Chasm of Memories

Drugs. They've been one of my favorite topics of discussion since my early teen years. Granted at that time it was nothing more than weed. It fascinated me how a molecule could so dramatically change the experience of being alive. I was afraid based on what I'd heard about hard drugs to play with them. So I smoked cannabis heavily. Every morning started with a joint while I drove to school. It was my senior year in high school when a friend of mine offered me the opportunity to try mushrooms. I figured they were just as natural as the flowers that I'd grown so fond of smoking, so why not.

The experience was something beyond the descriptive capabilities of words. I ate three and a half grams weighed out. I was told this was a pretty standard intro dose.
I popped one of the caps into my mouth and chewed it over. The taste wasn't offensive, something like a spongy potato chip without salt, but regardless I decided to stuff the rest of the fungus into a burrito. About 30 minutes later I could feel something shifting, nothing too spectacular but a certain energy was beginning to run through my body.

At the hour mark, I was having cliché psychedelic symptoms. Colors became more vivid, patterns emerging onto the walls around me, and I waved my hand before my face I could see etheric shadows of my fingers tracing behind.
It was goofy, and out of reaction, I wore an electric smile across my face.

The feeling was still growing though, the walls began to move and patterns screamed at me demanding my attention.

At around an hour and a half into the experience, some close friends of mine (of whom were sober) came into the house.
One of them sat down across from me at the kitchen table.
"So how are you guys doing"

His face was bright and rippling, and his smile seemed perverse to me as he stared at me like some sort of lab rat.

"Uh, I'm fine, this... This is just wild"

He looked around the room at all of us who'd eaten the drugs.

"Y'all look like you're TRIPPIN'."
He said it booming obnoxiously loud voice.

I began to feel uneasy, why were they here?
(Knowing I'd invited them)
They continued talking and after a while, I began to shake, my hands were visibly trembling. Another friend of mine who was also in an altered mindset must have noticed because he came over to ask me.

"Hey man, you doing ok?"

"To be honest... Not really."

He looked at me with a face of concern, and I continued.

"I just feel overwhelmed, like I'm on edge"

"Here smoke this, it will help"
He handed me half of a blunt.

I lit it and took a few drags while the room talked around me.
A few minutes passed and my concerned friend looked back at me.

"I'd ask if you're feeling any better but by the looks of it"
He nodded towards the blunt rattling in between my fingers
"You're still feeling off"

"Yeah man, I dont know. I just feel like I'm gonna freak out."
My breathing was getting rapid and I could fee the angst growing inside me.
The walls were still screaming

"Pay attention!
Pay attention!
Pay attention!"

I wanted to scream
"There are too many distractions!!"
But I didn't I just looked back to my friend to respond.

"I've gotta get out of here man!"

"What?"
He laughed nervously
"Where are you gonna go?"

"I don't know"
I said standing up to pace around the table.

The owner of the house must have overheard because he came over to me.

"Hey man, how about you just go upstairs and lay down in my room. It seems like there's just too much activity down here for you right now"

I nodded and headed for the stairs, making it halfway up before my legs turned to jelly under me. I started to collapse but luckily someone had been following me and caught me.

"No you don't, I gotcha" I heard him say.

He helped me to the top of the stairs.

"Can you walk from here?"

"Uh yeah... I got it" I managed to say noticing that speaking was becoming a challenge.

I looked around the hallway, everything looked so foreign and strange. I could swear I heard 'Dazed and Confused' by Zeppelin playing in my head.
I walked towards my friend's bedroom and as I approached the doorway, it flipped upside down... and the scenery on the other side of it which should have been the familiar sight of his bed had been replaced with a sort of matrix of colors and shapes. I stumbled through the portal like doorway and collapsed into the rectangle in the middle of the room.
Feeling myself sink into the bed a sense of relief washed over me.

Music.
I need music.

I reached through the chaotic ether of his room and clawed at the headphones on his desk. Slipping them over my head I turned on the first familiar song that appeared on the screen. Some party rap.
I played back into the bed as hard snares and heavy bass berated my senses.
The home owner came into the room.

"You feeling any better?"

"Ahh... Not really"

"What are you listening to?"

He looked at the screen and chuckled

"Nah man, you don't need this right now"

He clicked at the keyboard.

"Here listen to this"

Soft electronic music began to play and I began to relax.

After a few minutes, I began to feel myself drifting away. I pulled one of the headphones from my ear and looked to my friend.

"I don't know man, I feel like I'm leaving"

He smiled which comforted me
"Don't worry man you're right here, just go with that feeling and let it take you, it will show you something"

I trusted him and layed my head back onto the pillow. The room began to grow dark and soon I was surrounded by water. The water was strange, it was green and luminescent. I was a boat. What?

"Don't question it" I thought to myself

I watched myself as a boat sailing through this bizarre emerald ether. I was approaching rocks.

"Just go with it" repeated in my head

So I just watched as sailed towards these cliffs. They were huge, hundreds of feet tall. As I grew closer to them I could see an opening between the ledges, that's where I was headed. My boat entered the pass and I shifted my attention to the bluffs on both sides of me. Dark barely detailed rock walls, strangely mesmerizing. As my ship continued through, things changed. My memories began to appear on the rock faces almost like someone was using a movie projector to display them for me.
My first day of high school. My vacation to the mountains as a kid. A day spent with my cousin who'd recently passed away. Me building a birdhouse at my grandma's house when I was no older than five. Finally, there was the sight of my mother's face. She was so young and a wore a smile on her face that I hadn't seen in years.
Where was she?
That was my childhood room.
She reached down and picked me up out of my crib and pulled me closer to her. I feel the warmth of comfort as my boat sailed out of the chasm of memories.
I looked around to see open water around me still in awe of what I'd just seen...
The waves faded into the familiar green walls of my friend's room. I was back.