Nu Alpha Omega

by H. Claire Taylor

  They’d looked at the stars, talked about dick shapes, and then tried to screw. She could almost feel his warmth against her now.

  “Fuck. What the fuck?” His words pulled her from her fantasy.

  When she turned her attention away from the sky and looked down at Chris, she noticed this was not Chris but Danny.

  She realized her underwear were off.

  And also realized Danny’s underwear were off, his toga pulled up to his waist exposing his poised and ready body part.

  “I don’t know what the problem is,” he said, staring down at her bared crotch like it was a Rubik’s Cube.

  “Huh?” Jessica sat up to get her bearings and adjusted her own toga to cover herself.

  “Why can’t we bang?” he asked, staring sadly up at her.

  Waves of energy pulsed threateningly around him. “What were you doing?”

  “What do you think?” He crawled up her legs and she reclined backward until he was hovering over her full body. “I need to be inside you, Jessica.”

  That didn’t seem right. Chris wouldn’t like that. “No.”

  “Yes. Please.” He leaned down and kissed on her neck, and she was overcome with the smell of … what was that? Rotten eggs? Not quite. Oil refineries? Maybe that was closer to it.

  Either way, what the hell?

  She pushed him off of her and he fell backward onto his butt. “Can’t you feel it?”

  She could certainly feel something, but it wasn’t the same thing she’d felt before. It wasn’t everything. It was just something. The magnetism between them only a moment before had switched poles and now repelled her.

  She scrambled to her feet as much as she could with the earth waves swaying around her. The sea was making her sick.

  “I’m gonna throw up,” she said, searching around for a place to do it before realizing anywhere was fair game.

  “Do it,” Danny encouraged. “It makes the trip more intense.”

  “More intense?!” She didn’t want more intense. Things were flipping on their head. Intensity wasn’t her friend anymore. She tried to hold back the urge to vomit, but immediately realized she was not in control on that matter.

  She blew chunks onto a small shrub and admired the rainbow colors of it for a moment. Had she eaten Skittles at some point in the night? She didn’t remember doing so, but she was pretty sure that was Skittle vomit.

  Then the bush exploded in a blaze and she stumbled back. “Fuck!”

  “What is it?” Danny asked.

  “That bush!” She pointed at it. Why did he even have to ask?

  But he stared at it blankly. “Yeah, it’s part of everything.”

  “No, it’s not. It’s on fire!”

  He nodded. “Stop resisting. You must be resisting.” He stepped up to her and pulled her against his body, apparently unconcerned about her recent vomiting. He leaned in for a kiss, and she smelled the stench. Was that Danny? Did mushrooms make some people gassy?

  She pulled back from him.

  “Stop resisting it,” he said again. “Trust me. Embrace it.”

  Her brain felt like it was sloshing in her skull. “I don’t want you inside me.” She pushed him away and knew what she had to do. She sprinted across the clearing toward the path on the other side, the one leading farther away from the frat house.

  A prickly pear cactus burst into flames to her left. She yelped and side stepped away from it.

  Danny called after her, but she didn’t slow. Running felt natural. She was an animal after all. Running into the unknown was simply returning home. She needed animals and plants and bugs and whatever else wasn’t human. She could easily see in the dark now.

  Except she didn’t spot the man standing in her way until she was only feet from him.

  “Whoa!” he said, getting her attention before she ran smack into him. She looked up at his face.

  “No, not you.”

  “Hey look,” he said, motioning to himself and then her. “We’re kinda dressed the same.”

  He wasn’t lying. But that wasn’t important. “What do you want?”

  He shrugged. “Dad said you called, but he’s busy, and considering your state, I figured I could pop in.”

  “But I’m awake.”

  Jesus shrugged. “Technically, sure.”

  “I feel like I’m more awake than usual, actually.”

  He moved shoulder-to-shoulder with her, taking her gently by the arm and leading her farther down the path. “I understand.”

  “Do you? Did you ever do mushrooms?”

  He rocked his head from side to side. “No, but food was much riskier business when I was alive. I got food poisoning a handful of times—we all did. Often there were hallucinations involved. Definitely vomiting. And the occasional burning bush. Did it talk to you?”

  She jerked her head around to read his expression. Was he serious? “No. Do they usually do that?”

  He shrugged. “Sometimes. But it’s usually total gibberish. I once had one try to tell me that we were infected with souls from aliens that had been dropped into a volcano.”

  Jessica laughed. “What?”

  Jesus beamed. “Well, it was all more complicated than that even, but yes. Some real garbage comes out of those things.”

  “Are you real?” she asked. “Or are you just my hallucination?”

  He scoffed. “Am I a hallucination? Psh. Could a hallucination do this?” He snapped his fingers and a tree ahead and on her left opened a previously nonexistent mouth and yawned before also opening its eyes and saying, “Howdy, Jessica!”

  She kept a watchful eye on it as they approached. “Yeah, I think that’s exactly the kind of shit a hallucination would do.”

  “Sorry to see you leaf!” the tree added as they passed.

  “Fair enough,” Jesus conceded. “But does it matter if I’m real or not?”

  Jessica sighed. “I guess not. Why are you here, though?”

  “Like I said, you called for Dad. He sent me.”

  “I don’t even remember what I called him about. But I guess while I have you here, are mushrooms the key to bringing peace to the United States?”

  He stopped in his tracks so she did too. He folded his arms across his chest. “Uh, no. Mushrooms aren’t the answer.”

  “Why not?”

  “You’ll see.”

  She decided to ignore the overwhelmingly foreboding nature of that statement. “But this feeling I had in my chest when we first came to the clearing. It was like I was tapping into something.”

  He chuckled. “Oh, I know. I know exactly what you tapped into, too.”

  “You do?”

  “Yeah. The infinite.”

  “Holy shit.”

  “It is. And it’s also not a great thing to get attached to while you’re still stuck on this rock.”

  She looked down at her feet, and sure enough she was standing on a large rock.

  “No, not literally that one,” Jesus said impatiently. “This one.” He looked around, motioning broadly with his arms.

  “But wouldn’t everyone be better if they could tap into it a little bit?”

  “Psh, well obviously. But how many people do you know who would limit themselves to only a little bit of infinite?”

  She shrugged. “Good point.”

  Jesus chewed his bottom lip. “Listen, if you don’t have anything else pressing, I would like to get out of here before you start to come down.”

  “Start to what?”

  “You’ll see.”

  “Please stop saying that.”

  He began backing away from her. “Listen, sis, you did this to yourself. I would spare you what you’re about to go through, but that’s not my style. Maybe I’m a little bitter, still. Who knows?” He lifted his arms in an emphatic shrug. “Either way, peace be with you!” He snapped his fingers and disappeared in his usual puff of white powder.

  Jessica looked around her. Where was she? What was Jesus talking about? Why was h
e in such a hurry to leave?

  Something large crunched the leaves to her right, and she turned slowly, straining to see through the darkness. Nothing seemed to be there.

  Where was she? When was she? Who was she? Why couldn’t she just enjoy a hallucination without Jesus crashing it?

  She walked a few more lengths down the trail, unsure if she were heading back toward the party or away from it. And when she found an overturned log, she sat down on it.

  What year was it? There were different levels operating, but her brain reached out to try to grasp any of them and failed. What were these levels she could feel? Were they earth, heaven, and hell? Was it past, present, and future? What was it? And where was she in it?

  I might never stop tripping. This was exhausting. Her brain wanted a rest, but how could it ever rest? She became more certain that the mental state was irreversible. She would never stop tripping. She would never be who she was again. She would live her life out in these woods, and that prospect started to seem less and less enticing the longer she sat alone on the log.

  This log is my home now.

  She remembered when the drugs first set in, how the infinite had felt so comforting. Now she just wished the infinite would go away. She wanted things finite again. Very finite. Nothing should last forever. That would literally be a fate worse than death.

  She pet her home log because it looked like it could use it.

  Good log. We will find a way to make it work in his cruel world.

  Her eyes grew heavy …

  * * *

  She knew even before she opened her eyes that she was back to herself.

  What does that even mean?

  NOTHING. IT IS COMPLETE GIBBERISH LIKE MOST OF WHAT YOU SAID LAST NIGHT.

  She groaned against God’s loud voice rattling her skull, which felt like someone had gone at it with a melon baller.

  What happened?

  YOU ENGAGED IN DEBAUCHERY AND NOW YOU ARE PAYING THE PRICE.

  Shut up. You’re probably not even real. You’re just a hallucination. I should be able to control you if I want.

  PSH. GOOD LUCK. OH WAIT, THERE’S NO SUCH THING AS LUCK.

  She tried a visualization technique and imagined the voice contained within the physical space of her skull like a gas expanding to fill the container, and then she imagined pumping the gas into a tiny container. Compacting it into an atom-size speck and stashing it somewhere behind her occipital lobe.

  And there was silence. Thank … whoever. Thank herself, she supposed. Silence.

  FEEL BETTER NOW?

  Shit.

  She tried to open her eyes but found them to be mostly crusted shut. When she finally did pry her lids apart, expecting for whatever reason to see the ceiling of her dorm room above her, she was met with an unpleasant surprise: pale blue sky. Well, she supposed the location explained why she was freezing cold and moist. But there were other things she couldn’t explain.

  Like how she’d ended up in the middle of a pasture.

  And where in the hell the pasture was.

  And how she’d managed to sleep so soundly surrounded by a herd of cows.

  While she’d never owned an animal herself, growing up in Mooretown wasn’t without its small lessons in livestock. Among the most important were if you’re not slightly uncomfortable milking a cow, then you’re not giving it 100% and cows seem dumb, but they will turn the tables and kill you if given the proper chance. So cow stuff.

  Anyway, she was lucky to be alive, she supposed. However, when she stood up and realized that all she had on was her bra and underwear, she reconsidered the luck thing, and decided that maybe her God hallucination wasn’t kidding; there was no such thing as good luck. That didn’t rule out bad luck, though, which she was certain existed and hung around her in a thick manure-scented cloud.

  She spotted a white sheet a little ways off, past a half dozen dozing heifers, and the events of the previous night began to fall in line as she tiptoed through the herd toward her only hope of covering up until she could figure out what to do next.

  Then she remembered. A lifeline! She reached in her bra but found no phone. Shit! She glanced back over at the spot where she’d woken up but couldn’t see anything in the tall, dewy grass.

  OH, IT’S GONE. LONG GONE.

  Should she trust the voice? After all, maybe subconsciously she knew where her phone had gone and this voice in her head was just her subconscious. In which case, it could be somewhat reliable.

  I AM ALWAYS RELIABLE.

  She ignored it.

  How had she gotten here?

  DRUGS.

  Vague, but she supposed it was correct enough.

  She reached her sheet, which was sopping wet from the dew and stuck miserably to her as she wrapped it around for modesty’s sake. Once clear of the bovine danger, she took off at a sprint toward the closest fence she could see, made it five steps, vomited red fluids, which she hoped were colored by the punch and not fresh blood, and then continued at as brisk a pace as she could manage toward the edge of the property. It was quite a ways away, but a fence often meant a road. And if she could get to a road, she’d be one step closer to knowing where the hell she was.

  After scanning her surroundings for any possible witnesses to the unusually rough start to her morning, she determined that she was indeed entirely alone. So she pulled the sheet off of her body, wrapping it around her hands so that she could pull open the barbed wire without risking tetanus. The last thing she needed to add to this heaping pile of misfortune was another trip to the student health center for a tetanus shot. And if she showed up with bleeding wounds in her palms … no. She’d gladly risk a little case of lock jaw before enduring the questions that would accompany accidental stigmata.

  Jessica stared down the gravel road in either direction, trying to decide where to go.

  THAT WAY.

  Without a better option, she decided to trust whatever her subconscious said at this point, no matter how mentally ill she may or may not be. It was the best she had to go on.

  As she shivered her way down the road, unsure whether a truck driving by would be a welcome opportunity for help or another bit of tinder to throw on her garbage fire of shame—probably both—a faint sound stared to register to her brain. Rushing water? Was she near a waterfall? Maybe the San Marcos River?

  But then she realized: Duh. Traffic.

  I BET YOU NEVER THOUGHT YOU WOULD BE SO EXCITED TO SEE I-35.

  You’re not real.

  I AM REAL.

  You don’t exist in space or time.

  I EXIST EVERYWHERE IN BOTH SPACE AND TIME. AND PRESPACE AND PRETIME. AND POST-SPACE AND POST-TIME.

  That’s exactly the bullshit I don’t need in my life right now.

  ALL BULLSHITTED OUT AFTER LAST NIGHT? MANKIND, WERE YOU REALLY ON A ROLL! I HAD TO TALK DOWN YOUR BROTHER AFTERWARD. AND AS MUCH AS I OCCASIONALLY ENJOY SEEING HIM ALL WORKED UP, YOU CROSSED SOME LINES LAST NIGHT.

  What does that even—

  Then more fragmented memories started to inundate her. Danny. Trashcan punch. Ocean grass. Burning cacti. Cheating.

  She knew instantly that Chris, as a matter of fact, would not be okay with her kissing Danny and—

  Oh god. What all did we do?

  YOU’RE WELCOME.

  Huh? For what?!

  I SAVED YOU FROM HIS VILE ATTEMPTS AT STEALING YOUR VIRGINITY.

  The chill of the morning air was no match for the heat that rose up in her cheeks and behind her eyes. She actually owed her Father a thank you.

  Except He wasn’t real. So she owed Him nothing.

  But she was still humiliated. And ashamed. And worried. And lost.

  The latter of those concerns was solved when I-35 came into view and she discovered where she was. Unfortunately, she was no longer in San Marcos. Close, but she still had a long walk ahead of her, and she wasn’t sure how to get back to campus without following the highway. But walking down the drug road of Texas in nothing but
a soaking wet toga seemed like maybe not one of the best ideas. She’d have to find a back road.

  SURPRISE! I KNOW A WAY!

  She sighed. Do you also know what time it is?

  OF COURSE I DO. BUT REMEMBER THAT IT IS OF NO CONSEQUENCE. I SEE ALL TIME AT ONCE.

  Please don’t explain. My head hurts enough already. So what time is it?

  SEVEN TWENTY-THREE IN THE MORNING.

  And how long will it take me to walk back to my dorm, smarty-pants?

  WITH YOUR HANGOVER? TWO HOURS AND THIRTY-SEVEN MINUTES.

  She groaned. Being crazy wasn’t ideal but at least it might come with GPS. She’d have to wait and see.

  Maybe in those two hours and thirty-seven minutes she could figure out what to tell Chris about the night before. Maybe there was a way to explain herself that wouldn’t break his heart.

  As she began trudging away from I-35 on the alternate route home, she laughed dryly as she realized how the tables had turned. She’d suspected Chris was cheating on her and in the end she’d been the one to do the deed. Would he forgive her? Or more importantly, should he?

  “Nobody told me we were having a wet toga contest,” Harris Rathman, the resident assistant for Jessica’s floor, said as he held open the front door for her.

  Her feet hurt too bad for her mouth to work, and she trudged in, unable to even express her mild appreciation for him coming down when she rang the doorbell.

  He must have picked up on her misery, because he added, “Listen, everyone has a walk of shame sometimes.”

  She continued to ignore him and stumbled forward.

  Her sandals, which had seemed like such a good idea the night before, had not only created blisters on her heels and the soles of her feet, but gone ahead and popped those blisters on the last mile of her route. A few had already gone numb from the pain, but a handful had not. She was sure the mud caked up to her ankles wasn’t great for the open wounds, and about a half hour previous to arriving at Tower, she’d begun spinning a long, intricate fantasy about washing her feet when she got back to her room. It had carried her the last leg of the journey, even though she knew she lacked most of the pampering ingredients to really go for it. And in reality, what she needed was less scented lotions and more hydrogen peroxide.