RoboChildren

by James Hunt

  One-on-one interviews with subject Alpha reveal certain contradictions within the minds of DXM users. First of all, I find it interesting their inclination to support peace and harmony, yet find provocative and offensive situations pleasurable. They also are very attracted to gruesome and perverse imagery and subject matter in conversation. Alpha once expressed an interest in slicing fellow party-goers open then letting Phil penetrate and defecate into their wounds just to see the reactions it would get from survivors. Another prominent contradiction lies within the perceived complexity of the lives of these drug addicts. They find the most minute details so intriguing and express feelings along the line of “everything has a reason” and is “important in some way,” yet they find their own lives pointless and useless. It is hard to grasp both extreme perceptions of life can exist within the same cognition. Perhaps this is another sign of schizoid tendencies after chronic exposure to the DXM molecule.

  [reports on other commonly abused drugs]

  Dramamine:

  Subjects Phil and Zach convinced Alpha to consume the drug known as Dimenhydrinate (brand-name Dramamine). This drug creates the most vivid and rapidly altering hallucinations when taken in overdose quantities. Reports indicate it has the opposite effect of most psychedelic hallucinogens (which achieve psychoactive effects by stimulating serotonin receptors) by acting as an artificial melatonin agent. This effectively puts the abuser in a waking-dream state. Although the effects are impossible to deny, they have been described as being accompanied by a horrible body-load. That is to say the user feels heavier than normal and feels unable to move in excess, creating a scenario of extreme discomfort for most who take more than the physician-recommended dose. On this particular occasion, they had decided to eat twenty-four tablets each at a total of roughly twelve hundred milligrams Dimenhydrinate each. This night seems to have no value in my studies of my subjects, the self-proclaimed 'RoboChildren,' but I have made note to a few things which stick out, giving a clue to the mental status of each of the subjects:

  Screaming at Kristal, Alpha's sexual partern- james seems completely unable to convince her Dramamine will not kill him, and is not considered a drug. He is starting to lose his composure and begins to scream at her violently, I follow close by, he throws his phone, shattering it against the wall.

  Zach pointing at the carpet- Zach makes his comrades look at the carpet, which he believes is moving. When the others cannot see what he claims to see, he tells them to stand in his exact position and tilt their heads like his was when he first noticed it, insisting they only need to do exactly what he is doing to see what he sees. This has become quite common within their trips. Zach is certainly losing grasp on reality and should be removed from this study post-haste.

  Laughing uncontrollably- james is sitting on the floor laughing hysterically at a vacuum cleaner. He is becoming increasingly angry at his decision to eat the Dramamine, and voices his concerns in between laughter.

  Playing video games in head- All three subjects have begun an attempt to wean themselves off of drugs by playing an old computer game known as 'Star Craft.' They, at about 1.5 hours into the trip, begin to hallucinate they are playing the game. Moving their hands around in the air as if they are manipulating a computer mouse.

  Trying to go to WallyWhirled- Phil tries desperately to encourage the others to leave james's house to go to WallyWhirled. They all seem willing but are unable to move, let alone accomplish the simple task of remembering the objective of leaving (even after it has just been stated clearly by Phil). These are record-breaking short attention spans for this year, so far.

  Unhallucinating- A new concept conceived by Phil and Alpha, where instead of hallucinating things that are NOT there, they unperceive things that ARE there. A situation where this could become very dangerous is when dealing with moving vehicles of any sort. Very dangerous concept, look into this.

  Phil at work- After walking down the street a few feet, and returning home, they all sit silently on separate articles of furniture in Alpha's living room. Phil shouts out after about 30 minutes of silence, he says “Don't worry, I've got the sausage!” thinking he is at work. He startles james, Alpha, who looks up – concerned he has forgotten a conversation happening in his own head. Zach does not respond.

  12 cups of water- Later described by Phil, in a one-on-one session, as a hallucination where he was sitting in the middle of the living room floor pouring water into 12 plastic cups placed all around him. Zach mumbled he was thirsty and Phil tried to hand him a cup of water but it instantly vanished, he then realized he was in an easy chair no less than 10 feet away from where he thought he was and there were no cups or water.

  Batteries- Zach reported later, james had dropped a remote control on the floor and the batteries spilled out, that there were at least thirty batteries laying on the floor and he attempted to pick them all up, but failed miserably because he could not tell the difference between the hallucinations and the real batteries.

  Dramatussin:

  This is a combination of Dramamine and DXM. This produces a horrible systolic hypertension in the circulatory system and is considered highly damaging to all bodily functions. The DXM stimulates the blood pressure and nervous system while the Dramamine drastically reduces these. It is conceivable the combination is near deadly. Subjects think faster than usual, but with a significant sacrifice to intelligence. Subjects recalled a lightning storm where the lightning flashed in the sky, followed by flashing on the trees, the cars on the street, the mailboxes, and finally the ground. They compared it to watching the lights in a pinball machine. They often times called themselves 'pinball wizards.' The relevance of this is questionable.

  DXM and Amanita Mushrooms:

  Considered a legal form of psychoactive fungi, the Amanita Muscaria exists as an obscure, but possibly more potent psychedelic than even Psilocybin-containing mushrooms. When mixed with DXM, the effects proved too much for the subject Phil and he falsely associated his emerging carpel tunnel with a heart attack induced by chronic drug abuse. Phil's paranoid panic attacks became more frequent and in greater magnitude in the following drug experiences with DXM, MDMA (Ecstasy), Dramamine, and Mushrooms. His state of panic brought on hallucinations of a girl with a kick ball named Emily, who asked him to play with her. He is suffering from sleep deprivation due to the fear of sleep paralysis and auditory hallucinations, in the form of voices in his head. |I broke Phil's robo.| He is now deemed a failed experiment, and officially not my responsibility anymore. I will continue my studies with the remaining subjects. We can waste no more time on this subject, nor feel any sympathy for his mental collapse. In the name of science, we move on.

  Lysergic Acid Diethylamide (LSD):

  Subjects Alpha and Gary have a significant history with the LSD psychedelic, claiming to have eaten six and a half hits (~487.5ug-650ug) of “acid,” without immediate negative side effects. Subjects may have a tolerance to 'unreal' situations and certainly have an impressive ability to adapt to radically altered perspectives. Mental and physical collapse does not even appear be a subject of importance in these subject's minds. Not an impressive figure among some of the more active “acid freaks,” but with the amount of brain damage sustained from chronic DXM abuse, a mental break down of some kind was expected with this amount of LSD. After further analysis of this experiment, I predict a complete mental collapse is imminent.

  Marijuana:

  All subjects [Phil, Alpha, and Gary] seem to have developed an intolerance to Cannabis C. Sativa, and smoking the herb sends the subjects into a paranoid panicked state. Possibly a side effect of chronic usage of dissociative anesthetics. Look into this.

  [Another interesting note regarding Marijuana abuse]

  I got too close to one of my subjects, Alpha, about an hour ago. He blew Marijuana smoke in my direction, and I flew right into the cloud. I am losing my bearings on reality. I am shocked at how powerful this simple class IV hallucinogen has affected me. I feel my entire life
force being sucked from me. I must dictate these last few notes. I feel I must divulge certain information before my energy escapes me and I no longer have the ability to dictate through a host. I am in control of these experiments on my subjects, and if left to their own devices, I fear they will stop at nothing to destroy themselves and each other. I feel as though the subject james, Alpha, and I are one. |I am he, he is I| We are one and the same, and together we exist |in perfect harmony| with me at the controls. |Please take the curtain down for further instruction and remember to let the furtive beings take complete control of it all, for your sake| LET HER IN!

  [The rest of the notes were either completely irrelevant, unreadable, or destroyed in the chaos following Jerry's unexplained disappearance. The above note appears to be the last thing dictated before his untimely disappearance. The Doctor's mental state seems to have shifted over the course of working with his “subjects” but shows no sign of remorse for the immoral experiments and overexposure to dangerously strong psychoactive drugs. Then again, flies are not known to have ever obtained the evolutionary ability to feel emotion.]

  PART FOUR

  Overdosing On Time

  Chapter ??

  Conversation Between

  Computer and Typewriter

  Her parents are asleep.

  Hm.

  Tough one james.

  Is that too confusing to follow you think?

  I think; given the context it will follow, then it will be okay.

  I'll pay you when I get paid.

  Phil, do I need to pay you?

  james, are you and Gary even friends?

  It doesn't even seem like you guys like each other. I don't know him,

  so I wouldn't have known he was with Kristal.

  I was supposed to write this chapter while under the influence of Dextromethorphan, in a desperate attempt to wrap up the loose ends of my analysis of the Tussin Generation. Instead, I ended up doing nothing. I had the idea to call Phil's Girlfriend (who shall be deemed “Brandi”) and Kristal to join us so I could record the official story from every angle. I recorded the entire trip with Phil. My editor, Jon, showed up. I tried to pull things together, but failed horribly.

  These are bits of the conversations:

  Jon: This is interesting, it finishes right off. No more bold letters. I love you too she pants. While she pants... while her pants are on the floor. No it doesn't really say that, I just added that in there.

  * * *

  Phil: NO – Brandi's not coming over! I'm tripping my fucking balls off, man!

  james: Yeah, no kidding, I have no idea what is going on. I'll give you a complete copy, straight up, of this recording if you go along with this.

  Phil: Why wouldn't you give me one anyway. Ass holey-o.

  James: Just an hour?

  Phil: What are we gonna do in an hour jamey?

  james: Just an hour of psychoanalysis....

  Phil: Just call her back and tell her Phil still has feelings... Jon! What's going on?

  Jon: Hm. He said he would call her back.... Can you only guarantee her it would be an hour.

  james: I just need Kristal's update! If Kristal comes, can we do this?

  Phil: Is she coming?

  james: Its weird how no one will care about this until I'm dead...

  Jon: Hm. You know that?

  james: No probably not... You gotta hurt people before they hurt you.. Making fun of people is a defense mechanism to not be hurt so bad when you're made fun of... ya know?

  Jon: Um... yeah... I guess I get what you're getting at...

  * * *

  james: What did you think about 2007?

  Brandi: I haven't read your book, but I read some chapters on MySpace... What exactly are you talking about? Like when we all hung out and stuff?

  james: Yeah.

  Didn't we all go to the fair and robotrip there?

  Yeah.

  Well we rode Top Gun. That was really fun.

  MmHm.

  Well Phil got anxiety that night.

  chuckle

  We got lost trying to go home somewhere outside of town. We had no idea where we were and it was really stupid cuz we were on the highway or something. Um... I remember.... Sitting in my room doing duster... and in your car, cuz there was always so much duster in your car. I was really scared. What exactly are these questions for?

  THIS IS LITERARY CUBISM! I need everyone’s perspective on 2007!

  I dunno... we had fun... um. Have you talked to Kristal?

  I think she’s dead.

  long pause

  I remember when you did those shrooms. And you mixed it with something else. You guys thought that’s what caused Phil's anxiety... I remember that.

  Yeah, robo. We mixed it with robo. RoboShrooms.

  [long pause]

  Is your editor still there?

  Yeah.

  Ask him what we should talk about.

  EDITOR! What should we talk about? What needs more content. More content.

  Jon: Well this is all about robotripping right? Maybe elaborate on Zach's character?

  What do you think about Zach?

  Zach? He's a creeper. He's a pretty fucked up dude.

  james- Yeah, chuckle. Jon, who else? What else? Like an event that doesn't make sense... that involves Phil.

  Jon: There's that switch body thing. I didn't quite get that.

  james- [to Brandi] Ok, so what do you remember about me and Phil's first trip?

  Brandi- Me and Phil weren't together when you guys had your first trip. You guys were already in the middle of a Robotussin binge.

  Oh yeah... So what do you remember about the first time you guys were going out and him and I were tripping on Robotussin?

  Wait, was I with you guys?

  No. He was on the stairs calling you and I was telling him what to say.

  I don't remember that. [pause] I really don't remember... You guys did a lot of drugs...

  Yup.

  Yeah, you guys did a lot of tripping. I don't remember that specific one. Phil's notebook?

  Something about antifreeze?

  Antifreeze? [pause] OH yeah!

  fart

  I just remember a lot of Hunter S. Thompson quotes. Most of them were stupid. You said something about something like, “this doesn't make any sense.” Do you know what I'm talking about?

  No.

  I can't remember. Anything else?

  Dramamine?

  I remember something about how you were in the bathroom and you were reaching for the doorknob but you couldn't grab it cuz you were grabbing at the wrong side or something. That was pretty funny. I remember something about batteries?

  Yeah.

  Um.... [long pause] I can't remember anything else. Wait, I remember when Phil came over on Dramamine and you put cards all over the floor for him to pick up but he couldn't pick them up.

  I was trying to calculate how many misfires he was having per second. If scientists could just perfect this concept, we could establish an exact standard of “fucked up-ness.”

  Phil hated doing Dramamine.

  It was Phil's favorite drug.

  Oh... really?

  Ya – What do you think about sleep?

  Sleep? What about it?

  What do you think about it?

  Like, you guys sleeping?

  Sure.

  Phil couldn't sleep. Like now can't sleep... well I don't know about now...