Captain Pumpkin and the Lego Army

The end credits were rolling for the Jim Henson movie "Labyrinth" starring David Bowie when a knock came on the front door. Opening the door revealed two very excited individuals bearing gifts of fungus and beer. I welcomed my friends inside, ushering them to the couch. Everyone in attendance this night knew exactly what was in store.....oh wait....everyone except one young lady who was simply "along for the ride"....a ride she wouldn't soon forget I'd wager.

The beers were making passage through our bodies and working their magic for about an hour before we decided to partake of the fungal festivities. 5 grams for the two seasoned males (myself included) and around 3.5 grams for the unknowing female. Thus begins our journey to strange lands in search of unknowable knowledge.

After only 10 minutes or so I started to feel very uneven. I use the world "uneven" as a feeble attempt at describing the splitting of the three dimensions and the loss of perception I felt in this period of time. I knew that this was going to be a strange evening and for some reason I felt as though I had to "prepare" for an event that would, undoubtedly, occur at a later point in time.

"Oh shit, I have to take a shower..." I proclaimed, pulling myself out of the sofa and up onto my own two feet. I had two feet, right? Yep, both of them were still there. I trudged forth, down the long hallway to the towel closet and flung open the door. There was such an assortment of towels that it seemed to take me decades to choose which color, size, and pattern I wanted.

Showering during a trip is not something I would advise anyone to try. Each drop of water had a personality of its own...some were very hot...some were very cold and to me, this was a resemblance of their individual personalities, hot was evil and cold was divine. It makes imperfect sense when you try not to think about it. At any rate, the shower was soon over and I faced myself in the mirror with a razor in my hand and shaving cream placed in strategic shaving locations across my face. A shaky hand proves to be your best friend and worst enemy when shaving during a trip. The flourescent streams of blood mixed with the shaving cream danced down my face and established a new home inside the sink. My blood was no longer my own, but an independent substance now living inside the sink, mingling with the grime that lived beyond, inside the plumbing.

"Oh fuck, I'm going to miss it all. They're going to leave without me!" I realized that I had spent way too long in the bathroom and that this trip had stepped up quite a bit. I rushed back into the living room with a towel on my head to find that everyone was still in their same places.

"That was quick, dude" I heard a voice say, though it was not distinct as to which body the voice came from. Quick?!?! I spent aeons in that bathroom!! The clock begged to differ and suggested that I was in there for a mere 20 minutes. Hmmm, what did he know anyway? He was just a clock.

I looked over to the television to see Daniel Stern caressing Fred Savage and tickling him erotically...I knew this movie....Little Monsters....never before had I noticed how pedo-homo-erotic this movie truly was. I knew I couldn't withstand the impact another second of viewing that movie would make on my life so I exited the room and ran down the hallway to the recording studio we had set up.

I felt a sense of distress in this instance...I wanted to close the door so that Daniel Stern couldn't get in and caress me....but I didnt want to close the door for fear of trapping myself inside the room...in case he was already in the closet...or maybe climbing through the window, so I just left the door open and stood ready to pounce. I knew someone was coming......I fucking knew it, so I poised myself to strike but when the time came and my drunk friend entered the room all I could do was squeal and run back down the hallway, then back up, and into the room across from the studio.

I shut myself up in here for a reason.....I knew it.....there was a bed.....a soft bed...AND MUSIC!!! I carried my weight over to the bed and threw myself down. I arranged the blankets and pillows so that I had a cave-like structure built around my head. The structure was my base of operations. I was Captain Pumpkin Ominous, AND I COULD CLIMB WALLS!! Riotous laughter erupted from the living room and I KNEW they were coming to get me...to bring me down from the wall.

They came into the room, I knew that much, but I didnt bother to pay any attention to their motives. I was too entranced with the flowering images on the wall. Foliage made from lava, oozing down the walls, threatening to invade my cave and consume my army. MY ARMY!!! That is who came into the room!! How could I not recognize my own army? Afterall, I did create them from my expansive mind.

The familiar faces of my friends could not be tied with names or memories...I knew those faces but I had lost all traces of information that could link them to a significant memory. They were just my army now. I knew I had built them...I likened them to Legos in my mind and decided that it might be fun to just take them apart and rearrange them.

I fish-hooked my lady friend and began digging into her mouth to find the release switch for her jawbone...I would rather enjoy taking her jawbone off first and work my way out from there. The textures in her teeth were far too much for my senses to handle so I let her go and backed away from the group. Best to just leave my creations alone and control them from afar.

Each person took their own place about the room, but of course it was all the way I willed it to be. I sank back into the bed and closed my eyes. Simple lines became clawhammers which danced in a circular pattern, in and out of focus. I felt as though my contorted body was growing extra limbs.......an arm came from my chest....a leg from my asshole.....a human fucking pretzel, so to speak.

I lost all cognition of the events thereafter for approximately one hour. When my vision returned I was naked and a voice was saying something about melting cheese on my body, so I quickly jumped up in disapproval. I looked around the room and found I was alone. Where was the fucking cheese...I could smell it...cheeseburgers.
I was sad in this time, as I knew that nothing was real anymore and that the smell of cheeseburgers was just a figment of my imagination....I was sad that I could not bite into a cheeseburger...very sad, indeed.

I let quite a bit of time pass, in which I pondered on the fact that I had created my own world, my own friends, my own army, and my everyday life. I got pissed at the fact that I had been making up my life, yet I still forced myself to go to work. I still forced myself to feel heartache. I figured myself a masochist and just let the thoughts go.

I became aware of the presence of others, coming into the room and leaving again. I realized that the cheeseburgers were, indeed, real and that I could eat them. I was happy again and all was right in my world. Looking back at the night I chuckled to myself and with the last bite of cheeseburger I excused myself from my company and crawled into my cave again, this time for sleep.