled with a greater awareness of an area of particles, aware of the whole, but no longer holding onto the awareness of the parts.

He spun, it whirled, in and out, flying through galaxies and stars and people who's memories he realized were his own, though only when he became aware of them on one level, others flourished with other memories.

He focused on a star, and felt it's gases and plasma flicking up and licking the void of space. Looking closer, he experienced smaller parts of his own mind, the gasses bumping into each other, further still, and there was the wild vibrations of atoms, pure charges of energy in a static field around.

Looking closer yet, he saw the flicking of other, smaller, subatomic quarks, leptons, all randomly zipping in every direction, one disappearing to have it's self replaced in the same instant. He looked closer, and closer, and suddenly he wasn't looking at anything smaller anymore, he realized that he was looking down at his own self, in this tent; reality had folded back in over it's self and it was again at the level of his self.

He was taken aback by the visual journey, and watched as it all slid away from him, swirling and sucking into the vacuum of emptyness, the pure thought of awareness being replaced by the emptiness of a clean mind in a human body. He opened his eyes.

It was daylight. Flecks of dust danced in the air through the beams of light crept in through the tent's cracks. His mind was empty and he sat for a moment, experiencing the moment, feeling his own energy whirl around in his own body.

Danny looked to his left and saw the old master smiling at him. He put a hand on Danny's head and said softly "And now, you see." He stood up, and reached dow to help Danny do the same.

"Go, go back to your tent and get some rest now. You need one hour of sleep."

Danny began to protest, "But the sess..." The old master held a finger up to his lips. "Go, now. I will take care of everything. I will see you in one hour."

Danny nodded, and slowly walked out side without another word. He would take his nap, and he would help the rest of these people, and after that, he had much thought and meditation to do.

Chapter Fourteen: Growth

2006-11-30T18:02:00.000-07:00

"Ahhh, so you are the great healer that I have heard so much about, eh my boy?" The old man drew closer, his flowing silk yellow robe dragging behind him as he made his way towards the back of the large tent where Danny and his father were standing, preparing for the ceremony that was about take place.

Danny and his father turned around to face the man, and stared straight into the smiling eyes of a surprisingly youthful face, though the years did show through the tightness of the skin when his lips turned up into a grin. Danny gasped lightly and dropped straight to his knees in reverence.

"Your holiness, I didn't know that you'd be coming, I..." He stared at the ground, head bowed.

"Yes, yes, get up, my boy. This isn't no church, and you're no follower." He reached down for Danny, "C'mon up, c'mon, let me take a good look at you, young man."

Danny slowly drew himself to his feet; he towered over the old man by a good foot or so. "So," the wise eyes of the old man scanned over his face, taking in every detail, especially taking a long, deep gaze directly through Danny's eyes, almsot as if into his soul. "very impressive for a young lad at your age, quite impressive..." His face lost the look of scrutiny and he backed away slightly to see the entire boy.

"So you're the great boy of healing, are ya? Eh?"

Danny's hands fidgited a little, "Um, yes, your holiness. I am."

"I see! I see. And how is it that you do this, eh?"

Danny's face looked confused; it was a question that he'd been asked many times before by various people and reporters and other interested folk, but never by such a venerable master. Normally, he would come back with some simple excuse, 'the universe working through me', 'i just do it', or something else, but...but from the most holy person he had ever met? The great Sri Ekman Easwain, one of the more pronounced holy men of India, who has taught so many people through his ashram there, helping others acheive spiritual heights, and offering his self to the world's sick and poor. It was an amazing experience for Danny, to be bathed in this great spirit's light.

"Well," Danny began, fumbling around for the right words. Ohwell, he thought to his self, no use second guessing my words now; just go with it. "Well, I'm not sure the uh, technicalities behind it and all, but well, I basically move my own energy field into those that I'm healing. I visualize their auras and energy bodies as bathed in light, and then I relax my self into them, er, through them.

I guess I basically try and feel how they feel, and then I...I tune it as if I were tuning my own system. I guess I basically merge with them, and give them my own strength." Whew, that was a little easier to sa than he thought it would be; he took a deep breath.

"Mmm.." the old man nodded his head approvingly. "Energy healers like you are a great gift to the world, my boy. You have the gift, indeed, and at such a young age..." He reached out with a fluid movement to grab Danny on the shoulder. His grip was surprisingly strong for an elderly man.

He stared deeply into Danny's eyes once more, Danny's father still standing in the background, simply watching the entire exchange; still barel believing that it was his own son that was here, performing these miracles...

The old man continued, "Such a young, strong boy. You must have gathered some merit in your previous lives, oh yes. Some merit, indeed..."

"Merit?" Danny hadn't heard the term used in such a way before. He'd heard of karma, and the various 'laws' and such that various scriptures and teachings speak of, but merit?

The old man nodded, "Yes, the spiritual, um, currency that you collect through your lives. Good deeds increase your merit, meditation, spiritual work in general, even simple contact with holy men can increase your merit. And you, my boy," he patted Danny's shoulder, "you have definitely followed an interesting path."

Danny nodded. He'd always wondered if his gifts were just that: gifts, or if it really was as it seemed to him; that he'd simply worked hard, and understood things that most people do not.

The old man smiled and turned away from Danny to look at his father, "Look at me, taking up all your boy's time." he looked back at Danny as he began to move away towards a seat in the corner of the room. "There are a lot of people out there waiting to see you, my boy. I know you'll do them proud. I do request that you come speak with me later on, I have a powerful meditation that I'm eager to share with you." He turned around in front of the chair and motioned at them, "Please, go ahead and begin, I've been waiting to see you for some time, now."

The old man sat down in the chair, and Danny's father looked at the boy. "Ready?" Danny nodded as he drew in a deep breath.

His father and two of his servents went to the door of the tent, and slipped out. He could hear their muffled voices getting the first group of the sick and elderly ready to come inside. Danny closed his eyes and concentrated on his breath, he needs to store as much energy as he can to carry him through the day's worth of healings.

The flaps folded back, and there was a sudden commotion as over fifty people made their way through and into the empty tent. They gasped and smiled and laughed as they saw Danny, the person they had come so far to see, some without any money, from countries far and wide, just for a chance to be healed by the miracle boy.

As the weak and sick hobbled and crawled and wheeled themselves or led and carried by family into the hut, Danny waited patiently. There would be no speaking, he had already addressed the full crowd of over a thousand earlier in the day. He held his arms out wide, and the room muffled to a silent murmur as everyone got ready to do their own part, to help his energies heal them.

Danny spread his arms farther and farther, and closed his eyes. He drew in a deep breath, focused on expanding his self out through to fill the entire room with his spirit. There were many sick here, and the day was far from over.

Chapter Thirteen: Careful What You Wish For...

2006-11-30T00:42:00.000-07:00

The void's a bit disconcerting when you face it head on; no memory of a past, no thoughts about the future. To be honest, no realization of being at all. Just...wandering.

I'm on my way to my master's den right now, time to provide the answer to the koan he'd subscribed to me. It's a seemingly simple enough question, a supposedly small test, especially for a big shot Berkley univeristy student from America, come here on a research grant to study the zen principles they teach here. The zen teachings are fading in popularity in Japan, but gaining in the west, so, we want to make sure to learn as much as we can, while it's still being taught in it's native environment.

I was a one of ten students considered for this opportunit of a life time; the competition was fierce with all sorts of name calling and political campaigning, all the silly things you'd expect from a country that operates under the illusion of a democracy. As soon as I saw all the commotion that was starting to be rallied in the name of the project, I humbly bowed out, since I'm really not built for that kind of thing, and didn't have any intentions of changing then. Fortunately, that act was exactly the kind of thing that ended up putting me ahead of the rest of the hopefulls.

Arrangements were made for me to live at this rather secluded "monastery" far off from the big city life of Tokyo and the surrounding areas, on the edge of one of Japan's "sacred forests" . When I arrived though, it looked more like a nomad camp, sparesley decorated, roughly constructed huts that, while extremely sturdy and well made, looked like something in some sort of post-apolyptic b-movie. I was extremely happy to be here though, so I didn't let the rough accomodations really get to me; i barely even notice there's anything about them by now.

It's been five weeks since I arrived, and my training has been quite interesting, or rather, interesting in it's lack of interestingness, if that makes any sense. I've read many of the writers that have been heralded in the west as teaching the 'true' way to zen and I felt like I had understood them, but none of that has prepared me for the conversations with my master during this trip. He seems to see right through me, and is amused to watch me struggle to answer his questions, and not only that, but I swear the old bastard doesn't like Americans since well, realy most of his comments are quite mean spirited.

I've already been tossed out of his den twice; he'll call for people to literally throw me out the door if I try and persist in speaking with him after he feels like I've failed one of his teachings. I've been hit on teh head with rolled up papers and fans, stabbed at with bamboo, and had water thrown in my face during dinner. Everyone here seems to find it quite amusing and I've been a good sport about it, but really..it's totally starting to piss me off.

I've only got three weeks left before it's time to head back home and write up a full paper on my trip, give speaches and talk at dinner parties of all that i"ve learned, and what I could bring back with me. Last week, I pleaded with the master to give me another shot, after hanging around the other monks in this camp I was sure that I'd caught on to the tricks of thought and wording that the koans used, and I was sure that I could pass any sort of test that he could give. He smiled devishly, agreed, and gave me the koan that I am about to be tested on. The only problem is that I still don't have an answer..

It's a deceptively simple question, yet I still can't tihnk of an answer to produce...The question he posed to me was "Who are you?" and laughed behind me as I slowly exited his den in a crouch. Who am I? What the hell does that even mean? I"m me, I'm not you, I'm not that box or your mom, I'm.... nothing, simply blank.

One thing I have pickd up on in my time here is the curious way in which others answer questions; any question, actually. It seems that the more deeply philosophical the question, the more mundane and idiotic the answer. "What is the purpose of life?" somebody may ask, and the answer they receive is something like "I had two hard boiled eggs for breakfast this morning." or "i had a papercut once...youch!" The opposite is true, also, mundane questions answered with a metaphysical depth seemingly undeserving of the question. I felt like this was the type of trick I'd have to have when I gave my master his answer in just moments, though I had not a clue what to say.

As I pass through the grounds on a pathway that follows along a small pond, I notice a large bullfrog hop off out of the water, and right near the path in front of me. These frogs are actually quite common around here, they're practically everywhere. it's hard lay down any sort of food basket, or water bowl or bucket, pile of clothes or anything without coming back to find a big gulping frog has found it's way in. It's a big part of being here. I watch it a little more and change my direction a little so that I can pass nearer by it, making I can scare it or something or...

That's it! Perhaps that's an answer that will please that old bastard. I walk slowly the rest of the way on the path towards where he's still sitting there, staring, breathing; i look at him for a moment, wondering what his day has been like. With a quick swoop, I scoop up the large damp frog into one of hte sleeves of the robe that they've had me wear, and it actually nestled quite cooperatively into the sinking cuff of the large arm drapings. I quickened my step and hurried into my master's den, where he was waiting for me.

"Ahhh, so you've arrived. Please, sit." He motioned towards a small white and tarnished cushion on the floor in front of him.

I tried not to hurry and not be awkward, letting on to the prize I had in my robe sleeves, and sat down on the cushion, cross-legged. There was a small upside down tea cup on the wooden plank that he used for a table in front of me. The master slowly picked up the cup with an old, aged hand, and set it down again right side up. With a smile, he lifted a small, metal, scratched and unimpressive tea pot and waved it a bit in the air."

"Tea?" He always started out these things with the utmost kindness. I nodded, and he filled my cup, pulling the pot back masterfully at the last second, letting the tea that was still in the air sink into the cup, fitting perfectly into the small vessle.

I smiled, nodded my head in a small bow, and picked the tea to have a sip, feeling the weight of my companion as I lited my arm. I set the cup back down, and smiled plainly , wondering what was next. Was there going to be some sort of trick? Was I about to get thrown out?

"So, " he started after a moment of silence, "What is it that you have for me. Have you an answer to the koan I have assigned?"

I nodded and thought "here it goes..." as I reached into my shirt sleeve, and produced the bullfrog, placing it on the wooden table that separated us. I looked back up at the master, and motioned to the frog with my head that this was my answer.

The old man looked down at the frog, then up at me, then back down at the frog, taking a moment to stare at it deeply, without a word.

Suddenly, the old zen master lifted up his arm and snapped, calling out 'Juminao! Juminao!" which was the the name of his head student and assistant here. The younger monk slid into the den without barely the sound being made and acknowledged his being called. I watched as the old man said some fast, excited words in japanese which I could not understand (i had only a year's training in the language before signing up for this project), and pointed at the frog. Was it a good sign? Had I done well? Were they talking about my hopeful, budding knowledge of the ways of zen?

The master suddenly let out the most uproarious laughter I had ever heard, quickly followed by the bending-over knees clasped to chests laughter of his head student as they both pointed at the frog and spoke in their native lanuage between tears and convlusions of laughter. Oh no, not again...

"This! OOoo, this is very wise, young American! This is just so zen!" They bost burst into another fit of laughter as I blushed and looked down at the ground in front of the knees I was sitting on.

"This is nothing ! Way too zen. Reeking of zen! you have not learned anything, go out of my hut and do not come back for two weeks, when I hope you will have a less american answer for me." He pointed out of his hut as his assistant and student stifled back a few last snickers of laughter.

I slowly pushed myself up off of the ground and onto my feet, turning around with my head bowed low to head back out towards the tiny entrance. The master spoke again and I turned around,

"And this..." he said, and picked up the large bull frog that had just been sitting there patiently through all of hte commotion. "Here, take your promising student with you!" they both burst out into more laughter as I silently reached out for the frog, then hurriedly exited the den, scurrying back onto the path to my own tent, not sure whether to cry or be fraught with anger as I heard their muffled laughter echoing in the distance.

I barely saw any of the beautiful surroundings that had captivated me since I had arrived at this place; I was too busy beating my self up in my own head over my stupid, forced, foolishness. Bah, it would have been so much better to have simply answered nothing rather than trying to pull some sort of clever stunt... "reeks of zen," hah - it was true, I know, and I had fallen right into the mold that they had of every western moron they'd encountered.

I stopped by the lake and looked down at the frog. "Stupid frog, why did you ever hop in front of me in the first place..Grr! I hope you're happy with your self. Bet you got a big laugh out of that, too." I sneered at the frog and tossed him into the air out towards the lake. I had expected him to land in the middle of the lake with a plunk! and a bit splash, but well, unfortunately this was the first time I"d ever tried to throw a frog, and my aim was a bit off.

Instead of landing with a splash, he landed with a dull thump on the edge of the lake, where the water was much shallower than his impact needed for his general safety... I watched as the gently lapping sides of the small pond picked up his still body, still lying on his back, and carried him slowly towards back into the lake that I had taken him from.

And then, at that moment, I was enlightened. I ran back towards my master hut, eager to tell.

zzzzzZTTTTTTTTTTT!!!

Again and again, I wake up into the void; cold, confused, wandering directionless. Vague feelings and recollctions of where i may have been at some point in the past, in the mud, in the air, the dark... how long have I been wandering?

"Come on, I said cuddle!" The teenage girl struggled with all her might to keep the fluffball of a black cat held close to her chest, her frazzled blonde hair falling in her face as the feline struggled to pull itself up and over her left shoulder and onto the couch that it was being held captive on.

"Damnit, I said you're going to cuddle, and you're going to cuddle! Now come here like a good little kitty; you need to earn your keep, and your only currency is cuddles." She rolled over onto her back, placing the cat on top of her lean youthful stomach. The cat's legs were stiffened, standing striaght up in defiance. It knew what was coming, and it didn't feel like being held captive at the moment.

"There, now all you gotta do is stop fighting it and give in to your fate." She reached her hands towarsd the standing firmly on her shirt and grabbed it's legs, and swiftly pulled them out from underneath it. The cat's rear thumped down onto her belly as it was no longer supporting it's weight. "And now the other ones..." she similiarly cuffed it's front legs with her index finger and thumb, sliding them to the right, and bringing the cat down to settle on to her chest. The cat looked longingly out the window.

"See? Was that so bad? Now you get to cuddle with me and we can watch TV together." She turned her head to look at the television. Commercial break was over, and Law and Order was about to come on. Again. Both of her arms firmly held the cat, who's aggitation showed through the angered flipping of it's tail.

Cop dramas were her favorite shows, and she was quite pleased at the current run of them amidst the craze from all the television networks. WHen there was nothing on TV, there was always some sort of crime show airing on some cable station. Her only companion was the small black cat that her parents had gotten for her almost a year ago, back when all of the television models and spoiled celebrity personalities had started showing off their own fluffball cats in interviews and Hollywood premiers. She had seen some her favorite party girls with their Gucci bags sporting a little black fluffy head since htey had converted them into kitty carriers, and she just had to have one. Begged her mom for almost two weeks before she finally gave in and bought one just so her daughter would stop bugging her about it.

She quietly watched her show, whlie the captive prisoner plotted it's escape. It knew the routine, she would hold onto it firmly at first, but it was only a matter of time before she became distracted or her arms tired, loosening her death grip. The cat silently waited, tail wagging in anticipation of the escape it was about to make. It tested the waters, slowly lifting it's paws back underneath itself, as if it was only getting a little more comfortable. It did this, and the teenager's grip tightened again momentarily, but no more struggle came out of the tiny cat, so it loosened soon enough.

The feline squirmed, just a little bit, testing the waters. The girl was wrapped up in her show, so she didn't notice the sly, fluid movements of a cat with a mission. It slowly worked it's back end free and layed back down on her chest, not to give her any warnings or suspicions. She looked down at the cat and smiled. "Just what do you think you're doing? You must cuddle!!!" And she grabbed back on tightly as she rocked back and forth on the couch, feet slightly kicking up into the air. It's okay; the cat knew it's chance would soon come.

The show went on, and the young girl had not a thought in her head as she stared at the television, letting the images flow seamlessly into her awareness and back out again. The cat's ear's pointed in various directions, listening to the creaking sounds around the house, the television program, the dishwasher in the livingroom. Scanning, scanning...any unfamiliar sounds? No, all accounted for. Good, because it wasn't in much of a position to do anything about the swift investigation of new ones, anyway. The deathgrip the girl held on the cat had loosened, but the time was not yet right. There was more waiting to be done.

A commercial came onto the TV set and the girl stretched her full body out on a deep yawn. Her toes pointed, her neck craned and went back a little, her shoulders nudged, but the arm which was holding the cat did not move an inch. The cat's deep yellow, owl-like eyes darted around the room as they bolged out of it's head...just another minute...one more....minute...

The girl leaned up to grab a blanket that was draped over the couch, and it all fell into place. Sat up, grip loosened, arm grabbed, and the cat pounced, pushing it's fully extended legs with full force, reaching out in front of it as the front paws hit the ground running, claws out, full grip and high speed. The girl, caught off guard, lets out a whimper.

"Fine! Leave now, but I know you'll be back to cuddle later!" She was right, too. The cat did find it handy to sleep next to a warm human body when during one of the many nap times during the day. Now was not nap time, though, now was for prowling and playing. It darted underneath the coffee table in the livingroom, folding all of it's legs underneath itself to stare out the patio door, tail still forcefully wagging from the excitement. Now to see what was hapening out the window.

It was a half hour later when there was a sudden knock at the door. The cat startled, long forgotten about the previous cuddle encounter, and came out from scratching behind the couch to investigate the noise.

The girl got up from the couch, her hair frazzled, not happy for the interruption. She stomped her way into the living room and up to the door and swung it open forcefully.

"Hello there! UPS - package for, Jane?"

"Yeah, that's my mom..." she muttered, not having looked up yet.

"Sign here, please." The delivery man passed her the electronic tablet for her put her signature on. She grabbed it, but then looked up at the man that had interrupted her shows.

"Oh, hello there!" The delivery man was a tall, 20-somethings boy with a muscular build, and oh the uniform! She was suddenly overtaken with the urge to flirt.

"Hi, thanks for the package. That is so cool to deliver boxes all day! Realy must keep you in shape. One time, last summer, I had to help my dad with the lawn? And i had to carry all these bricks back and forth one by one from the front yard into the back yard and oh my god, i swear I must have lost like 20 pounds and put on some killer muscles, I mean it!"

The delivery guy didn't seem too interested in flirting at the moment, packages had to be delivered, he was about to take his lunch. But, he guessed there was always time to be flirted with by some cute young thing. "That's uh, that's nice. Yeah, uh I guess it does really help and all, you know."

"Yeah, and...?" She kept on talking, both of them looking at each other, temporarily oblivious of their surroundings; oblivious to the slow, deliberate, butt-wiggling of a cat just feet away in the background...

With a swift lunge, the cat was out, sailing past the feet of the girl and the delivery guy, and out onto the porch! Oh after so long, waiting for that door, the moment had come and it was now! Nothing to do, no time to think, just run as fast as you can, fast away from this house of dry food and cuddles. The smell from the windows, the hardness beneath it's paws, the colors and immensity of the whole thing! It was finally free!

The cat was so preoccupied with the sensory overload of the situation, that all it could think to do was run, as swift as the wind. That's why it wasn't paying too much attention to it's peripheral vision at a crucial moment, when an extra, unidentified sound entered it's ears...The sound of the car speeding along the road, that didn't notice a cat obstacle until the very last second and...smack!

"Nooooo!!!" The girl screamed as she ran past the delivery guy just in time to see the carnage and the limp body in the street. She bursts into tears, crying out, "Cuuuddles!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

zzzzzZTTTTTTTTTTT!!!

This place is always strangely familiar, yet completely perplexing. Images shift in and out of vision, clouds of colored smoke cloud the awareness, and scenes of the most terrifying and comforting manner exchange from one to another... Still, I wander, though attracted towards an image, an image of man. Man and women, united...

"Daddy?" the young boy of four and a half years followed his arm up to his see his father who's hand was holding his. The young father looked back down at the child.

"Yeah, Danny?" He beamed a smile at the boy, who he thought had the most adorable quizzicle look on his face amidst his tussled blond locks. The boy continued.

"I wanted to ask you. Who was I before I was born?"

"Whoa there, tiger." The father was impressed. "That's quite the tough question you've got there. What brings this on?"

Danny shrugged in an exaggerated manner, "I dunno. I was just thinking's all."

"Well, okay, I told you I'd try to answer any question you had for me. Let me think.." He put his hands up to his chin in another exaggerated expression, that of deep thought. He really was in deep thought, though, what do you say to a kid's question like that? Hand still on his chin, he looked down sideways at the boy, "How long before you were born?"

"Umm..." the boy's eyes looked up and around, "really long. really really long."

Good, that might make it a little easier. "Hmmm, okay, well... really really long ago? You were...The Sun."

Young Danny's eyes widened and he stared straight up at his father. "The Sun?? I was the Sun?"

"Sure! Sure you were, Danny." The father got down on one knee to be closer to the boy's level. "Y'see, all the plants that've been on the planet since before the dinosaurs, have all used the Sun's light for food!" He motioned up at the sky, "and then all the animals that have ever lived, have eaten all the plants for food. And then now we're here, eating the animals, and using them for food. Food makes new plants, and animals, and people, so..." he looked back down at the boy, "long before you were born, you were the Sun." He nodded with a feel of finality about it, stood back up, and grabbed back on to the boy's hand. They started walking.

"Wooow. I didn't know that I used to be the Sun!" Danny's small legs tried to step as fast as they could to keep up with his dad's. "So...so, daddy? Why don'I remember being the sun?"

"Well, sport," he looked back down at the boy, slowing his pace a little when he saw how much effort the little guy was putting in to keeping up with him, "that's because we only remember things that our brain records for us, and it wasn't in the shape of a brain at the time back then, so, well, no memories." He shrugged, and looked back to pay attention to where they were going.

The boy's eyes gleamed with admiration as he tried not to stumble on the rocks on the path in front of them."You're really smart, daddy." The dad just smiled back at the boy, winked at him, and kept on walking.

It would be years until he realized that this explanation wasn't quite the whole story, but right now, it captivated his imagination, almost exactly like his dad was hoping.

Chapter Eleven-and-a-half: Rumination

2006-11-27T00:56:00.000-07:00

I stepped out back, onto Jay's small, ghetto back porch, and iinto the cool night air. It was definitely getting down in temperature; I thought back to the weatherman I heard Jenn listening to that warned of a cold fron that was heading in. Even though it was cold, it felt comfortable; my body temp always feels like it rockets after a tapping session, and my skin still felt a little damp from the after-effects.

I plopped myself down with a light thump into the old, raggedy seventies-green couch that Jay'd tossed outside for times like this. It added a bit of comfort to the tiny, bare backyard, but also gave it that california hood type of charm. It worked because there was a shoddy little overhang stretching out from the house a couple of feet to keep it dry during the summer rains and winter snow, but it was a little spooky due to the occassional spider and other bugs you saw, those that made it their home and shelter from the same climate changes.

There was a pack of Camel's on the wooden crate-made-table in front of me. Yeah, that sounds good, a nice smoke, steady the nerves or whatever. I knew it would actually do the opposite physically, my heart racing a little faster, my hands a little more shaky, but it'd do; a little more mixture to try and reach that homeostatis we biologically crave.

As I picked up the old match book beside the ashtray, I thought back to my last tapping session. Man, how the odd fuck is all that shit, huh? Definitely an odd situation to be in. Huh, I seem to have that thought pretty often; is that what keeps me coming back?

I leaned back in the chair, watching the smoke dance in the night air. The dense cigarette smoke seemed to swirl and dance and play with the moisture in my breath. I closed my eyes, leaned back, and just let my mind calm down as I listened to all the sounds of the night that surrounded me on this cold evening. There weren't many bugs or anything, them having long packed up to go to sleep deep below the ground; there was the general white noise of the chilled air rushing around, the occasional car, brussling of trees, and then a light drip of water out of somebody's gutter, tap...tap, onto a damp concrete. I heard my self exhale, smelled the sweet, pleasurable stench of the cigarette smoke around me. I took another breath and then had the faint realization of a musical score that I was listening to.

There on the patio, without much effort at first, I was hearing the euphonious, rhythmic musical score of the world around me. It all made sense. I heard the constant, steady beat of the gutter, the background ambiance of the wind, the percussion of the bussling trees, and the occassional accent of a double-drip onto the concrete....tap...tap...tap...tip-tap... I was listening to the orchestration of my surroundings; the music of the world, of nature, of this moment. It was beautiful but fleeting, it slowly slipping away, but my own ear tuning it back in with greater effort each time.

I was lost in thought as the symphony faded into the background and my mind came forward. I thought of something I'd heard about people that are "tone deaf", how to them, normal music simply sounds like a series of individual notes without any connection between; the heart of the song is lost, the melody non-continuous. Could it be that simple? Are we simply "deaf" to the music that surrounds us every day? Are we simply not following each sound, from one note the next?

My attention's caught by the sliding of the glass door, and the musical world fades into the background as Jay steps outside, still without a shirt on hsi back.

"Whew. Hey, Andy. Could you please toss me up that pack of cigarettes?"

"Yeah, sure, " I lean forward and pop the pack up into the air. "Helped myself to one, hope'ya don't mind."

"Nope, what is mine is yours, my friend. No doubt about that."

We sat silently in the night air for a few minutes. I felt like I should talk to him about something other than the drug, it's experience, or my thoughts on it, but...well that just didn't happen when I opened my mouth.

"Still thinking at all about your little experience?"

Jay nodded. "Yeah. Definitely."

I nodded also. "You know, in the back of my mind, I keep thinking about two things in my past, two memories of experiences, that are completely in a different light now."

"Yeah? Well that's an interesting thing to say, Andy. What's the details?"

"Well...I'm still stuck on this whole sensation of being something that somebody else is, you know, 'doing' or whatever. I keep thinking about it at work, and when i'm driving and...I dunno, y'know? But, there's these two memories. The first is this time over the summer; I was walking home, and noticed a bee on the side of the road, next to somebody's grass, and it was getting attacked by ants.

"It was pretty beat up, laying on it's back, kicking and buzzing around a little bit." I accented my story with motions in the air with my cigarette, "And I wondered if I should help it, you know? Kinda a crappy way to go, but...Well, I didn't. At the time, figured it was nature being nature, and who was I to interfere? Besides, it was probably done for no matter what I did, so... But it kinda stayed with me, I guess, I don't know..." I paused for a second, looking off into Jay's neighbor's yard, little dog house on the side of the chain fence.

"Right. And what's the new way of viewing that moment, then?"

I looked back up at Jay and continued. "Well, at the time I was just blindly thinking about nature being nature, but...well, now I'm thinking: why interfere with somebody else's game? Think about the best parts in video games; like, you're going down and there's nothing you can do, used your last health potion or whatever and...and you're just going down fighting. 'Fuck, bout to die, but i'm fucking shit up!' you know? And now, I think back to that bee, and I'm glad I didn't interfere. What's more of a bummer than if you were fighting in some game, and just got picked up and moved to a safe spot? "

Jay smiled. "Right, I see where you're going. You're pretty sure you are going to die, but you never know; you may just pull it off in the end, huh?"

"Exactly! And....and I don't know, man. I think about that, and it just makes a world of difference to have this extra little idea of the background of the whole thing to change it all up."

"And, " Jay added, "not to mention the added bonus of supporting your non-intervening actions."

"Right, " I gave a half-grin, "gotta love a bonus."

We sat for a moment, each taking a few drags off our cigarettes, watching the tip flash up in a blaze on each inhale. Then Jay spoke agian.

"Well, that's not a bad point, Andy. I've heard people talk often about how life is just play. Like music has no purpose, it's just the pleasure out of playing it, and the pleasure of the listener, of the dancer." Another drag off his cigarette as I let that little bit of info sink in. Music again, huh? "So, the second?"

The second? "Oh, yeah, the second thing it makes me think of. Well, I never realy told anybody about this, kinda half-traumatic sort'a thing, and just kinda to save others from having to hear about it, but...A little over a year and a half ago or so, when I was still driving, I... Well i was speeding up on the on-ramp, you know hte one at santa-fe or whatever onto the highway, the sorta curvey one that dumps you right on? Well I was picking up speed to merge, and, then in front of me, around the corner, I see this weird, spinning movement. I couldn't really figure out what it was, wa skind of confusing like, like a paper bag blowing in the wind or somtehing like that, but... Well, when I got up closer to it, I realized that it was a fucking dog." Jay cringed a little bit with a slight squint of i-know-where-this-is-going.

"Yeah, and in the flash or so that I was able to see it, it looked pretty bad. This was all at night, so I only had the breif moment in the headlights but from what I gather, it had already been hit, and it's rear end was all busted up; like it was just freaking out at the situation, dragging itself around on it's front paws and yipping and..." I cringed at my own memory of the whole thing, and tried not to close my eyes.

"Anyway, fuck....so i fuckin' smacked right into it. Heard it yelp right before the big fuckin' thump and...fuck, it was pretty crazy, i kinda blocked it out of my mind just because, fuck, you know? I had to keep moving, it was the freaking highway, and people were all around me in other lanes, no shoulder... but, yeah, uh, haha, so I think of that now, but there's this extra thing afterwards now, again I guess a little bit of comfort."

I realized that my story-accent-device had burned down to the filter, and I leaned over to put it out in the ashtray. Jay looked at me and took another drag off of his, then waved me on to continue with my little revelation or whatever.

"And, uh, so yeah, so...Well, before I kinda thought of the dog's last moment as just this big pain, then, like, shut-off, just nothing, but... But I don't know, man. Tapping, and the feeling of like i'm shifting from one reality to another, you know, it...it kinda puts reincarnation and all of that into a new kinda light. Like, what if that's how it goes, when you die? Sliip out of this life, and into a different one, some other life, new memories, new situation...you'd never know, y'know? And, I don't know man, I ain't saying nothing, I'm just...i'm just saying."

"Pretty deep, Andy." Jay leaned forward to put his own cigarette out, nodding at me a little. He didn't seem to have much to add to the conversation after that, probably lost in his own thoughts. Thta's okay because, well, so was I.

"Yep, I guess those'r my thoughts right about now...pretty deep."

Chapter Twelve: Lessons

2006-11-25T11:13:00.000-07:00

I came home late that night, after chilling with Jay and flipping both our heads out. The rest of the evening was spent pretty quietly, both of us lost in our thoughts, each randomly tossing out some sort of idea of thought on this or that. There were a lot of memories that resurfaced through deep contenmplation; I remembered more about the creatures, how they were basically akin to an MC Escher novel, and Jay remembered a little more of his zipping experience...It's odd that, how we can have such differing views of the "reality" of this drug, but still completely understand each other's experiences. I began to think tht there was a deeper underlying meaning to it all.

I arrived home very late, especially for a work night; 12:30am the next day. Jenn was already asleep, and I was envied her peaceful demeanor in sleep. My mind was still racing, but it was an odd sort of racing....not so much that thoughts were flying at me from every direction, but more that my brain was weak and tired, exhausted, but my mind was still runnning over data, trying to piece things together. Part of me wanted to stay up into the night, pondering over the evening's events, but the more sane half of my self decided that it would probably be best for us all to just simply go to sleep. Jenn's warm, relaxed body looked so inviting anyway, and I had a strong desire to cuddle up next to her; to hold on to the strongest emotion that tied me to this life, this reality; the love and attachment I felt for this girl.

I took off my pants and shirt, socks, leaving only my boxers as I tried to stealthily slip my slef under the covers, into the bed and next to her warm body. Her body was so soft and warm, too warm, actually, which meant that mine must feel cold to hers. It's all energy, there's only so much of it, and if I'm feeling the transfer of hers into my body, that means she's feeling the escaping of her own heat. I didnt' want to disturb her, so I tried to consciously will my body into warmth as I shyed away from hers, hoping to warm up and then share our common heat rather than being a thief.

Jenn moaned a little as she rolled over a bit, pulling hte covers closer to her self as I settled in next to her. I tried to keep the thoughts from racing too much, though they were slippery and not easily grasped by any aspect of my psyche. My girl, the love of my life...Is it a foolish attachment to this reality that I feel for her? What does it hold me back from? On one hand, I feel like I should be able to simply brush off htis entire illusion of the world that we call life, and float out, free, enlightened, in with the creatures and the busses and the children at play. The other part of me though, sees the reality-steeped folly of that though. I'm here, and I'm experiencing this that we call life; how can I brush aside the only thing that I constently experience as 'the real'?

It's not so simple, though experience is a good area to have the conversation about.... We all experience this reality as the 'true' reality, but I have had experiences of others that seemed more 'real' than this one...what is the game? What's the right answer? Are we to take consistency over deep, profound, experience?

Oy, too many questions, too many thoughts, too much experience. I lay down in the dark and scoot my self up against her long, warm, sleeping body as I look around the room. There's something not quite right about the whole thing, it's a bit too bright. I glance up towards the walls, shit...there's those same swirling, vibrating, waves that I began seeing at Lane's funeral. They're bright, too. Are they a figment of my imagination? I close my eyes, and they go away...damnit..was hoping I'd still see them with my eyes closed. They open back up, unconsciously.

I look around the room, the ceiliing is alive with vibrating red waves and squiggling lines, like a pink floyd laser-light show. My eyes wander to the sides of the walls, they're filled with motion, but it's green. What is going on? Then I notice something that's out of place, against the wall, near hte bookcase, there's a faint glow that seems to somehow stand out from the background; what is it?

My eyes focus in the moonlit darkness of the room and I realize, shit...it's the plant. The spider plant that's on an old, cheap stand we got from a garage sale. It's there, it's not moving, but around it is the most noticable, yet still faint glow of purple and green colored smoke.

The rest of the room disappears into the background of concentration as I try and focus on the plant; a glow? What's going on with that? The more I focus on the plant, the more that the glow dissappears into the background. I shift my eyes a little, defocusing and relaxing them a bit, and it's back. Yes, that's very weird, the plant it's self is motionless, but all around it is this shifty hase of glowing smoke. Then it hits me, is this an aura? Is this what it's like to see auras?

I havne't thought much about auras since I was a teenager; back then everything 'mystical' and odd caught my attention. Actually, that's an interesting insight into my history, I always did have this sneaking suspicion that there was more to life than we were aware of, and seeked the answers with my small group of social outcasts. Now, here I was, not even trying, but being haunted by images of things I couldn't explain.

My focus moved from the plant down to the sleeping, still body of my lover. She was closer, so it took a bit of strain to focus my eyes relatively in the same way they were on the plant. Suddenly, the smoke appears around her, also. It's not quite as purple, more of a blue, but just as green on the fringes. It's right in front of me, though, closer and more in focus. I can tell that the smoke isn't quite as much of a haze, but more of a swirling smatter of glowing particles, dancing around the sillhouette of her sleeping body.

"Fuck, you're losing your mind, Andy. Get a hold of your self." I close my eyes, sleep is the grail that I seek, but it eludes me at this moment. "Think back, think back, you know things for this kinda thing, Andy. Mediation, think back to the things you've learned."

I think back through all the different philosophies, boks, and techniques I've casually been interesting in for mediation over the years. Is this what it's about? Is this why i've been so interested through all these years, as preparation for this moment of growth?

The teaching comes to me, the perfect one for this situation: the relaxation technique from a book on dreaming I"d picked up long ago. I just need to focus on relaxing certain points on my body, counting up till the last one...

One...Relax the forehead..two...the throat, and chest...down each arm and back up again.. 15, down the chest, belly button, into the hips... 25, down the legs, back up the second one, 40, up to the chest, back up to the head... and before I even make it, the world disppears, and I fade as my body relaxes into the state and realm of dreaming.

The alarm went off in the morning and I was stilll too tired ot even want to roll over and smack the snooze button. Oh, man, I feel horrible. It's not any kind of hung over feeling or even acracked-out type of thing, it's more of a just deep physical weariness and exhaustion.

Jenn rolls over and captures me spreading over me like a heavy blanket...a heavy blanket, flashbacks of the world unraveling itself to me, sensations of this whole reality being a wet blanket covering me, a veil hiding the truth of everything there is. This is getting to be too much. I try to ground my self back to the here and now, the reality of my own little world that I've created for my self; a comfortable bed, hte girl that I love, and the thoughts of a mad man swearing that he's sane. I drift back off to sleep.

Brrrr! Brrrr!! Brr!!

The alarm hits off it's snooze function and I"m back in this reality, dreamy thoughts drifting through my head. Where was I just now? It was a dream of...of some sort... or was I somewhere else? It's too early for this shit; I can't spend my life questioning which reality I'm trying to live in.

Jenn snuggles up closer to me, opening her eyes. Seeing htat mine were wide open also, she mutters a "Mmmm..morning, cowboy. How was your friend's?" closing htem again and pushing herself up closer to my body.

"It was good, fun...I miss hanging out with Jay, glad he's back."

"Yeah?" her tiny mouth opens wide into a big yawn, "you do your thing?"

"Heh..yeah...we did our thing..."

"Ahhh...." another small yawn, " And? how was that? He flip out, or convince you that you're actually sane and the rest of us are the crazy ones."

I smiled, "Haha, umm..well...I don't think we decided one way or another." I didn't really feel like talking about it, reminding my self of the craziness from teh night before, but she was my girl, and I wanted to include her in all my delusions, even the not-so-sane ones; I trusted her thoughts and opinions.

"oh really..." she was just starting to wake up, and rolled over a little more, bringing her body up so her head was verticle, facing mine. "And just what did you decide on?"

"Girl..." I shook my head, "I don't know. You know that's a silly question, why are you even asking it."

She grinned, "I'm curious! Excuse a girl for being curious, geees..." she smiled again and flipped her hair back away from her face, "so come on, gimme the details, enquiring minds want to know. What was the deal? what'd you do? what'd you see? What sorts of deep deep truths of the unvierse were unveiled to you; c'mon cowboy," she ran a finger down between the center of my chest, "don't shut a girl out..."

"Haha, fine, fine, you got me. You're a punk, by the way, you know that, right? Well, let's see...man, it's all so weird to even think about, but...well..." my mind jaunted back over the connections it had made from teh night before; the surrealism of the ambiance from the room, the rug, Jay and his tattoos, the computer, the couch..oh god, the couch....the interdimensional portal from which things were trying to be revealed.

"Well, okay, so jay tried it. And, well, his thing was that, that the world, right? the world, or, well, probably reality in general, it was all being zipped up, zipped up into a neat litle package, this little old ladies purse, zipped away from him."

"Little old lady?"

"Yeah, haha...well, like from looney tunes or something, the litle old lady that keeps tweety safe? He said it was like her, and...well, it goes back to the stuff i read about on the internet, apparnetly like, that's a common visual for people to have, though I'm not sure abot the zipping up and stuff like that.."

"He dreamed that reality was a cartoon that wa sbeing zipped into a lady's purse?" She seemed puzzled, but it was obvious that she tried to keep the tone of her voice on the level, as if she was being serious, and not judging. I smiled, man, i love this girl.

"Yeah, well, i don't know. it was a lady,some people say thta it' sthe 'spirit' of the drug, I don't know, I just know that without hearing anything about it from me, he saw hte same thing. But yeah, he had his whole raelity zipped up into a neat little purse thta an old lady was holding." Then I remembered, "Oh! ANd it's soem weird shit, too, he totally saw Lane. You know, he didn't even know that Lane had died? But he saw him being zipped up with everythin else, the only face he could recognize, nad it was going wiht him into the purse. Oh, shit, there was...there was another part, too." It's painful to remember, but...

Oh! The infinity thing! "Yeah, man...he saw infinity, too; said it was the face of god that he saw, but...well...it was weird, like, he knew that it wasn't the normal inifinty that he say, it was... a deeper one."

"More infinite than infinite, huh, cowboy?" She pushed herself up, pressing against my chest as she looked at me, her hair a wild and sexy next of strings glinting against the light.

"Yeah, well, it's a long story, I had a pretty good explanation of it last night, but, well, some mathematicians and...well..i guess jewish religious fanatics, understand that there's these other levels of infinity, one you can count, and then the infinite face of god, and...well...without knowing any of that, Jay saw the god one, and was convinced that he saw directly into the view of 'god', whatever that may be, and...I don't know, I'm still waking up."

She looked at me, I watched from my peripheral the heaving of her chest in and out with each breath she took.

"Huh, I see. And...? WHat'd you do? You try it? Did you see the face of god, also?"

I laughed, and looked straight into her eyes. IT was another moment where she was interested in something, and I had details to add to it. I've learned not to pass these up, so I just went with it. I looked back, forcing my self into the memories of hte previous night.

"Yeah, mine was a bit more, uh..abstract? I saw the creatures, these entities or something, that were beneath the reality that we see." I looked around, as if I was going to catch them in the act again, "and, well...they were creatin this reality, pulling the rug right out from underneath me as I stalled. It was some freaky shit, I seriously saw them, communicated with them, I thought. They told me things, about this world, about how tapping was a way to relate directly to me, about...well...about the celebration, the reason tehy did it all, the reason..." it hit me, "the reason we're all here? It's a celebration, the celebration of existence, they create these worlds, they, uh, sing them into existence they..."

"Sing?" she interrupted my thought process, "What do you mean? Is this the music thing you've been talking about?"

I stumbled for a second, it's still so weird to talk about. I know that it's crazy, but, i also know just how sane I feel that the memories are as htey richochet throughout my brain.

"Yeah, the music; it was like, like this 'reality' was just something they were singing into existence. Their music, their voice, was the creation of all things, of me, of the room...and everything had weird names, too, like...like htey were names that we were used to, but with such an excited, celbretory slant to them. I just remember hearing 'couchulation' over and over, and as it was wearing off, I swore they were communicating to me through uh, through Jay's umm.." i felt stupid now, watching her look at me, trying to understand but obviously still distant, "Through his...uh...couch, and...i don't know, whateverthefuck, Jenn. It was weird. Can't we just eat breakfast?"

Jenn smiled, and laughed, tossing her hair back. "Yeah, cowboy. You make the coffe, I'll make the breakfast."

I breathed a sigh of releif as I watched her roll out of bed, plant her feet on the floor, and make her way to the kitchen. I didn't even try to notice it, but I saw the glint of that aura or whatever I saw last night as she made her way out of the bedroom; it trailed behind her in the most beautiful, shimmering, trailing glow.

"Our mind's whacked." i thought as I pulled the blankets back around me. I still wasn' tready to get up, and was trying to prolongue the womb-like comfort of our bed as long as I could. It didnt' take more than a second to realize that I really had to go to the bathroom, and that my time for placenta-comfort was over. I heard Jenn clinking around the coffee pitcher as forced my self out of bed with a jump, tossing the covers aside.

I made my way to the bathroom, still hearing the clanking and clambing of covers as Jenn took out coffee mugs and placed them on the counters in anticipation. I stared down at the stream of clear urine as I emptied my bladder into the toilet with a loud splashing sound.

I stared down at the toilet, the water gaining bubbles of air as gravity used my stream to agitate and oxygenate the recepticle. I held my gaze, focused only on the stream, on the bubbles being formed; the rest of hte bathroom faded into darkness; only the object of my awareness held it's view...is this life? Is it really the decision of hte observer, what will be seen? It all makes sense, but...i'm still attached to the reality that i've learned to appreciate..in thta view, nothing makes sense.

I catch my self, and everything else starts to fill in the blanks: the toilet, the floor, the carpet, the bath tub...Oh man, this is going to be a long day, isn't it?

I finish up and head out into the kitchen, the smell of eggs and toast fills the air as I sit down at the table, picking up yesterdays' mail pile and thoughtlessly sifting through it.

Then it happens again, my mind shifts. Is this what life's about? What about the other me's? Are htey going through mail? Are they entertained that I am? Getting off on the fact that from their perspective the entire universe has been created and had it's goal of simply culminating in this moment? Am I even "supposed" to know what I do? Is that part of the plan?

"Hey, cowboy. I've made your favorite," she sets a plate of steaming, aromatic bliss in front of me, "eggs, spinach, hot sauce and...well, " she winks, "and my secret ingredient. All for the man I love." She starts putting her pots and pans in the sink, looks over and adds "for this reality. All others forbidden. Aren't you special for being in this one, huh?" She winks again; I know it's hurting her, the idea that i might think other places, without her influence, are better than living wiht her. I'm not sure how to convince her that the rest are scary, i'm terrofied of them, while hte only thing that keeps me coming back is the promise of her love...

I gather a big bunch of eggs and vegetables and place them in my mouth. The aroma of my favorite ingredients fills my mind....Thta's interesting, actually, you know htat as much of the tapping expeirence is all about sensation, I can't remember the sensation of taste or smell ever being a part of it? Hmm...

"This," i shake my fork in Jenn's direction," Is the freaking best breakfast I could have right now. Thanks so much for getting it together!" I gotta give credit where credit is due, and well..jenn's lacking a bit of my credity love at the moment, I sense.

She smiled, and came over iwth her own plate to join me, sitting at the table inbetween the kitchen and living room. Putting a forkful in her mouth and chewing, she smiles and looks back over at me. "Quite the meal for hte man I love, eh? You're welcome." She continues to eat as I stare on, trying to fully appreciate the moment.

"So," I knew she couldn't help her self. SHe doesn't want to ask, but I can see it in her disconnected manerisms that she' soging to, anyway. "So, what else was your journey like? Any other realizations?"

I nodded, "Only the realization that I love you more than anything." Ismiled as I shoveled another fork full of eggs into my mouth. It was hte safe thing to do, especially when dealing with girls.

"Haha, very smooth, Andy. But seriously, I'm really trying ot be the interested girlfriend here, tell me about it." She continued to chew as she deliberately focused her full attention on me.

I stopped gathering the remains of food onto my fork and paused for a moment. "Well, okay, okay...um...sorry uh, it's a bit fuzzy, but..." then it came to me in a flash and I gathered up energy and speed in my words, "Well, so there was this whole part where it seemed like I saw these creatures, and they were ht eones behind it all, responsible for reality as we see it, and...and..." images from the last night started coming back to me. "and, well, there was this old guy. Did I tell you aout the old guy at the record store?"

"Yeah, I think," she looked up," yeah, I think you said something about him, some weird old dude that swore he knew you?":

"Yep, that's the guy. So I saw him, like in the wall or something, and..." I lookd back at Jenn, her head against the milke-white of our house's walls were giving light to the most beautiful contrast of colors, again watching her aura as it swirled and wafted in the area around her, "It, uh...yeah, he was there. and he said 'i knew i'd seen you before' or something freaky...freaky enough that i'd blocked it out of my mind until now, at least." I looked back off into the distance.

She raised an eyebrow. "Yeah? Some old man in your dreams, huh? I'll try not to take offense." Again with the tossing hair, as she gets up from teh table and walks towards our bedroom. I'm done iwth my breakfast also, so I get up, put my dishes in the sink and follow her.

"Well, yeah! I mean, ain't that weird? I know you don't get it, but, m,an, when you're there, it's real as anything. I think I really did see the guy. I'm nto sure what to do about it, but...well...i dunno.. kinda like using hte Nasa and government alien-contact theories: if I'm thinking it, somebody else is, and...and, yadda yadda yadda, we're using our universal commonalities to communicate."

"Um," jenn had a smirk on her face, " can we 'yadda yadda space communication?'" Nice, a seinfeld reference.

"Yeah, whatever, Jenn. Still, though what do you think it means? I'm inclined "i licked my lips, " I'm inclined to go back to the music store, and see if I see the old man again. It's the thin to do, he'd expect it of me, I'd expect it of me, i think thta it's how it will go down.

"Okay, well, there's only one thing to do, and it's to go try and meett the guy." She nodded her head in a measure of finality. Interesting...What's her game? I've been with her long enough to know that she's way too smart to dictate a path of travel without a game; so i asked.

"What's you're game, girl?" I said it with all authoritarian justice and matter-of-fact-lyness.

"I don't know what you mean, Andy. I'm only here to support you, andi feel like you know thta that's the case. I'm here for your support, and at the moment, that's my apparent use out of life. That's that, please stop trying to make it more."

I understood what she meant. "I"m sorry, Jenn. You know that you are all thta i want out of life, you are it, you are enough to make me carry on. Dojn't question it, just know thta it's so. Whew.thanks for breakfast, hun"

I dipped the fork intot he pots and pans that were in the sink as I said my words

"i'll do the dishes when I get home." I caressed her shoulder, ""thanks for being a rock star, babe, I love you more than anythingl, ever."

Jenn nodded, and beamed a strong smile back in my direction.

IT was time to go to work, and we both finished up our daily morning routines to get our bussle on. Jenn left hte place, locking the door behind her as she entertained the anticipation fo my own forgetting to take care of business. I begain to walk outside, turned around to swing the door behind me, and I swa what i was looking for; it wasn't a must, not a configuration that would be forced onto us like a cat in a cuddling grip-hold against it's will.it was there, it was a measure of metalic continutity thta was simply overlooked. I, though, was unfortunatlye in no means to capitalize on the gain.

I took my ejnergy and forced the benefit into the arena it belonged. "Sorry, that's wher you gotta be, I'm here, and i"'m doing what i gotta do."

I thought to my self, "doing what I gotta do," that means that every thing has a thing that it's got to do, is bullshit. Ther's no thing but the now, and it's about time people realized that.

”What the hell am I thinking? Are my thoughts even making sense?” I realized the incoherencey of my own thought process, and locked the door behind me…this is getting to be too much. I thought back to the aocoholism classes I’d taken in high school and college; it’s not a problem until it interferes with your every day reality. Is this really the definition that we operate off of? I can think of lots of ‘problems’ that don’t interfere with the every day reality…but okay, so this wasn’t exactly quite a textbook case.

I began to make my way down the concrete steps, my mind lots in the clouds. What does it mean to be in this reality? I dunno, but it’s…well..

Crunch

Shit. I looked down, and lifted up my foot. Another snail was a casualty of my existence. I paused for a moment, foot in the air, and a flood of half-memories washed over me; I’d been this snail before…I don’ know if it was a direct result and experience of some tapping session of mine, but it was there…I’d been this snail before, or one just like it. The deja’vu experience of my own death temporarily washed over me; the sensation of being crushed under the weight of my own shell, my own fortress being used as a tool against my fragile body. Guilt coursed through my veins as I realized that I’d been the snail in a past life, or current life of a different angle…I knew wahht it was like to have the crushing foot of death come down on me, and it made me sad.

No time for it now, need to get off to work.

As I walked towards the bus stop, my attention waned towards the trees and plants that lined the city block. The same glow that I’d experienced earlier seemed to dominate the trees and foliage; a veritable symphony of colors and expression. Whenever the coast was clear, and I felt like no cars would come for another minute or two, I’d stop, pausing to gaze my attention towards the trees, towards their energy.

It was astounding. I could barely focus on the path I was supposed to take, everything was so vibrant, and loud. The trees weren’t the only specimens of interest, there were cheerleaders, girls, college kids, business women and men, homeless bums and bumettes; all were walking by, making their pass into my experience, my reality. I was in a high, not sure what to make of the whole situation, was this reality? Was this what it seemed to be, or was I simply caught up in wat they call ‘the illusion’, the maya, the way things seemed to be, while actually being something else behind the scenes. Was I going crazy? Or was I seeing the face of god, it’s self?

I tried to shake my head and shake it off; this wasn’t what it was supposed to be, at least it wasn’t what it should be for me to continue in my own job mindlessly. I had the sensation of the unknown future, awareness of the chaos that reigned, and I felt the pull.

It was the familiar pull to the left, though I wasn’t under the influence of any sort of psycho-analytical or hallucinogenic agent. There was a pull to the left, and I felt obligated to draw my self into the direction that it suggested. I made the attempt to direct my self towsards the bus stop that was my original goal and destination, but something inside of me forced the turn and nudged me in the opposite direction, towards town.

I knew in a heartbeat what my new destination was, it was the record store that I’d originally met the old man that swore he had already met me at. Apparently it was destined and I sensed a certain aura of importance around our meeting again; the situation had been set up, and it was up to me to carry it through, to see what the void had to offer that I couldn’t pull off on my own.

It was early, 9am. I didn’t think that the record store opened until around 10 or so, but that didn’t stop me; it’d take at least a half hour to make myh way over to the store, anyway. As I watched my self, disconnected from the actions in general, I wondered if he’d be there, what I’d say if I found him, if he’d know what I was talking about when I said I saw him in a tapping trip, or if he’d think I was even crazier than I had assumed my own self to be. Well, only one way to find out, I suppose… I marched on.

After about a half hour of freezing cold, unnoticed by my pre-occupied mind, I arrived in the early morning crisp air at the local record store which I frequented.

“What the hell are we doing here?” I asked my self, expecting not really quite the profound answer, but at least anticipating something to ease my mind. "Well, we're here because we're here." was the only comfort offered me by it. Damn existensial voice in my head.

As I moved around, jogging in place a little, trying ot breath in through my mouth, and out through my nose to keep it from going numb, I looked around to see what else I could do as I waited. The sign on the door of the record store said that they didn't open until 10:30, so I had a little less than an hour to kill. I glanced over all the different stores that were in the little strip-mall shopping center; vacuum repair, radio shack, bird feed; but at the corner I saw a bustle of life, a little coffee shop! Perfect. I made my way towards it, turning around one last time to make sure nobody was opening the record shop early or something.

The smell of freshly brewing coffee welcomed me with the murmur of early-morning conversations, the calls between cashier and the barrista and the warmth of heated air as I entered the store. Actually quite a busy crowd for an early morning, must be all the corporate employees putting off the start of their day.

Shit! Employees! People on my team would probably be starting to wonder about my tardiness by now, I should probably call, or...Oh, hey, this place has free wireless internet, I could just send an e-mail saying Ill be sick. Few people around here have their laptops open, maybe they wouldn't mind me using one real quick.

I see a guy in the back of the coffee shop, back turned to me; seems to be the only one not in the middle of a conversation. I 'll just go ask him real quick.

As I walk up to the guy I notice that he has myspace up on his laptop screen! I try not to laugh out loud, but that is just too funny...even old people are on MySpace now, that's just great. Try not to scare him, circle outside a little so he can see me coming before I jolt him out of his MySpace surfing...

"Um, sir? Excuse me, but, I was wondering, uh..." He suddenly jerks his head away from his screen and looks up with raised eyebrows. His face lights up into an amused smile, and that's when I notice the derby hat sitting on the table next to him. I stumble back a little; I know this guy - it's the old man from the record store!

"Well hello there, young man." his forehead crinkled a little bit as he nodded slightly; he actually seemed to be taken just as off guard as I was at the whole sitation. He put his coffee cup down that he was holding in his hand, and swiftly kicked out the seat at the side of the small square table to his left and motioned for me to sit down.

"So," he said, his head still bobbing, "so it's you, again...again. However many times, yes?" He smiled more broadly and smacked his lips a few times, clearing his mouth of his last sip of coffee.

I was speachless. "Um, yeah, uh, yeah." I sat down in the chair, slumping down low and throwing my hands up in the air, "I guess so, huh? Again, again again...I have no freaking idea at the moment." I just sat there shaking my head back and forth a bit. I'd say that my mind was racing, and thta's what it was like but, to be honest, I don't believe there was a single thought in my head at that moment; I was simply dumbfounded. The old man leaned back in his chair as well, just looking at me with his bright, alert eyes. I had to ask.

"How the hell did you know I'd be here, old man? I mean, I didn't even know that I'd be here, how the...how'd you do it?"

The old man smiled and laughed a little bit, picking up his coffee cup again, letting it waver in the air while he thought of an answer.

"That's a very interesting question there, young man, very interesting..." he put the coffee up to his lips and took a small sip. "Well, I suppose you can hear it, now, it's too late to hide anything." His face got serious as he put set his cup back down on the table. I unconsciously found my self sliding back up in my chair, leaning forward to hear his next words.

"Well, the truth is my boy that, well... We've been watching you. You may have only recently begun putting it together, but well...You're part of a secret government project created to protect the survival of the human race." The words didn't really register, but i allowed his eyes to lock dead on to mine as he contineud. "You, your mother, your father, family, they're all federal agents. You're a very special boy, yong man, a very special boy."

I couldn't believe what I was hearing, though I was still in the same thoughtless daze. All I could say was "Really?"

He came back before I was done "No." Then he burst into the loudest, old man laughter I'd ever heard. "You have some complex there, young sir! Whooo, the look on your face. What the heck are you thinking? Government projects? Crimminy!" He waved me away, "Last I checked, young man, you were the one interrupting my morning coffee; and now you're about to create some sort of fantasy of my wrinkled self somehow planning it?" He took another sip of his coffee as he turned his attention back to his laptop, and added, "I don't mind us being friends, but you're going to have to do a little better than this, young man."

"Um, sorry, uh," i stammered, "man, i don't know what's going on, anymore. Why you messing with me like that?"

He grinned again, and spoke without looking up from his laptop, "Yes, I suppose the universe is a bit of a confusing place now and then. I suppose it is... Well, then," he pushed the laptop away from him a little, "so what is it that you feel I can help you with, again?"

"Well," how do I explain this one? "well, I saw you at that record store over there a couple of months ago, right? Where you confused me for somebody you knew, or, had seen before or something." He nodded, "And, well...and, so I just saw you in a dream or something just last night, and...well, I don't know, i kinda felt like I had to come back to that record store and find you again." We both sat for a moment, him not saying a word and me feeling dumber every second. "I'm sorry, I...I just don't know; a lot of realy weird stuff has been going on lately, and...and I do'nt know. I guess I"m looking for any sort of structure in the chaos or, or something, I..." I sunk back in my chair and let my voice trail off.

The old man sat back in his chair again, and crossed his arms. I noticed again the incredible fluidity and ease of movement that he seemed to have for an older person. He looked at me with a small grin on his face, "Is that so. In a dream, you say? A dream." He cocked his head to the side.

I squirmed a little bit in my seat, how could he know? Should I say? Fuck it, i don't know the geezer, I might as well open up. If i want info, gotta be as open as possible, drugs or no drugs. He looks like a pretty cool old man, anyway. WHo knows, probably went to them smoke-ins back in the 70's to protest the war. WHo the fuck knows, he coulda been oen of those drunk, naked guys in a muddy orgy at wood stock.

"Well, you know, 'dream', or more of a, drug-induced hallucination or whatever you want to call it. One of those."

More laughter from the old man "Hallucination! You kids still calling those things hallucinations, eh? That's rich, that's really rich."

I was confused. "So, it's not a hallucinating? Like, like it's real?"

He bust out in even mor euproarius laughter. "That's even richer! Sonny, you're a golden child, you are. Naw, all I mean is that 'hallucination' has all hte wrong implications. Nothing comes from nothing, my boy, we used to try and get people to call all of that 'illusions' back in my early days, but, well, the media system has their own agenda, they do; always have."

"Okay, uh..." i was getting conufsed again, "so, okay, so drug-induced ilusion, of you. and...well it all followed from that." gotta stear the conversation, let's get it to what we want to know, "What's caling it an ilusion help at all? I'm not sure where you're going."

He took another delicate sip off of his coffee. "Well, you see it's what we call the background of the word. 'Hallucination' carries all this extra garbage with it, like you're going crazy and simply making up all these things that you have no reason to make up. Illusion, however, that's more like it, it carries more of a meaning of a simple differing interpretation of the data, you see, something caused what you saw, but it didn't come out of nowhere; nothing ever does."

Okay, I saw where he was going. "Alright, yeah sure, the semantic qualities of the language involved, sure, I'm game for thta, no problem"

"Eh? you kids with your textbook words these days. Sure, call it what you like. But tell me more about this 'dream' of yours. What you kids taking these days to induce, er, 'dreaming', eh?"

I was starting to feel a bit more comfortable now, and I felt my shoulders and whole body just relax that extra little bit and let go, "well, i don't know, it's kind of hard to explain."

"Try me."

"Well, it's called 'tapping', and it's, like...well you got this thing, called a 'tapper' and, it's a kind of metal, uh, injection type device thing."

The old man's eyes widened a bit, "Injection, eh? You kids are into some hard core things these days?"

"Well, no, it's, it's," how do I explain this? "Well it's not lke a syringe or nothing, it's just a small sewing-type needle, with a little groove to, uh, hold this liquid that, um well, thta you smack into the sides of your head, your temples, and..." I saw him shrink back a little as he put himself in htat situation and contort his face. I laughed, "No, no, it's not what you think, at all, it like...it barely pricks the skin, man. It's all good, heals up quick, just apparently the quickest way they found to rock you in it, is all."

"I'm sure. One thing I've learned young man, is htat people know no bounds in scientifically figuring out how to get themselves high. I've learned in my old age that it's un-needed, but I do understand. And just what is this 'liquid' that you're using to 'tap' into the side of your head, now?"

"Well, I'm not sure hte name of it, but it's some sort of plant grown in the amazon jungles." It was then that I realized I really didn't know as much about tap as I probably should. I consider my self a smart individual, but, well, I guess I've been caught up int eh excitement. I tried to sound as well informed as I could, "Apparently lots of ancient and current trinbes and cultures and things have been using it for years for religious and ceremonial reasons."

The old man nodded his head, "Ahh, one of them, them jungle type drugs, eh? Yes, yes, them tribes sure do know their things, don't they now?" I nodded. "DMT, peyote and mushrooms... DId you know that marijuana was even originally used in cermenial settings by tribesmen? And respected, too! Until we come along, with our scientific minds, trying to isolate and purify; get off more for less, but sometimes we end up taking the whole soul out of the original plant, the essence. I used to think that some day we'd learn; hell, we all did back in the day. thought that we had learned! That we were the new tribesmen, the new respect." He picked up his cup again and tipped it back deeply, shaking it a bbit at hte end, hearing the slight splashing of the end of the beverage.

"Yes sir, I beleive many of us feel the same way to this day, I'd say." I felt like throwing in at least a little bit towards my generations defense.

"Bah," he waved my comment away, "when you get to the point of view I currently look at the world from, you realize that it never changes, it's all the same." He took a deep breath and sank a little more into his chair, kicking himself back a small amount from the table to face me more square on.

"So tell me, young man. What was it about this whole 'dream' of yours? What was so intriguing about it that we find our selves right here, right now, in this moment?"

Here we go. I was more curious than ever to hear what he had to say about the topic. "Well, you see, I was tapping and, um, lost in the experience and. Well, I was um...going through what felt like these different realities, and such? And...Well, first, actually, I'm not sure what types of things you're familiar with, but, well, this is different than aything I'd ever experienced. Mushrooms, acid, dmt...everything, i swear. Nothing in my experience had prepared me for this stuff I've been messing around with." He nodded his head towards me, raising an eyebrow a little, seemingly inrigued. I continued. "So, uh, yeah, so I was having this experience, and it was, it was like...like seeing behind the scenes of reality. Seriously, this whole place, " I looked around the room, "all this is gone, in the past, and this entire reality replaces it. Like waking up from a dream or something, or...how'd my friend put it, like, 'like this was a movie, and the credits just rolled' or something. Seriously." He was still noddin his head, gesturing for me to continue.

"And so, well, so towards the end of this experience i was having, I saw your face behind the wall. I swore it was you, and you were behind the scenes also, part of the uh, back stage or something and, well, and you seemed to realize why you had thought I looked familiar or whatever, and...and well, that was it.

"But," i continued, "but it was less of what you said, or how it looked or anything, it was more...more the feeling that accompanied the whole thing, the feeling of it's weight and reality and...well...and it was enough that I'm currently here, talking crazy to you, instead of at work, where i should be."

SHit! Work! I looked at my watch: 10:30; oh man, they'd be assuming that I wasn't coming by now...my first no-call-no-show in the history of my working. Fuck. THe old man saw my frazzled attitude as I ran my fingers through my hair.

"Don't worry about it, young man. It's not like any of it's real anyway." my head shot up to look at him with confusion showing, "Here, " he turned his laptop around so it faced me, "go ahead and do whatever you need to do."

I looked at the laptop and back at the old man, stunned for a moment. "Don't worry about it, young man. Do whatever it is you need to do, and I'll tell you a little bit more."

I nodded, and slowly situated my hands on the keyboard, pulled up my mail, nad sent a quick note to my supervisor and team. My head wasn't quite straight enough for any sort of ingenious excuse, so I kept it simple. 'Not coming in, sick, see you tomorrow, call me with problems.' I laughed as I hit the send button and was grateful for the lenient work environment that being in IT allowed.

I spun the laptop back around to face the old man. "Thanks. So, now what the hell were you saying?"

The old man smiled, "I don't know, yong man. Here, tell me this: what did you expect to hear from me? You obviously searched me out for some reason, what were you thinking you were going to find? Let me guess though," he put his index finger up to his lips as he made a pantomime of thinking, "you probably are fascinated by this new drug you're playing with, and thought that maybe I, a senior citizen, was also flipping my head out with it at the time and then we, we some how made a kind of psychic connection accross time and space? My old bones was getting high and the dream you say in your own head was actually me, searching you out through the ether? Is that about close to it?"

I looked down at the table a litle as I answered. It sounded a bit silly when he said it. "Um, well, I...i don't know what I thought. I just, uh..."

"Mmhmmm, of course, of course. I remember my own experimenting with drugs, young man. I know the disconcertingness of it, the 'mind opening' and feelings of being let into the deep secrets of the world. So let it all out, come on now. Give it to me, what have you seen that's put you searching? I'll do my best to keep up." He gestured towards me to start, and set his face into a listening stance.

"Well, uh, I don't really know where to start, I..." I sat up a little, cleared my throat, and just decided to jump in. "Well, okay, so there's these sessions I've been doing, and...none of it's consistent, but, well, i've had effects from everything of being somebody else, having memories of a different life, like it seemed actually living a different person, umm...then there's the people that I talk to about my self, like...like they're these people that are 'being' all of us, like...like some video game or something, you know." The old man pursed his lips a little and let me continue.

"And, uh, well, then there's these weird things where it's like I'm being some sort of object or animal or something...like i saw the perspective of the floor once, or of being a cell in my lips and, and other objects can look like cities of people, or...and these snails, and..."

The old man stopped me with a gesture of his hand as he leaned forward. "Okay, okay, so a sympathy for others, I understand. Now, what do you think of these experiences? That, I think, is the truest question a young whippersnapper like yourself could ask. "

"Well, I...I'm not sure exactly. That's the thing, the weirdness has never stopped getting weirder, so I..i haven't had much time to think back and kinda, figure it all out."

"I see, I see. Well, I don't know, those are interesting experiences sure, and..."

I was geared up already so I interrupted him, "But there's more! Last night, when I saw you, before that I...I saw these creatures and...and I don't know, it was like htey were creating this entire world, the whole reality that I see around me. They were singing, and linking arms to move through space, making copies of thesmselves, and...and..." my eyes focused into the distance as I remembered the details.

"Wait, wait wait, back it up there, young man." he waved his arms at me, he seemed to be excited, yet restraining himself. "Creatures, eh? You see creatures when you're takin this drug?"

"Wel, uh, this was the first time, but...well, on the internet the places I've seen talk about these creatures and things, too, but they say that at first it's mayhem and confusion but like, after a 'boot camp' type of thing, when you try it enough, it clears up a little bit, or something."

He nodded his head. "I see, I see...Well, what else you have for me then, boy?"

"Um, not much I guess...that's about it; othre people being me, me being other people and things, and the creatures...but they're new."

"And these creatures, they were musical, eh?"

"Completely, actually...the whole thing's been pretty musical all along, actually."

"MMmhmm, mmhmm...." the old man's eyes quivered a little as he stared off in thought. I just waited, also. Not sure what else to say about my apparent drug-experiences to some old hippy. He continued.

"Well, those are some very interesting tales, my friend. I'm going to tell you one thing first, this drug is not what you need right now. Everything that it has shown you, you could attain your self, through some simple work and meditation. The drug is clouding your mind, putting a slant on things that might not be the most true. You seem like a smart young boy, so I"ll be honest with you: I don't have many answers, but I do know what you're talking about."

A wave of relief came over me. Finally, somebody that would actually understand waht the heck i've been talking about all this time; or at least somebody that would say that they understand what i've been talking about all this time... Either way, it was a step up from this morning.

"Hmm, where to begin, where to begin..." He sat back in his chair, putting his hand up to his chin as he slowly began, "well, first of all, it's believed that the creatures? Are real." My astonishment showed, and he sat up to continue, "Well, i'm sorry, i should have said that they're believed to be real, or...real-ish, whatever it means. Yo'ull find that real doesn't perhaps hold as much weight as you may have thought. Either way, these creatures have been around for a long, long time. Shamans in various jungle and other environments have reported them, many differing types, actually. Some refer to crocodile-type demons, who cause mischeif in the wofld, others refer to the goofy-type elves; some even going far enough to describe mechanical ones, created some how, that are underneath the reality we see, toying with it, creating it..." his voice drifted off and he took a deep breath, though his chest barely moved.

"And these other lives, well...many would say that they're past-lives that you're carrying around with you, and you're simply re-living them. Past lives, leading to the deep awareness of empathy for other creatures, things that you've been, places you've gone."

I shook my head, that didn't sound right, "No, no...it really seemed like I was going some where else, traveling somewhre, some how, like my consciousness was..."

"Bah," he snapped at me harshley, "consciousness? Just what do you think this consciousness of yours is, boy? The voice in your head? I'll tell you right now, that's hogwash. You ever play that game with a pet or animal of some sort where you follow them around and mimic their thoughts and actions into words? 'Oh, whta's this? what's over here?' that is all this consciousness of yours is; annoying babble, commentary of the mind, nothing more."

I was stunned from his sudden burst of energy, and i shrank my eyes back to size when I realized how big they felt. He calmed his voice a bit, smiled, and continued with his previous thoughts. "Besides, there's no such thing as going anywhere, everything comes to you. Everything we know about the universe, the stars, whatever, it's all extrapolated out of the things that have come towards us, from other places. We don't look 'out' towards the stars, we simply pay better attention at what's come to us, and this is no different."

<>
"Well, what about...about the sidewalk? Are you seriously trying to say that I was a road or something in, in some previous life?"

The old man smiled a toothy grin, "yeah, i see what you're saying there, young man. If I had to guess, it'd simply be your energy's perspective from the ground's level. Again, I can't say that I have all the answers, but i'd say I have a pretty good idea on these things based on the data I've collected, the others I'd met.

"You see, they say that we're energy beings. It's meant quite literally and otherwise. E=mc squared and the like; we're matter, hence we're energy, hence we're beings. But there's a bit more to it, depending on who you talk to. Like the ground, do you feel that you're part of the ground right now? Part of that chair?"

"Um, I uh..." I didn't have any idea what the old man was trying to get to. "Um, no?"

"hogwash! Of course you're a part of it. You're giving it your energy, and it's giving you it's own. It's how the universe works, yin yang, energy exchange."

"And you're saying that..that when i felt like i was a part of the ground, that i was actually just, just..experiencing some time when my energy was in some ground at some point? Or....something?"

"Exactly." He slammed hte laptop closed, stood up, and picked up his hat off of the table. "And that's all I can really offer at the moment. Sorry young man, but I need to get going. Here, " he pulled out a pen from his jacket, then looked around for something to write on. He finally picked up his coffee cup, and in an amazing feat of swiftness, tore a piece of the cup out, then leaned over to scribble on it.

"This is my email address, why don't you send me a little message some time, and I'll see if I can go into it any further for you. But for now, I have another engagement to attend to."

He patted his hat down onto his head, then touched the tip of it as he bows slightly. "Good day, young man. Till next time." and he made his way out the door, humming along with the background music in the shop.

Now, all of this happened in just seconds, before I had a chance to say anything. I was dumbfounded, and just sat in my chair, listening to the music in the shop, wondering how the hell i ever found my self in this situation.

After a few minutes, I slowly stood up, grabbed the remains of the old man's coffee cup, and tossed it into the trashcan next to me. I looked at the table, at the remaining pice that he'd written an address on. I was a mindless zombie, I just stared off into space as I pocketed the slip of cup, pushed in my chair, and made my way out the door.

I smelled the fresh air, felt the new warmth of the day from the sun that was just rising over the buildings in the east. There was a hussle and bussle of people as the shops opened and eveyrone went about their daily chores. "Guess I'll just head back home, then..." I muttered to my self and walked out towards the street. What was I going to do at home? The whole day's just...well, it' sjust fucked now. My mind's a blank, i'm calling in a sick day, Jenn won't be home for another few hours. I stepped out onto the street to cross, my mind lost in a haze.

I guess it's not too surprising that I was jaywalking on a red light, and never saw the oncoming red stationwagon until I heard the loud smack, felt my body break, and it was all too late.

Chapter Eleven: Jay

2006-11-22T10:59:00.000-07:00

"Oh hey, after work i'm heading over to Jay's place for a bit. Not sure when I'll be home" Jenn and I'd just stepped out of the shower in the morning. I was squeezing some teethpaste onto my teethbrush, she was gently brushing her long hair with her hairbrush with the occassional hard yank, water flying. It was the time of brushing; the first thing in our chain of morning routine that we'd fallen into the past year.

She stopped mid-brush to look at me with a goofy half-grin. "I was wondering how long it'd be before you decided to share your delusions with Jay. Needing somebody even more whacked out than you to share your fantasy with?"

Normally I'd just mumble a response back to her with my mouth full of toothpastey saliva, but this warranted a full sink-spit and attention maneuver.

"Don't even try it! Jay is a very intelligent individual, and one of the smartest people I know. I'm offended at your craziness-loves-company attitude and the slant of your remarks." I turned back to the sink with a "Hmph." and went back to brushing.

"Yeah, yeah, you know I'm just kidding, dear. Well, at least kinda. It is hard to talk to somebody about how crazy they aren't when they're foaming at the mouth, though."

"MM-hmm.. veh-ey funh-ey." that one deserved the mumble.

She actually did seem a little ashamed of not having my back though, and tried to talk her way out of the situation.

"So, well, I guess it would be interesting to see what Jay has to say about the whole thing, though. He's a pretty interesting guy."

Spitting into the sink, I turn on the faucet and start rinsing off the toothbrush. "Yeah, actually he said he'd tried it once before, but that he was really drunk and just remembered it being pretty weird. Weird situation, though, guess he just walked into some dude's place and they handed him the tapper or something, haha. Quite the thing to be hit with out of nowhere."

"Wow, yeah! Not surprised though, Jay and Jimmy always hung out with a weird crowd." She put her hairbrush down and started sifting through the clothes in her closet.

"Yeah well, if anybody knows, it's us: Being drunks can lead you into some interesting situations." I started going through my dresser, tossing the clothes I wanted to wear onto the bed.

"Yeah," Jenn grinned, "'drunk' is sure a wild-card of a character trait to have." She held up a short little black dress in front her, and turned back and forth a few times to see if it was what she was looking for, "And I'm sorry, dear. I'm sure Jay will have some interesting insight into the whole thing. I didn't mean to say that he's just as whacked out as you are, or... Or however I can say that without sounding like an unsupporting girlfriend."

She looked over at me, still holdin the dress, and winked. It's really not fair that girls get an automatic out from talking themselves into a corner by just acting a bit on the sexy side.

"Yeah yeah, I'm sure, " making a mock kiss at the air in her direction, "but yeah, I actually am looking forward to seeing what he has to say. I guess he's been reading a lot of stuff about ancient tribes talking to aliens, and lizard-people and all sortsa weird things."

Now Jenn was rolling her eyes as she stepped into her dress, "Yes! Sounds like exactly the type of sane point of view you'd want to have! Now I feel really silly for ever suggesting otherwise, gosh. What ever was I thinking??"

I laughed out loud. "Okay! So yes, I guess I shouldn't have shared that piece of info... I almost had you in a full-on apology, too."

She smiled. "Do whatever it is you wanna do, cowboy. Just please don't get carried away. I don't want to come back to you trying to phone home, or join some sort of ufo cult/religion type of thing. I like us in this reality, and...well, I'm trying not to take too much offense at you trying to escape to whatever others there may or may not be out there." She sat down on the edge of the bed and began rubbing lotion on her flawless long legs.

I turned around, "Awwww..." Fuck, she really knows how to use those damn super girl-powers for evil. I stopped putting on my pants one-leg in and came around, dragging the pants behind me to sit down next to her on the bed, putting my arm around her shoulders.

"I'm not trying to escape to some other reality or something! I love our life in this one, too, and I I'd never try to run away from it in a million years." She continued smoothing out the lotion on her legs; apparently not convinced. I went on, "But it's just so fascinating to me! It's not even that I seriously think that I'm hitting other worlds or whatever, but I mean...think of it from the interesting aspect of what it means psychologically in general! What sort of weird things is the brain doing that it creates these sense-impressions and loss of ego, sense of self, memories and everything! Isn't that weird? Think of all the cool stuff that could be learned from all of it."

"Andy," she put her feet back on the ground and shifted a bit as she pulled down her dress, "it's a drug, Andy. It's just something to get messed up off of, it's not some cosmic tool to base a philosophy of life or religion or psychoanalysis or whatever off of! It's just some drug, Andy. Get with it." Wow, she's actually a bit serious here.

"Yeah, I know you really do think that way, Jenn, but, I don't know. Drugs are only a toy if you make them one. What about all the chemical reactions in the brain in general? Isn't adrenaline 'just a drug', or emotions... love? Hell, religion in general, isn't that a drug? Or at least built off of potential chemical experiences? 'Opiate of the masses' and all?"

Jenn sighed and got up off of the bed. "Sure, whatever, you're absolutely right, Andy. Just...just be careful, is all that i mean." She brushed her hand against my cheek, "I just worry about you, is all." Then she went into the living room to put on her make up.

As she left I nodded, "I know, Jenn. Really though, I got it under control. But thanks; i love you, too." Damn...talk about a conversation ender.

The day seemed to extend and drag on like molassas. I could barely concentrate on programming anything, forgetting to end lines correctly, not closing loops and braces and quotes. I was half filled with excitement and queasy-anticipation for the future evening's activities, and half filled with uneasiness left over from mine and Jenn's conversation that morning. Is it okay to know that you're wading in the shallow waters edge of sanity, if you're aware of the steep drop off that's potentially just inches away?

Besides, what's so wrong about holding a differing world-view, if I did chose to go in that direction? Billions of people already practically believe in other dimensions as it is. Ever since we've realized that the Earth is just a big hunk of rock floating in a sea of infinite space, the whole idea of a heaven "up there" and hell "down" the other way has been transcended a bit. The 'official; stance of the church as I know it is that both of those realms lay outside of this known universe anyway, so what's so different? Throw in all the different concepts and ideas of "rebirth" and "transcendance" and what-not, and you have a majority of the planet that believes in some sort of transcendental reality beyond what we live from day to day. Who's to say a little drug-induced enlightenment is so far off from where everyone else's heads are?

And so you see how it would be hard to worry about syntax and algorithms with a head as far up in the clouds as mine was for the duration of the work day. It seemed like it would take forever for those hands on the clock accross the hall from my cubicle to finally arrange themselves the way I wanted them to, but they finally did. My thoughts screamed out a little "yabba dabba doooo!" in my head as I logged out of my computer, grabbed my jacket, skipped out the door and headed to the bus stop to make my way over to Jay's.

I made my way to Jay's front porch by about 6:40 or so, it was already dark out, and I noticed that the trees had an odd sort of glow to them. Note to self: check out the glow around trees some time. My stomache started to gurgle and clench, and overall act up a bit as I made my way up the old wooden steps of the semi run-down brown house that he'd rented out for years now. It wasn't too bad inside, which I guess is why he'd stayed for so long, but everywhere you looked there was old, peeling paint, the stairs were creaky and the boards on the porch were creakier. I did love that he had an old door-knocker on the front door though, instead of a door-bell. I think it really gave the perfect finishing touch to the whole ambiance of the place, so I always made sure to use it even though I typically just let my self in anyway.

I drew the knocker back and listened to the deep echoing thumps that it made as I rapped it a few times against the door, then turned the knob and walked in. The place was always dimly lit, and tonight was no different. I saw a bright light shining against the wall of the halway to the left of the kitchen, and figured he was reading on his couch. As I walked down the hall he asked in a low tone "Andy, man. What's going on?"

I walked into the room, and he didn't even look up from his book. He was laying down on an old earth-green seventies couch, only wearing jeans, his tattooed chest and arms a colorful top. "Eh, not much, sir. How you doin'?" He grabbed his book mark and held up his finger telling me to wait a second while he got to a stopping point. I made my way to the old cedar book case that was against the wall; a jays-house-tradition of mine. He always has the most interesting books, and he's read probably half of them. Some of them are unfamiliar, others I think I've seen before, but are only now catching my eye. Consciousness Explained, Just Another Day, Supernatural. Jay slipped his bookmark in between the pages he was on as he was finishing up the last paragraph that he wanted to get to.

"Sorry, man. So, how goes? Good work day?"

I laughed, "Yeah, man. it was great, couldn't think about anything but reality and religion and other dimensions...Whew, no need to say, it made for quite the long day."

"Yeah, I bet! You poor middle class white-collar working folk. That's why I like serving at restaurants. If I can't do my job well while I have something heavy on my mind, then I feel like I'm in the wrong profession." He put the book down on the small wooden-crate-made-side-table, and sat up on the sofa.

"Yeah, I know. Us poor stiffs, huh?" I'd had this conversation with him before and didn't feel like getting into it again now. "Eh, what can I say. It happens." I stared off blankly, looking around the sparsley decorated room.

"Here, have a seat, Andy." He shuffled over to the right, leaving some room on the couch for me to sit at a man-comfortable distance. I made my way over, pulled up the legs of my pants a little and sat down, sinking into the old springs and soft cushion. "So hey, tell me about this whole tapping interestingness you said you were in the middle of, huh?"

"Well, i dunno man. It's pretty weird, not even sure what I make of it, let alone what to tell somebody else about it, you know?" He nodded, I continued "I did send you a couple of the sessions in e-mail, though. Pull it up and check it out if you got a second."

"Oh great, I love data. Here, let's go to the living room where the computer is." He got up and walked out the door and down the hall, his bare feet slapping against the wooden floor.

"Didn't your computer used to be in the other room by the book shelf?"

"Yeah," he nodded, "I moved it out here, though. I didn't like the bad energy that it gave off in my reading room. It makes it a lot nicer when I just want to kick back and bury my self in a good book; no television, no computer, just a little stereo for background mood if I need it and hell, that's barely ever on either. It's just overall better to keep it a little purer."

He sat down on a church-style metal folding chair and jiggled the mouse to shake the black screensaver with continuously scrolling text that said "Wake Up!"

I waited as Jay pulled up his email, found my message and began reading the sample of sessions that i'd sent to him just hours earlier. It sure is handy having everything digital and easily transferrable these days. While he was silently reading over my text, moving his lips as he mouthed my own words to hisself, I went into the kitchen and made my self a glass of water from the jug of bottled water in his fridge. I came back in and pulled a short bar-stool out of the corner, brought it over by where he was still reading, and sat down sipping on my water as he finished up.

He let go of the mouse and paused for a second as he finished up the last words. He hit page-up and down a few more times as if to make sure he hadn't missed anything before he finally turned around to me. I watched him through the bottom of my glass and raised an eye brow.

"Well," he leaned back and slid down a little in his chair, "I don't believe that I can say my experience was anything like that."

I grinned and finished swallowing, "Haha, yep. A bit on the odd side, wouldn't ya say?"

"Indeed, indeed it is. Wow, that's really something you got going there, Andy. And how did all of this start? What got you started playing around with this whole thing?"

"Well," i chuckled, "it's actually a pretty good story at the beginning. You see, this dude came by the house a little over a month ago looking for Jimmy. I told him that Jimmy didn't live there any more, and he was like 'mind if i tap at your place real quick?' and i didn't know what the hell, no experience at all, so i said sure."

"Somebody asked if they could tap in your living room, without even knowing you?"

I shrugged, "Yeah."

"And you said yes?" Now he was raising an eyebrow.

"Well, shit, yeah, man. I figured any friend of Jimmy's, you know? He said he had came over to do it with him, but...but hey, you said Jimmy'd done it before, right?"

"Yes, but just that once as far as I know."

"Hmm, maybe he expressed interest or something some time. Either way, so this kid sits down in my living room, thwacks himself in the side of the head, and then spends the next like two minutes or something just rolling around on my floor! Seriously juts rolling around, moaning kinda, eyes wide open."

"You don't say!" Jay burst into laughter at the thought of the situation.

"Dude, totally. He just rolled around for a few minutes then, get this, gets up, says thanks, and walks off! No shit, straight up exactly what happened." Jay shook his head and chuckled a few more times.

"Wow, that is pretty damn funny, Andy. What did the guy look like? I wonder if I was acquainted at all."

I thought back, "Umm, kinda mexican, kinda asian, 90's rap gangster clothes."

Jay grinned again, nodding, "Yep, Sam. I know just who that kid is, haven't seen him in gees, well over a year, I'd say. Interesting stuff, Andy."

"Sam, okay, yeah sure, I could see that guy being a Sam. He coulda looked a bit Sam'ish."

"Yes, and I thought he was a little odd before. Interesting times right, Andy?"

"Yeah, haha, definitely." My voice trailed off and I looked at the ground, following the patterns in the wood flooring.

"Well. What are we waiting for?" Jay got up and lead me to the room he had been reading in before. "I think we should be fine here, it's kind of my drug room, anyway. Soft lights, soft rug. The perfect place to... How did you say it? 'Cole past our bliffing?'"

I smiled, "Ha. Cole past the bliff, yeah, yeah that's the goal I guess, ain't it." I sat down on the rug, and pulled out my own little cloth bag of goodies. I emptied the tapper, needles, and bottle onto the floor, and started assembling everything together for Jay.

"So," jay was watching me, interested, "How much does it take of the liquid?"

"Well, not much at all, actually. Here, look at this." I held up one of the needles for him, "See, there's that tiny little slit in there. You just dip the needle into the bottle, it sits in the groove like a fountain pen or whatever, and then," I made a swinging motion towards my head, "and then thunk! Little bit later, you're back and maybe have a good story or two."

"Does complete incoherent otherworldy babble quite constitute as a good story?" Jay smiled. I flipped him off.

"Whatever. Here, you check it out and then we'll see what you have to say about the whole deal." I handed him the tapper.

"You gonna do it, too?" He reached out and grabbed the metal device.

"Eh, maybe. I dunno, I'll see how your session goes."

"Well, okay, then. Just swing it, huh?"

"Just swing it, make your self comfy. Aferwards, try holding your breath, and clenching your teeth a few times."

"Okay..." He shuffled around a little bit as he sat crosslegged on the persion-style rug. He took a deep breath, his arm started towards his head, and...

Thunk!

Jay held his breath for a little bit, i saw his temples throb as he clenched his teeth over and over. As he exhaled, I watched his eyes gloss over as his pupils dialated.

"Whoa, theres... Whoa, there's... There's...whoa..." He was rocking back and forth a little bit at first, then burst out into laughter. Then, before I knew it I saw him throw himself backwards violently against the wooden floor and kick his legs up into the air. It threw me a little off guard, and i tried to run over to him to make sure he wasn't going to hit his head or something. He tried to sit up with a wild look in his eyes. Then he looked straight through me, and said "Expecting...whoa...Expect...Expecting!" He started saying it louder, almost shouting now, "Expecting..! Ex...Pec...Ting...!"

I didn't know what to do, so I just reminded him, "Jay, man, it's alright. Just relax, chill out. You tapped your head, man, it's all good. Just...just relax..." He stopped talking, and looked straight at me with a confused look on his face. He muttered again.

"Expecti...exp..." I had the eery feeling like as if Jay was somewhere else completely, somewhere trying to make contact back here, trying to struggle to communicate back through his body, back to this world, to me.

"It'll be over in a second, man. It just takes a couple of minutes." He kicked his legs up in the air again, nearly knocking over the water glass I had set on his tiny old corner table. I jumped up to move it farther against the wall.

I looked back at Jay, he had his eyes closed and was breathing heavily. Then he opened them, and forcefully exhaled a large lungful of air, taking another deep breath immediately afterwards. His face was dripping sweat.

"Dude...Andy, dude..." His eyes weren't as distant any more and he looked over at me. "Andy, man, how much time's left. How long's it been."

I looked at my watch, "It should be about over, man, it's been like five or six minutes." He nodded, and took another breath. He had the look of a college kid that drank too much and was just concentrating on not being sick, trying not to move around. He closed his eyes and opened them again.

"Man, I can't even close my eyes to get over it. Shit, now how long has it been." I looked at my watch again.

"Um, it's like seven minutes total, man. It's only been a minute since you asked.

"Only a minute..." he repeated. He slowly pulled himself up, leaning his back up against the couch to support him. "Wow, Andy. What the fuck is that stuff? That's wild...I can still...whew, I can still feel it."

I nodded, "Yeah, man. It takes a second. Maybe it'll help to talk about it, so you don't forget or something. I know I have to type directly after a session. What happened?"

He looked at me, then rolled his head around in a circle locking his eyes back with mine.

"Man, I...I don't even know. I'm not sure I remember most of it. At first, it was just like, like... Like the world was being zipped up. Just totally zipped up, like into this little old lady's purse. And I was in the middle of it, being zipped up into it, and...everything and everyone that I knew was part of it, and getting all zipped up and, and everything was gone. Everything but the old lady."

Wow, this also sounded a bit familiar. "Wow, man. The old lady! That's something a lot of people talk about on the internet about the stuff. Was it like, um, like the lady on Bugs Bunny, the one that owns Tweety Bird?"

Jay's eyes got wider as he looked at me, then at the ground, then back at me, "Yes, that is what she was like. And she had the little purse that...wow..that the whole world was just being..." he chuckled "just, zipped up into! It was like...like the end of a movie. Yes! It was like the end of a movie, when you just finished watching, and it's time to go home, and...you're back in..." He shook his head again, "and I don't know, Andy. I don't know at all." He turned around and literally climbed up the onto the couch, carrying his body up onto the cushions.

I'm watching Jay lay himself down on the couch, staring at the ceiling. I hear a fan slowly speed up and start blowing, and then I begin to hear a distant thumping noise. I begin to worry.

"Hey, Jay. What's that thumping noise?" He rolls over a little bit.

"Oh, that's, that's just my heater. It does that, makes that sound. I need to call my landlord and get it taken care of." He pauses for a second, then suddenly bursts into a loud, uproarious laughter. "Oh, man!" He says as he slowly calms his self down, into a repressed chuckle. "Man, I, I cant' believe I'm sitting here, talking about heaters and landlords and...After, after that whole experience, I...it's just too funny, Andy. That's way too funny."

"Yeah, actually I know just what you mean, Jay. Pretty crazy shit, isn't it? Can you see why I've been all, well...practically obsessing over it? Isn't that just completely wild shit??" Jay nodded.

"Yeah, Andy. That's really something you got going there. No wonder I barely hear much about people doing it, though. That's pretty, that's pretty harsh stuff, Andy. Definitely not a thing for partying with."

"Helll naw, it ain't! It does have the unfortunate consequence of making girlfriends think you're crazy, though..." Jay sat up a little bit.

"Jenn? She hasn't tried it, yet?"

"No, well, actually she has. At Lane's funeral, we both tried it for the first time. She said it didn't really do much to her; she's never tried it since." Jay shot straight up to a sitting position on the couch now.

"Lane's what? Funeral?" He looked like he'd seen a ghost.

"Oh, shit man!!" I slapped myself on the forehead. "Dude, I'm so sorry, you've been out of town for so long, that...I forgot that, well... You haven't heard? Shit, dude, yeah. Lane's uh, well, he's dead, man. His funeral was a month ago." I felt really stupid now, why didn't I think of this earlier? Me and my big mouth.

"Wow...I...you're not going to believe this, but, well...when I was getting zipped up or whatever, I completely remember seeing Lane's face; he was in one of the uh, the, " he made a zipping motion with his hand as he pictured it, "one of the teeth of the zipper or whatever. Man! That is just insane. Just insane." he looked off into the distance, then continued. "Ohwell though, everyone knew it would happen sooner or later. How'd he go?" He looked back over at me; he seemed to be more lucid now than the last few minutes.

"Um, beat up, robbery in his sleep, they took all his stash and his money." Jay nodded.

"Yep, can't say I'm surprised. Lane, though, dang. he was a good man."

"Buddhist, actually. You know that?"

"Oh, yeah." He nodded, "Like I said, really good guy. We used to talk about that all the time, think I was one of hte few people he told about that stuff. Kinda why I don't really feel bad for him or anything, he always said a big part of his practice was in getting ready for death. Probably the most prepared person I'm aware of knowing. But, boy...it's just so odd, seeing him in that zipper, like...like I was staring straight square into infinity." His eyes drifted back off into space as his voice trailed off.

Not even thinking, I just blurted out "Which one?" Jay's eyes snapped back into focus and his head turned straight towards me.

"What do you mean? The, um, the full...one. Like looking into straight into the eyes of god, the infinite...Wait, what do you mean which infinity?"

"Um, " i stammered a bit, not sure how to explain it, or even why I mentioned it in the first place. "Well, there's at least two different types of infinities, and maybe a third or more or something, I don't know, just something I learned in passing a year ago or so." I thought for a second, then continued, "Like, well, there's the normal 'infinity' the one you hear about as a kid, you know? The infinity of, like, counting or whatever. It's possible to count infinitely by simply like, just adding one to whatever number is the highest you've counted to. Like you can count to infinity, by just continually adding one to a number, then one to that, then...on and on." I stopped a moment, making sure I was even making sense; I try not to bring up concepts that I know of but don't understand enough to formulate into words. I continued.

"So, they say that's the first infinity; an actual, countable, infinity." Jay didn't move much, just stared at me, soaking in the information. I guessed he was still following along, though I had no sign pointing in either direction. "So, there's that infinity, but then there's a second, uncountable infinity. Apparently somebody proved it at some point in math's history using uh, irrational numbers? Like pi, or e, or whatever, those numbers that don't have repeating decimals." I was trying to think ahead of my explanation; it was actually working and things were going a little smoother. "So, that's this other infinity, where like, who knows how many different numbers there are of infinitely repeating random decimals. It's uncountable, there's no way to set out and just count all of them, so they say that, well, they're are infinitely more 'irrational' numbers than the first infinity of just, countable numbers or something." Whew, need a deep breath after pulling that one out of my ass.

I waved my hands in front of Jay's face, "That making any sense at all? I've never really tried to put this into words before, so...i have no idea if it's coherent at all."

Jay nodded slowly and he answered the same way, "Yeah...Yeah, Andy. It was, it was that second one. I didn't even know there were more than one, but...but I did. It was definitely the other one, the uncountable one."

I smiled. Wow, never know when some random piece of stupid information is going to help out a friend figure out his trip from some strange drug, huh? I'd actually never normally even try beginning to explain something like this to just anybody, but Jay was a geek like me. Actually, not like me exactly, I'm a programmer, it kinda comes with the territory, but Jay is just...just a very interested individual, I guess. He once memorized pi up to like 20 digits or something just so he could say he did, so I actually believe him when he says it was the second order of infinity that he just witnessed. Hmm, go figure.

Jay laned forward, rested his chin on his hand, and his elbow on his knee. He wasn't covered in sweat any more, and seemed a lot more alert as he let out a small yawn and looked over at me. "So, Andy. You gonna give it another try, too?" he grinned mischieviously .

"Um, I dunno, man. It's all a bit too real after watching you trip out, and hearing about it. It's not the most pleasant thing, you know what i mean?"

"Haha, yeah man, I definitely do, but..." there's that mischievous look again, "but come on, you're not gonna get all the entertainment while I have to deal with my world crashing around me, are you? Come on, I'm curious what it looks like to watch somebody on it."

"Dude, careful what you ask for, man. Just moments ago, you were thrashing around and kicking and stuff. I forgot to ask! Do you remember saying 'expecting' over and over?" Jay creased his forehead and tried to think back.

"No, i'm not sure. You say I was thrashing around, though?"

"Yeah, man. You were kicking your legs and screaming and some crazy ass shit. I didn't know what to do so I just kept reminding you that you tapped your head, and told you to chill and stuff." I looked back at him, and he was staring off into space one more time.

"Yeah, yeah...I remember you saying that, and I looked at you, and you were there, but you were somewhere far off, way far off in the distance. Man, yeah, that was pretty odd. Didn't know i was kicking around though, that makes me feel a little odd." He scratched the stubble at his cheek.

"Yeah, was a little, um, disconcerting to say the least. But was all good, I took care of you."

He grinned, "Yeah, thanks, Andy. I'm glad out of anybody to try it with, it was you, for sure. Well damn, Andy, I don't know. Do whatever you want to do. But..." the grinning look came back over his face, "But I think it'd sure be entertaining if you did."

"I, i dunno..." I shifted around, uneasy of the decision. I guess it is something I should do, my whole experiment and all. And it would be nice to have a watcher like the people online suggested. Brrr, the shivers of just thinking about it, though! Half excitement, half apprehension. "Okay, I got it, Jay. Let's leave it to fate, or the tao, or whatever-the-fuck. Got a coin?"

A big, crooked, half smile came over his face. "I got better than that, I got my lucky casino chip." He hopped up from the couch, and skipped a step or two towards the bookshelf. There was a little metal tin there, looked like an old stash spot probably.

"This," he said as he opened the tin and shuffled around a bit inside. Looked like it was full of old mementos and keepsakes, "this is the five dollar chip that I came back with at Vegas a few years ago." Finding what he was looking for, he closed the tin and flipped a red and white casino chip up into the air, catching it and slapping it over onto the back of his wrist. He picked it up and tossed it over to me.

"Was down a grand for the trip, and that was my last chip, which I had accidentally forgot about in my back pocket. Because of that chip," he pointed over at me as I looked it over, "I finished with 2 thousand dollars more than when I first arrived.."

I moved the chip around in my hand; it had a good weight to it, but didn't seem special overall.

"So, what'cha waiting for? let's see what the interconnected web of the universe thinks you should do."

"Alright, alright," I took a deep breath and situated the coin into standard flipping configuration on my hand. "Heads I go, tails I don't? Er...wait...there aren't heads or tails on this thing. Okay, umm... 'Blue Man Group' I go, 'Sands Casino' I don't." Jay smiled and nodded, so I flipped the chip spinning swiftly high in the air. It came back towards me and my hand slapped against it as I caught it mid-air, flipped it over and smacked it down onto the back of my other hand.

I looked up at Jay before uncovering my hand; we both knew what the dang thing was going to say. Slowly picking up my hand off of the chip, Jay leans in to get a look and I look down...Damn. "Blue Man Group."

"Umm...two out of three?" I knew it wouldn't work, but thought i'd suggest it ayway.

"Whatever, you are not going to back out on fate's decision, are you? Show a little respect, Andy."

"Fine, fine, you're right. You suck, but you're right." I stuck my tongue out in his direction as I started gathering up the tapper, dipping my personal needle into the liquid and latching it in.

Jay had a locked smile on his face as he sat down on the couch, fascinated at every move that I was doing. He set his head on his chin and just sat, waiting with bated anticipation for the show to begin. What kind of show? He had no clue, but man he couldn't wait to find out.

I looked over at his goofy grinning face. "Jay dog, man, I don't know if I can do it with you like that. You're giving off some creepy mad scientist vibes, man."

Jay laughed, caught himself, and sat back on the couch, relaxing a little. He turned to his right, grabbing a small green, glass pipe and a bic lighter off of his side table. "Sorry, Andy. Here, I'll just hit this and get the mellow, disconnected stoner vibe going for you." He held the pipe up to his lips, and his face was bathed in a flicker of light and shadows as he took a long draw off of it. I watched the smoke drift and dance upwards from the bowl as he held in a lungful of smoke, then watched it dissipate and scatter chaotically as he exhaled slowly into the room.

"Thanks, Jay. You always know just what to do." I drew in a long lungful of fresh air, as I prepared my self in my thoughts; no words, just emotions and concepts rising and falling. It'll be cool, it always is, but... I do know that it's always different when I get there.

"Here goes." I close my eyes.

"See you on the other side, Andy."

As I swing the tapper towards my head, I realize: great. I already got Jay talking like a mad man.

Thunk!

I feel the familiar sting on the side of my head as hte needle makes it's tiny invasion. I instinctively begin clenching my jaws a bit, holding my breath. Not much thought involved in this step of the journey anymore, it's become more of a time for trying to relax, understanding where I'm about to 'go' and experience.

I exhale and the rippin sensation is back. I laugh, this again? Music, it's slow, it's..it's life, i'ts the world, all of reality...where?

We're on the couch, and they're asking "This? Again?" Now they're laughing!

Wait, it's different..The couch fades, my mind reels. I'm being bumped. Ohh, the creatures!

Creatures? They're rolling the carpet over. It's the whole room, rolling up. Shit, I'm in their way. They're annoyed at my being here. "Sorry, I uh..."

Ugh, it's wrapping over me! To the left, I"m being pushed. What is...? It's all gone! Why are you...

Nothing makes sense - the room is strips - two strips, peeling back towards me! They...behind me? Full of creatures. A black void, holy shit there's nothing, it's...nothingness, network of little...beings, not creatures, tey're..not animals, what are...what am ..I can't see, they're behind me...behind...the universe, behind all of reality. the carpet's a curtain! They're turning it over into....into....

We have to go. They're taking me along, we're going on the bus to the next....the next...

The bus! It's made out of them, the creatures linking arms, bt one's arm is the other's foot it's... it's all going past us, whirling, whirling...ohmigod i'm riding past realities...

Behind us is a white plane...No, the plane is them, is me, is us, it's... the white plane is us, is our...our copies, it's...Shit! THa'ts how we're moving, the last part is the next part of...us..we're making copies...one in teh past, the squished face of me i nteh future it's all....shit, it's all so fast.

I'm here, this room, but it's..so far in the future, we've made so many copies of...fuck.. the couch, it's the couch but, it's.. Couchulation. Tableatory, it's a festival! It's the world, but its' not, they're behind it, I'm behind it, it's... it's all a party, celebration! Holy shit...that's what it is, what we are!

The creatures sing. They're words, they're...celebirtegone, it's...yes! They sing, and shapes appear, it's how they..it's how we... reality is their song, it's... wow.

The couchulation is...it's all fading, I'm here, Jay is on the couch but behind is... Ha...haha..it's...they're using it to communicate. "This is the tool to connect us"

"Yes, please! What is...what can..." then, behind the couch, inside the wall, it was time, all of time that was behind us. Then there was a face, familiar face, it's so...what?

"I thought I recognized you...." then it faded back into the wall, and I could see the rough texture of the paint again.

I'm back, the tingling rush of adrenaline washing over me, I can feel the sweat dripping from my entire body. I shake my head, and focus back on the couch, the couch is all there is, past Jay, past the room. they're using it. They're behind it, like a mask, still trying to communicate with me.

"I..." i let out a chuckle and my head spins. It's the room again, I'm still...hahahaha...not still, i've moved but..but i'm here, i'm...

Jay leaned forward and touched my shoulder. "Andy, hey, man, you're okay, it's good, man. You okay?"

I look back up, wow, I can't beleive that I"m here.

"Well, that was different... Uh, hey Jay." I lazily wave my arm in his direction and stare at the ground. The carpet, the rug. I can't beleive it's stationary here. "fuck dude, that was...that was different, just weird...odd...You didn't see them, did you?"

Jay laughed, then caught him self. "Um, see what, Andy?"

Now I was laughing, it all sounds so rediculous now. "There were...there were creatures, they were, uh...uh...." i ran my hand through my hair and took a deep breath. I tried to sound as matter-of-factly as I could, "They were, they were behind me. They were rolling up this reality to make room for the next, and...man, it was a big party, a big party, it...like the couch! It was the same word this time, but, celebratory. It was 'couchulation' and, and they were using it, to...to communicate, and..." I trailed off as my mind did. It was pretty much empty, just pure experience remained, no thoughts attached, no direction, just..the experience of now itself.

"Jay..."

"Yeah, Andy?"

I laughed. "That was fucked up! I was on a ride, I...it was different, though, completely different. It was the reality beneath now, it..." I looked around, and Jay stayed silent. He had enough experience with drugs to know when to be quiet. I continued, trying to dump as much information into his brain while it was still fresh.

"It was, it was beneath here." I looked around again, "Beneath this reality, there were creatures, they were rolling it up to move to the next moment it...I was on a bus, but it was a bus made out of the creatures they...maybe it was like the kids before, they were traveling down the line, creating this reality out of...out of song, man, all this," I made a sweeping motion at the room, "All of this was their song, their celebration of life, of existence. And the couch! They were communicating through it to me, trying to show me something. Tapping is how they communicate with us, and..." i caught my self, it's all so crazy! "It's all so crazy! I don't know, man. It was something else. I was looking backstage of the universe, of reality. All of this is the celebration of their construction, the celebration of what we call reality, dude..." I burst into laughter and rolled onto my side, giving in to the pull of gravity, then relaxing into it's pull, letting it suck me down onto the floor. "Why the fuck do I do this to my self..."

Jay was laughing too. " Wow, Andy. That's something else, man. That's definitely one for your session log."

"Yeah, yeah it is...I...heh... Um," reality was settling back into focus in my brain. "I...what did that look like?"

Jay's eyes looked to the right as he tried to put his memory into words. "Well, not much, actually. You let out a deep breath, then just started laughing. You kept looking at the couch, though. You mumbled a little bit, 'elation'? You kept saying elation, and asking half-formed questions. You kept saying 'what...what...'. I tried to comfort you, and you just kept going, looking around the room...That's some really interesting crazy stuff you got going on."

I looked up at Jay, and then a flash of recognition hit me as my eyes wandered to the wall behind him. "He was here! Wow, I remember that, now. The old man, he was inside the walls."

"Old man?"

"Yeah, umm...shit, yeah there was this old guy that I saw at the record store a few weeks ago; said i seemed familiar, but I told him I didn't recognize him at all. He was here, but like..behind the wall, said he knew why he recognized me. Wow, man, think like...we actually communicated or something?"

"Well," Jay thought for a second, "well, I do know what there are records of African tribes and things that, that researchers report, would hold meetings by going to sleep. They'd all go to sleep, and meet in the 'dream world', then hold some sort of meeting. Then they'd all wake up, and talk about the meeting in this reality, so... So I'm not sure, Andy. I guess communicating in other realities would seem to be a plausible thing, I'd infer from that the possibility of meeting others in varying states of consciousness, regardless of distance."

Leave it to Jay to find some sort of reasonable explanation. "Yeah, I could dig on that, Jay. Whew, either way, though...that was some fucked up shit." The sweat was cooling off as it evaporated from my body, but my mind was still lost in the clouds; there's always this weird period between the supposedly 'unreal' experience, and the re-integration of the accepted reality. I leaned back against the wall and just stared at the carpet; the carpet that was being rolled over me just moments ago, but now seemed stationary and immovable.

Jay spoke up as he himself let his weight sink into the couch he was sitting on. "So, Andy. Could you leave a bit of that juice behind? I think I'm going to buy a tapper tomorrow; you have me intrigued, i gotta admit."

"Sure thing, man. I think I'm gonna chill for a bit, then head on home."

And so I shared my own delierium with the only person that I knew had a chance of latching on to it, too.

Chapter Ten: Boot Camp

2006-11-21T09:40:00.000-07:00

I'm finding that this tapping thing is a little tricky to mess with. I don't even know how to describe it, but it's nothing that I've wanted to even try more than once every week at most, and even then... whew. I've decided to go ahead and started journaling after each, um, session or whatever; people online had suggested it as a good tool for making sense of everything. I didn't know what the heck to expect from the whole thing, and actually I just kept questioning my own sanity for even thinking there was anything to expect. I'd made up my mind, talked myself out of thinking I was crazy for trying, and dove in head first. I decided to take it as a comforting thought that no matter how much I talked my self into something as absurd sounding as dosing in the name of science, since...Well, i mean c'mon: Does that really sound like the talk of a sane man?

The most unfortunate part of all of this is that I wasn't able to have Jenn along with me for the ride. At first, I actually thought she would have loved to be a part of the whole thrill of the experiment, at the least happy at an excuse to get messed up, but that wasn't the case. After I started talking about all the bizarre thoughts and ideas and whatever that I had about tapping, she pretty much decided it wasn't something she wanted to do again. Who knows, maybe it was even that first hit of hers that turned her off, or, well, that even kept her from wanting to get fucked up as much in general. After that funeral, she didn't really get high as often, or drink as heavily or whatever when we went out; which was actually such a nice thing since, well, you can only carry a drunk girl home so many times before it loses it's novelty. I'm not sure I'd jump to saying that it had anything to do with her little tapping experience, but it sure is an interesting coincidence.

I think that i'm definitely beginning to whitness the reverse tolerance that people talked about in the different forums online; which I gotta admit makes me keep slipping back and forth between thinking that I'm just getting "better at" and "more in tune with" the experience, or...Well, or I'm doing irreparable damage to my brain and slowly slipping into psychosis. Could really go either way at the moment.

It's been three weeks, and four taps; still as crazy as ever, though one of those times, nothing really happened. Looking online, either nothing happened, I forgot what happened, or the plant just didn't have anything to "show" me at the moment. Hmm... As I sit here, looking over the last couple of journals, I'm still not seeing a pattern or whateve that people talk about. I was hoping to gain a little more insight into the past sessions, so that I can maybe try and put a little more intention into the next ones or something.

Check out this one, it's my first entry after officially starting what I've ended up referring to as "The Experiment" (haha, spooky sounding, isn't it?):

Session #3

Date: Wednesday, September 05, 2007
Time: 6pm

Bewildering, completely. Can barely put into words...here's my try.

Felt the pull of a curtain, definitely being tugged on, the veil of this reality compared to the other. -- Had this feeling that it was childhood for a long time at teh beginning.... brown carpet, chasing a red ball in a hallway... running outside.... I kept thinking of things and memories that weren't "real". kept thinking "that's not real! That makes no sense!" My attachment to this "reality?" :(

Having a discussion with others about this "me" in this life. one girl, a guy..others? they were talking about how they lked the way "he" thought, and the books "he"(Me) read and..stuff.. what "he" (I) was doing. something liek that.

Vaguely saw like i was in a school. had thought "it's like we're at school!" and vision became an old-fashioned (but new) lassroom. then later there were kids riding a bus, they were all waving for me to join them. then had feeling of trying to 'bridge' this world with that one, and it wasn't working, like a tube with two connectors, i had a vision of a video game, some old school style where you had to go to the edge of one screen to get it to slide over to the next one, but couldn't figure out how to get the other side of the screen to work.

wow, one of the weirdest shits ever. i realize how rediculous it sounds putting it in here.sounds weren't quite coming hrough at first. a lot of "movie type" camera angles.

Yep, that was definitely a weird one to kick off the experiment. I just keep reading it over and over, having vague flash backs to what it was like to have been trying to put that experience into words. Even though I still get those slight chills of famliiarity from being reminded of that experience, it still seems so distance, even just a couple of weeks later. Definitely did the trick, though! Here I am, sitting in my boxers at night, still staring at the screen, letting my thoughts get lost as it wanders around, trying to find any pieces that it can put together.

It was after that first session that Jenn first became completely polarized to the whole idea of tapping. She'd been indifferent at first, "Sure," she'd said "go mess with your head. Might be kinda fun to look back on later."

It was interesting the seriousness in her voice when she fixed my eyes with a stare and said "Just make sure there's a later. You're not going to become just another one of those burned out hippies." Then, catching herself, she'd add with a faint smile "Alright?" I always nodded and agreed. I'm too smart for that stuff, right?

Either way, now I'm just sort of keeping the log private. Jay's apparently been out of town seeing some family in Idaho or something, but I'm hoping to get a good collection of data to show him when he gets back. I know he'll be into it, he's always into anything crazy-sounding; another one of those people that have always convinced themselves there's something more to life than what we see in the day-to-day grind. Actually, that's kinda interesting...Don't most people feel that way? Isn't that the basis of religion in general? Except for zen budhism, naturall; the bastard child religion of no religion.

Well, I think I've gotten all that I will out of staring at this first one. Funny thing is that I'm already clicking the mouse and navigating to the next section before I've even had that thought. it's funny like that, I'm getting a little more aware of the other me that's below the consciousness. Actually, that ties into the next session entry, that's where it first happened:

Session #4
Date: Friday, September 16, 2007
Time: 11pm

I start off and i'm giggling, laughing out loud, everything thta i am, am becoming, that 'they want me to turn into' is so different from what i am or think i am. how could you put any of it in words?

I was the voice in my head. The voice of the me that tells me to get up, go to work, call your mom; the subconscious mind . So, I told my body to stand up and walk around and pick up that remote and whatever, just to prove that i could.

I was suddenly somebody else, somebody confused, some other 'me' in a different reality. "What happened?" I was wondering why nothing was making sense. Then I realized it was me, and told him that no, sorry, I just tapped my head. He kinda chuckled a bit and then I see the line, this bright, glowing thin thread that's connecting some other me to my present self.

Pulling away I had a faint image of 3 children riding a merry-go-round ‘behind’ the wall, and distinctly heard an excited girl’s voice yell ‘come on!’ in the distance.

Feel like being pulled in a direction, swirling patterns, being pulled to the left. Not onl pulled, but pushed, being taken in both directions, reality's peeling away

Music! The music was back, I just remembered that tapping always starts with the oddest music. Not even just music, but the other 'worlds' are very musical in nature.

And it's kinda weird, but that's when I took 'back' the first thing from tap-reality to this one. i was sitting at a stop light, and wondering which way to go, left or straight, I actually notice the self that tells the body to move, moving the hands, turning the wheel, pressing the foot, without actually words out loud in my thoughts, It's like I'm witnessing my controller.

And again, an instance of wordlessness, the complete lack of words with such semantic complexity that nothing in our laguage would even come close. How do you describe such things that supercede description?

After the first two experiences, I was more curious than ever. As weird as some of those sessions sound like to read back, they weren't anything like the crazy ass things I started writing about after the seventh session. Apparently this is pretty common, people think that getting used to it is going to be easy, but i forgot that there must be a reason that they call it "boot camp"; instead of "training", or "preschool" or something.

Session #7
Date: Sunday, October 07, the year two thousand, one hundred and twenty three.
Time: 7:30am

I'm back on the couch, with friends. They look at me and ask "Again?" Yeah, I'm doing it again...

musical laughter, voices, different universes, aisles, shopping carts, clouds, ground, heels... none of it could make sense in normal life.not even that the symbols are different, but literrally the semantic things that words point to, are completely different here. the words make no sense, but they do in thta world. name brands, cartoon/puppet characters, wheels, things, ships.. here's some notes i tried to scribble down. i understand they make no sense, but did at the time:

Watching feet, they're going by, I feel their pressure. I'm ground?

"E water fall" sense/see/fly over a huge waterfall, shape of an E, all reality is sliding down it

biscettes
sungetti
blisketpong
deepiz ne
wholso
bisci-scooter
see everyone putting on a suit (height, weight, fat, lifestyle) before stepping out a door into other realities

the one-glog nezzle - a ship... launching, on a mission. blue waters, wooden ships
things from all times
church court, doors close after scrolls are added to. has an entire history an dculture/religion behind it, but it is so far from here, thta it would make no sense.

we "can't cole past the bliff" - The reason we aren't seeing reality as it really is. vision of pieces sluffing off a universe..bricks falling, sliding down riding on a current

there was a word that i realized was a "very important one to remember".. of course, I didn't. it was something that started with "plunk" or some type of sound.

Little less coherent, huh? The shift was dramatic, I actually felt like I was being shown the workings of the universe behind the veil of reality. Everything made sense, but now the words are complete babble. "We can't cole past the bliff" What the heck does that mean? I had asked out loud at some point, "why can't we see this normally? Why isn't this the way reality appears to us?" And that was the answer i received. There was more, more that I wanted to remember, more that I was "told" to remember, but it didn't come back with me.

I remember that I kept opening my eyes, and seeing that I was in our living room, realizing that Jenn was asleep just doors away, and then I'd burst into laughter at just how funny that was; there I was seeing all these different dimensions, but in this one reality I was some dude with a girlfriend! It was hilarious, and I cracked up in hilarious laughter every time I opened my eyes.

I'm already starting to notice a few themes, kind of getting a little more lay of the land; there's two things that seem to happen right when I first slip away: the music starts, and I get this odd sensation of "being back" somewhere that I'd long been gone from. It's kinda funny, it's not the most comfortable feeling at all, and every time I'm "back" I wonder why the hell I'm doing this again. There's people there, these friends of mine in the dimension one higher than this one; well, that's what it feels like, anyway. They're there, sometimes we're sitting on a couch, it's always in the middle of a conversation...this time, they asked me why I was "there" again, haha, I have no idea what to say.

The music starting is an odd one, too. It's not that there's music "playing" exactly, but it's more that the other realm is music, er, well... if there is another realm or whatever. Either way, I experience what seems to be a world created out of music.

And again with the words...I tried to write some o them down, but I didn't get the "important" one, whatever that means...And "we can't cole past the bliff"? What the hell does that mean? Nothing at the moment, but man...at the time it really sounded like something profound. It reminds me of this psychologist I heard of that was fascinated with the near death experiences induced by general anesthetic; he decided to try it himself, hooked himself up to the anasthesia, notebook in hand. The story goes that he had a near death experience, woke up and frantically wrote in his notebook before passing out again. He woke up later, and looking down at what he wrote that was so mindshatteringly profound just moments before, he'd written:

"Everything in the universe is the smell of burnt almonds."

Intersting how words can completely lose their meaning in different states of mind, huh? At least his ephiphany was crafted out of actual words from a common lexicon, though. As an interesting side note, I hear the inside of the international space station smells like burnt almonds.

Sitting back in my chair, staring at the screen, my mind thinks over these first few sessions in the name of science. Are these all figments of my own creation? My mind projecting rediculous explanations to make sense of the potential damage I was doing to my brain? What kinds of things are these for a brain to make up, anyway? My dreams aren't even anywhere close to these "hallucinations", if indeed that's what they are, these manifestations of some primordial achetypal subconsciousness whatevermajig...These were the questions that go through my mind as I read over these words that sound as if they came from a mad man, but were in fact typed by my own two hands.

Through it all though, there's an interesting factor that keeps my thoughts grounded in reality: I'm noticing things that are spawned from the experiences in tapping. In one of the odder sessions, where the core of the discombobulation was over but closing my eyes would make me slip back in, I looked down and saw all these people looking back up at me. Well, not people exactly, they looked nothing like people, more like my reaction to them was as if they were people?

Anyway, these things are looking up at me, and telling me to let them get going. They need to be somewhere, but I'm forcing them to stay, holding them captive. I think about it and realize that yeah, there's something I"m doing that's keeping them; a tension I'm holding in space or something. It all happened in a split second, this whole exchange, but I relax the tension, they say thanks as they run away, and then I hear a crash on the floor and open my eyes: It was the tapper that I was still holding! That was me dropping it, it breaking up into it's seperate pieces on impact. I actually shook my head a little bit to get over that one...what a weird way to experience gravity, huh?

Where was I? Oh yeah, what that had to do with real life. Well, that awareness of tension that I had ended up being what it felt like to grip something with my hand, what it was like to tense those muscles and pull the tendons. I'd never really thought about what it felt like to move my body before, it was always just something I "did", you know? But after that feeling of tension if I actually concentrate on it, I can really feel what it's like as I perform some sort of action, watching each muscle tense from my arm to hand as I open a jar of jelly, or pick up the vacuum cleaner or anything like that...it's really weird.

Looba-looba-looba....looba-looba-looba...

Huh, phone's ringing. I never noticed that my cordless doesn't actually make a ringing sound. Ack, where is it even...never find the damn thing...Oop, got it.

boop! "Hello?"

"Hey, Andy? What's up, this is Jay." It's my phone, but he always sounds like he's surprised that it's me when I answer.

"Jay! Hey, what's going on, man. You back in town already?"

"Yes, yes I am. My train just got in a last night, actually."

"Train? Haha, you travel by train?" Jay always did have a taste for the old-fashioned.

"Yes, actually I think that train travel is completely the way to go. Gives you some time to think, read, have a coctail..."

"No way! Rock on, you get to get drunk on the train?"

He didn't seem so happy that I'd cut him off.

"Um, yeah sure, you definitely could. I didn't chose to, but... Either way, it also saves on all the fuel and pollution that's wasted from air travel. Did you know that air travel is one of the top pollution contributers in the world? Even if we did away with industrial pollution and limited emitions on cars and everything, we'd still be screwed for greenhouse emitions and global warming."

"Yeah, sure," i answered, "But the planes are going to fly no matter if you take the train or not. I mean, so why bother?" I liked to try and get jay going on things like this. One time I had him all up in arms telling him about our livestock industry. I said it was more humane to keep them caged up in dark rooms, since then they wouldn't even develop enough of a brain to know they were alive. I finally told him i was kidding after his face started turning deeper shades of red.

"Yes, yes," he didn't sound so impressed. Dang, he's not biting. "But planes go through fuel depending on the weight load. So by not being on the plane, I'm at least saving it the fuel of lugging my weight around."

Huh, he's got a point. "Huh, you've got a point. Righton, so what's up, man?"

"Nothing much. I just got your email actually and, well, thought I'd give you a call."

I grinned; yep, leave it to drugs to be the never fail snare trap that lures in the elusive prey we call Jay.

"Haha, yeah? What'd you think? Ever tried this tapping stuff before?"

"Yes, actually you know I did try it once a couple of years ago. I remember it being really odd, but I don't remember too much of it."

"I figured if anybody had tried it, it'd be you, Mr. Jay. But didn't get much outta it, huh?"

"No, not really, but I'd been drinking and guess I was pretty buzzed at the time, to be honest. Jimmy and I stopped by some guy's place that Jimmy's friend knew, and they were sitting in the kitchen laughing maniacally; it was a really weird vibe to walk into!" He chuckled a little, reminiscing, "Jimmy and I walk into the kitchen, and these mexican kids ask us if we'd ever tapped before, we said no and they told us to sit down because we'd love the stuff. They loaded up a tapper, I swung it at my head and then I just remember laughing for a few seconds, completely not knowing what was going on. All I really remember is hearing Jimmy start laughing first as I was swinging the thing."

I interjected a "Yes! I definitely know what you're talking about! It's pretty crazy, ain't it?"

"Yeah, I mean, I don't know, really. Like I said, I don't really remember anything other than it being really really weird. So yeah, I'm not sure exactly what I think about it, but I've been thinking about trying it again some time. Maybe with less alcohol in my blood, though." Jay let out another one of his half-chuckles.

"Yeah, man, I think it's definitely worth another shot. I've been doing it a bit lately, and it is so much weirder when you actually remember the crazy shit that goes on when you're out! Like seriously dude, conversations with other beings, seeing different dimensions or like, being different objects...I looked it up online and there's people that are talking about other galaxies, living other lives and... I don't know, man, just crazy stuff, crazy stuff..."

My voice trailed off as I thought through all the things I wrote in my journal. How can you talk about any of that without sounding crazy? Jay paused for a second to see if I was going to say anything else, then spoke a little slowly like he didn't know what to say.

"Wow, that does sound crazy, Andy. It's funny you should mention talking to people in other dimensions. I've been reading a lot of stuff about that, lately. Have you heard of Graham Hancock?"

Hmm, this isn't what I wanted to talk about, but okay, I'll go with it. "Um, naw, no i haven't. What's his thing about?"

"Well, it's really interesting. He's done studies of all these ancient tribal cultures, and sort of interprets their cave drawings and things. Basically, he says that many of these civilizations had routinely taken hallucinogenic drugs, and spoke with aliens in different dimensions. Specifically lizard-like species and other intergalactic beings."

Hey, that sounded familiar. "Really? Seriously, lke... lizard-people lizard-people?"

"Yes, it's apparently a common theme in what he calls 'therianthropic' cave art; half-man, half animal."

"Wow, Jay. You're not gonna believe this, but I seriously think that I heard people online talking about lizard people, too. Dude, like I said, this stuff's really weird."

"Well then what say we stop stalling? When are we getting together to check the whole thing out, Andy?"

"Well, Mr. Jay, lemme check my calendar." I ruffle some papers and clutter that are sitting on my desk, old mail, reciepts, "Well sir, it seems that I have an opening tomorrow evening; I get off at six. You clear?"

"Terrific, tomorrow I open at the restaurant, so it works out beautifully."

"Rock on! See ya then."

"Talk to later, Andy."

And that was how I brought Jay into all of this.

Chapter Nine: Ignorance is Bliss

2006-11-15T14:57:00.000-07:00

Now that I had some of this tapping stuff on hand and a little more experience under my belt, I buried my self deep into online research. I was kinda surprised at the amount of work it took to find much of anything; apparently "tap" and "tapping" aren't the best keywords for finding much on google. Very sneaky...

It took a bit, but after I found some of the more drug-type portal sights, I was able to follow the trail and get into the different message boards and such that were around. You know what I found? People's experiences aren't all like mine when tapping.

There was a pretty good mix of people around posting on these message boards. Apparently, there's a wide range of tolerances and such, so that some people barely feel anything where as others can go a bit out of their minds. I'm guessing I was part of the latter group, lucky me.

Everyone from old hippies to young teenagers were talking about tapping, and really I gotta say most of them just seemed to have the attitude that it was just another thing to get messed up on. They weren't really bothered at all if they didn't remember anything afterwards; it was enough to know that they couldn't stop themselves from laughing while they were on it. And all these weird places that they were doing it at, like clubs and bars and huge parties and stuff? I'm not sure how they do it, just being around a few people was even a little too much, and with the weird body aches I couldn't imagine trying to get around at a club.

Some of the 20-something kids around seemed to have a similar attitude towards tapping as I did, and that made me feel a little better. A lot of people actually are out there talking about the sensation of other realities, some feel like they're connecting with plant's spirits, others talking about other worlds, or even living entire other lives. A chill shot up through my spine as their words, though not exactly describing familiar things, still run close enough to home to trigger some of the emotions of the experience. One person described it: "It was as if my soul was being ripped from my body." Funny, he said he wasn't a big fan after that experience.

One of the most interesting things I've come across on line, actually, is that there's apparently a large group of people that are cultivating their own plants, performing the distillation process by their selves in the comfort of their own homes. It seems that there's some sort of loophole in the law regarding tap, and even though it's illegal to distill the plant into tap, or possess tap, or distribute tap to anybody, it's actually legal to own and ship the plant itself. That's how I find it is with government, actually. There's always some way to do whatever the hell it is that you want to; lay low and mind your own business, and the government's invisible. As a friend of mine usd to say "laws are only for the stupid people."

I also found that there's apparently not much of a tolerance build-up to the drug that's ever been reported. It seems that no matter how much of it you do, you still only need the same little amount to get off the next time. At first I figured that this was due to the extreme uncomfortableness that was associated with it's use, meaning that nobody would really ever do it often enough to build up a tolerance. After doing a little more research, though? There are some crazy ass mother fuckers out there.

I found one guy that claims to tap at least once every day. Every day! I couldn't imagine just how much that would completely fuck your world up, you know? At first, I was wondering how he got around having all these little prick marks in his head; quite the thing to have to explain! The ones that I get are really superficial and heal up within a day, but if I was doing it every day?? Other people on the board had simliar questions though, and it came out that he apparently does weird shit like injecting it into his gums and things. Whew, that is some dedication; especially for a supposedly non-addictive drug. He swore that he just really like seeing what the plant "had to show" him, but...from his posts it sounded like he was getting a little loopy from that show. One of the posts at the bottom said "Okay, well I guess this is a warning to all of us: Don't Tap Daily. You end up like this guy." Gotta love the internet, huh?

Something else caught me as interesting on the boards; apparently a lot of people actually get up and walk around in some sort of sleepwalking daze during the minute or so that they're under the drug's effects. Like actually pick up things and open doors, break out onto their front lawn and start running around in circles and whatever, and then 'wake up' and have no idea how they got there. A lot of people are actually suggesting that you have what they call a 'watcher' with you whenever you tap; somebody that can keep you from falling over, or trying to drive or crazy stuff like that. It's not everyone that does it, and I seem to be a luck one that doesn't, but it was still interesting to me. I kept wondering: are they just crazy and sleepwalking? Losing control of their bodies? Do they think they're somewhere "else" in their head, and their physically trying to interact with that other world? Man, this is some fascinating shit that I've stumbled on.

I must have spent nearly an entire day just reading through different experiences, and posts, and write-ups and reports; it seems that I'm not the only one teetering on the borderline of obsession, it seemed like people were talking about it everywhere. It was then, when I was finally starting to lose interest, that I came accross the post that was the roadsign which pointed my way towards the journey of a million miles: I found out that there was something that the more experienced people referred to as "tapping boot camp".

After catching on to the key word, it was easy to do a search online and come up with the rest of the references. Apparently the complete bewildering, mindfucking confusion that I felt from my first couple of times tapping is what others refer to as boot camp, just the beginning of the relationship with the plant's essence or whatever. It varied from post to post just how many times it takes to "get through" this boot camp, but it seemed to be at least ten taps just to get over the hill; from there, I'd be at the tipping point, and the least amount of effort would rocket supposedly rocket me through the different realities, dimensions, or whatever the hell.

I was fully aware of the apparent sounding of insanity that underlied these ideas, but what bothered me the most? What bothered me the most, was that I was also aware at how much of it didn't sound so strange to my own thoughts. Really though, these people online did sound quite coherent, intelligent, well-researched and extremely well spoken. How could random people on the internet that did a mind-whacking drug so many times that they felt they had been through a "boot camp" lead me wrong?

And that's when I realized that I had to make the decision: I needed to tap my way through boot camp, I had to fan the flames of curiosity that burned so deep tha they haunted my dreams. I had to figure out what the hell this stuff was really about, and I knew that I wasn't going to be happy until I was just as discombobulated, whirled up in the head, and babble-spurting as the rest of them.

Fuck.

Chapter Eight: The Second (and third, and...) Coming

2006-11-13T03:00:00.000-07:00

So, I've finally came to the desicion that I need to get my hands on some more tap. A few time's worth of tap, actually; I need to experiment. I've never had something that really influenced me this much, not even the death of my drug dealer provided such impact, er, well or actually...did it? Causality aside, I knew that one thing: it was time to try it again.

I made a few phone calls, talked to some people...I wished that it could have been Lain hooking me up, with that big goofy grin he'd always greet me with, but, well, shit happens. Haha, I guess it's a little weird to be nostalgic over a drug dealer, but, I dunno. Now it's just back to being a shady business transaction. At least the new guy delivers, though. That's always a nice touch.

Either way, I got it; I got the liquid, the essence of the plant at hand. Now I'm faced with something of a conundrum...Through all the research I'd done online, I kept seeing references to the respect that the ancient cultures and tribes typically gave to the plant that tap is extracted from. It was surrounded by ritual, preparation, fasting, religion; all the standard things that tribes do, I suppose.

Actually, I suppose that most "consciousness changing" things like drugs, alcohol, even meditation and dieting were treated with that same respect at one time, huh? Man, to be back in those days of old. I hear the Greeks really knew how to trip; using it as an initiation into their sacred "mysteries," as they were called. Years of preparation, meditation, prayer and study; then a sacred ritual in a secret temple hidden from the public, given a hallucinogenic tea, and locked in a dark room to have the secrets of the universe unveiled to you. Man...those were the days.

But back to my current dilemma, I had to ask the question: do I respect it like history has shown it deserves to be respected? Or do I take my own experience, my Americanized mind of freedom, and run with it? I didn't know, and didn't have the patience to wait until i did, so well...that only left the running with it part.

I fumble around a bit, loading up the tapper for my first time. It's a pretty nice piece, actually, but it was pretty expensive for a needle big metal needle-holding thing. Leave it to capitalism to make a buck off of every new trend, huh? It was even the cheaper one, with a spring-loaded needle-holder thing instead of that pneumatic one that one I originally saw had.

With everything set, I take a deep breath and go through the steps that Joe had guided me with the last time...Hold your breath, chomp your jaws, exhale, and...well, okay; maybe it wasn't all that complicated, really. Well, here we go.

I close my eyes, tapper in hand, and then without trying to be involved at all, I just let my arm swiftly swing it up towards my head. How the heck did I end up like this? So's the tao, I suppose...Is this questioning of my self and situation as I lunge a needle into my head going to become a habit?

Thunk!

Tapper to head, needle pricks, spring clicks, deep breath...and now, there's nothing to do but hold my breath and wait.

This sure is a weird thing to choose to do with your time, isn't it? And what do I think's going to happen, like truly. Do I seriously think I'm going to get a glimpse of some other reality or dimension or something? Ha ha ha... It makes me feel a little ashamed but fuck...I guess that on some level I actually am hoping for that...what a freak; they build places for people that think like this.

The tingling sensation starts coming over me. Oh, yeah I remember this...it grows from a tingle a not-quite-painful tearing of pins of needles. Shit, I forgot about this part, this definitely is not anything pleasant..Ohwell, only one thing to do know, I clench my teeth a few more times and go "whooo...." as I exhale.

I'm taken aback as the world slips by. Slips to the left, actually...what does that mean-?

zzzttt....

"What's he doing?" Chatter chatter of voices...what the hell was I just doing?

"Why'd he stop?"

Oh, uh...sorry... and we're rolling foward again. But...wait?

"But, I wanna... I wanna..." I'm laughing hysterically, this is too freaking funny!

Oh shit...it hits me...it's gone, now! That whole place...gone! I wasn't done there!

"Too late now, move!"

wooooosh... I see my room again, but it's only for a second before it blacks out, and I'm back, surrounded by light and swirls and....woosh...

No, no no, I remember...Jenn! I wan't done with Jenn! Oh shit why did I ever want to run away from...and now it's gone. Too late, it's gone, there's no way to get back.

What the hell is that feeling? Oh god, like i'm being torn apart...no! Where are you guys going what the heck...no, where are you all going! auuughh....

Hahahahaha...wait....hahahaha, I get it! HAHAHA, it's like an "m"! oh shit! It's an "m", I get it!

wooooosh...

And then the vibrancy and complete realism of my world fades and I'm transported back to here, sweating heavily, sitting on the floor, opening and closing my mouth. Wow, this doesn't seem real, the somewhat dull colors and shapes of this world replaced the wild, vibrant, rich world of... Of what? Wait a minute, what the hell was that?

I'm equally amused, confused, and bemused by my current situation. What were all those things talking to me? I try and think back to what it was like just seconds ago, but I know that the experience itself is completely different than my current self's memory of it could ever be. Wow, what an odd thing, I can barely re-forumlate the experience into words in any attempt to try and make the least bit of sense of it.

"An m?" I smile to my self...that one, I actually do mean, but the questioning part of my mind asks for those words that can describe it to my analytical parts. I guess I do know what it meant, I had actually felt like I was like...well... a part of my mouth? Or any mouth, I guess, it wasn't familiar like my own. And the action of making an "m" sound, lips coming together, then seperating...that, was...what it felt like? Was I just a part of somebody's mouth?

This is all a little to weird, and I almost feel embarrassed to be having the thought before I even think it out loud in my mind: Is that what it feels like to be a cell in a lip? Constantly rejoining and leaving all the other cells that are around you? What the heck am I thinking? That's crazy talk.

I shake my head as the sweat begins to dry. "It's all good, man, just chill, just chill...Let's go get a beer." Yeah, that's a good idea, me.

I keep thinking about the experience as I make my way into the kitchen. Whew, that was different than the last time. Actually, that was barely similiar at all, what the hell is that drug? I get the chills here and there, the kind where you just stop and have to shake some energy off for a second, then I open the refridgerator and grab my self a beer. Hmm, only two left, have to take care of that some time.

Tossing my self onto the couch and cracking the beer open, I try to keep the sanity of my thoughts in check. Actually, my mind isn't even really racing like I'd think it would be. It's just sort'a...stalled a bit, shaken up by what to think of where it was just at.

I see why people say that tapping ain't addictive; it's not really the most pleasant experience at all. Actually, you know, I think it's one of the least pleasant things I've put my self through in a while! No body-high, no euphoria; just straight up fuck-your-world, make you feel like you're being ripped apart experience and, well...that from my current perspective makes absolutely no sense whatsoever why I'd ever choose to put my self through.

I catch my self mindlessly taking large gulps of my beer at a time - still a bit shaky, body trying to ingest something to help reach it's homeostatic balance. Whew. So, I wonder what else to expect from this drug? I've never seen anything that gives such completely different experiences from time to time, it's...

I catch my self in mid-thought and chuckle out loud, a little guiltily. After just talking about how unpleasant of an experience that just was, now I'm already wondering what the next time will be like. Hmm, well that's different.

Just then, I heard the footsteps outside at Jenn's familiar rhythm. Fumbling of keys, door unlocking. I take a deep breath, now's the part where I try to like act nothing's too weird.

"Hey-hey, cowboy! Whew, it's fucking cold out there!" She tosses her keys on the stained wood coffee table in front of me. "What's up?"

"Hey, babe. Um, nothing much, just sitting around. How's your day? Cold?"

Her eyes squint as she looks at me a litle off-angle; damn, she knows something's up.

"Yeah. My day's, cold..." She shakes her head as mine follows her, goes into the kitchen and opens the refridgerator door. I hear the psshhhh of a bottle cap and then she's standing back in the living room, looking at me.

"So," swig of beer, "what have you been up to today?" Fuck, she knows.

"Um," I grin, "You always freaking know, don't you."

"Yeah yeah, you know you can't fool me; not even really sure why you still try. So spill it, mister."

"Okay, well..." if you don't make it like a big deal, it's not a big deal, I think to my self, "eh, got ahold of some tap. Was just checkin' it out. Pretty weird stuff, still a little shaky, haha.."

"Ha ha, I knew it." rolls her eyes, "it was just a matter of time, the way you've been talking about it."

Have I? "I have not been talking about that much. Whatever."

"Yeah, that's what you think. But I get to talk to you, when you're really really drunk."

Argh, damn the alcohol over-intoxicated ramblings of immemorability...

"And that's," she continued, "when you start babbling about other realities, and other yous, and whatever the hell. Took you longer than I thought to hook up with some, though." She shrugged and came over to me, plopping herself on the couch beside me . "So? C'mon, what was your big revelation this time. Aliens? Gods? The machines that keep us trapped inside the marix? What was it?"

"Um, well..." I look around a little, and down and away. "Um...it was like, i..." say it real fast and mumbled. "like-i-was-a-cell-in-my-lip..." Okay, it sounds really dumb now that I'm saying it out loud.

Jenn bursts into laugher. "Hahaha, what? What the hell kinda stupid thing is that?" She brings her beer up to her mouth to take a drink, but busts up into another fit of laughter. "Wow, that's pretty deep there, cowboy." And...I got nothing to say.

Jenn gets up off of the couch, and pats my leg, and heads towards the computer room. "Hope that was everything you hoped it would be." I hear the repressed chuckling and the beep of the computer logging in.

Sigh...either I'm going crazy, or this is going to be something that I really shouldn't be talking about around other people.

Chapter Seven: What's Going On

2006-11-10T16:10:00.000-07:00

This morning, I had another one of 'those' dreams. I guess I wouldn't exactly say that it's a "reocurring" dream, at least not yet, it's more that I'm seeing a disturbing trend in the dreams that I'm remembering each night.

This latest dream didn't start out with anything special, I was simply over at the old house I used to live at with Jimmy, before we moved into the one Jenn and I are in now. We were sitting around on the couch in their basement, watching TV like we always did, and there were a bunch of people around. Like I said before, our houses were never a stranger to strangers, so it didn't strike me as odd that all these different, unfamiliar people were hanging out in the basement with us.

One of our other roomates, Jay, was sitting on the couch with me, and we were making fun of some sort of car commercial that had all these animals in it like they were driving or something, it was really weird and, we decided, extremely lame. Jay mentioned something about the state of the popular media these days, I commented on how I'm sure it'll get worse before it gets better, and then I looked over my shoulder to see that everybody else had left. All I could see was the hood of somebody's black sweat shirt disappearing out the door.

I got curious, and went upstairs, still just missing the person with the black hood. Every time I turned a corner, I could see the hood turning past the next corner down the way. By the time I got to the living room, everybody was there and they were all laughing and talking loudly; the room sounded like i'd just walked into a loud, crowded dinner hall.

Some girl came up to me laughing to tears "That was soooo funny, you totally missed it! Oh, man! Dude, you so missed out, hahaha..." I was really bummed, I hate missing out on things, and I guess in my dreams I'm no different.

I started asking around, what happened? What's so funny? Why isn't anybody telling me anything? I looked across the room and saw the person in the black sweater with the hood that I'd been tailing. I walked up just as they turned around; it was some really young looking girl with jet black hair. I looked in her hand, and she had a tapper.

"What the hell is so funny?? Do you know what I missed?" She laughed

"Jimmy just tapped! It was great, oh man, that was just so funny, I can't believe it." Then she turned around and went to talk to somebody else.

Augh! I was so dissappointed! Jimmy tapped?? Jimmy was a bit pot head stoner, but he rarely did anything else. Sure, he'd pop some muscle relaxers or something here and then but he didn't even drink or anything; and now I'd missed out on him tapping.

I woke up, my arm around a sound-asleep Jenn, a little dizzy, with the disappointment fresh in my mind.

And that's been the theme of my dreams, recently. Tap's involved, and I'm either trying to get my friends to do it, or I'm missing out on them doing it. I actually never get to try it myself in these dreams, it's always somebody else that I know, and I'm usually the provider.

Man, I really have to go to the bathroom, I gotta get up. Normally I lay around in the mornings just lost in thought until Jenn gets up, but these other days, that's just not possible, and it's alawys a pain.

I slowly try and slide my arm out from under Jenn, trying not to disturb her restful sleep. Dang, don't have a good angle, I'll have to do this another way. So, I gently sliiide my body off of the right side of the bed, arm still pinned underneath her, but at least now my feet are on the floor. Okay, here we go, get a good angle for minimal resistance...

My arm glides out from underneath her, and her head gently plops down onto her pillow. Then, she kinda grunts a little bit and rolls to her left. Haha, sure woulda been easier if she'd just done that to begin with, but this is how it goes. Trust me, it's a lot better than accidentally waking her up before the alarm clock goes off. She does a lot more than grunt at that one.

Making my way to the bathroom, I mull over in my head, the dreams I've been having. Man, that's some crazy stuff...I've never really had any sort of anything effect like this, especially after one use! I do have to admit that it's been on my mind a lot, lately...Maybe not so much, anymore? But still, it's a constant companion in the back of my mind.

Also, maybe the dreams aren't so weird since, well, since I really would dig seeing what my friends thought of it; particularly Jay, actually...We always used to turn on with different psychedelics and whatevers, having these long seemingly-deep (at the time, especially) conversations about life, the universe, buddhism, the kaballah and all that whole Aleister Crowley trip and whatever. I really miss those times, actually; things get so much less complicated when you're in a relationship.

Finishing up my business, I run my hands under some water, too lazy and groggy to use soap, but shhh... Wonder if I have any new mail? Bah, I never have any new e-mail, but it's customary to check in the morning and all, y'know.

Waiting for my inbox to do it's sending and receiving and whatever, I go out to check the latest posts on my favorite rediculous-news-blog website. Hmm...nothing too exciting today. Edible photo necklaces made out of oreos? What the hell is that? My inbox finishes what it's doing then beeps encouragingly - Hey, I actually do have no mail!

A huge grin comes accross my face as I see who the message is from: It's Jay. Fucker and I always have had that psychic link with this stuff; whenever one of us is thinking of the other, we can be sure enough that the other's doing the same. It doesn't happen often, but it's often enough that we could almost bet on it.

Anyway, the subject is "Interesting Stuff..." Haha, this should be good. If Jay thinks something's interesting enough to send in email? So, I open it and, and the email goes a little something like this:


            hey andy.  i was reading this in an Austing Ossman Spare essay on    
            the web and i thought this was cool and very much along the same beliefs 
            of my self....(oh god did i say web?.....that is so 1996)

            "Spare's frequent traffic with denizens of invisible realms led to his
            evolving a graphic means of conjoining all thoughts- past, present, and
            future- in the ever-fluid ether of Consciousness. His graphic symbology
            represents a definite language designed to facilitate communication with   
            the psychic and subliminal world.

            It was Spare's opinion that for this language to be truly effective, each
            individual should evolve his own, creating his sigils from the material
            nearest to hand- his own subconscious. He gave as a reason for so much
            failure in divination the fact that, although the operator sometimes
            succeeded in annexing traditional symbols to his own subconscious  
            awareness of their true values, many of the symbols eluded cor"rect    
            interpretation; they therefore failed of nexus and were consequently 
            sterile."

            I also belive that the most personal magick is the most powerful magick.
            Anyway i was just reading it and thought id email it to you.

            jay

Wow, yeah okay Jay, that is interesting stuff. Have to read it a few extra times just to get the full meaning out of the message, but really I always have to read Jay's email a few times more than once. That's just the kind of emails he sends.

I've heard him talk about this Ossman Spare guy before, too, really big in the "magick" circles. Haha, "magick circles", that's a good pun type of thing. I love how easy it is to crack my self up early in the morning.

But yeah, this is the painter dude that made all those tripped out self portraits of his self. What Jay always said was how the dude practiced his spells, and whatever. I didnt know he talked to denizens of invisible realms or nothing though; that's new.

I stared at the screen, just watching the thoughts it created rise and fall in my sub and non-sub conscious. So, he created a 'graphic symbology' of his own, and recommended others do the same. "..for language to be truly effective, each individual should evolve his own..." Wow. Jay, you crazy ass mother fucker, how do you always know just what to send me?

I started thinking about the now fairly constant, yet barely noticeable sub-chatter that subtly accompanies me ever since my tapping experience. Wonder if there's a tie-in there? Y'know, come to think of it, I just realized that there's yet another question associated here...Are those "nonsense words," as I've been calling them, something that showed up from the whole tap thing, or have they always been there, and it wasn't until i shook up my brain enough that they started becoming noticeable? Bah, it's too early for all that.

"Well, great." I muttered to my self. "All we gotta do is create our own neurotic language of inanity, and..." how did they word it? "and I can conjoin my thoughts in the ever-fluid ether of consciousness?" I let a "hmph" gentl flow out of my nose. "Rock on, Jay. I'll get right on that." I made a little click with my cheek, turned my hand into a mock-gun and tipped it at the screen as I hopped out of the computer chair to go make some coffee.

Sitting back down with a steaming fresh, dark cup, I think about a reply to Jay's email. I figure I should reply sooner than not; it's kinda ended up being a bad habit of mine to just sit on replies until I forget I ever got a message to begin with.

Tilting back in my chair, spinning it around a few times; just what do you say back to an email about the psychic and subliminal worlds? It is kinda creepy that he sends me an email about other realms and differnet symbolisms of language and whatever. Huh, well, guess I'll just start out by telling him that.

      Yo, Jaydizzle, what up??  So, it's kinda creepy that you sizent dis email 
           bout this particular top'im'ic.  Sheeeyit...you don'even know what crazy 
           shit been goin' through my head lately.

I don't really know why I talk like some inner-city thug when I write email. Some sort of bad habit I picked up long ago. I think it was supposed to be funny at some point, but now it just sorta gets me in trouble at work.


           It interestin' with the Ossman Spare shiz...I still gotsa look into that  
           guy one'a these days.  All I ever seen is some funky art, but I know if 
           you into him, there's some deepness lurkin'. 

           So what you been up to, doggy dog?  Some crazy shit been goin' on in my 
           hood...you ever tried tapping?  Man, some weird ass stuff...I feel like I 
           keep slipping into other worlds or something...  I did some rizsearch; 
           it's some sort'a jungle plant, used by tribes for talkin' to fucking gods, 
           and the dead and whatevah?

           Anyway, lemme know, yo.  If you ain't tried it, I think you'd be way down.   
           Especially as it ties in with yo' email...Language and magickckck, huh?

           Peace,

           Andizzly'andy

Jenn strolled into the room in her pajamas, right when I clicked the 'send' button. "Morning, cowboy. What are ya doing?"

"Oh, hey babe. Just replying to a message from Jay. It's the weirdest thing, I just had a dream about him, woke up, and found the message when I checked my mail. Isn't that weird?"

She broke out into a huge yawning, stretching action. Dang, that girl is even a cute yawner, getting up on her tip toes, her shirt raising up showing off her midriff and pierced belly button. I swear that all girls have their belly buttons pierced these days, almost like they gotta keep up to specs. Now that there's people piercing their little baby's ears, I always joked that soon we'll be piercing their outties, too. Either way, though, I gotta admit that Jenn pulled off the butto-jewelry amazingly well.

"Yeah, yeah. that's weird, andy, sure. There any coffee?"

"Yep, freshly made. And I know, i know, coincidences or whatever, but c'mon! You gotta admit that's cool."

She muttered a half-yawny "Mmm Hmm..." as she made her way to the kitchen. Yeah, morning's aren't her times of deepest thought, I know. But...they are one of her times of leastest interruption... I stood up and followed her into the kitchen.

"C'mon, think about it, babe! It may seem like just a coincidence, but do you know how many millions of years of events transpired in just the right way, that my sleeping subconscious thought up some scenario about a person that within moments of that happening was also crafting a message back at me? Not even just the whle galactic creation stuff, but, y'know, all the wars and marriages and creations of countries and town, choices of immigration, topics of conversation, on and on that were all behind that exact moment?"

Jenn's eyes forcefully glanced over at me while her head remained still as she poured her coffed. She wasn't amused, but she wasn't interrupting neither, so I continued.

"So yes, it is cool. Even the topic of his email, this Austin Ossman Spare dude - he had to be born, and live a life with just the right influences, combined with whatever crazy ass shit of Crowley's he came into contact with, all to make him important enough for an email to be written about him, to me, by somebody I had just dreamed about. C'mon, it's cool damnit!"

The coffee pot slipped back onto the burner with a clumsy clunk! and Jenn turned around to me, her eyes half-open, unamused, and her chin tilted down so she looked up to see me.

"Yes, dear. I'm taken aback by the realization that the universe spent so much time just to conspire to have you type a letter in your underwear." She looked down and added, "with your thingy hanging out. That's just great dear, chalk one up for synchronicity."

Looking down, damn! Yeah, the stupid button on my boxers had come undone again...Fuck, I need new underwear.

"Alright," I scrunched my face in mock anger, "You win, you win. Drink your damn coffee." I walked back into the computer room.

I was surprised that Jenn got up and followed me in. "So uh, Austin Ozzy Spare, that the whacked-out self-portrait guy?" I turned my chair towards the door where she'd stopped.

"Ossman. And yeah, that's the guy; you know of him?"

She shrugged. "Yeah, big with the crowley stuff, right?"

My eyes widened, "Wow, I'm impressed! I didn't know that you knew anything about Crowley and stuff. You always have an ace up your sleeve don't you."

She grinned slightly, "Gotta keep you on your toes, cowboy. Yeah, I don't know, I think a Black Sabbath tune got me interested. Plus, I knew a lot of freaks when I was a teenager." She shrugged again, and sat down on the couch in the room, "I dunno, it's all cool, I guess. It seemed a lot cooler before I found out what it's about, though."

"Yeah? How so? I still think it's pretty cool."

"Eh, i was a teenage depressed goth-chick. Magic and spells seemed so much cooler than what it actually ended up being."

Wow, she really did impress me with that one. It took me a while to not realize that all that "magick" spell-casting crap was just crap. "How do you mean?"

Jenn looked up at the ceiling and took a deep breath whlie in thought, "I don't know, it's like... Like the fucking father of self help. It's all 'change your consciousness' or whatever, I mean. That's what it seems like now. At the time, it was about summoning demons, but...I don't know. That was before I realized that - "

"- that the demons, were just different aspects of you?" I interrupted.

"Yep! That's it." She yawned and said through her gasping mouth "boooring..."

I laughed. That was just soJenn. Here I am completely impressed with her insight into something I didn't even know she knew anything about, and at the same time, she'd finding a way to cut it down. That's my girl!

"Haha, yeah, well, either way. I dunno, there's still something to it, whether you care about changing the world through your self or not."

"Yeah, I figure. But who cares?" A slight smile touched her face, because she knew the answer to that question.

"Yep, not me, that's for sure." I wasn't going to give her the satisfaction of admitting that it was me, but then I couldn't resist the sarcasm. "Who'd be dumb enough to believe that changing them selves could change the world. Poor bastards."

I think she could sense that I was a bit sore on the subject.

"So, anyway," her voice took a different tone, "how'd this talk of magical-with-a-k self-portraits tie into your dream, anyway?"

"Well, it wasn't actually the self portraits part. Jay's email was about some quote of the dude's where he talks about symbolism in general. You know that nonsense thing I got going ever since tapping?"

She rolled her eyes, "Oh man, not tapping again! I don't like how that shit's messed with your head, Andy. You've only done it that once, right?"

I nodded. Crap...I knew she wasn't too fond of the talk, but I'd hoped it was'nt something I was going to feel like I had to keep from talking to her about.

"Yeah, only once...but seriously it was such an intense thing that, I dunno...I can't stop thinking about it. I actually kinda keep having dreams where all my friends are doing it, or I'm trying to get them to or something."

"Yeah, you talked about that before when you were drunk and going off about it. The internet says that it's not addictive though, and I'm not sure if that should comfort me, or worry me more..."

"Yeah, yeah," i'd done the research too, and came off with the same question. "They say it's non-addictive. Some sort of jungle shrub originally, but it appears that it can grow in almost any climate. History of shamanic use, no recorded cases of overdose or addiction, but only minimal clinical data gathered."

She nodded. I was pretty impressed, she really had done quite a bit of her own research on the topic. "The lack of clinical stuff's what bugs me. How'd they say it worked, anyway? Disabling most of your brain or something?"

I laughed and stuck out my tongue "No, that's not it. Well, i guess a lot of brain activity does cease in the people that've tapped in clinical studies, but they say that the main cause for the reaction is that it acts as a neuronal uptake-encourager in the k-opioid receptors of the nervous system."

"Riiiight..." She let the word trail off, "so most of your brain is inactive. You shut off part of your brain to create some crazy ass hallucinations or whatever, and generally act stupid. I don't know, andy. I'm not sure I like the sound of it overall, especially after watching how you act after your one little experience."

"But," I put some enthusiasm in my voice to try and counteract her dim overall-demeanor, "but I think there's a flaw in that thinking! Check it out, listen for a second...What should it 'really' mean to be aware of something while parts of your brain are 'turned off.' I mena, it seems lke there's two ways to think about it...either, these parts of your brain, that are there to deal with reality, shut off, therefore creating a break from the reality they were designed to interpret, or..." I paused for a moment, trying to think of how to phrase my next words. It was something I'd thought about a lot since that trip, but nothing I'd had to say out loud yet. There's always that disconnect.

"or... could you say that the less brain function that is between consciousness, and the experience of reality...the more that you're directly accessing the 'real' world. Like, all these filters were put into place to more efficiently function as some distinct entity in a supposedly alien environment, or is the concept of us as some sort of seperate entity distinct from our environment, the illusion! And the more 'clear' perspective, is that which is attained through the deliberate disconnection of those filters, the less that's being filtered, the more reality that's perceived" I sat up, proud of my wording of such a difficult topic.

Jenn tipped her mug back to get the last drop of her coffee and brought it back down with a contemplative "Hmm..." She sat for a second as she swigged the coffee around in her mouth, finally swallowing and saying, "Yeah, hadn't thought of that one." She sighed, "Well, anyway. What'cha want for breakfast, cowboy?"

"How about some Jenncakes, extra hot? Rowwrr.." i made little pawing gestures in the air. I was pretty satisfied; she changed the topic now, but I could tell that this was something she'd probably put a lot of thought into later. I'll look forward to that time, but now, it was back to what we loved best: play time.

Chapter Six: It Comes and Goes

2006-11-08T18:07:00.001-07:00

It'd been an odd week-and-a-half or so since that little funeral we'd gone to and I"d realized that shit...there was a good chance that my mind would never be the same again. The flashes and whatnot were gone overall, and it definitely wasn't as intense as the days immediately following my little tapping experience...Man, those days are something to be remembered, though. Can you imagine going through your daily life, going to work, sitting at a computer, doing your job, but in the back of your mind, wondering what some "other" you was doing at that moment? Was this programming job just some sort of weird entertainment for the "real" me? Was he even aware? What other things was I being at that moment? The amount of times I shook my head to try and hit the 'reset' button are uncountable.

The oddest thing was the percieved contrast between Jenn's and I's lives after the experience. She'd actually gone on quite the interesting route, though she refused to admit that it had anything to do with the tapper we had both willingly smacked ourselves on the side of the head with. She didn't seem to be as much into partying as I had once known her to be. I'd be bored, bring up the idea of heading to our local pub, and more often than not, she'd decide to pass, more interested in reading books and watching TV. This wasn't the girl I'd known, but it still was..just with different choices of action.

The contrast came from my own perspective; I was more out there than ever. On a good day, I used to be able to make my self out to be the voice of reason in most crowds. I usually had my feet firmly planted on the ground, reason typically dictating my stature and stance on most subjects and situations. I knew that fun was an important aspect of the equation that made up life on this planet, and where reason failed, fun prevailed. Now, though? Fuck, man...Now, I was talking about alternate realities and shit whenver I had a buzz on, and since I could barely relate it into words in my own mind, I was failing even more miserably when trying to explain the point of view to any others. Never stopped me from trying, though.

I spent manyh moments in deep contemplation. Actually, okay, I gotta admit they probably weren't so "deep" as I'd like to believe...more, a lot of staring off into space, watching my mind run through various thoughts and situations...daydreaming fantasies of reconciling differences of thought... Did I really, truly feel that this perspective I'd gained had merit in reality? What would that mean? It conflicts with my typically, well, I suppoes the best term is "atheistic view" of the universe I'd held earlier; did that need to change? As somebody that considered my self as a scientific bloke, considering the new data, was my world-view in a necessary update?

Augh, everything made so much more sense when i believed in nothing! Actually, that's false, I did "believe" in something. As somebody frequently interested in the etymology of words, I knew that "belief" came from the latin root of "lief" - meaning something that was hoped to be true. I felt that I had a pretty broad, general, and overall most likely true philosophy of life: the universe all came from the same point - all the stars, galaxies, planets, us, everything, came from the same point of space and time, and what we saw was simply the expansion of that one point outwards into space. I didn't need religion to feel the connection to life, the universe, and everything, it was all neatly thought out, categorized, and packed into quanta of thought. Now, though? Now, I was lost: Where do alternate universes and paralell "me"s fit into this causality-influenced world view?

I didn't really feel like doing much of anything for the past week or so. I went to work, I surfed on the internet, read books, and watched TV with Jenn, nothing too exciting, really. Y'know, come to think of it, it wasn't even that I've been lost in thought for the past week either, though that's what I had told my self was going on. No, really everything was a bit glossed over. I suppose that's what happens when you start questioning reality it's self...Everything seems equally just as unreal, so why pay any particular attention to some thoughts and situations over others? Easier to watch them all go by in a semi-conscioius daze...Let the mindless zombie-self take over. If it weren't for innate human feature of "Auto-Pilot" anyways, how would most of us get through our daily lives?

One night, watching DVDs of Futurama (man, to only be Fry!) , kicking back on the couch; slouching down, half my hand down my pants just because I was entertained by the "Al Bundy look", I decided to go to the local music store.

Music stores aren't places I normally frequent; actually, barely at all since the dawning of the age of mp3-arius, the age of mp3-ariuuuus! Fuck, it's been over ten years since I started downloading music. Even before the infamous Napster burst onto the scene, and the persistent court battles and lawsuits and ethical debates, I was sharing mp3s with friends. Actually screw that. It's a little known fact these days but, before the age of MP3s and hell, even personal computers? There was this little thing called "the tape casette" and we all shared music back and forth with those things. It was how I found most of my favorite bands, and how I introduced others to new musical genres. Bah, I'm too bored for politics; all I'm trying to say is that I went to the damn music store.

I walked in and was greeted by a familiar album, The Postal Service, with their clever wordings and astute observations of daily life and bemusings about the underneaths of sidewalks. Rare that I actually recognize something they're playing over the speakers here; most of the employees seem to deliberately pick the most obscure music, just to expose a wider audience to them. Guess you can't get away from politics.

Over the music was the standard ambience of the clack-clackedy-clack of people flipping through the latest used arrivals. You see? People haven't been actually buying new albums for years. The used market was the original Napster.

I make my way over to the New Arrivals myself, joining the mindless horde in their flipping and clacking, double-checking re-clacking, keeping a constant tempo. I know most of us didn't even have anything specific we were looking for, just hoping to find some sort of treasure that we never knew we couldn't do without until we knew it existed. Most of the time, I was a bit zoned out even, barely paying attention, sort of just looking at the pretty colors as they went by.

"Mmpawwn." Bah, that voice inside my head. The nonsensical words that had haunted me since that tapping-buddhist-funeral experience. They'd been in my head off and on ever since that day though, actually I'd gotten so used to them by now that I barely noticed them, though I was somewhat always aware that they were there.

I questioned their meaning over and over again, whenever I was keyed into their continuing existence. It was pretty wacky; sometimes there'd seriously be these chain of sub-thoughts underneath my normal thoughts, conversations, and general mind-reactions to every day situations. It was like directly underneat my every day conversation and words, there was this other level of linguistics at work; completely alien yet not unfamiliar overall. I went back and forth on deciding whether I should just ignore it, and wait for it to go away, or whether it was something important, or at least an interesting insight into my own mind, that I should try and cultivate, and encourage.

With the hypnotic rhythms of my cd-flippy-clacking, in it's own frequency within the spectrum of the other three customer's own rhythmic pediment, my mind wandered. I noticed that when all of our own 'instruments' were deliberately combined and blended within my temporal lobes became an almost music floated up into awareness. Not good music, naturally, but natural music in a good way. Deep in the chasms of my mind I heard the word "hammponoe..." surface.

So, here we are... All those government-funded ads always said that if I mess with drugs, I'd go crazy some day. Is that what was happening? Am I going crazy? What else could these nonsensical words mean? It reminded me of stories I'd heard of people who had suffered a stroke. But, I was still in control of my overall thoughts and speech and whatnot, so...So where does that leave me?

I thought of the words that had been coming to me. All nonsensical, sure, but also I suppose strangely representative of the various moods and situations that they appeared in. I'd always loved the idea of how so many words typically sound like what they mean. Not even in the onomatopoeia way that things like "meow" or "clink" or whatever came to be, but...more the way that "flick" brings to mind what it means. it's quick, it's sharp, just like what it feels like to flick. Or even "tromboooone" which, at least for me, totally fits the concept of the elongated instrument it's attached to. Isn't this how they figure language was developed in the first place? Who was the first one to realize that a vocal utterance related to the concept of an event?

Fuck, my mind's racing again. C'mon, try and focus on CD's...Actually, my pace is a bit too fast, there's no way I was paying attention to the albums - i can barely read them in time! Well, i'm already on a roll, might as well keep going. What type of thing was I looking for, anyway? Oh, yeah, something to perk up my mood, something spunky, happy, uplifting. Just then, before my thoughts had even caught up to their selves and almost as if it were planned, it flipped into view: The happiest album cover, ever.

"The Tom Tom Club" er, no, actually it's just "Tom Tom Club", I must have added on the "the". I looked at the busy, yet vibrant album cover. This was it! There were people on stage, people singing, people dancing: and brightly colored geometric shapes and decorations all around. The whole cover actually could have been drawn in crayon for all I knew, that was just how happy I found it. Welp! That's that! Let get outta here.

I brought my find up to the counter, and as I waited in the small line, thoughts drifted back to the case of the nonsensical confetti of words that speckled the inner caverns of mind. I burst out into silent-inner-dialogue.

"Well okay, Andy. So they're words, er sounds or whatever, and they seem to be representative of the situation at hand somehow. Is that how words were overall? Just directly relating to what it reprensents? - "

"Hmm, " I answered my self, "Nah, if that were the case, then you wouldn't need to learn a language; would just be able to tell what the word meant by what it sounded like - "

"Haha, yeah...suppose there'd only be one universal language or whatever, too, wouldn't there? -"

"Yep, haha, okay, so...well...so that's not it. Then what? - " The mother and son at the front of the line took their individual cds each in their own bags and wakled out the door. That's messed up, you shouldn't need a whole bag for each individual CD...The sleigh bells rang as they exited.

"Well, first of all," I went back to my private conversation with my me, "if there was some sort of meaning, would it be like...the word is a symbol meaning the situation it represents? Or would the sound itself be what the actual situation sounds like?"

Even though the external, physical world had nothing to do with this conversation, my forehead scrunched in thought.

"Well, yeah, but...I guess, what's the difference, then? Even the sounds chickens and dogs make are different in other cultures and languages, so I guess that - "

Just then, an older gentleman, dressed in a red, plaid button-up shirt and wearing a grey durby hat approached me, and touched my shoulder.

"Um, exuse me," He said as he came to rest at my side. I turned my head to look at him, but felt a strain in my body, so I shuffled my feet and turned around to face him squarely. "Sorry, but, I know you, don't I?"

"Um..." I paused a moment, to look over his features. Old man, derby hat... Do I even know any old men? Is it some friend of my dad's or something? That's the only old guy I can think of. "Hmm...I dunno, sir, you're not looking familiar to me, though that doesn't mean much."

The old guy grimaced slightly, then looked up again, "An-dome...ey?" He slowly pronounced the name as if he was just piecing it together him self.

I shook my head, "Sorry, man, unless you frequent the same parties I do - " in the back of my mind I heard the word repeat more smoothly Anndomeeey... "then, I...uh..." I stuttered as my consciousness struggled to pay attention to the moment, rather than the depths of mind beneath, "then I uh, i don't think so. Sorry, though! Seem like a bloke I wouldn't mind knowing some time." I shrugged.

The old man looked at me with a funny little smile on his face, then nodded his head somewhat knowingly, "Yeah, sure my boy. Sorry to bother you!" He tipped his hat with his frail hands, and then bowed a bit; not still like an old-man-bow or anything, actually surprisingly limber-like. "You have a fine day, young man." He smiled, turned and jingled the sleigh-bells a little bit extra as he left the store.

I looked down at the compact disc case in my hands. This better be a really freaking good album...

Chatper 5: The Ride Home

2006-11-08T11:05:00.000-07:00

The ride home was kinda quiet, a bit contemplative, and the mood? Odd. We shifted stations around on the radio a bit, but nothing was really fitting the moment. After a bit, Jenn pulled a burned CD out of her little visor-flap-cd-holder thing and fed it to the car stereo. It was some sort of collection of home-made electronic music that she'd downloaded from the internet. Yeah! Downloaded internet music that wasn't stolen! Not that either of us really felt like there was anything wrong with downloading music for free, it was more that...well...Jenn especially thought that even if you get it for free, it's still crap. The "homegrown" scene was much more to her liking, and I gotta say that I agreed.

I listened to the melodic blips and beeps, looking at the scenery stream past, a multi-colored river flowing outside the window. I was awake, but something was a bit foggy in my mind. I closed my eyes for just a second...

zzzzt...

Giants - hahaha...it's like the jolly green giant in the commercials - what's he doing? The farm is...hahhaa...wha-?

And then the road came back into focus. Oh, man...I'm still flashing from that shit? I looked over at Jenn.

"Wow girl, how the heck can you drive after that shit? I'm still wigging a little."

"Really?" She seemed surprised. "I don't know, i don't really feel weird at all from it. Actually, I kinda feel more like..I don't know..awake? More awake, alert, than I have in a while!"

Now I was the one with the questioning "Really?" I shook my head. "Man, well...I kinda see what you're saying, but damn... that didn't just fuck up your whole world?"

"How so? Like, how do you mean?" She raised an eybrow

"Huh...How do I put it into words? Like, didn't you get that crazy perspective? Like, fuck, like...Like Joe said, like 'you' are just something that somebody else is doing? I don't know, maybe I let it take me too far, but...shit, it really honestly feels like I saw some other fucking dimension or something, I..." I laughed out loud, "I...fuck, haha. yeah, I know, i know, it sounds really crazy when you actually put it into words."

Jenn smiled at me briefly as she kept putting her attention back onto the road. "Yeah, it's all good Andy. I mean, you do know that it's just a drug, right? Just like anything else. Don't go making huge shifts in reality perception or nothing from it." She looked at me and nodded her head repeating herself with all seriousness, "You do know it's just a drug, right?"

"Yeah, well...yeah, I know, I know...but... Well, you know me. I seriously do consider drugs as tools or whatever. But fuck, okay. Yes," I put on that half-mocking, half-serious tone, like something you'd have to write on the chalkboard in third grade, "It's just a drug, I probably didn't see other dimensions or whatever."

"You just had to put that 'probably' in there, didn't you!" Jenn laughed and stuck her tongue out in my direction.

"Yeah yeah, just listen to your blippity-bleep music..." And we were quiet for a few more miles.

It's true though, I really do consider drugs of all kinds as items in our collective homo-sapien toolbox. Sometimes I go back and forth on it, there's really been so much anti-drug propoganda that's been bred into us from the earliest of ages that it's hard not to doubt yourself on anything drug related. I mean, sure, there's tons of room for abuse and lack of foresight, with life-threatoning and destroying consequences, but...I dunno. Maybe if we all saw and discussed these chemicals from the frame of mind of respect and understanding, rather than demonizing them as a whole, there'd be a lot less to worry about.

I focused my attention back on the music that was vibrating throughout the car. It was actually pretty comforting; like the video game music my teenage ears spent hours listening to while trying to beat levels, save princesses, gather golden triangles to form the ultimate triangle-made-out-of-triangles that would save the world. Yeah, video games are amazing.

The more I focused on the music though, the more it took on...well...deeper levels? Not even deep like two-dimensional above/below depth...but depth in, well, haha, in the "third dimension"? Like seriously, I could here the highs, the lows, then also the nears and fars. And that's only two dimensions, so there was also this extra coordinate system at play; high's, low's, near's, far's, but then combinations of those high-low-near-far beats, but at different spatial coordinates in my mind.

"Fuck," I thought. Maybe I really am losing it.

I glanced over at Jenn, "I really love you, you wild girl."

She looked back over at me, winked, and said a bit matter-of-factly "I love you too, cowboy" We smiled at each other for a moment, then I gestured towards the windshield with a weakly-pointed hand.

"Eyes on the road, sweetheart"

Her cheeks turned up into a grin. Man, I love that girl.

Chapter 4: And it Starts...

2006-11-06T10:39:00.000-07:00

It was a week later that Jenn and I found ourselves driving through the not-so-middle class streets of the city on our way some sort of church. I stared blankly out the window, watching the teenagers in their baggy jeans and hockey jerseys, walking to whatever funky beat was blasting out their ipods. Actually, there sure were a lot of people with ipods around here. Well, we already got wires sticking out of our heads and cellphone headsets sittin' on our ears.

"Dude, look at all the wires hanging out of everyone. Who'da thought the inner cities would be the first to be hit by cyborgs?"

"Yeah, I was noticing that." Jenn put turned on the blinker and slowly turned the wheel, "Give us twenty years and we'll all have a microchip we can stick up our ass and talk to our parents."

I looked at her with a raised eyebrow. Eh, actually who was I kidding. It was probably true. "But," i said, "it won't ever get to that. After 2012 when the world ends we'll all be vibrating on a higher plane of existence like the Mayans and Aztecs. We won't need to rely on ass-chips for conversing since we'll all be telepathically linked to Gaia through the morphogenetic field. "

Now Jenn was the one raising an eyebrow. "But, " her mouth turned up into a crooked smile, "since the temple of light will be built out of a holographic laser projection above the temple mount, fulfilling the ancient jewish prophecies and ushering in the age of the coming of the new messiah," she glanced over at me, "I think we'll have a lot more to worry about than how we're vibrating."

I laughed "Haha, touché..." I love this girl.

"Especially," she continued "Us."

We both grinned knowingly. "Oh, wait! I think this is the place. Turn in over there"

I glanced around as Jenn slowly made her way through the parkinglot, having to stop and creep along to give room for the people making their way towards the main building. It was actually a pretty unimpressive building. Just your standard flat office looking fare, light-brown brick, not many windows, but with these giant rough looking, unstained wooden doors in the front.

"This isn't a church or nothing?" I half said to my self, and half questoned in Jenn's direction. "Yeah, I'm with ya. Doesn't look like much of a church, does it? Doors are pretty cool, though. Ah-ha, found one." She turned the car into an open parking spot, letting a lady dressed in white lead her two brightly-dressed-in-neon-colors kids accross the lot. Odd dress for a funeral, I thought.

I looked at the sign at the entrance. "Yeah, sign doesn't say any more than we had to go off of. 'Center for Practice and Life.' Hope this isn't some weird Scientology thing or something..."

Jenn smiled "Nah, those guys are way too proud of their religion to not have their name all of the place. Still though, that'd rock to have John Travolta give a speach or something."

"Haha, totally! And instead of pews, the aisles will just have a lot of couches for us to jump around on all crazy-like."

The car lurched forward and abruptly screeched to a stop as the engine cut dead. As I slowly sat back, I cocked my head and raised my eyebrows shifting my gaze to Jenn.

"I know, I know! Sorry, sorry...I'm really freaking high right now."

"Whatever! That's such a...Augh! Haha, okay miss stoney patoney, let's just go in." We got out of the car and into the bright daylight. I squinted as I straightened my tie, patted my jacket smooth, and looked around.

"You notice all the brightly dressed people?" I subtly gestured towards a few people around in the parkinglot.

"Oh, no, actually I didn't. Looks like a few people dressed in darker colors like us, too, though, so...we shouldn't be too out of place."

"Yeah, I hate feeling awkwardly dressed places." I tucked my tie back into my jacket.

Jenn shook her head "Haha, no way! I love it. There's nothing like being dressed in dog collars and chains in a fancy restaurant, or in a business suit at a goth club. Contrast is totally the way to go."

We made our way towards the interesting-in-it's-uninterestingness of a building through the parking lot. I hate these funeral things...never know how to act. The slight tingles of nervousness began to come on as we got closer. I softly smiled and nodded at people as I accidentally made eye contact on the way. I looked over at Jenn, she didn't seem nervous or expectant or ay different than if we were walking into a shopping mall. As we got to the entrance, she suddenly busted out laughing and looked at me.

"Did you call me 'stoney patoney'?'

I shrugged "Yeah?"

"Hahaha...you are so gay."

I reached ahead of her to grab the door. "Shut up!" The door swung open without the slightest amount of friction or difficulty. I took a deep breath, and stuck my tongue out at Jenn. "Well, here we go..."

------------------------------------------------------------

Thwack!

As I forcefully swung the tapper towards my head, the rational side of my mind tried to make sense of just how the heck it found it'self in this situation. I didn't blame it really, and tried to give it as much attention as I could those few seconds before i felt the contact of cold steel with the side of my head. It was a pretty good question, actually, cause like really...How the fuck do you find your self in a dark room in a buddhist temple, at your drug dealer's funeral, smoking bowls, sipping whiskey, and about to inject some sort of crazy ass drug into the side of your head with a group of people sitting in a circle all intently focused on you? Oh...did I mention that it turned out that Lain was apparently a buddhist? Interesting story...

We got to the funeral and immediately found the people from our crowd standing around in the back of the main hall-whatever place. It was the brightest room in the whole place, chock full of skylights and windows...nothing fancy, no stained glass or nothin', just things to let light in. All the brightly-dressed people? Those were his family and buddhist-buddies or whatever they're called.

I know, I know, a buddhist drug dealer? Aren't they all about enlightening people, banishing ignorance and anything that keeps people from realizing 'the truth' and whatever? Yeah, well, turns out this crowd is open to wide ranges of interpretation.

It turns out, y'see, that Lain wasn't just some crazy ass mother fucker; he was some crazy ass mother fucker that spent his life trying to do good deads. "accumulating merit" is what they called it, and it was the main thing people talked about at the reception-whatever-thingy. Turns out that guy I thought was just a punk, was huge in volunteer work and shit. Orphans, disabled, elderly...he was all over it. And the drug dealing? That bastard worked it all out, that since it was easy income, he had more time to volunteer his self. Sure, it was getting people fucked up, but we'd all find somebody to get our fix from anyway, so he figured it might as well be from somebody that had the interests of all sentient beings in mind. It wasn't a sin to shake people out of their dazes, turn them on from the illusion of society. Karma's a balance, and he made sure to off-set it with enough good deeds to where he was sure to be reborn as some sort'a higher-up whatever, if not to escape whatever cycle of birth or whatever he believed in. Man...crazy shit.

"Okay, okay, man...Now hold your breath, and clench your teeth a few times to get it moving around." I was suddenly brought back to the present. That was Joe, coaching me on what to do next, now that I'd sufficiently smacked my self in the temple. Fuck...what the hell am I doing? I nodded, and took a deep breath, clenching my teeth a few times and feeling my temple throb with each clench. What should I expect from all of this?

I smiled to my self at the utter rediculousness of the whole thing. My stomache started getting the queasy feeling that accompany's the unexpected. You know what the weirdest part of this whole funeral thing was? Well, other than my uh, current situation? Meeting Lain's parents. His mom was all smiles when she saw our group, and made a bee-line right to us. "So, you're my boy's customers, am I right?" She grinned, made those finger-gesture-quote-marks as she said 'customers', and nudged Jenn in the shoulder with a wink. Okay, this totally explained a lot of how Lain ended being a Lain. He had "the cool mom".

"Okay, man..." I looked up at Joe. I felt my face getting red from all the breath holding. "Okay, now exhale, and relax..."

I looked around once more. "here we go..." I thought as slowly let out my breath through my mouth with a big "Whoooooo..."

And then the whole world went away.

"Huh-huhlooooOOoo there! Welllcommmme!!"

This place! Home! Wowoweee, how long's it been? Galaboratom! That is SOOO funny!!! A programmer?? hahahahaha... that's great, fucking GREAT. Girlfriend, too! Yep, yep, I know, hahahahaha... Funeral? Ohhh yeah!! That's hilarious, a fucking funeral! Oh man...oh man... Frizndoodling the rimt is So the way to go. What the...what the hell? No, no...wait, no...what?

I opened my eyes. All my friends were there, Jenn looked a bit concerned, but there was a half-smile on her face.

"What the...what-...this isn't happen...what-?" I looked around frantically.

"It's okay, man, it's okay. You tapped your head, man. Just relax, just relax..."

Woosh. What was that? Them again? I gotta get this blanket off of my head. Oh, man, it's so heavy, I don't remember it being soooo, heavy...

Almost got it, framdazzling heck! Whew, it's bright again. Oh what a relief, it's gone!! Okay, so where was I. Amendolf, my kid's birthday! I'm late, I'm late again I know it. What the heck was I doing? Let's put the book back on the shelf, I'm sure they're all waiting for me.

Wooooosh....

"What? Wait... Bir....kids day...What?" Nothing makes sense, but I'm back here. Again.

"It's okay" Joe said, bursting out into restrained giggles, and putting a serious look back on his face. "It's okay, bro...you're being unplugged. Just relax, just... relax..."

Why am I laying down? I lift my hands to look at them, and the people in the city all look back up expectently. I got nothing for you, you fridoodles, you just go back to...No, I will not!

Giggling. All the kids on the merry go round! Wait, wait, i know, I'm coming! Hold up...Wait...what happened to...? Timdizzle, I wasn't done with that! I gotta...no...what if I...

Reality slips down the river. Wait, i'm slipping, too! Oh wow, am I about to bliff? On the cole? ...Again??

Woosh...

Everything's back. I look around wide eyed and half smiling. Everyone's looking at me, some of them trying to hide their snickering. Jenn comes over to me and touches my shoulder. "It's okay, cowboy..it's okay."

"Whoa, what the hell..." I look around some more. Wow, I can't believe I'm here. What just happened? "Dude!" I laugh as if there's some sort of joke that everyone else but me gets. "Whoa, man..what the hell was that?"

Joe smiles "It's okay, man, you're back. How was that?"

I look at him blank-faced. "Um, shit...I, uh. It was weird, haha. I don't really remember much. There were kids or something? And...shit. Hahaha, bro that is some whacked out fucking shit."

"Told you to be careful what you asked for, man! Pretty wild, huh?"

"Heck yeah! I think I get why that dude just rolled around on my floor for a...man! What a head trip! Like...man, I can't even explain it."

"Almost like you're just something that somebody else is...doing?" Joe smiled. I nodded.

"Yeah, wow...Yeah! Yeah, man, that's just what it was like. I think I was having some conversation about me, but with other people, and I was some other me...or...something."

This girl named Lisa busted up laughing accross the circle from me. I didn't really know her, but had seen her at a few parties before. I think her name was Lisa... Wow...I can't believe I"m thinking about parties and trying to remember names.

"You guys," she pushed herself up from the floor, "You guys are all fuckin' crazy! I'm outta here." She started her way towards the door, but then stepped back over to Steve, the guy that had the pint of whiskey. "Gimme another swig off'a that." She tipped the bottle back, then wiped her mouth with the sleeve of her dress. She laughed again and shook her head "You guys are crazy." she chuckled some more as she cracked open the door just enough to slide on out.

Joe grinned at me, and I smiled back, not really sure what to do with my self.

"Here, man." It was the guy with the bottle. "Take a sip of this; calm your nerves." I took the bottle and gulped down a mouthful, feeling the harsh but at least familiar sting as it slid down my throat. Back in my mind I heard "Auugslee..." Man...everything's a bit too weird.

Jenn looked over at me hesitatingly, but with that half-smile of hers on her face.

"Don't do it..." i thought. She raised her hand half way, paused for a sec...Suddenly, I had a chill zapdizn down my spine and I shook my head in a chill to shake it off. Right then, she blurted out

"Okay, okay, me next, dooog!" I watched as she waved her arms exaggeratedly from Joe to her, nodding her head impatiently.

His smile seemed almost demonic. Not like scary demonic, but Walt Disney demonic. Not that Walt Disney wasn't scary or demonic...i think it was more in the way the shadows were placing themselves on his face.

"Alright alright, you got it sweetheart. You're a little fiend, ain'cha?" He took the cloth bag out of his pocket that he'd pulled the tapper and little container, of "juice" they call it, out of just a bit earlier. Only, Joe apparnetly didn't use a film canister like I'd seen that homebody use at my place. His was actually a nice, colorfully speckled glass piece with a cork in the top of it. It was good to know that I was getting dosed by a conniseur such as himself.

He unscrewed the needle from the tapper, then he fumbled around a bit in his pockets, pulling out a little roll of scotch tape. He peeled off a piece, placed the needle in it, folding the other end over it. Then he tossed it over towards me. "Here you go, man. Everyone gets their own."

Fuck! I didn't even think about the dangers of needles. Man, like I said, it's good to be with a conniseur. I slowly picked it up and placed it in the pocket of my jacket. Everything's still a bit off as I watch her load a new needle and motion in Jenn's direction.

"You sure you ready for this?" His mouth became a slight grin as he tilted his head towards her.
"Bring it on!" And she grabbed the tapper. That's my girl!

Still in a bit of a daze...Oop, there she goes. As soon as she had the tapper, without a moments hesistation - Thwack!

She remembers and holds her breath, clenching her teeth on and off. She looks at me, smirks, winks, and exhales slooowly. She grins for a second, with a confused look on her face, almost like she couldn't hear what somebody was saying. Next, comes the laughter; i have slight flashbacks to what it was like when I was laughing, too.

"Huh? Wait...Hahaha! No. Haha! Okay." Yep! Who knows what the heck is going through her head right now. Ooo, we get to swap stories later; hope she remembers hers..mine's fading fast.

As Jenn's sitting on her back giggling on the floor, her back arching as her chest jumps her off the ground with each small fit, one chuckle at a time as she stares up at the ceiling. Haha, what a punk. SHe had to handle it better than me, nobody even has to offer comforting words . It's rough, having a tough chick.

Man, looking around the room everything's still off. You know, actually I feel pretty sober overall, it's jus that things look...off. Why do I keep saying off? Do things normally look "on"? What the heck does that mean? Either way, I know that the drug it'self has definitely worn off, neraly fully; now it's just like the way my mind's working or how I'm focusing my eyes or something that's different.

I kinda lazily swing my head around the room. Hmm, no trails or anything, not even the out-of-synch stalled vision thing. I keep my head still for a second, and then it hits me what's wrong: The walls are moving.

Actually, that sounds stupid, it's not the walls themselves seem like they're moving, it's more that there's motion on the walls, or...maybe in the walls? Wow, sure is odd, though. I stare a bit more, tryin to tune my mind and eyes into the frequency. Jenn's chill, and people in the room start talking softly with each other.

Yeah, yeah, there's totally like, light being projected onto the walls. No, I glance over, it's not really coming from the windows...I can tell the tree's shadows on the wall, and it's not moving in synch with the wind like they are, it's more... Being projected through the trees? It's definitely mroe apparent in the shadows than on the walls, but what the heck's between the trees outside the windows, and the wall?

Then it slicks, and I have it in perfect focus: There's neon green specs and they're like...marching along the wall - chase-light style. Whoa, and... Somebody pats me on the back.

"Haha, hey man, doin' okay bro?" It was this guy that I can never remember his name...Starts with a 'B' or something...brian? Bill?

"Yeah, haa, I'm good, man. Its'all gravy." I nodded to him, squinting my eyes a bit and smiling slightly. Maybe he'll think I'm too high and won't try to talk too much.

"Heheh, yeah I bet it is, bro. Here, hit this, calm your nerves." Haha, nope...To some people nobody ever looks too high to hand a pipe to.

I reach out and grab the half-charred loaded pipe. It's got the good stuff in it. I look back at, Boyd? Brian? I look at him and flick my thumb on my index finger with a closed fist. He digs in his pocket, "Yeah." and tosses me a lighter.

I bring the pipe up to my face, and strike the lighter. Man...gettin' high in some buddhist center at some sort of funeral... that's funny stuff, what the hell am I doing?

I intently watch the flame as the bowl illuminates. I cross my eyes to focus on the burning leaves, crossing them so much that I swear I can see every furry, prickly detail, like I was looking at an electron microscope. I hand the pipe and lighter back to...Brent? Bart? and exhale a a foggy, wafting, swirling haze of smoke out into the room. As it clears I see Jenn start to sit up, looking a bit confused, but still smiling, so you know she had a good time.

"How'd that treat ya, babe?" I scoot over towards her.

"Whoo! Wow, I...I don't really know, to be honest. It was really funny though! I remember that!" She let out a few chuckles. "WHew, though. Feel really good, now! Like, not stone cold sober, but very, very...Awake." She shrugged and looked at me. "How about you, babe?"

I looked up a bit and shrugged my own shoulders. I laughed "Yeah, I guess what's there to say about that?" We exchanged understanding glances, then, umm...Ben? NEvermind, then that 'B' guy handed the pipe over to her.

"Ummm, no thanks. We're actually getting goin' soon." She waved it away. That's kinda weird. "By the way," she extended an open hand out with a friendly smile, "I'm Jenn."

He took her hand "Nice to meet you, Jenn, I'm Nate."

Dang! I didn't even have the first letter right. Eh, maybe I never really had ever met the guy. I looked around again and took a long, deep, breath. Phew...was I ever ready to go.

Chapter 3: Character Development

2006-11-04T20:32:00.000-07:00

"Arrrghh...it's that time of year, again." I said to me as I was stepping off of the bus into the bitter cold, frigid autumn air.

Yeah, I mutter to my self way more than I figure's healthy. Whatever, though, I've already reasoned it in my head enough so that I don't question my sanity. I figure, what's the difference between talking to your self and talking to anybody else? When you're having a conversation with other people, it's just sendin' out into the environment with some sort of auditory expression of whatever, and then if there's somebody else there, you get some sort of echo-response kinda thing. Well, I figure what's the big deal about where the echo comes from? Other people, your own head, it's all the same. I tried explaining this to my parents once, though, and they just looked at me funny. My dad's cool i think, but my mom might actually be worried about me.

I stopped for a second to rub my hands together as I looked up into the sky and around, taking in the surroundings that I found myself a part of. It was a clear night, actually, way too clear to be so damn cold. The yellow sodium lights painted my little sliver of the world with a plastic filter. I sighed, watching my breath waft and dance through the air in front of me. Man, I hate this time of year.

Winter's always pretty depressing for me. I thought I was a night owl for most of my life, mainly because that's when all of my friends would be up and around. I dunno, it seemed cool to hate the day back then, when all it meant to be the day is that we had to be in school. I look back and realize how stupid it was, but it realy seemed like we were all bad ass and vampiric-like to say things like "augh, that big bright thing in the sky, ahhhhh". Eh, stupid dramatic kids.

Turns out, though? I actually really freaking like the sun. I always forget about when it's the summer time, and I actually get to enjoy 12 hours or so of daylight. Then autumn comes along, followed by it's punk ass buddy "Winter", and that's when everything goes sucky. It's cold, it's dark, everyone's inside, have to worry about carrying a jacket, everyone drives like a jackass when the roads have even the slightest powdering of dust.

"Okay Andy, wait, hold on... You know better." I caught my self in the negative frame of mind. I ended up going through this phase where I read all these self-help books for whatever reason. I gotta say, they actually got a lot of cool stuff in them, but fuck... Now, I have all these ideas in my head about how I should act for maximum happiness and whatever. "What to say to yourself when blahblah," "The blahdy blah Prophecy" "Habits of Highly Effective blah blah blah..." yeah, they were all the same, and turns out after reading a few of them, I was so sick of hearing about that crap that I didn't even feel like putting any of it into practice.
But damn...now I had the thought, and I'd be dumb not to do something about catching my self.

"Okay, okay...take a deep breath...try to think of something positive about winter, man... What's cool...what's cool..." I looked around me some more, all of the office buildings towered above me; I could see all the little busy workers typing.. "Well, guess that's kinda cool and all. How often do you get to spy on business freaks? And...wel...the smell of fireplaces, that's cool... umm... freshly laid snow..." I smiled to my self at how stupid this was.

"Children in snowball fights, building snowmen with beerbottles for noses, peeing your name in the snow, puppies on christmas morning..." i was making my self sick, just hearing me.

"Fuck this. We're going to the bar." Yes, sometimes I talk to my self in the plural. Yeah, I know.

Hell yeah, luckily there's a bar right by my house. Well, probably not so luckily, actually. Eh, fuck the long story about the bar, or why i go there or all the stupid ass things I don't remember doing at it. I'm there, I'm already sitting down, and Jerry's already walkin' back with my pitcher. Okay, Jerry gets an intro: he's the night manager. We talk sometimes.

Jerry thumped the pitcher that he knew I was about to order, which kinda made me feel bad about my self sometimes, down on the table, and in the same motion he slid his burly lumberjack frame into the seat accross from me.

"Heya, Andy. How are'ya?" He began the slow headless pour of an experienced drunkard into the glass he'd tapped down in front of me. I watched it as the golden level slowly rose.

"Good, Jerry. How are you?"

He didn't hesitate in reply.

"Good." He paused. "Okay, now that we got that formal bullcrap out of the way, how you really doing. What's going on?"

I smiled. That's Jerry, always trying to cut through the mindless formalities.

"Yeah, I dunno, man. It's winter. It's dark. I'm here."

"MmmHmm, mmHmm..." He nodded slowly. "Always packed full'a information ain'cha? It's winter, it's dark. You're here. Reckon I could say the same. You saying we're the same? C'mon, what sort'a ineresting shit you been readin' on that internet, what's life throwin' at'cha, your shit been hard or soft?? give an old stuck at a bar somethin' for god sakes. I count on you up'n'comin' kids for my connection to the world."

"Yeah, yeah, yeah... That sure is a lot of pressure to put on a hole-in-the-wall-bar patron of yours, Jerry. You know that, right?"

Jerry smiled. "Yep, reckon it is, but, s'how it goes some times, eh? Ever'one's lot in life, and all."

I took another drink of my beer. "Hey, Jerry?"

"Yeah, Mr. Andy?"

"Well, I'd love to have this deep culture-intunement conversation of yours and all, but right now? I gotta say, man, I'm just not really feelin' it." Jerry nodded his head again in that deliberate manner of his, grabbed the pitcher and filled my beer back up.

"Good go, Andy. I reckon that's the most honest thing somebody's told me all day."

Now I was the one nodding. "You got it. You can always count on me, Sir."

The walk home wasn't much better. At least I had a buzz on, as I made my way through the trailer-park-juxtaposed-suburban-landscape streets on my way back home. Leave it to Jerry, now my mind was racing even more. What the heck was I doing? Is the local dive bar really the place that I wanted to spend my days on this big hunk of rock? All the ancient wisdom, bubblegum philosophy, whiny "know-thyself" praddle that I had spent the last few years filling my head with was swirling around in a dark haze inside my mind as I saw my house slide into view at the top of the autum leaf cluttered cluttered street making my way up the hill. That's the problem with philosophy of all it's types...More questions, and a higher thought-to-noise ratio than if you'd just left youreself alone. The world's a funny place.

A couple of blocks from my place, I saw the telephone poll that everyone always cluttered with advertisements, lost pets, get-rich-quick schemes and political ads. Free advertising is the holy grail of business, i suppose. One of the sings caught my eye. It was somebody advetising for computer technical support. The ad itself wasn't too flashy, but what caught my eye was the big stick-fish in the upper right corner of the doc. You know the type, right? That same fish that you learned to draw in kindergarten? It wasn't till my early twenties that I realized that that same fish was some sort of symbol for Christianity. So, what the heck was it doing on a flyer for computer tech support? Was it in the same spirit as some sort of secret club? Or like ironing your favorite band's logo onto your jacket, so thta people knew you were in the in-crowd? I bet it works, too. "Oh, aren't we having problems with our computer box, dear? Maybe we should call this nice christian fellow to help us."

"So, if we ever start a business," I said to my royal 'we', "remember to put a beer bottle on it. So all the drunks know that it's service from one of their own kind." Yeah, that's what i'll do. Drunkards unite!

The leaves crunched under my feet as I walked the final block home. Actually, they didn't just happen to be under my feet to be crunched apon; truth is i deliberately criss-crossed an eratic path through the street deliberately To crunch them. What's so attractive about crunching leaves? Is it destruction, or is it just the novelty of the sound? Either way, I was almost home. My leaf-crunching time was nearing it's end. Bah, half of these already been run over by cars anyway. Stupid people and their cars...no machine could understand the love of crunching, it's wasted on their metallic asses.

I walked up the busted and cracked concrete pathway up to Jenn and I'd place. I didn't see her car parked in the street; she must be working late again. The house was almost completely dark as I approached, which was another sign of winter. I could just barely see the glow of the bathroom light, that had accidentaly been left on since that morning, through the halway as I made my way up the steps. I instinctively hopped over the second-to-last step on the way up, damn thing'd been falling apart for the past year but my landlord hadn't shown any signs of doing anything about it, and what'd I care? Just a stupid rented house, anyway. It kinda worked out anyway, though; the hop always landed me on my right foot right in front of the door, and if i was on my game I could flawlessly slide the key in the lock, open the door, and swing my left foot inside while maintaining perfect stride.

The key didn't turn, I felt a shooting pain up my wrist, and my foot made a loud thud as it kicked the door. I definitely wasn't on my game... damn pitcher.

<>
As I walked, I saw the corner by our kitchen counter lighting up in a faint red glow, and was welcomed by the light-synchronous beeping of our answering machine. Yeah, I know, who still has an answering machine? Well we do, that's who. Know what tops that? It even runs off of those mini casette tapes. Aww yeah, we rockin' ol'school.

I hit the play button, but since I figure it's just another telemarketer or police-ball money begger I head to the bathroom while it's rewinding.

"Hey...dy...uh....shi...deh...'ll" is all I hear over the loud tinklings of splashing toilet water. That didn't sound like a telemarketer, it kinda sounded serious, great. Luckily that' the good thing about these old answering machines; you can always rewind.

I walk back into the living room, fumble around for a light switch now that the faint red reminder glow has gone, having done it's job. The shadows of plants, tables, cluttered mail and chairs line the walls in the dull glow of the lamp as I make my way to the machine and hit rewind. I use my carefully honed answering-machine-tape intuition and hit the play button at just the right spot.

*Beep!*
"Hey, uh, Andy. This is Todd, man, uh.. Shit, don't know how to say this but uh, Lane's dead. Gimme a call."
*Beep!*

A moment goes by as my mind interprets what exactly it is I just heard. The roar of the flushing toilet slowly calms down and I'm left in the silence. Then it hits me.

What? What the fuck was that? I stare at the machine for a second, rewind and play it again. Did Todd just call me out of nowhere to tell me on my answering machine that somebody's dead? The message replays. Yep, yeah...that's what happened alright.

I lean back against the counter behind me. Wow. Head trip, huh? Lane's dead. Fuckin' Lane. Lane wasn't just an acquaintance of mine, he was, well, he was my drug dealer. Er, basically, at least. He was sort'a a friend, too, but, y'know. As much of a friend as your dealer can be, right? Still, though, he was always part of the crew; I can't count how many late night into the early morning conversations we'd gotten into. Well, mostly cause they're all sort of a blur, if you know what i mean.

"Great, great...great..." I pace back and forth on the crackly kitchen tile (another thing to report to the landlord) while my thoughts race in my head. Actually, I guess "race" is the wrong word for it, unless it was some sort of special-olympics retard-demolition race...where they throw inner tubes around the disabled kids and just let'em bump into each other randomly, declaring them all winners. Yeah, that's what my thoughts are like: they're all retarded winners.

So what now? Do I call Todd back? I look at the clock, it's 9:23pm. Prolly a good time to catch'im... And what after that? What do you do when somebody you know dies? Flowers to the family? Some sort of funeral present? "Your son always hooked me up, here's showin' the love." Yeah, that'd work fine. Right.

And what about the funeral? I've never really been to one; do i even have any clothes to wear? What the heck do you say to your drug dealer's grieving parents?

Just then, the front door smacked into the wall as Jenn charged into the living room and flipped on the halogen lamp in the corner to full blinding brightness.

"Hey, cowboy! What's up with my man?"

I squinted and reached to cover my face as my eyes adjusted to the light. "Eh, not much. Todd left a message, Lain's dead."

"What? Really?" I nodded my head. "Shit, now where'r we gonna get some weed?"

I'm sad to admit, but that was actually the first question that came to my mind, too.

Chapter Two: Small Signs

2006-11-04T01:22:00.000-07:00

There was a knock at the door. I sat up and glanced over at the clock on the cable box. 9 o’clock? On a weeknight? That hadn’t happened in a while. This small, two bedroom house of mine in the suburbs used to see a constant flow of people back in the day. It was pretty much in the middle grounds of all of my crew’s apartments and parent’s basements and what not, and close enough to the city that everyone just sort of gravitated towards it. The perfect location to swing by and have a beer or whatever else was around while they were on their way to wherever else they were heading to or from. But like I said, it hadn’t been that way in quite a while.

I could hear the sound of Jen’s bath being run through the place’s dilapidated pipes as I went to the front door and saw that she’d closed the bedroom door. I got to the door and stood up on my toes to see out of the installed-too-tall peep hole. The fish-eye view that greeted me wasn’t of anybody familiar. Looked like somebody that woulda been in our old crowd though, so I opened the door a couple of inches and poked my head through. “Hello?”

The guy looked a little mexican with some asian cheekbones and other odd features. He shifted his backwards baseball cap a little and pulled up his sagging pants.

“Uh, yeah, hey man. Jimmy around?”

I shook my head, “Naw, man. Jimmy ain’t lived here for a few months now.” He rocked back and forth a bit,

“Oh, righton, man, sorry. Um, hey, I told Jimmy I’d do some stuff with him a while back but didn’t get to it. Um, it cool if I tap at your pad quick?”

“Tap? Haha, yeah, uh, sure man. I hear that’s some weird shit. Yeah, “ I opened the door the rest of the way, glancing back to the bedroom to make sure the door was still shut. “Yeah, come in, man.”

“Cool, bro, righton, thanks, it’ll just take a sec.” He walked inside, and sat down on a cleared area on the floor, pulling out a small cloth bag from his kakhi cargo pants.

“So,” I stood over him watching what him empty a little old school 35mm film canister and this metal ratchet looking gadget. “So, this is the shit that’s supposed to be like tripping on acid or something, but for like 30 seconds or whatever?”

He didn’t look up, just nodded his head and mumbled “yeah, kinda.”

I didn’t want to be nosy, but I’ve always been fascinated with drugs and all the weird, complicated, ingenious and detailed little methods that the human race has come up with to get off on. I watched as he took the neon green cap off of the black cylinder, dipped some sort of metal needle into it, then screwed that into the end of the ratchet looking device. He pushed a button on the back, and a metal cylinder popped up around the needle with a psssshhhh… Huh, musta been pneumatic some how.

He looked around, and found an empty corner in our living room. He scooted across the dark brown rough-pile carpet, then leaned up against the wall. He didn’t even look at me one last time, probably out of fear that I’d change my mind, and without hesitation, he cracked the ratchet thing into the side of his head.

The thing hit his temple with a dull thwack! As the air pressure absorbed most of the impact. I saw the slightest drop of blood as his hand dropped the gadget onto the carpet. I thought to my self, this is freaking fascinating. I wondered what would happen next.

His eyes glossed over, as he got this look of staring far off into space; through my walls, through the city, through the whole damn atmosphere, it was such a far off gaze. Maybe that’s just me being dramatic, but it was definitely not your normal dazed look. Then, out of nowhere, he started moving.

He didn’t stand up or anything, his body just began rolling around on my living room floor! His arms were held up close to his chest, and he was just sort of rolling back and forth, his legs kicking up into the air a little as he moaned “unnnh….unnh…unhhh….”

Now, I’d been around a lot of people on a lot of different things in the past, but this shit was straight up the weirdest thing I’d ever been witness to. I didn’t know what to expect; was he okay? Is this normal? I heard people do some weird things tapping, but…Was it normally this weird?

He stopped rolling back and forth on the floor, and then just lay there for a second. I looked around, then leaned in a bit towards his direction to look for any signs of status. Okay, good, his chest was moving, so he was still breathing. Good sign, good sign. I timidly began to take a small step towards him when all of a sudden, he just stood up onto his feet. It was like nothing weird had happened at all, though his eyes were open a little wider than before. He started gathering up his gear back into the small cloth bag, then stood up, walking towards the door.

I tried not to let my jaw drop as I watched him reach out for the tarnished brass door knob. He turned around, looked at my feet a bit and mumbled a “Cool, thanks man.” And opened the door.

“Uh, yeah, righton bro. Take it easy.” He stepped back out into the night, and as suddenly as he had come, he left, fighting with the door a little to get it to click shut.

I shook my head with wrinkled brows as I went to bolt the door shut. Man, that was wild! Did that just really happen? Jenn opened the bedroom door and poked her towl-tried but still soaked-looking hair of a head out the door, water slowly dripping onto the carpet.

“I hear somebody else here?” She asked with a puzzled look.

“Uh, haha, yeah, sort of. Man you are not going to believe what just happened here!”

She looked around one last time to make sure nobody else was there before opening the door and stepping out into the living room with only a pink, wet towel wrapped around her body. The worried look on her face shook me to bring the tone of my voice down to a reassuring, calm, tone.

“No, everything’s cool, but one of Jim’s friends or something just stopped by. I said that Jim hadn’t been around in a while, but then he asked if he could tap in our living room.”

“No shit!” She laughed, “You tell him to fuck off?”

“No! I figured you’d be in the bath for a while, so, “ I shrugged my shoulders, “so I said sure.”

Jen looked around the room once more, “And? He left? Or did he..?”

I threw up my arms. “Dude, that’s what the craziest thing was! He came in, got out his little tapper tool whatevermajig thing, and did it!”

“...and? What happened?”

“Seriously, he freaking rolled around on the ground for a few minutes, moaned a little, then got up, and left. I swear, just like nothing happened at all.”

Her face lit up, “Get out!! He seriously just rolled around, got up, and left?”

“Well, he said thanks on his way out, too.”

“That’s insane! I can’t believe I missed out.” She raised her eyebrows in my direction, “I totally would’a tried it with him.”

“Yeah? Haha, I dunno…he didn’t offer or nothing, but he did say he was planning on doing it with Jim, so he probably had enough. You ever done it before?”

“Nah,” Jenn shook her head, “I just heard a lot about it from these guys I used to hang out at Denny’s with. Crazy shit, though, they used to make their own tappers out of like sharpened sewing needle heads and clicky pen caps and stuff. Always sounded a little too weird for me. But man, did they have the wildest stories about that shit!”

“Yeah? Like what?” I was definitely interested in hearing about this. What would be going through somebody’s head while they’re rolling around on somebody’s carpet, moaning?

“Yeah, man. Like way out weeeiiird stories. Nothing I’d ever heard no druggy talk about. They talked about like talking to aliens, or being objects and shit, like staplers, or a plate in the dishwasher and just way out things. I never paid much attention, just figured it was the typical stoner teenagers trying to show off, outdoing each other with stupid stories. But that is too funny! I never heard about rolling around on the carpet!”

“Yeah, haha. Maybe he thought he was a vacuum or something. That is just wild.”

“Yep, I’d have to agree with you there, Ands.” She looked off thoughtfully into space for a bit, imagining the scene she narrowly missed, then bent herself over in exclamation. “Oogh! I can’t believe I missed that. I am so jealous.”

I smiled, “Well, believe me. You really didn’t miss that much.” I looked at the ground, going over it again in my own mind. Jenn broke the silence after a second.

“So, uh…Where you think we could get some?” She glanced over with that mischievous twinkle in her eyes. I glanced back at her with a raised eyebrow. It really did sound appealing in the completely lunacy of the whole deal.

“Dunno! I’ll do some research on the internet, see what the ‘experts’ are sayin’ about the thing. Man, that was really somethin’.”

Jenn saw my attention wander off again, but she was done thinking about the whole thing. Her towel made a dull thump onto the floor as she beckoned to me with her index finger.

The sound of the towel snapped me out of my daydream, and I she winked at me, biting her lower lip. “I got another thing for you that’s ‘really somethin’, cowboy” She turned around and slowly sauntered back into the bedroom, leaving the door open.

“She always knows just how to get me…” I thought as I the excitement rose. It took all my restraint to keep my cool and not just bound right in after her.

Chapter One: Just Another Day

2006-11-04T01:19:00.001-07:00

“Well what the fuck did you think was going to happen??” I was laughing just as much as I was annoyed and about half as much as I was shaking, nearly watching my life pass before my eyes.

“What? I heard that it would work! Excuuuuse me for trusting the internet.” Jen blurted out as she stuck out her tongue mockingly, tasting her own tears through convulsions of laughter. I was hoping she actually knew how rediculous that sounded; at least as the words came out of her mouth, if not before.

I slowly stood up, lifting my self off of the kitchen floor, using the washroom door handle as support. I kept my self from glancing around at the chaos that I knew must surely suround me as I kinda hopped a bit over to the corner that Jen had dove into between the wall and the refridgerator, tucking her head between her knees after the explosion.

She grabbed my hand and locked her dark brown eyes with mine, with what I could only describe as a sort of apologetic smirk if there can be such a thing, and let me help her get pulled up onto her feet. I instinctively brushed some of the glass off of my shirt as we faced each other, both of our eyes straining to look around the room, while our heads refused to take the responsibility of taking in the situation. Finally, we looked at each other, she took a deep breath and rolled her eyes upwards, and then we turned towards the microwave.

It wasn’t actually as bad as I had expected it to be when I saw that the little brown box was only half mangled. The glass wasn’t shattered or nothing, but the door was swung open, cocked at some funky angle and lined with cigarette-stain yellow char marks along the edges. Funny, I wouldn’t have expected the door latch to be weaker than the glass itself, but it made sense now that I saw it in action. The plastic on the inside of the microwave was a little worse for wear, some large cracks around the fan holes in the top, let alone the mess of a heap of water, metal, glass and soot that was thrown around on the inside.

“Man…So, uh…well… So, ‘that’ happened.” Jen smiled and gave me a sheepish grin as she flicked her head to toss her russled brown hair back behind her shoulders.

I laughed. “Yep! There she is, there she is… Where do you think we went wrong?”

“I dunno! Maybe the salt in the tap water was too much? We shoulda tried distilled.”

“Bah, but water isn’t conductive! You need some good minerals in there to get a charge flowin’, I swear.” It’s true, too. It was one of the few things I learned in high school chemistry class.

Jen smiled again. We both knew what the real problem was. “Well…I guess you were right. We should have actually gone and gotten a real incandescent light bulb instead of the natural full-spectro-whatever thing that I found in your closet.”

I sighed, “I told you it wasn’t the same thing. But NooooOOo. You said,” I put on my high pitched Jenn-imitation-voice, “‘No. It said it works for any light producing bulb. All light bulbs light up when microwaved in a glass of water.’ Bah! I should’a smelled the bull-shit from a mile away! When will I ever learn that you have no freaking idea what the hell you’re ever talking about? Augh!”

Jen put on her face that said “but come onnn, aren’t I cute?” and placed her hand on her hip. “I do too know what I’m talking about! You’re just too secure in your own cluelessness, which is exactly why you always give in to me. C’mon Andy, you know that my ideas will inevitably lead to adventure. Admit it! You’d be lost in a world where microwaves just sat on their counters heating food a few times a week, without ever exploding. Or where hamsters didn’t get drunk, or beer was drank out of glasses instead of aquarium cleaning tubes.

“Admit it! You’d have no adventure in your life…” she cocked her head and took a step forward to where our bodies were almost touching, “without…” She leaned in and brought her lips close to mine to where I could feel the warmth of her breath, leaned in and kissed me deeply as she softly whispered “…Me.”

Without even a thought in my mind, I gave in to her, reaching my arms to embrace her fragile body, all of my attention on her tenderness and warmth. Fuck, this always happens, and she knows it. My mind has a shutoff valve she holds the key to. A flash of lucidity came to me, I lingered for one extra second on her kiss, grinned, and pushed her away.

I winked at her, “Yeah, sure. You got me.” I turned around to walk into the living room. As I slowly walked out, I gestered to the counter and the microwave, said “You’re still cleaning it all up. We’ll get a new microwave tomorrow, fuck it.” And went to check my e-mail as she mockingly glared at me, hand on her hip, weight on her left foot with her hips tilted and squinted eyes. When she knew I wasn’t going to look back, she simply turned around and grabbed the broom out of the laundry closet.

This had basically been my life for the past two years or so. Not always as…dangerous, I guess, but fairly typically just as exciting, I suppose. We were both part of the young upper-middleclass that could only exist in this recent age of technology: two party kids, ass-deep in corporate America, with way more disposable income than our tastes call for; too smart to be anything less, too lazy to be much more.

Jen and I had met at a friend of mine’s house-party a year ago. We didn’t have any mutual friends or acquaintances or anything like that, she had just been driving by, saw a party going on and decided to crash it. That’s the way it was with Jen, she barely even knew what the heck she was going to do from moment to moment. Actually, that was something I had always admired in her, and even took it upon my self as a skill to be cultivated. The taoists and buddhists and such always talked about the impulsive self, the self you are without thinking about it, being closer to the “real” you than much else in daily life and all that. Sometimes though, I thought she was still tryin’ a bit too hard not to try, throwing her slef into situations that she knew it would never get in on it’s own; kinda misses the point, I figure.

“Hey! Andy.” My thoughts stop drifting back from the past, and my attention shifts back into the moment. As my vision comes into conscious focus, I see the big “0” next to the inbox on my screen.

“Yeah?” I spin my office chair around to face the door to see her leaning against the jam; left arm creeping up the side like a green snake up a sugar cane, with her left leg bend, foot resting on her right.

Her legs spring her into a short sort of hop and she take a small leap, landing in my lap, arms around my neck. She stares into my eyes in a deliberate way, and suddenly blurts out of nowhere “Andy, I want to know you.”

I gave her the standard puzzling look that I use in these situations. Funny thing, is that I probably actually knew what she was talking about, or could have guessed at least, but sometimes if I’m not sure what to say back to somebody, I just try to get them to give up more information before my response comes. She knew this, rolled her eyes, and kept talking.

“C’mon, I was just thinking while I was cleaning up after our little experiment about how weird it is that you can never really ever know any body, know what I mean? Like, truly, truly know them. There’s always a barrier between the actual person, and your interaction with them. We have to rely on vibrations of air, or these weird funky symbol things that we make on a page with a mixture of water and plants or soot or whatever the hell ink’s made out of nowadays. And not even that, but think about how freaky language is, in it’s self!”

“Uh-oh, Andy,” I thought to my self, “Don’t get her started on language…”

“Don’t even get me started about language! It’s all just layers and layers of bull shit between us, and I want to get past it. I don’t even want to know who you think you are, or who you try to be, or who you are when you’re around me; I want to know the real you, the real Andy! Who you are when nobody else is around, who you are that keeps your self company.”

“Okay, yeah I get what you’re saying. Basically, there’s some sort of ‘you’ that is the one that reaches out into the world with whatever way it can, but it’s so limited in expression or whatever, that there’s naturally parts of it that you’re missing out on?” I wasn’t really in the mood to have a discussion like this at the moment, but she seemed like she was on a roll, and moods of her’s like these were something that didn’t come around often, so I was trying to humor her.

“Yes! It’s like this book I read once was saying. It was the four doors or something like that…four gates…Um…” She persed her lips and looked to the right corner in the ceiling trying to remember. “Umm…four doorways? Anyway, it was like, the first door that was, uh…something…and the second door, that was the you that opened up, and, uh…then the final door!” She giggled to herself, “no, really, though maaan! It Totally made sense, and it’s totally what I want from our relationship.” She stopped laughing, and fixed her eyes in a rediculously half-serious comedic fashion.

“Hey, wait a minute…” I squinted as I leaned in for a close inspection of her eyes, “You’re high, aren’t you!!

Her jaw slid a bit to the left and her lower lip folded in, delicately chewing on it. She looked up, “Um, no?” I knew better.

“Are too!” I started squirming around underneath her, freeing my arms to attack her soft flanks with a finger-wiggling, tickling frenzy.

“No! No, donnnnn’t you dar-, ahh!!” She busted into a giggling frenzy, writhing around, frantically trying to brush my arms aside.

“No wonder you’re all deep and shit! Joke’s on you, you done got your self too high to even voice what the heck you’re talking about.”

She started to calm down a little, fast shallow heaves of her chest as she caught her breath again. She put on her pouty face. “Yeah…don’t think the irony’s lost on me…stupid gates.”

“Doors?”

She stuck he tongue out. “Whatever…” Then she hopped up off of my lap, hopped a spin into the air and headed towards the door. She stuck her nose into the air, “I know where I’m not appreciated. I am going to go take a hot bath, sir.” She turned around, and smacked herself on the ass she strutted out the door.

“Yep,” I thought to my self, “Just another day…” I grinned and turned back to my monitor to peruse my desolate inbox. I grinned though, and realized that sometimes? Sometimes, I love my life.