by Ian Mark
“You mean the elephants? I don’t think they care.” I snickered watching her face contort as she over-enunciated each word. “Is it effecting you yet? Affecting? Impacting?” I watched Randy watching the door knob. He karate-chopped it.
“I’m not sure. I’d say no, but I find my hands extremely interesting right now, and I don’t normally.” I held up my ten digits and showed her my paws. She kissed my palm. It tickled like a feather against the small of my back if I was hanging upside down. “And I just noticed that some of the people at this party have two heads.”
“That’s because they are elephants, you silly bear.” She patted my head condescendingly. I nodded in understanding. They were elephants, I realized. We were all elephants.
“Do you love me?” Zoey asked. I looked at her. She had stopped smiling and was inspecting my face.
“Uh.” I hesitated.
“Oh, no! You don’t love me.” She moved to the end of the couch and looked at me with horror.
“No! It’s not that! I just think we are kind of high to be having this conversation for the first time.” She pouted. “Zoey Mclemore, I love you.” She smiled. She moved back to my arms. She kissed my cheek. Her tongue grazed against my skin like a cow grazing in the fields. I wanted to whip out the ring, propose, then move to a farm in New Zealand and spend the rest of my life tending cows. I pictured milking a cow. I noticed Zoey had udders where her boobs should have been. I laughed.
“I love you too, Zachary Johnston. Even if you’re last name does have an extra ‘t’.” I laughed again. “What’s so funny?”
“Boobies.” I looked at her udders. They were boobies again. I squeezed one with my left hand.
“Hey!” She pushed my left arm off of her. “You can’t do that right now.”
“Why not?” I looked around. We were in a meadow, all alone. I thought back to the party, so many hours ago, and wondered how we had gotten there. “There’s no one here but flowers, and they aren’t judgmental.” She chuckled and leaned back, shutting her eyes.
“I hate judgmental flowers.” She took my arm and put it back around me. The ring burned in my back pocket. I feared it had caught fire. Kevin sat down on the other side of me. He looked like a horse. It was Kevin, there was nothing different about his face or anything, I just realized for the first time that his spirit animal was probably a horse. Or his Patronus. I wished I wasn’t a Muggle.
“Are you two all right? You’re giggling awfully loudly.” He looked at both of us and clomped his hooves on the ground. He put a hoof on my shoulder.
“Don’t tell Kevin we are on LSD.” I whispered. He shook his head.
“You realize I am Kevin, right? Zoey is on your other side.” The horseman was right. I turned and looked at my girlfriend.
“You’re my girlfriend.” I told her simply. She nodded.
“You’re my favorite cat.” She patted me on the head. “Would you like some milk?”
“How strong was that shit? You guys are messed up.” The horseman whinnied.
“Um, Zachy.” Zoey’s voice had changed. It warbled, she sounded unsure of herself.
“Yes, my darling angel?” I stared at the halo above her head. It was pink, not golden like haloes are supposed to be.
“I think I am going to bed. I need to lie down and sleep.” She got up unsteadily.
“Here, let me help you.” Kevin moved towards her. She shrieked. All the monkeys looked over at us. I told them everything was fine, to go back to their bananas. They kept looking.
“I’ll help her.” I told the horseman. He snorted out of his large black nostrils. I ran my hand through his auburn mane and wondered if I had a saddle in the apartment. We were back in the apartment, I noticed. I put Zoey’s arm around my shoulders and led her off to the bedroom. It looked suspiciously yellow.
“What time is it?” She moaned. I looked at the time. The red lights twirled and danced to the slow, slow music.
“Kevin!” I yelled. He was right behind me.
“It’s 11:45,” He looked at the snake that was wrapped around his wrist. It hissed at me. I dropped Zoey in the bed with her feet facing the headboard. I wanted to keep her away from the porcupines at the head of the bed. Kevin grabbed one and handed it to her.
“What do I do with this purple dog?” She wondered aloud.
“It’s a pillow. Just put your head on it and go to sleep.” Kevin sounded exasperated. Exasperated. EXASPERATED. EEXXAASSperated. I pulled on his nopple to reperate him. It didn’t work. He stared at me. Laser beams shot towards me. I dropped to my knees and tried to shield myself from his low-frequency death rays. It worked. He dragged me back to the couch, which had grown eyes since I had last encountered it, many lifetimes ago. It enveloped me into its warm brown embrace. I melted into the couch. People, many of them carrying demons on their shouldery arm endings, came up to me to wish me a happy birthday. I told them that today was the day we celebrated the birth of the God-King. I noted that this was the hardest I’d ever tripped.
“Arrogant prick,” one of the lions roared as he strutted away. I fired the bow and arrow I had found lying next to me at him. It missed and knocked over the bowl of chips.
“Zach! Stop throwing beer cans!” Kevin sat next to me. He restricted my arms with mind ropes.
“Where is Randall the Supplier?” I wondered. He apparated right next to me. I jumped.
“Hey man, like, shiiit.” He slurred as he spoke. His mouth was filled with bananas. I wondered if he was a spy for the monkeys in the Cold War.
“You should defect.” I told him.
“I do need to poop.” He wandered off into the icy part of the apartment. I followed him. He closed the door in front of me. I almost waltzed into it. I caught a glimpse of igloos and penguins. I opened the door. Randy was squatting over a hole in the ice. A fishing rod came out of the hole and connected to a large Eskimo man. I threw a fish eyeball at him, but it hit Randy. He swore at me.
“Begone, you scoundrel!” Kevin came running over and pulled me out of Antarctica. I shivered as the temperature changed.
“Should I remove my upper garments?” I inquired of the dwarf who grasped my limb.
“Absolutely not.” I didn’t like his tone. Far too much insolence for such a minor character in the epic that was my life. All around me, chaos reigned. The entirety of the animal kingdom had wormed its way into my apartment. They all stood around talking about weather and pop culture, smartly avoiding politics or religion. Very intelligent for farm animals, I thought. Or I should say, neurons in my brain fired in such circuits as to convince the homunculus in my brain that I had thought such a thunky thinky thought.
“Let’s go for a walk.” I instructed the dwarf to fetch me my finest walking stick.
“You don’t own a walking stick.”
“Silly dwarf, what’s this then?’
“That’s a beer.” I feared the shortness of the dwarf had affected his vision. I stood on the couch, taking care to avoid stepping on its eyes.
“Attention everyone, please stop grazing and address your eyeballs to my shining ghost.” Laughter from around the room. Someone stopped the slow music.
“I will be exiting shortly. As this is my place of residence, I must beg you all to depart.” A few groans. The rhinoceros were particularly vocal about their displeasure. “Please take as much beer as you can carry for the road. I apologize that the bacchanalia must be cut short, but I am currently, in medical terms, tripping my fucking balls off.” Cheers. The hyenas howled. The crows crowed. The humans humanized the animals, assigning them human desires and facial features to better connect with them. Kevin the shepherd chased everyone out, apologizing profusely. I sang happy birthday to the couch. As it happened, he was turning two today.
“It’s funny,” I said, as Kevin pulled me down, “Life’s little coincidences.”
“Right,” he said. He chugged a beer. I watched the brown liquid travel down through him into his stomach, where it set to work mu
rdering innocent brain cells and damaging his ability to make smart decisions.
“You really shouldn’t drink,” I told him, waving my finger in his face. It started to fall off, but I was able to catch it in my teeth. He ignored me. “Now, let us march onwards. To July we go!” I headed out the door. I stopped and looked at him. His mouth had switched places with his nose. It wasn’t a good look for him. I looked at the clock, and managed to read 11:52. “Do I need a coat?”
“It’s June,” he said. I wondered why he hadn’t addressed the question.
“This is no time for fun facts, Franklin.” I headed out the door and went to the elevator. I pushed the button, A firefly appeared inside to let me know that my button push had been successfully communicated to the elf who controlled the elevators. Kevin joined me a moment later.
“She’s asleep. I think she’ll sleep it off.”
“This is no time for your irrelevant insinuations, Ian. Now let’s see if we can speed up this elf.” I banged on the doors. They opened. I stepped inside. “You’re a wizard, Harry,” I said to the small shy teen behind me.
“Still Kevin.” He seemed tense. “Where are we going?”
“Let’s let the night guide us, why don’t we? And stop asking so many questions, Dumbledore will get upset.” We descended on a cloud of lollipops and rainbows to the ground floor.
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen you this messed up.” Kevin held my arm in his icy grip as we exited my place of residence.
“I know,” I concurred, as you always should. “‘Howl’ might even make sense to me right now.”
We made our way down the barren landscape, the desolate crisscrossing of buildings and shops and stands and life. I noticed a sign for 9th street, and the nine came too close for comfort. Everything was intense. Colors were way more vibrant. It was life, just more-so than normal. Kevin walked closely behind me. I skipped down (or geographically up, I suppose) fourth avenue. We traveled for hours without saying a word. I saw a rat scurry down the street in the opposite direction.
I grew wearied from the traveling. We passed a sign for 10th street, and I laughed at the number of digits ten required to express the same info as nine. I realized nine had more letters than ten, and grew quiet. When I realized eight had even more, I began to suspect a conspiracy. I turned to tell Kevin about the government ruining this once great nation, but noticed Batman was hanging around on the other side of the street. I ran across to him. Horns blared and brakes screeched, some asshole had almost caused a car accident.
“There is crime nearby.” I spoke in a gravelly voice. Batman looked at me, curiously. “I have reason to suspect illegal drugs have been ingested by that man. I pointed at the window of the store he was standing next to.
“Are you pointing to your reflection?” His voice was disappointingly normal. And his fangs were smaller than I had expected.
“Who else but the Mirror people would you expect to commit such atrocities? We must burn our clothes if we are to scare them off.” I took off my shirt. Kevin had finally managed to cross the street. He tried to grab me, but I was wearing ice skates and easily skated around him. Batman watched me. He pulled handcuffs from his utility belt. They squirmed in his hands.
I removed my pants. Batman grabbed me. I tried to skate away, but he put the worm-cuffs on my hands. “Sir, you are under arrest. What did he take?” He addressed Kevin.
“You’ll never take me alive! Kevin, don’t let him make you an envelope!” I squirmed. My eyes felt heavy. Kevin patted me on the shoulder and whispered to Batman. I noticed for the first time that he was dressed in a red shirt with green short sleeves and a yellow cape. His thighs were much more toned than the last time I had seen them.
“What gym do you go to? Do you even lift, bro?” My vision, which had been blurry for some time, began to swirl. Somewhere in the dark recesses of my brain, the sober part of me cried out, quietly reminding me that I was likely just hitting the peak of what would be at least an 8 hour trip. I descended down the rabbit hole, farther into myself than I had ever gone...
Chapter 10
I sit at a desk. A man in a suit hands me some forms across the desk. He is an accountant. I look around the office. Everything is grey. I try to read the print on the degrees behind his desk but cannot. I fill out the tax forms. I am home. I sit at my desk, laptop open in front of me. I return some phone calls, send a few emails. I put some old photos together into an album. I upload it to Facebook. It gets a few likes. I make tea. I watch tennis on TV. One player wins easily over the other. I cannot pronounce either of their names.
I am in the bathroom, I brush my teeth. I shave. I shower. I look in the mirror and I am a square man. There are no curves to my face. Everything is a perfect right angle. I go to work and see nobody there. I do all my work quickly. I go to Bob’s old desk. I do all his work. I write line after line of perfect code. I do not make a single mistake as I write game after game. I see no one in all the time I am there.
I am home again. I go to bed. The sheets are perfectly tucked in. I slide under it and lie perfectly straight, looking up at the ceiling tiles. They are all white, perfectly smooth. There is not a flaw in the entire room. I close my eyes slowly.
* * *
I woke up in a hospital bed. Kevin was sitting by my side. He looked ragged, as if he had stayed up all night. He had. He scratched his stubbly chin and looked at me when I woke up.
“Welcome back to reality.” He put his hand on my arm. My hand had one of those thingies on it that measures your pulse through your pointer finger. I watched the green line bounce on the monitor.
“What happened?” I looked around. Nurses and doctors rushed around from one patient to the next.
“You were arrested for public intoxication, public nudity, and resisting arrest. Though you didn’t really resist so much as pass out.” He laughed. I didn’t see what was so funny.
“Where’s Zoey?”
“She’s at home. She woke up and went home. She was surprisingly fine. She’ll probably be here in a bit. They’re going to keep you here while you rehydrate.” he answered my next question before I had the chance to ask it. I shifted in my bed and felt the scratchy hospital gown. I went to itch my arm and found the IV. I watched the clear fluid go into my arm for a few moments. Kevin waited for me to speak.
“Am I in trouble?” I sounded like a little kid talking to his kindergarten teacher.
“I posted bail, you should probably get a lawyer. Your friend ‘Batman’ said he thinks you’ll probably be able to plea to a fine considering you didn’t hurt anyone. He also advises you lay off the LSD for a while.”
“As do I.” A doctor in blue scrubs with a weary expression had made his way over to my bed. His face was at least three-quarters beard. His white hair poked out from under a blue cap he was wearing. “I haven’t seen that much in somebody since the 60’s.” He was holding a file.
“Is Randy okay?” I remembered finally that there had been three of us who had taken the drug. My mind was foggy, all I wanted was to go home and sleep for days.
“He’s fine. Apparently he has a much higher tolerance than you two.” Kevin smiled to himself. “He’s probably been building up to taking that much.”
“Right. Well, I would advise you, and all your friends, to not take hallucinogenic drugs. Particularly in your current state. From what Mr. Bateman here tells me, you had a pretty bad trip. Adding more to your current state could permanently unsettle you.” He looked at me down the bridge of his long nose. I nodded.
“I won’t, I don’t normally anyways, it’s just-”
“I don’t need an explanation, just don’t do it again.” He smiled at me. “I was young once, Mr. Johnston, and I was young during the sixties. I understand. Just not again.” I nodded and said nothing.
When I got home from the hospital a few hours later, I spent ten or fifteen minutes on Facebook looking for any friends who had gone to law school. None of them had. I sighed and picked up my
phone. I called Amanda. She was surprised to hear from me, but agreed to help me with my case. She said she would talk to one of the partners at her office and get back to me.
I felt bad just calling her for help, so I asked how she was. She sounded pleasantly surprised. We talked for almost half an hour. I started to remember why we had been best friends before we dated. We made plans to meet up, get coffee and catch up. I promised to introduce her to Zoey, she promised not to hate her too much.
* * *
A few days later, Zoey and I were lying in bed. I was checking email, and Zoey was reading a novel. She had just started Cat’s Cradle at my recommendation. “It’s my favorite book,” I had told her.
“Well then I guess I’d better pretend to like it no matter what, huh?” she had shot back.
We had been doing more and more of that, just being together without talking or interacting. It was peaceful, to be able to spend so much time together without feeling the need to talk. I enjoyed being alone, but I enjoyed being alone with Zoey even more. I had always considered myself a solitary person, but I was starting to understand that I could be a solitary person while being with someone else. It was great, it really was, to be able to-
“So are we just not going to talk about it?” Zoey’s words snapped me out of my reverie. I looked over. She was eyeing me over the thick rims of her reading glasses. She looked like a stern librarian. Then she turned towards me, and the comforter slipped off, revealing her revealing choice of lingerie. A sexy stern librarian.
“Bout what?” I racked my brain for what she wanted to discuss. Surely not the acid trip? I had always tried to avoid discussing anything that happened while on hallucinogens. I needed to know that I could say anything I wanted while on them without fear of repercussion, else I’d feel restrained and not enjoy the trip.
“Do you love me?” She searched my face for the answer. But the question was different. Before, it had been needy, desperate almost. Now, it was practical, but not cold. Just… guarded.
