by Stephen Biro
I begin to ramble off more of the library. “I have Down’s Syndrome kids singing and dancing in music videos, breast reduction surgery, and the uncut Friday the 13th which has never been released in America. I have Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs in a gangbang and all of the craziest racist Disney cartoons. I have psychedelic videos for parties and kung fu films from all over China. I even have interviews from Charles Manson and Jeffrey Dahmer that have never been released before.
“Are you ready for more titles? Here are some of the videos I was selling. I can’t make this up: The Incest Family X-Mas, Toilet Face, Pain for Pleasure, Extreme Perversions, Tard Spasm, Redneck Torture, Chicken Fucker, and The Golden Shower Power Hour.”
These films are even worse than you probably imagine. I was drowning in a cesspool of filth, copying trash for money and not knowing any better. I didn’t have anything to do with the making of these sick videos; I just found them and made copies for people who wanted to see fucked-up shit. That’s all it was: Helping people see the fucked-up shit they already wanted to see. Hell, I know I wanted to see fucked-up shit, for a while, I made a lot of money at another thing I enjoyed.
All my friends came over to say, “Steve, show me some fucked-up shit!” And I always obliged. I had it all on videotape.
You continue looking around, seeing the horror-movie posters on the walls. Eraserhead is behind you, and Confessions of a Serial Killer is in front of you. Statues and hot anime chicks in completed resin kits fill in the few spaces the videotapes didn’t manage to infest. With the shelves stuffed to the gills and over flowing onto stacks on the floor, my VHS library cluttered the apartment, but it was a controlled clutter.
I say, “Look and see me for what I really was.” My younger self begins to laugh hysterically.
You lean up and peek over a small order of videotapes to see me sitting on the couch, laughing at the TV. I’m watching the Stroh’s Beer Wet Bikini Contest, and a chick with a double dong is fucking herself in front of 700 guys on a stage during Spring Break. She’s bent over, fucking herself on stage to win whatever prize she can get, and none of the judges are stopping her. Suddenly, another contestant runs out on the stage and takes the other end of the double dong and shoves it inside her, fucking the other chick. The crowd goes wild!
You see contempt in my eyes, and you wait to hear what I have to say.
“Stupid fucking bitches! Only one of you can win the big prize, but yet both of you are on the double dong!”
I hit the stop and eject buttons on the remote control. The video pops out of the player, and I stand up.
Older me slowly fades in like a movie scene.
“Are you ready? Let’s go to the next level.”
YOU AND ME IN THE LIBRARY OF THE ETHER
We find ourselves in an immense, dimly lit library that smells faintly of mahogany. The walls of books are warping and twisting ever so slightly. You’re sitting, staring at one of these immense shelves. The books begin dripping off them so you stare harder. You’re trying to make out the names of the wiggling books before they slide down the bookcase.
I tap you on the shoulder.
“Don’t even try. I’ve read too much in my lifetime. All of these are books I’ve read so far, some multiple times.”
You squint, trying to make out what looks like Huckleberry Finn and Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.
“Fear and Huck are over there.” I grab your shoulder and spin you around so you can see the other wall. “You were actually looking at an amalgam of Marvel’s Infinity Gauntlet, Clive Barker’s Damnation Game and Homer’s Odyssey.” A silver flash shows you a contorted mirror image of the other side, behind you. You turn quickly, hoping to see what was just there when the room suddenly spins vertically instead of horizontally. You close your eyes and hope the spinning will stop when it slams like a brake, making your stomach flip.
You turn to me in bewilderment.
“I’m keeping you confused in this room so you don’t have any bearings,” I say.
I walk to the other chair, which turns from dark red to pitch black. I slump into it.
“The confused mind is a bit more impressionable.”
You stand and walk around your chair but suddenly stop. You gaze into a fireplace you didn’t notice a second ago. You don’t look at me but say, “You shouldn’t keep me so confused.”
“Just go with it,” I laugh. “Just listen to what I say and believe what I tell you. If something changes when I tell you, then take it with a pinch of salt or swallow it whole. Either way, you take breaks from this, don’t you?”
You instantly think about the times you have put this book down for work, play, or sleep. Sometimes, you’ve stopped just to contemplate what I have been telling you.
You turn to look at me when the fireplace flames die out. The room darkens and you panic, searching around for any kind of light as the darkness envelops you. You hold your breath and try to make everything stand still as your lungs begin to scream, “Why am I not breathing?”
The darkness suddenly becomes electric as the blackness begins to dance, not only in your vision but also inside your head. You sit down in a chair you can’t see and try to feel better when your stomach drops again.
You press your hands against your eyes, pushing your eyeballs inward slightly, just enough to make you dizzy. My hand grips your shoulder, easing your fear and bringing warmth to your soul for a moment.
“Don’t panic; this is what I see all the time. The visions in the darkness, the static electricity of what wants to be but can’t.”
You let go of your breath, and it whooshes out of you.
“Breathe it in. Don’t let the darkness control you. I need you to control it. Realize that you can not only control what you see in your mind, but you can change it to suit your own needs.”
Imagination and reality collide inside your mind. You wince. You see some of your life flash in front of you, but you also see depraved visions of what could be Hell and see something behind it as glorious as the gate of Heaven. You twitch as the darkness moves in and out of you. It crawls up your spine and nestles in your brain like an evil thought from out of nowhere, burying itself in your psyche like a starving leech looking for a vein.
You open your eyes, not really knowing they were closed. You see me sitting on the black leather chair, smoking a cigarette. You look around as my reality swims all around you.
“Take your time. I know this isn’t easy.” You reach for the arms of the chair to stand when you suddenly flop into it like a puppet without a master. Your breathing is labored, and you’re still bewildered. I hand you a drink, looking deep into your eyes.
“I’m sorry. I needed to give you another taste.”
“Why would you—?”
I raise my hand to stop you.
“I’m about to take you into the lower levels of Hell and beyond. I need to know you’re on top of your game.”
You want to say something, but I cut you off again. You’re in my reality now. Not yours but mine. I’m dragging you down into Heaven and Hell’s laboratory, close to death with no way out until I say so. And you want to freak out over a little darkness? You want to be coddled and consoled because of your own thoughts or feelings? Do you really want to see the darkness and the evil that all men do, and do without realizing it themselves?
You gulp down the drink and set it down on the small table next to you. The table then grows and you watch your drink move away from you as your chair becomes smaller. The fire suddenly roars back to life and puts shadows across my face. My pupils expand and you see yourself in them. You don’t like it, so you turn away.
I know it’s hard for us to be alone with ourselves because we find the worst in us. Everyone wants to be perfect in an imperfect world but because of the human condition, we are further from that than the closest sun. Even if we are close, the little tiny things screw us up, more than we can comprehend.
I close my eyes and you do too.
Y
ou hear me say, “It’s why darkness is the perfect teacher.”
We are truly alone with ourselves, to forgive our soul or to forever condemn it. We can exasperate or exonerate, to curse our own life or to truly forgive it. How many times have you gone to sleep forgiving yourself or being happy? And how many times have you fallen asleep, hating yourself or accusing yourself for the things you do or even don’t do? Only the true psychotic believes in themselves and has no trouble sleeping as sins pile onto sins. Knowing that sin is half the battle. Knowing your weakness is the other half of your life. No matter what you do. No matter how strong you are. You will always come short of the glory of God.
That is why I am asking you now to take a breather. I want you to put this testimony down and truly think about what you want in life. Really. I want you to think about what is important to you and what would make you happy on your deathbed. It doesn’t matter if you are an atheist, agnostic, Christian, or a Buddhist.
*
You look me in the eyes and feel faint. You reach out to me and see the flesh of your arm oozing. Your thoughts peel backwards as your whole body contorts. Muscle and tendons rip out of your flesh and into the air with a jolt of searing pain. You’re trying to scream as panic punctuates your whole being. You can barely make me out in front of you as your heart palpitates in total disbelief. I take another drink from my glass and calmly watch your body rip itself apart.
You feel your spine fuse together while your eyes pulsate, as they nearly explode from your head. The room spins, but I become the focal point in the chaos as everything erupts into something else. You keep trying to scream, flesh dripping off your face as you’re painfully ripped back to your own reality.
“Be ready,” I quietly say.
You dig into your skull, desperately trying to tear your own brain out, just to stop the madness. What’s left of you suddenly flares into a bright light. You try to stay in my reality but realize you’re not the master here.
“Get your shit together, figure out who you are and…”
By this time, you are where you are.
HALLUCINOGENIC REALITIES AND THE SHADOW OF THE QUEST BEGINS
A circle of color swirls around you. You don’t understand, but the heat of the colors put you at ease. It’s as if you have given up and you’re willing to let the impossible be possible. You raise your hands to watch the flesh crawl on your arms. You try to look at me as the atoms in your body begin to drift away.
Blackness envelops as the pain of another reality shifts, shifting into your reality like a death gasp from the dying. You feel yourself crossing over into death and the anesthesia of the other side. It calls you like a long-lost friend, as if it were the only place you belonged. As if…
You open your eyes with a gut-wrenching fear. You’re breathing hard again. It’s as if you’re going to pop like a champagne cork. Covered in sweat, you panic.
I reach to you. My hand, slowly grips yours.
“You made it back I see. Good. I didn’t want to wait long.”
You look around. It’s the same study you left. Everything is still swirling and growing, stretching and shrinking, doubling and disappearing. It’s like seeing through the Mad Hatter’s eyes at Alice’s very Merry unBirthday. You look at me as if you’ve just ODed on a major psychedelic and realized it’s way too much. Your stomach sinks as you clutch your face, praying a seizure isn’t in the works. Your heart beats faster when you suddenly feel my strength all around you.
“It’s all right. It’s time.”
A calm flows over you as your eyes swivel into the back of your head, obstructing your view for a moment.
Your eyes then open as you find yourself in my old leather chair, behind the desk in my old apartment. You hear my voice over the reality around you. You look desperately around at young me’s belongings and take another deep breath.
(I’m sorry, gentle reader, for the theatrics I’ve just put you through but I’m building you up in your mind’s eye. I need you to actually see where we are going, to make it truly worthwhile for you. I hope you understand and can picture what is happening, because it is going, to become very visual.)
A dull pulsating flash of darkness throbs all around you. Your eyes slowly adjust. You see the younger me, hitting the nitrous while on LSD, squirming around. Looking for something to happen. You see the TV—and the stereo connected to the VCR—blaring as they pump out techno to a visual feast.
The psychedelic video on the TV is Turbulence. It’s a hodge-podge of visual puzzles and geometric shapes that can make a psychonaut squirm with wonder while hoping for answers. The electrified geometric shapes seem to promise to unlock a portion of one’s mind.
An electric buzz shoots through you as the tone dampens. The air has a metallic taste. You see me jump back as the furniture shoots up at an angle that makes the room turn. You see my body shift as the apartment twists to the opposite angle of my turn.
It suddenly morphs back to its previous state. Then it violently shifts to the left, making everything turn to the right. You see me holding away from our leaning direction when the reality in the apartment slams back to normal. You haven’t had a chance to figure it out when the coffee table in front of me begins growing. It slides up itself until it’s two feet higher. You marvel at this as it shifts and turns, grows and shrinks. It’s not just affecting my equilibrium but my whole body, and I’m trying to hold on to the couch without falling over.
The music plays louder as the coffee table slams back to normal, as if reality didn’t want to admit what it was doing.
Then a hole opens in the middle of the living room. You feel the gravity pull you towards it, and you watch me fight it with all of my strength.
I’m clutching onto the couch but the couch is edging towards the black hole, threatening to be sucked down into a stream of nothingness. The coffee table is the first to go as it melts into the darkness of the hole, which is only two feet wide. The furniture and walls melt all around me, pouring into this black hole that opened without warning.
You feel the gravity pull you too. You hold on, even though you’re a shadow in this reality. You don’t see anywhere to run, but you feel safe for some reason. You calm down and resume watching me. The entire apartment is in a state of flux from the unknown forces manipulating it. You don’t know if it’s my mind or something else, but you know something is brewing.
The apartment shifts back to normal and I flop onto the couch as if the gravity was just turned on. The black hole consumes itself, disappearing inch by inch until it’s gone.
Back to normal, I smile as I take another hit of the nitrous. Lime green vines sprout and grow all around me. Plant life springs forth from the couch and the corners of the room. It crawls over the furniture in dazzling patterns only nature could make. It envelops me as the flowers bloom.
Multicolored petals spread iridescent pollen in all directions. The smile on my face broadens into unknown territories of happiness as the vegetation continues growing around me. I pluck a purple flower from a vine wiggling in front of me. As the stem breaks from the vine, a wrenching sound can be heard as I free it from its nourishing mother. I bring the flower to my nose to smell its aphrodisiac when a burst of light emanates from all of the vines.
I quickly stuff the flower into my mouth and eat it. It slides down my throat, leaving a green organic taste in my mouth.
Then a low screech rips all around me. It is throbbing backwards in undulating screams the human mind has never encountered.
You see pain cross my face as I feel the horror of destroying something living for my own pleasure. It’s as if I ate something so beautiful that life itself had to take on a whole new significance. And it did. The vines wrap themselves around me with a vengeance.
You see regret on my face. I could have smelled the flower without destroying it, but I did what humanity always does: Destroys for its own amusement without thinking. I consumed something I didn’t need, not out of hunger, just a passing
want.
The vines quake and suddenly dig their way under my skin, ripping flesh apart. I scream, finally realizing the truth.
You watch as two vines stretch over my head and sharpen themselves at the tips. They slam deep into my ears and bury themselves within me. My flesh peels away from the muscle as the growing vines slide under my skin. The vines grow inside of me, reaching deeper under my flesh, in every limb.
Then it suddenly stops. My flesh stops crawling as the vegetation halts.
My wounds begin to bleed as the plant life shrinks all around me. It never leaves my body, just shrinks and melts into nothingness. I’ve grown calm as my wounds seal and heal. Returning to normal, I breathe deeply and regain my composure.
But then my hands clutch my mouth, as I want to scream. You can tell I have realized: This is only the beginning.
I’m suddenly standing, as older me, behind the desk with you.
“You see, I think certain forces made me go through all this, trying to intimidate me into stopping my quest for God. Or maybe it was a test to see if I would continue my search for spiritual answers.”
“Let’s put it this way,” I continue. “I think there are many markers in the search for God. Devils, Demons, Angels and even the Lord himself put realities in the way to stop us from finding out all the truth. When a person finds a certain truth, they usually stop.”
What we just witnessed was the “hippie reality.” I don’t mean it pejoratively, but that term says everything. There was no God or the Devil. It was just earthly paradise and the magnificence of space and time. It was vegetation growing and living and showing beauty. And after being in awe of it, I destroyed it and ate of it, for my own selfish desires. Then it turned on me. The black hole was just a reminder of what we don’t know that is out there.
I was looking for answers and truth, and it showed me the first beginning of truth: Nature is awe-inspiring and should be appreciated and not destroyed for personal amusement or pleasure.
