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Description
Perception Of The Unknown

As I write this, I can’t feel anything but helplessness, as I know this may sound far-fetched, and as I have nobody to back me up on it. My thoughts are so cluttered that I am unable to form a consistent linear timeline of events. At the time, I had remembered everything that was said, in hopes of writing it down, but now I cannot remember any dialogue at all.

After returning from the greatest journey I have ever taken, writing this seems so awkward. Of the things I will write, I can only say that whatever it will be, it will be the greatest question I have ever asked.

On a fairly normal night, under fairly normal circumstances (considering), there would arrive a journey such as none before. A journey that was terrifying, exhilarating, enlightening, and clouded all at the same time.

Dream Within A dream

I had a dream one night (or many nights, I can’t remember) that consisted of 4 friends of mine sitting in a forest, randomly discussing things while high. I had somehow devised a conversation that lasted an entire night and consisted solely of gibberish, racism, death, drugs, and various other topics. The friends were J, K, H, and M. I knew the exact dialogue of each person at each time throughout the course of my dream, and the topics lent themselves to some memorable quotes/ramblings. There is no chance in hell that any of this conversation would ever be spoken, even partially, by anybody else at any time. It was unmistakably ours – theirs.

Because of the fact that this ‘dream’ had taken place within a month or so of that fateful night, my recollection of the events were crystal clear, albeit not as clear as when it actually happened. In the ‘dream’, I was watching from a third person point of view – from above. As I wasn’t present, I didn’t see the effects that would take hold of me. The only way that reality (?) differed from my dream (?) was the fact that I was safe in the ‘dream’ and trapped in ‘reality’.

Everything I saw from then on became an important symbol of which the meanings were unknown

Thus, the night’s events were shown to me with a clarity never before experienced by myself. I can only hope that this night is presented at least somewhat as clearly to you as they were to me.

The Beginning of Everything and Nothing

What started as 5 separate individuals, each with unique characteristics, slowly morphed into a blur of intense feelings, and thoughts, unable to be clarified by each individual.

As we (they) sat there at that picnic table in the middle of the forest, I was transported into a different stream of thought. It was something that was absolutely terrifying, yet at the same time, absolutely stunning. I realized instantly that I had been here before. This was the exact same occurrence that I had recently experienced in a sequence of (or singular) dreams. Right down to the conversations. This realization was the beginning of my terrifying descent into the unknown. From the very onset of the conversation - all of which I had heard before - I was thrown into an astounded daze. Once my 'dream' became reality, I was unable to do anything. I couldn't talk, I couldn't move, I couldn’t return to the safety of reality. I might have been in shock as the seemingly impossible events had gripped all of my senses in some sort of unending death grip. Terror possessed me then, and it wouldn’t go away until it wanted to. All of my fears were brought out in one single night. There is no greater fear than that of not knowing.

I seemed to be a pawn in some game where the goal was to advance the completely mundane night of 4 average individuals, while tormenting another. This was not the reward for winning, this was the punishment for losing. I’m not sure who, or what, had control over me that night because I’m not even sure if I had control over myself.

Everything that happened from then on was a result of me. I was controlling the events of the night subconsciously, as though it was still my dream. Everything happened as I remembered it in my dream, or rather, I made everything happen as I remembered it. My eyes were the key to the night. In addition to my eyes, I know that I was shaking uncontrollably throughout the entire night. I believe this was some kind of thought process in which my shaking caused my thoughts to increase, as the faster I moved, the faster things happened in my brain. I didn’t feel myself shaking but I could see that I was, and at one point in the night, J asked me to stop shaking the table so he could cut the weed.¹

As I would shake, I would conjure an image in my head of the next ‘event’. I’d look up from my place, scan the table, and make eye contact with someone seated at the table. At that very moment, said person would speak. If I didn’t make eye contact, nothing coherent would be said by anybody, just gibberish being spewed by everybody at the same time. It was only direct eye contact² with a person that would make them have a thought and voice it. Occasionally, there was silence. These instances usually happened while I was looking at the ground, trying to remember what happened next. The ground became my storyboard. I would see something on the ground that would remind me of something else, then I would look up at the faces of my friends, and my nightmare would continue.

Time Heals Nothing

Each passing minute that night felt like an hour’s worth of events, all leading up to the end. The end of something that I had no control over - something that I had yet to even figure out.

What petrified me the most was the fact that the night might never end. This would be the ultimate punishment ever unleashed on a single human being. The only thing I wanted that night, was for the night to end, I didn’t even care if I made it out alive, I just wanted out.

Death’s Visage

I was clutching a water bottle the entire night. It was more than just clutching though; that water bottle was my inspiration – my demon. As the night continued, I noticed myself twisting the bottle. My hands continuously spun around the bottle as they would if I was ringing out a wet cloth. Towards the end of the night, I noticed the bottle was thinning. It donned on me then that I was turning the water bottle into a pencil. As I pictured the bottle in my mind, I could see a pencil, with the lid as an eraser. Coincidentally, the lid was on the table, signifying perhaps the inability to erase these memories, the inability to forget this event. Had I not conjured up this image, I might not have been destined to remember it.

It was then that I began to realize that this night would become my inspiration. I was destined to write about the otherwise mundane experiences of this night.³

As I never let go of the bottle, I had plenty of time to mold it into my demon. As I looked at this demon, I experienced a deathly image that I wish I had never seen. Looking at the water bottle, I noticed that the ice block that once consumed most of the bottle, had now dissolved into smaller pieces. As I sipped from the bottle, I felt the ice pieces touch my gums, working their way into where my teeth would normally be. As I took the bottle away from my lips, I felt the ice fall back into the bottle. I looked down into the bottle, and I could see the ice, except they were now in the shape of teeth - my own teeth. These ice teeth were long, cold, white teeth – as if they had been removed from the jawbone of a skeleton long since expired. I licked the inside of my mouth with my tongue, and I felt a tingling throughout. I ran my tongue across my gums, noticing that my gums were smaller, and my teeth were longer. I could feel the gaps between the tops of my teeth, where my gums would normally be. I could also feel teeth missing. As I continued to search my mouth with my tongue, I noticed that my gums were indeed receding. The tingling I felt in my mouth was the feeling of my gums corroding and my teeth falling out. I now had a ghastly image of a decaying human, sitting unnoticed on a picnic table bench in the middle of a forest, until the decay became too much and the person disappeared.

I felt as if I was becoming a skeleton, yet another sign of my impending death. It felt as if the entire night was my last exit, slowly fading away with each passing moment.

Death Beckons

I felt as if this was my last night. The images of death that I saw were enough to make me wish I was dead. I don’t know if it was the paranoia, but I felt as if I was a target. I’m not exactly sure what the source was, but I was sure I was going to witness my own death.

The strongest thought I had running through my mind that entire night, was the fact that seemed like a conversation between four people, and I was a spectator. Thee eerie part was that I felt as If I wasn’t present. I felt as if I was watching the events – writing or dreaming the events – from a distance. It reminded me of my dream. I became confused as to what I was actually experiencing. Was this the dream? Was this reality? Why did I know what each person was going to say at any given moment? How was I able to influence their thought process? All of these questions left me with a terrifying inner madness.

Earlier in the night, I had touched upon the fact that perhaps I was watching my own life from beyond it. I believed that I was already dead and watching my entire life from day one until the last day. I was sure this was the last day, and when I finished watching it, there would be no more. Complete blackness. Loneliness. Nothingness. I was sure that this was the millisecond of my life where all the things that I’d done previously were flashing before my eyes. These were the last things I would see before I ended.

There were too many images of death to make me feel comfortable. Granted, life was a much more pleasing opportunity, but even death would suffice as an exit.

4 + 1 = 4

I would often drift off (not literally), seeing a picture in my mind of the table from above, and I would hear the others talking incoherently. I noticed that there were only 4 people.

I felt at various times throughout the night that I was each person seated at that table. I felt as though I was watching myself as that person from somebody else’s perspective. The best way I can describe this is that M would pass H something, and I would look down at the item being passed right in front of me. As the others would whisper things, I would hear them as if they were being whispered to me, but I couldn’t understand what was being said.

Each person would say something indicative of their character.

H was very distant, and seemingly unable to say exactly what she wanted to say. She seemed to be having a hard time understanding something. Her face was empty, blank, dead.

K was trying to voice his deep inner feelings, yet it seemed that nobody ever paid attention. He would reveal different things during conversations, but it seemed as if he was being ignored. That resulting in him dropping the subject and ignoring his own opinions and just becoming one of the others.

M was able to voice his thoughts, but the others were unable to comprehend the meanings behind it. So he fed off of J and his utter foolishness.

J simply took it all in, occasionally breaking the monotony with something that was completely nonsensical. I felt as though he was just the typical stoner, sitting at a table, mesmerized by everything. And always cutting weed…

Me… I have no description, as I’m still not sure who I was on that particular night. I suppose I am all of these people.

H.

I never quite got a direct look into her eyes. All we ever got was a passing glance, her eyes looking up or to the side, as I attempted to penetrate her impenetrable gaze. As our eyes never connected, I wasn't able to read her, or to have her say what I wanted her to say. She never had a complete thought - or at least one that she could say clearly. There was an unbreakable connection between us on that night. I couldn’t then; as I can’t now; understand why this is significant. I do know that H was definitely the focal point of the night.

I felt some sort of connection with each person at various times, for various reasons. However, my strongest connection was with H, simply because I was unable to connect. Her mind was blurred and swift, much like my own. I was unable to pick out a single thought. I may or may not have been staring at her the entire night, hoping – wishing, that she would open up her eyes and let me in. As she would take a puff on her cigarette, I would look to the ground; as she put the cigarette down, I would look up. I would start to say something – as me – and I would look over at her and see her mouth move, and her brain churn, yet say nothing. She was unable to put her thoughts into words, so instead, she sat there silently, taking in everything, badly wanting to share her experiences, but not knowing how. In retrospect, I realize that this is very similar to the way I was feeling – hence the connection, or bond if you will, between us.

Musical Bewilderment

As we drove home, the music in the car was hypnotizing. I’m not sure what was playing (it might have been Zeppelin), but I knew that I couldn’t understand a single word or note. It sounded backwards, or overlapped, or doubled. The music either affected, or was affected by me. As my heartbeat increased, so did the music; as the music slowed, so did time.

The scariest event of the night occurred while driving. The strange music that filled my mind started to increase in tempo. At that time, my heartbeat increased, as well as my thoughts. I was unable to put together a single image, and as the music got faster and faster, it felt as thought my heart was going to explode. The only thing I was able to put together, was the back of a car. Over and over again, I saw the back of a car, and I felt as though we were going 100 miles an hour.

The music sped up to a high-pitched whine and all the blurred images in my head turned to a vivid piece of moving colour. I was sure that when this ended I would be dead - like a car going from 100 miles an hour down to 0 instantly - the end of everything as we know it. I sat silently, awaiting the impact that I had envisioned happening. It was more terrifying than anything you could ever imagine. It never came. I almost wished it had.

A Passage Back To The Origin/The End Of The End

As we walked down the path out of the forest, I noticed that it was as bright as it was when we entered, even though everything I saw that night happened in complete darkness. H was at the front, while the rest of us trailed 10 feet behind. I keep seeing 3 people following H, even though there were 5 of us at the time. H looked very uncomfortable at the front. I felt as though she thought something bad was going to happen, I could see that she wanted to go – quickly. All I could hear in my head was ‘I’m cold… does anybody have a sweater?’ It was in H’s voice, but I noticed that I was cold and still shaking. Now that I think of it, I don’t believe that she said anything because she never turned around at any point on the path. A man on a bike asked us if we had seen his kids ride by on their bikes, we pointed to the right, and continued on to the car. Of some interest, I might add that as the four of them walked to the car, I stopped to relieve myself. Once again, it was 1 watching 4. I had the feeling of being left behind yet again.

The night(mare) ended around 9:50 pm on Thursday night (I was thinking that it was Friday morning, and that I was going to be way late for work). We were sitting in J’s car (I believe they were still smoking, as the car was smoky and I was unable to salivate) listening to Paul’s Boutique by the Beastie Boys (I’m almost positive). I was able to hear the music clearly, and I knew that I had returned to the place I was before. I opened my mouth and uttered the word ‘home’. At 10 pm, I was home. I began to write about what had just happened, and then I fell asleep.

Finality

Perhaps I hadn’t gotten high at all that night, perhaps I – we – were already high, and this drug made us ‘higher’, but in the opposite way of what we believe ‘high’ to be now. Perhaps the ‘high’ that we were feeling was reality, and the reality we experience normally is the high of another plain. I am really in no position to tell at the present moment.

And so the night that seemed to drag on for entire days, ended, little more than three hours after it had started. Regardless of the outcome of that night, I write about now because I know I have to. I have to tell somebody. I don’t know why, I just know that it scares me not to. I never hope to experience anything like this again. Perhaps death is like this. Never before have I feared death this much.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

¹ One of the few reminders to myself that I was, in fact, present

² On the issue of eye contact, I have to stress that I was looking directly into their eyes as they met mine, as they were unable to see my eyes due to the sunglasses. The fact that my eyes on that specific night were as clear as ever (contacts), yet still shaded (sunglasses) and unavailable to the outside world is intriguing to me.

³ I kept subconsciously noticing that as I looked down from the table, my sunglasses became clear, and the bottle was a pencil. I was writing everything down as it happened. Now that I think about it, this sounds completely absurd. Then again, what am I doing now?

Description
Perception Of The Unknown

As I write this, I can’t feel anything but helplessness, as I know this may sound far-fetched, and as I have nobody to back me up on it. My thoughts are so cluttered that I am unable to form a consistent linear timeline of events. At the time, I had remembered everything that was said, in hopes of writing it down, but now I cannot remember any dialogue at all.

After returning from the greatest journey I have ever taken, writing this seems so awkward. Of the things I will write, I can only say that whatever it will be, it will be the greatest question I have ever asked.

On a fairly normal night, under fairly normal circumstances (considering), there would arrive a journey such as none before. A journey that was terrifying, exhilarating, enlightening, and clouded all at the same time.

Dream Within A dream

I had a dream one night (or many nights, I can’t remember) that consisted of 4 friends of mine sitting in a forest, randomly discussing things while high. I had somehow devised a conversation that lasted an entire night and consisted solely of gibberish, racism, death, drugs, and various other topics. The friends were J, K, H, and M. I knew the exact dialogue of each person at each time throughout the course of my dream, and the topics lent themselves to some memorable quotes/ramblings. There is no chance in hell that any of this conversation would ever be spoken, even partially, by anybody else at any time. It was unmistakably ours – theirs.

Because of the fact that this ‘dream’ had taken place within a month or so of that fateful night, my recollection of the events were crystal clear, albeit not as clear as when it actually happened. In the ‘dream’, I was watching from a third person point of view – from above. As I wasn’t present, I didn’t see the effects that would take hold of me. The only way that reality (?) differed from my dream (?) was the fact that I was safe in the ‘dream’ and trapped in ‘reality’.

Everything I saw from then on became an important symbol of which the meanings were unknown

Thus, the night’s events were shown to me with a clarity never before experienced by myself. I can only hope that this night is presented at least somewhat as clearly to you as they were to me.

The Beginning of Everything and Nothing

What started as 5 separate individuals, each with unique characteristics, slowly morphed into a blur of intense feelings, and thoughts, unable to be clarified by each individual.

As we (they) sat there at that picnic table in the middle of the forest, I was transported into a different stream of thought. It was something that was absolutely terrifying, yet at the same time, absolutely stunning. I realized instantly that I had been here before. This was the exact same occurrence that I had recently experienced in a sequence of (or singular) dreams. Right down to the conversations. This realization was the beginning of my terrifying descent into the unknown. From the very onset of the conversation - all of which I had heard before - I was thrown into an astounded daze. Once my 'dream' became reality, I was unable to do anything. I couldn't talk, I couldn't move, I couldn’t return to the safety of reality. I might have been in shock as the seemingly impossible events had gripped all of my senses in some sort of unending death grip. Terror possessed me then, and it wouldn’t go away until it wanted to. All of my fears were brought out in one single night. There is no greater fear than that of not knowing.

I seemed to be a pawn in some game where the goal was to advance the completely mundane night of 4 average individuals, while tormenting another. This was not the reward for winning, this was the punishment for losing. I’m not sure who, or what, had control over me that night because I’m not even sure if I had control over myself.

Everything that happened from then on was a result of me. I was controlling the events of the night subconsciously, as though it was still my dream. Everything happened as I remembered it in my dream, or rather, I made everything happen as I remembered it. My eyes were the key to the night. In addition to my eyes, I know that I was shaking uncontrollably throughout the entire night. I believe this was some kind of thought process in which my shaking caused my thoughts to increase, as the faster I moved, the faster things happened in my brain. I didn’t feel myself shaking but I could see that I was, and at one point in the night, J asked me to stop shaking the table so he could cut the weed.¹

As I would shake, I would conjure an image in my head of the next ‘event’. I’d look up from my place, scan the table, and make eye contact with someone seated at the table. At that very moment, said person would speak. If I didn’t make eye contact, nothing coherent would be said by anybody, just gibberish being spewed by everybody at the same time. It was only direct eye contact² with a person that would make them have a thought and voice it. Occasionally, there was silence. These instances usually happened while I was looking at the ground, trying to remember what happened next. The ground became my storyboard. I would see something on the ground that would remind me of something else, then I would look up at the faces of my friends, and my nightmare would continue.

Time Heals Nothing

Each passing minute that night felt like an hour’s worth of events, all leading up to the end. The end of something that I had no control over - something that I had yet to even figure out.

What petrified me the most was the fact that the night might never end. This would be the ultimate punishment ever unleashed on a single human being. The only thing I wanted that night, was for the night to end, I didn’t even care if I made it out alive, I just wanted out.

Death’s Visage

I was clutching a water bottle the entire night. It was more than just clutching though; that water bottle was my inspiration – my demon. As the night continued, I noticed myself twisting the bottle. My hands continuously spun around the bottle as they would if I was ringing out a wet cloth. Towards the end of the night, I noticed the bottle was thinning. It donned on me then that I was turning the water bottle into a pencil. As I pictured the bottle in my mind, I could see a pencil, with the lid as an eraser. Coincidentally, the lid was on the table, signifying perhaps the inability to erase these memories, the inability to forget this event. Had I not conjured up this image, I might not have been destined to remember it.

It was then that I began to realize that this night would become my inspiration. I was destined to write about the otherwise mundane experiences of this night.³

As I never let go of the bottle, I had plenty of time to mold it into my demon. As I looked at this demon, I experienced a deathly image that I wish I had never seen. Looking at the water bottle, I noticed that the ice block that once consumed most of the bottle, had now dissolved into smaller pieces. As I sipped from the bottle, I felt the ice pieces touch my gums, working their way into where my teeth would normally be. As I took the bottle away from my lips, I felt the ice fall back into the bottle. I looked down into the bottle, and I could see the ice, except they were now in the shape of teeth - my own teeth. These ice teeth were long, cold, white teeth – as if they had been removed from the jawbone of a skeleton long since expired. I licked the inside of my mouth with my tongue, and I felt a tingling throughout. I ran my tongue across my gums, noticing that my gums were smaller, and my teeth were longer. I could feel the gaps between the tops of my teeth, where my gums would normally be. I could also feel teeth missing. As I continued to search my mouth with my tongue, I noticed that my gums were indeed receding. The tingling I felt in my mouth was the feeling of my gums corroding and my teeth falling out. I now had a ghastly image of a decaying human, sitting unnoticed on a picnic table bench in the middle of a forest, until the decay became too much and the person disappeared.

I felt as if I was becoming a skeleton, yet another sign of my impending death. It felt as if the entire night was my last exit, slowly fading away with each passing moment.

Death Beckons

I felt as if this was my last night. The images of death that I saw were enough to make me wish I was dead. I don’t know if it was the paranoia, but I felt as if I was a target. I’m not exactly sure what the source was, but I was sure I was going to witness my own death.

The strongest thought I had running through my mind that entire night, was the fact that seemed like a conversation between four people, and I was a spectator. Thee eerie part was that I felt as If I wasn’t present. I felt as if I was watching the events – writing or dreaming the events – from a distance. It reminded me of my dream. I became confused as to what I was actually experiencing. Was this the dream? Was this reality? Why did I know what each person was going to say at any given moment? How was I able to influence their thought process? All of these questions left me with a terrifying inner madness.

Earlier in the night, I had touched upon the fact that perhaps I was watching my own life from beyond it. I believed that I was already dead and watching my entire life from day one until the last day. I was sure this was the last day, and when I finished watching it, there would be no more. Complete blackness. Loneliness. Nothingness. I was sure that this was the millisecond of my life where all the things that I’d done previously were flashing before my eyes. These were the last things I would see before I ended.

There were too many images of death to make me feel comfortable. Granted, life was a much more pleasing opportunity, but even death would suffice as an exit.

4 + 1 = 4

I would often drift off (not literally), seeing a picture in my mind of the table from above, and I would hear the others talking incoherently. I noticed that there were only 4 people.

I felt at various times throughout the night that I was each person seated at that table. I felt as though I was watching myself as that person from somebody else’s perspective. The best way I can describe this is that M would pass H something, and I would look down at the item being passed right in front of me. As the others would whisper things, I would hear them as if they were being whispered to me, but I couldn’t understand what was being said.

Each person would say something indicative of their character.

H was very distant, and seemingly unable to say exactly what she wanted to say. She seemed to be having a hard time understanding something. Her face was empty, blank, dead.

K was trying to voice his deep inner feelings, yet it seemed that nobody ever paid attention. He would reveal different things during conversations, but it seemed as if he was being ignored. That resulting in him dropping the subject and ignoring his own opinions and just becoming one of the others.

M was able to voice his thoughts, but the others were unable to comprehend the meanings behind it. So he fed off of J and his utter foolishness.

J simply took it all in, occasionally breaking the monotony with something that was completely nonsensical. I felt as though he was just the typical stoner, sitting at a table, mesmerized by everything. And always cutting weed…

Me… I have no description, as I’m still not sure who I was on that particular night. I suppose I am all of these people.

H.

I never quite got a direct look into her eyes. All we ever got was a passing glance, her eyes looking up or to the side, as I attempted to penetrate her impenetrable gaze. As our eyes never connected, I wasn't able to read her, or to have her say what I wanted her to say. She never had a complete thought - or at least one that she could say clearly. There was an unbreakable connection between us on that night. I couldn’t then; as I can’t now; understand why this is significant. I do know that H was definitely the focal point of the night.

I felt some sort of connection with each person at various times, for various reasons. However, my strongest connection was with H, simply because I was unable to connect. Her mind was blurred and swift, much like my own. I was unable to pick out a single thought. I may or may not have been staring at her the entire night, hoping – wishing, that she would open up her eyes and let me in. As she would take a puff on her cigarette, I would look to the ground; as she put the cigarette down, I would look up. I would start to say something – as me – and I would look over at her and see her mouth move, and her brain churn, yet say nothing. She was unable to put her thoughts into words, so instead, she sat there silently, taking in everything, badly wanting to share her experiences, but not knowing how. In retrospect, I realize that this is very similar to the way I was feeling – hence the connection, or bond if you will, between us.

Musical Bewilderment

As we drove home, the music in the car was hypnotizing. I’m not sure what was playing (it might have been Zeppelin), but I knew that I couldn’t understand a single word or note. It sounded backwards, or overlapped, or doubled. The music either affected, or was affected by me. As my heartbeat increased, so did the music; as the music slowed, so did time.

The scariest event of the night occurred while driving. The strange music that filled my mind started to increase in tempo. At that time, my heartbeat increased, as well as my thoughts. I was unable to put together a single image, and as the music got faster and faster, it felt as thought my heart was going to explode. The only thing I was able to put together, was the back of a car. Over and over again, I saw the back of a car, and I felt as though we were going 100 miles an hour.

The music sped up to a high-pitched whine and all the blurred images in my head turned to a vivid piece of moving colour. I was sure that when this ended I would be dead - like a car going from 100 miles an hour down to 0 instantly - the end of everything as we know it. I sat silently, awaiting the impact that I had envisioned happening. It was more terrifying than anything you could ever imagine. It never came. I almost wished it had.

A Passage Back To The Origin/The End Of The End

As we walked down the path out of the forest, I noticed that it was as bright as it was when we entered, even though everything I saw that night happened in complete darkness. H was at the front, while the rest of us trailed 10 feet behind. I keep seeing 3 people following H, even though there were 5 of us at the time. H looked very uncomfortable at the front. I felt as though she thought something bad was going to happen, I could see that she wanted to go – quickly. All I could hear in my head was ‘I’m cold… does anybody have a sweater?’ It was in H’s voice, but I noticed that I was cold and still shaking. Now that I think of it, I don’t believe that she said anything because she never turned around at any point on the path. A man on a bike asked us if we had seen his kids ride by on their bikes, we pointed to the right, and continued on to the car. Of some interest, I might add that as the four of them walked to the car, I stopped to relieve myself. Once again, it was 1 watching 4. I had the feeling of being left behind yet again.

The night(mare) ended around 9:50 pm on Thursday night (I was thinking that it was Friday morning, and that I was going to be way late for work). We were sitting in J’s car (I believe they were still smoking, as the car was smoky and I was unable to salivate) listening to Paul’s Boutique by the Beastie Boys (I’m almost positive). I was able to hear the music clearly, and I knew that I had returned to the place I was before. I opened my mouth and uttered the word ‘home’. At 10 pm, I was home. I began to write about what had just happened, and then I fell asleep.

Finality

Perhaps I hadn’t gotten high at all that night, perhaps I – we – were already high, and this drug made us ‘higher’, but in the opposite way of what we believe ‘high’ to be now. Perhaps the ‘high’ that we were feeling was reality, and the reality we experience normally is the high of another plain. I am really in no position to tell at the present moment.

And so the night that seemed to drag on for entire days, ended, little more than three hours after it had started. Regardless of the outcome of that night, I write about now because I know I have to. I have to tell somebody. I don’t know why, I just know that it scares me not to. I never hope to experience anything like this again. Perhaps death is like this. Never before have I feared death this much.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

¹ One of the few reminders to myself that I was, in fact, present

² On the issue of eye contact, I have to stress that I was looking directly into their eyes as they met mine, as they were unable to see my eyes due to the sunglasses. The fact that my eyes on that specific night were as clear as ever (contacts), yet still shaded (sunglasses) and unavailable to the outside world is intriguing to me.

³ I kept subconsciously noticing that as I looked down from the table, my sunglasses became clear, and the bottle was a pencil. I was writing everything down as it happened. Now that I think about it, this sounds completely absurd. Then again, what am I doing now?