Starcosmo

Chapter 15: Flyer

Rural Washington State

Zero hour + 5 days

James Joyce Castiaux was floating.

He looked over his shoulder to where his shadow, thrown by the lights from his lab table, clearly began some two inches behind him.  

Somewhere in the distance, his handheld was chiming incessantly, reminding him that the hour was up, and not only were his tests on the mysterious mushrooms finished, but his girlfriend would soon be getting up, showering, and then wondering where the Hell he was. This knowledge only vaguely penetrated his conscious mind, occupied as it was with wrestling with the dynamic reality that had been thrust upon him over the previous sixty minutes.

He was a bit hazy. He remembered the bitter taste of the alien mushroom, and then sitting down to wait, to meditate, and to monitor himself for their effects.

He thought he'd probably drifted off. His mind had settled into the hypnagogic imagery of pre-sleep, the pinwheeling fields of vibrant pre-Pleistocene fronds, tendrils of organic refuse spontaneously reforming themselves into emerald palaces with jetting plumes of gaseous love. Self-assembling machine-elves had marched out to meet him, disassembling him body part by body part until he was nothing but a pair of kidneys and a pineal gland, which they had shellacked in gold and then fed to a firefly. He became a part of the firefly, and lofted above the globe, fluttering up through continuously re-figuring layers of reality, passing smiling Bodhisavattas who wished him well on his way as he realized, This is the most organized my pre-dream imagery has ever been.

Then he was on a lush, verdant hillside that plunged down into a deep ravine, and there was a dark, luxurious river running through it, with massive waves that reflected the brilliant starfield above, and he could smell the thick smell of the ancient plant-life. He felt there were a thousand people on the hillside with him, staring up into the sky, and then they all saw what they had been waiting for: a massive constellation of lights, a square of squares, with red, yellow, green, purple, orange lights flickering in each single square, flew over them in perfect formation.

The brightness faded out everything else and then dimmed until he was looking at the inside of his eyelids. He felt an intensely prickling, tingle across his entire body, as if his blood had just began to move again. He heard Guildenstern whine, and that's when he opened his eyes and discovered he was floating.

There was no effort in this. He just seemed to have become lighter than air. Directly ahead of him, Guildenstern was looking at him, quizzically, with a cocked head.

"It's okay, boy," JJ said, and made as if to get up -- and instantly fell on his ass, as soon as his front foot touched the ground.

Woah. That had been a total trip. Full immersion, body sensation, and a persistent visceral sensation of both floating and falling. This was some heavy, heady alien shit he'd done. No wonder the government was trying to control the supply.

JJ gingerly got to his feet. Balance okay. No residual effects seemed to be lingering. He moved slowly around the room, making sure everything worked. His feet were asleep.

He checked his experiment. The test was negative for photoproteins. Another dead end. Whatever made these things glow, it wasn't any known mechanism. It was a weird substance and an intense trip, and totally mysterious, but it hadn't poisoned him. For that was grateful.

It was time to go be a normal human again: connect with Cynthia, tell her the strange story, figure out what they should do with the Shroom. What a night.

Still groggy, JJ approached the main stairway and prepared for the climb. Just as he lifted his foot to the first step, he felt something powerful tuck him up under the arms and toss him several feet up the stairs. He landed off balance, slipped, fell, banging both knees and then his chest and face, amidst a torrent of "shit!fuck!shit!" as he ate stair.