The Power of the Pills

Hey guys!

I usually consider myself a relatively experienced psychonaut. I absolutely love shrooms, and trust me, my friends know it. Recently, I had one hell of a trip, and I think it was due to the method of consumption. I usually just eat my shrooms dry and wash 'em down with orange juice. This time, however, they were ground up and put in gelatin capsules.

Our school was having "beach day" which really translates to "Awesome, no school! Let's get a little fucked up, then once we bounce, get even more fucked up!" I arrived with a water bottle full of possibly the grossest combo of alcohol ever: Orange Triple Sec and Cuantreau (sp?) Orange Liquor. I drank it promptly and smoked a few bowls. I was officially at the beach.

One of my best friends was going to miss beach day because he was having his wisdom teeth pulled. BUMMER! Or not! Some odd thing or another conspired, and it was rescheduled, and he showed up late. A few sentences into our greetings and I became ecstatic--not only was he on shrooms, he had LOTS more to share. JOY!

Beach day went on. I got bitched out for smoking a cigarette on a school trip, but was too drunk to really get it, and as I was a senior they didn’t really care. Played in the water a bit. And then the day started to look up.

We all got ready to leave. We loaded up the trunk and crammed the car full of…us. There was me, (Luis) Chay (dude with the shrooms), Neil, Trevor, and Steph (Trevor’s girlfriend). We were all gonna go over to Trevor’s place in Berkeley for the night. His mom’s a stoner and hella chill with us doing our own thing. Great place to party at. Immediately on the car ride, Chay and Trevor began to feel sick. It was a windy road, and they were the only two on shrooms at that point. Chay felt really crappy, so we took him home for the evening. Before he left, he gave Neil and me some shrooms for the night, and… what’s this? “Max ground them up for me and put them in capsules. They’re a lot easier to take that way!” Cool, a new method of ingestion for me. This could be fun, especially since they were from our usual dealer whose pot and shrooms are properly potent. I have no idea why Max (NOT the dealer, just a friend) did that for him, but hey, don’t look a gift horse in the mouth, right?

Wow! I’ve already written this much and MY trip hasn’t even started! I wish English papers were this easy and fun. Well, I’ll skip the whole peeing on the street/Trevor was sick a little longer/other miscellaneous unrelated items and get to it!

Trevor was feeling better, so he and Steph went into his bedroom to… conduct business. Which left Neil and myself outside. The ganja was in Trevor’s room, damn! You know what that meant. We had some cokes and pretzels outside, so Neil and I put a little something in our stomachs—we both knew that if we didn’t, the shrooms would be rather harsh on our stomachs. Besides, we would eventually need SOME food, and eating while gurping just isn’t pleasurable. Neil busted out the blue plastic egg containing our evening’s fun. Within we found nine large gelatin capsules. Now, Neil tends to only smoke pot, so shrooms are a big event for him. As such, he wanted to take it slow—a pill every few minutes. I, on the other hand, wanted to just shove my share in my mouth and sit back and watch the…whatever I saw. Even so, I respected his wishes. We went slow, eating pretzels in between pills. When we’d each consumed four, we broke the last capsule in half and consumed the contents. Looking at how much was stuffed into each of those little pills caused me to realize how much of a trip I was about to have. I’m not sure how much I took, but it was probably a little over 2.5 grams. I was only expecting a nice body high, but an eighth would be quite a trip.

Minutes passed. I lit a cigarette. Nothing. I can usually feel shrooms within fifteen minutes, so after a half hour, I was a little bummed.

And then I got blind-sided.

What I believed happened was that it took a while to digest the outer capsule, but once it was gone, the shrooms kicked in fast. I went through all of the coming up stages rather quickly—I was a bit anxious, then my legs started to tingle and get restless…

Then I was gurping.

Trevor and Steph came into the back yard. We just chilled for a while as I enjoyed my trip, and Neil went from his normal flamboyance to super stereotypical gay guy. Let it be known—gay friends are really fun, ESPECIALLY for straight males. But I digress.

There is a huge black cauldron in Trevor’s backyard that we use as a fire pit. It caught my eye and I managed out, in a shroomy way (I think), that we should have a fire. Something happened I didn’t quite catch, but we had a fire going soon. It was nice, but also a bit odd that it was only about 3:00 in the afternoon and we had a fire blazing. Oh well.

Someone then came up with the idea of getting marshmallows and making S’mores. “Oh, yeah! Great idea! Let’s go!” I lied. I really just wanted to move about and do something. S’mores sounded really gross.

We went inside and gathered our things and set out for the Andronico’s that was about ten blocks away. The walk was nice, albeit super short feeling. When we arrived at the parking lot, which was slanted down towards the store, I began sprinting, nearly lost control, then stopped abruptly. No one even looked at me. Ah! I was in Berkeley, and no one gave a fuck about what I did!

The four of us entered the store. It was intense beyond all belief. Neil and I were flipping out at the checkered tile and bright lights, so we had to leave. Trevor was tripping pretty hard by now, but Steph dragged him along. Neil and I sat outside by the little thing where they keep all of the grocery carts.

Two things here: First, when I shrooms, I NEED cigarettes. Gurping means I’m about to spend about $20 on four packs for the night. Second: Steph absolutely hates cigarettes. Poor Trevor quit for her, but will smoke a few when he knows he won’t see her. Neil doesn’t smoke tobacco, but he doesn’t care at all. Steph will literally judo chop them in half when they are in your mouth.

So, I saw this as an opportunity to have a smoke—they would take a while in the store as Trevor was gurping and Steph was stoned as hell. I reached into my pocket and produced a Marlboro. Yummy! I reached for my lighter and… I reached for my lighter and… I tried all of my other pockets… NO!!! I left my lighter in the backyard! Neil? Nope, he didn’t have one either. It was with his pipe in the backyard. I was too shroomed out to ask for a light, and too shroomed out to notice this. A small, elderly Chinese guy walked past. I stood up, towering about a foot over him, in all black with spikes and studs everywhere.

“Hey, man, you got a light?” I showed him my unlit cigarette. Scared, he faced me, put up his hands and said:

“No, no, sorry, so sorry. I don’t smoke.” He began to shuffle away. Then he suddenly turned around, came back and produced, from nowhere, two things wrapped in a white paper. He tossed them to Neil and me and said, “Don’t smoke!” and shuffled off again. We were a bit confused. When he turned the corner, Neil and myself looked at each other. Then, exactly on cue, we both began laughing hysterically, totally lost on what had conspired. Let me say that I may look scary to some, but I’m a lover, not a fighter. I looked at the things he gave us. The wrapper said they were some bizarre Chinese plum candy. NOT touching those. Now that I think back on it, they were probably laced with LSD or something, but oh well. Can’t change the past!

Suddenly we were back at Trevor’s. The fire had died, so we built it back up. I sat right next to it. Trevor went inside and came out with an acoustic guitar. He came up to me, handed it to me and said, “Play.”

“Dude, I’m too fucked up. I can’t play anything! Hahahaha!”

He asked that I play “Wish You Were Here” by Pink Floyd. I commented that I was a metal head, you fuckin’ hippie.

“So? You listen to Floyd, too.”

I managed the first riff, then the first G when the lyrics start. And that was when I peaked.

Everything was distorted. I stopped with the guitar and put it down. I got everyone’s attention and said, “You guys… I’M TRIPPIN BALLS!”

I looked at the fire pit, which was literally six inches from the bench I was on. The flame was beautiful. And then I noticed the log. There was a log that wasn’t burning well. It was standing up from the flames a bit. Nothing interesting. And then it inhaled. The log began to breathe. In. Out. In. Out. It began growing and shrinking, getting longer and then shorter. The wood was crawling with something. I thought they were ants, but upon closer inspection, I saw that the bark itself was crawling on itself. I stared at this log for a good fifteen minutes as the others messed around by me.

I then proceeded to pick up the guitar. I think I was planning on serenading the log. But then I noticed the beauty of the guitar. The weight of the body on my lap was wonderful, and the strings and neck were almost orgasmic in my hands. I played a few random, off key notes, kind of heavily, more falling on the strings with my hand than plucking them with my fingers or pick. I turned the guitar over and looked at the inside of the body. I laid my head down on the hole and peered in. Blackness. Then, I began to stick my hand in. It went straight down. My hand. My wrist. My forearm. All the way to my shoulder, I stuck my arm down into this bottomless abyss in the guitar. There was no bottom! Arm never touched anything once past the strings. It was a portal to another dimension. It was amazing.

Apparently, Trevor’s mom asked him “Why is Luis licking the guitar?” I don’t recall doing THAT, but I wouldn’t doubt it.

After the guitar episode, we went inside to watch a little T.V. We all crammed on the couch and watched "Seinfeld" or something. I don’t know. I wasn’t paying attention to that. I was paying attention to what would be the theme of the rest of my trip—eyes.

I looked at the wall over the T.V. It was covered in eyes. They weren’t scary, though it was a bit startling at first. They were just eyes, about twenty or so huge eyes, across the wall. I looked away and saw eyes on the lampshade. I stuck my finger out. Oh god! It blinked! How cool! I was incredibly intrigued. I closed MY eyes and focused on these eyes, trying to either make sense of their significance or just see more trippy stuff. The close-eyed visuals I got were intense—it looked like one of those visualizers on WMP or iTunes. I was flying through a sky of changing, psychedelic colors, and in the center, not moving, or perhaps moving at my rate, was a green, wire frame eye. It kept rotating, showing me all angles. I opened my eyes. The T.V. made some irritating laugh track noises. Steph, Neil, and Trevor stared at it like useless blobs. I felt… I don’t want to say superior. What I felt was liberated for a moment with my eyes closed, then trapped again in reality, though my reality was still quite distorted. The pseudo-superiority was because I was the one to have this epiphany, not them. They all were still plugged into the matrix, but I could come and go as I pleased.

We had a little dinner. I got some food but didn’t really eat. I just kind of played with it. Feeling a bit dizzy, I looked down from the stool I sat on. Everything zoomed out. The floor fell away, then turned to a dark hole with a slight blue and pink metallic shine every now and then. Pretty. They all went back to the T.V. I went outside to have a cigarette and get away from that boring, slave driving drivel. The television was honestly causing me emotional pain. I felt like, “Why are you wasting your time sitting there? There are so much more fun things to do! Let’s go outside! Let’s walk around! Let’s be crazy!”

I got outside, saw Trevor’s stepdad, and panicked, turning around and going back in. Trevor said it was okay, so I went back out.

It was dark by this point, so the backyard was illuminated by a super bright halogen work light clamped to the bench I’d been sitting on with the guitar earlier. Trevor’s step dad was out there practicing for a Frisbee golf tournament that started the next morning. He’d had quite a few beers and was obviously drunk. Relief! He was too drunk to be able to tell I was gurping off my ass.

I lit up a cigarette as he asked how things were going. I quickly blurted out fine, trying to seem sober. He asked something else. I didn’t get the question and just giggled. Fuck it. I was shrooming way to hard. I decided to just go with it and not try to act sober.

We actually had an okay talk, of which I remember very little. I was very happy, though, because I had my cigarette, it was rather cold out, which felt really good on my skin, and the sky, along with it’s rainbow, fluorescent shimmer, had one large eye looking down. And then I looked away. I looked up, and all of the eyes were back. It was like a little party between the eyes and me. I never wanted to go back inside, but I was running low on smokes and didn’t want to bother Trevor’s stepdad any further. I went inside.

They were all still on their asses watching T.V. I convinced them to do something, though I have no idea what. We were all standing in the kitchen. Suddenly, there was barbecue on the counter. I guess that was what Trevor’s stepdad was doing. We started putting marshmallows in the microwave, just to watch them get huge. Fun.

Then we suddenly started to play Scrabble. BAD idea if you’re shrooming. I kept thinking I was dropping pieces when I wasn’t, and dropping them when I thought I was not. We eventually gave up on competitive play (I was winning, thank you very much!) and real words and just started having fun. Steph played “DOGOD.” I played “WOOT.” I forget past that. All this while, I was pacing like a caged animal, wanting to go outside, knowing the eyes were waiting to play.

We were all really tired by now (and I was STILL getting sand out of my clothes from the beach) so we plopped on the couch AGAIN and watched T.V. Neil, so characteristically, chose to watch a “Will and Grace” marathon. Sure, why not. It was somewhat humorous, though I was really lamenting about the fact that I was coming down more than focusing on the show. We all slowly went to bed, Neil being the last.

All in all, it was a great trip, but, especially now in retrospect, I REALLY wish I’d been able to go out and actively be with people. I felt very in tune with nature, something that doesn’t happen often, and I wanted to run with it. Oh well, there’s always my next trip!

Peace guys,
Luis

Any questions or comments? Email me at cldarmy13@aol.com