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This writing was accepted for publication in the 84 page perfect-bound issue... cc&d magazine (v214) (the November 2010 Issue) |
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Twilight Tripper
Rufus Ryan
It was a beautiful spring night when Dawn’s dad, Dr. Burnzini, finally let us eat one of his special pizzas; the same kind of pizza that he gave to his patients that he treated with “psychedelic-talk-therapy.”
Still high from the potent weed we had smoked, I salivated while I watched Dr. B prepare the pizza. All the ingredients were in separate bowls: tomato and pineapple slices, black and green olives, cheddar and mozzarella cheese, and the most important ingredient, the magic mushrooms. Dawn and I tried to sample the ingredients, but Dr. B slapped our hands away when we reached for them.
After Dr. B spread the tomato sauce on the hand-tossed dough, he slowly put all the ingredients on top of the sauce. Then he put the magnificent pie in his brick oven.
When the pizza was cooked, Dr. B used his baking paddle to pull it out of the oven. Then he slid the pizza onto the dinner table. Dawn and I approached the table. Dr. B swung the paddle at us. “Back up!”
Dawn and I laughed. “Chill out, dad.”
Dr. B laughed. “I’m sorry. I’m pretty ritualistic when it comes to eating one of these pizzas.”
“Yeah, well, I’m starving,” said Dawn.
“I know,” said Dr. B. “But before we eat, I want to tell you about the first time I ate a supreme magic mushroom pizza.”
“Fine,” said Dawn.
Dawn and I retreated to the couch, and Dr. B sat in his recliner. Dawn started biting her nails, and I started running my fingers through her silky blonde hair as we prepared for one of Dr. B’s lectures. Dr. B said, “I started eating these pizzas years ago. I remember—”
“Dad! I’m fricking hungry! I got the munchies!”
“My dear child, you have become very impatient since the car wreck. And I want to know why.”
“Yeah, Dawn. Be patient,” I said.
Dawn gave me a titty-twister. “Shut up, Dusk. I’m starving!”
I pinched one of her nipples. “Ouch!”
Dawn stood up and pulled me off the couch. I pointed at the glass doors that were behind her. “Look! A bear!”
Dawn turned around. I laughed as I wrapped my arms around her stomach and lifted her off the floor. I said, “You’re gullible...and heavy!”
Dawn knew I was joking, but she just couldn’t take a joke about her body.
Dawn pinched my hands, which caused me to let her go. “You jerk!” She kicked me in the shin. “Don’t call me fat!”
“I didn’t! I called you heavy.”
I wrestled Dawn to the ground and put her in a submission maneuver called “The Atlantic Crab,” a maneuver that I learned from one of my idols: a hilarious comedian who was famous for wrestling women.
As I sat on Dawn’s back, I laughed as I pulled her legs towards her head. “Give up, Dawn!” I said. “Do you give up? Huh? Huh?”
Dr. B interrupted my fun. “Alright, Dusk! That’s enough.”
I got off her back, and Dawn got up from the floor. Then we both laughed as we hugged. Dr. B said, “I’m starting to think that you two are not mature enough for this experience with shrooms.”
“We are, dad! Sorry!” said Dawn.
“Yeah, Dr. B,” I said. “I don’t think having fun is a sign of immaturity.”
“Good point,” said Dr. B. “Have a seat on the couch.”
Dawn and I sat on the couch. Dr. B said, “Alright, I won’t bore you with my past experiences with shrooms. But I am going to prepare you for this experience with shrooms.”
“Prepare us?” I asked.
“Yeah,” said Dr. B. “I will be your psychedelic guide on this mind-expanding pleasure trip.”
Dawn laughed. “Why? You don’t think we can handle the experience on our own?”
“I think you can,” said Dr. B. “And I only require that you be with me for the beginning of your mind voyage.”
“Alright,” said Dawn. “Is there anything else we should know about this voyage?”
“Yes, there is,” said Dr. B. “You must know that there is the possibility that terror could suddenly enter your mind while you’re tripping.”
“Terror?” I said. “I’ve heard that shrooms make you laugh and smile.”
“They can make you laugh and smile,” said Dr. B. “But everybody reacts differently to foreign chemicals that are introduced to the brain. So, we don’t know how you will react to the effects of this drug.”
Dawn fired up a cig. “Alright, is that it?”
“No, it’s not.” Dr. B smiled. “I really don’t want you or Dusk to experience any fear or paranoia during this trip. So, you two must be very relaxed before and during this voyage into undiscovered sections of your brains. And that’s why we are going to go to a comfortable environment after we ingest this pizza.”
“Alright, dad. We’ll be fine. Now let’s ingest the pizza.”
“Alright.” Dr. B smiled at Dawn. “Just be ready to accept the changes to your psyche. This strange fungi will alter your senses, and your state of mind will be drastically changed. You might even discover some hidden intelligence in your brain.”
Dawn laughed. “Why is intelligence hiding in my brain?”
Dr. B picked up a slice of pizza and smiled at it. “Fun with fungi!”
Dawn and I looked at each other and laughed. Dawn said, “You’re a dork, dad.”
“Fun guy!” I said. “That’s on your license plates, Dr. B.”
Dr. B smiled at his lovely daughter. “Are you going to eat a slice, miss impatient?”
Dawn and I flew off the couch and we ran to the dinner table.
As we started eating our first slices of pizza, Dr. B said, “Two more slices each. That’s it!”
Dawn spit out a piece of pizza. “We only get three slices!”
“This pizza is delicious, Dr. B,” I said. “Why can’t we have more then three slices?”
Dr. B put his slice of pizza on his plate and he took a drink of his soda. “I have been dealing with psilocybin for years. So, I know that this dosage will almost guarantee that you will experience no terror or paranoia.” Dr. B laughed. “Though, you might go out of your minds temporarily. You might experience some insanity.”
Dawn grabbed another slice of pizza. “Bring on the insanity!”
After Dawn and I finished our last slices of pizza, and Dr. B finished his seventh slice, we followed Dr. B to his garage. Dawn asked, “This is the comfortable environment that you were talking about.”
“No,” said Dr. B. “We are going to my solarium office.”
Dawn and I smiled at each other. We loved hanging out in Dr. B’s solarium. I asked, “Are we going to drive there?”
“No,” said Dr. B. “We are going to ride our bikes.”
“Sweet!” I said. “Let’s go!”
I was psyched for the adventure to begin, and I was definitely anticipating another strange and fun experience with Dawn and Dr. B.
Dawn and I got out our mountain bikes, and Dr. B got out his custom-made bike: a four-wheeled bike that was decked out with all kinds of accessories and gadgets. It also had a flagpole that had a flag that read: LEGALIZE MEDICAL MARIJUANA.
We got on our bikes and rode to the bike trails. And once we were on the nature trails, our psychedelic guide took the lead, and he used his bike light to illuminate the darkness that surrounded us.
On the way to the solarium, Dawn asked her dad, “When are the shrooms going to kick in?”
I swerved in front of Dawn. “Patience, Dawn.”
“Shut up, Dusk.”
“Relax, Dawn,” said Dr. B. “You’ll both be grinning by the time we get to the solarium.”
Sure enough, by the time we got to the solarium, I couldn’t take my smile off my face. And after we went into the solarium, I started laughing hysterically as I looked at myself in Dr. B’s circus mirror. I was feeling euphoric. Everything around me was alive. I was in a surreal state of mind, and I had a feeling that I was going to be smiling and laughing for a long time.
After I stopped looking at myself in the mirror, I told Dr. B about my new state of mind. “Dr. B, I feel electrified! I feel...strange!”
I looked at Dawn. I was shocked by the look on her face; she looked as strange as I felt. Dawn said, “There’s a new energy inside of me!” She laughed. “My leg bones are tingling!”
Dr. B smiled at us. “Just relax...you’ll be alright.”
“I got to walk around,” I said.
“You do that, Dusk,” said Dr. B. “Light the candles and incense, Dawn. And then turn off the lights.”
Dawn lit a cig. “I’ll turn on the black-lights and lava lamps, too.”
“Yeah, turn them on,” said Dr. B. “I want your altered senses to have electronic stimuli, too.”
I picked up Dr. B’s cat. “Heronymus, why does your fur glow?”
“His fur glows,” said Dr. B, “because one of my patients, who is a genetic engineer, added DNA from a glow-in-the-dark jellyfish to the egg that became Heronymus.”
“Oh,” I said. “I wonder what other animals he could make glow.”
Classical music started blaring from the speakers that were in every corner of the solarium. The music shocked me, and a few moments later, Dawn’s trippy behavior did too.
While I was still holding Heronymus, Dawn started running towards me. I thought she was going to tackle me. My first instinct was to run away from her, but I didn’t. I just put Heronymus on the floor so he could run from her.
Dawn didn’t tackle me; she hugged and kissed me. “This is cool, huh?” asked Dawn.
“Yeah! I’m pretty fricking happy right now.”
Dawn put her tongue in my mouth for a few moments. Then she whispered in my ear, “You know what I want to do with you, right?”
I laughed really loud. “Yeah, I do!”
“What’s so funny, Dusk?” asked Dr. B.
I laughed. “Dawn told me that she almost pees her pants when she feels her bones tingling.”
Dr. B shook his head as he laughed. “Sit and settle down you goofballs. This session has just started.”
Dawn and I sat on one of the many couches that were in the solarium. As soon as I sat down, I wanted to get right back up. I didn’t feel comfortable staying still. My mind was stimulated, and random and interesting thoughts were racing to my mind. I said, “Let’s go!”
I tried to get up from the couch, but Dawn pulled me back down and put her legs over my lap. Dawn asked, “Where do you want to go?”
“I don’t know. Somewhere!”
Dawn grabbed my hand. “Just chill out.”
“Yeah, Dusk,” said Dr. B. “You have to stay calm.”
I grinned at Dr. B. “Chaos!”
I started laughing manically as I took Dawn’s legs off my lap. And I continued to laugh until I was standing in front of Dr. B’s desk. I tried to focus on his face, but it was blurry. I knew I couldn’t wait for his face to go back to normal, so I just started talking to the blur. “You didn’t tell me that the candle flames were going to tell me jokes!” I laughed. “Frick! How intense is this going to get?”
“As intense as you want it to get.” Dr. B gestured towards the “patient couch” that was near his desk. “But you have to chill out, or you might freak out. Now, please lay on the chaise, Dusk.”
I laid on the chaise. I closed my eyes; hoping the darkness would calm me down. But the darkness didn’t calm me down; my mind was still bugging whether my eyes were open or not. So, I just kept my eyes open, and I kept smiling as I lived in brief intervals of comedic insanity.
As I prepared for Dr. B’s questions, I watched Dawn wave her lit cig back and forth in front of her face. I knew she was seeing what I was seeing. I laughed. “You’re funny, Dawn.”
Dr. B looked at Dawn. “Quit playing with your cig. You’re distracting Dusk.”
Dawn gazed at her cig’s cherry, before slowly putting her cig out in an ashtray. Then she came and laid next to me. I started caressing her smooth skin as I kissed her. “Stop that!” Dr. B turned on a strobe light and aimed it right at us. “You can do that later.” He turned the strobe light off. “I’m going to ask you two a couple of questions.”
“We are not your patients, dad.”
Dr. B laughed. “Today you are.”
“Fine, dad. Make it quick.”
Dr. B smiled. “It seems like you two are enjoying yourselves so far.” He wrote something in his notebook. “That’s awesome.”
While Dawn played with my hair, she said, “The questions, dad.”
“Alright,” said Dr. B. “Dusk, I want you to tell me how you feel about Dawn.”
While I looked into Dawn’s beautiful blue eyes, I answered the question. “I love her!” I laughed. “She is so cool!” I laughed. “I want to spend the rest of my life with her!”
Dawn kissed me. I smiled. “How many more questions do you got for us, Dr. B? I want to go for a walk with Dawn.”
Dr. B puffed on his tobacco pipe and blew some smoke at us. “Don’t question my intellect, Dusk. I can see through that cloud of smoke. Sexual ecstasy can be the best part of a psychedelic experience. I have had many sexual escapades while—”
“Dad! We don’t want to hear about your sexual escapades.”
I laughed. “I understand,” said Dr. B. “Let me ask you a question, Dawn.”
“Fine, go ahead.”
“I want you to tell me why you have become so impatient.”
Dawn closed her eyes and remained silent. Dr. B said, “Please tell me why, Dawn.”
Dawn opened her eyes and started staring at the ceiling. “I’m impatient because...well, ever since that near-death experience that I had with the car wreck, I really understand how short life is. So I feel I just can’t waste any time.”
I laughed. “I realized life was short when I was ten. After my goldfish died a day after I bought it.”
“Shut up, Dusk,” said Dawn.
Dr. B puffed on his pipe. “Well, the haunting reaper has been known to make people impatient. But we’ll talk about that another time.”
“Does that mean we can go? Because Dawn’s right. We can’t waste our precious time.”
“Yes, she is right. But just because life is short, doesn’t mean you have to be impatient.” Dr. B chuckled as he looked at Dawn. “And it doesn’t mean that you have to get away from your dad as quickly as possible.”
Dawn got up and hugged her dad. “You know I love being with you, dad.”
“I know you do.” Dr. B smiled at Dawn. “I just have one more question for Dusk.”
I laughed as Dawn cuddled next to me. “Alright...but don’t ask me why I like wrestling girls.”
“I know why you like wrestling girls.” Dr. B laughed. “I just want you to describe exactly how you feel right now?”
I looked at the nature outside of the solarium as I told Dr. B how I felt. “I feel...I feel unworldly!” I laughed. “I feel FREE!” I looked at Dr. B, who was writing in his notebook. “And I no longer want to worry about trying to make money or gain material possessions. I just want to have fun, and do nothing but enjoy life.” I smiled at Dawn. “I want to make Dawn happy.”
Dawn kissed me. “I love you, Dusk.”
Her words made me shiver.
Dr. B nodded his head as he smiled at us. “Enjoy the rest of your trip. Try to make it back here before twilight.”
“We will, ” Dawn and I said in unison.
After stepping out of the solarium, I wanted to use some of the pulsing creative energy that I had in me. “Let’s run around and scream at life,” I suggested.
“No,” said Dawn. “Let’s walk and stay dead-silent as we listen to life.”
I shrugged my shoulders. “Alright.”
Dawn and I didn’t say one word to each other as we walked to the middle the field; we even stopped laughing. We just enjoyed the sounds of nature as we walked like zombies.
When we got to the middle of the field, we got on the ground and we laid on our backs. We remained silent as we gazed at the sky. The stars and satellites were putting on an amazing show for us. I stared at one particular star for what seemed like hours. The star was communicating with me with its twinkles. I thought, It would be so fricking cool to fly around you.
I was really enjoying imagining the impossible, but I wanted to do what was possible: I wanted to make love to Dawn.
I started caressing Dawn’s body. “I don’t need a psychedelic guide for this.”
Dawn Laughed. Then the lovemaking started. The sex and psilocybin fusion gave me the best sensations I had ever felt.
By the time we got back to the solarium, twilight was approaching. The intensity of the trip was weakening, but I was still feeling ecstatic.
We shocked Dr. B out of his trance by opening a door that caused a bell to ring. Dr. B smiled at us. “There’s my twilight trippers!”
Dawn and I laughed. Dawn said, “Hey, dad.”
I laughed. “Hey, Dr. B.”
Dr. B grabbed his guitar. “Let’s go outside and watch the sun bring us a new day.”
We went to the middle of the field and we laid down near the spot where Dawn and I had made psychedelic love. As Dr. B played his guitar, we watched our world slowly and dramatically change. It was an incredible experience, just like the whole trip was.
