Wooden Apples

I was sitting around the kitchen table Thanksgiving day totally baked out of my mind when my dad walked in.
I sat calmly behind my eggnog and pretended nothing was going on as he began to rant and rave about mushrooms. I didn’t take him very seriously because hes always got some damn new craze. (Last week he was planning to go to South America to dig up Inca treasure). Seeing as how I had nothing else to do I offered to take him to the secret picking spot. Of course he jumped at the opportunity.
After a fifteen minute drive we reached the secret spot and I, still being completely stoned from an excursion in the woods earlier that day (whole nuther story), began picking the biggest and healthiest cyanennences mushrooms I had ever seen. And after another fifteen minutes I had filled three 32 ounce slurpy cups.
Anyway, we got a whole fuck load of the little bastards and it wasn’t until the day after the day after Thanksgiving that something was done about it.
Here is what happened.
1) Put about 45 mushrooms in paper bag. Put paper bag in backpack. Put two apples and two tangerines in backpack. Put on backpack.
2) Got good old friend Max
3) Decided to go to the big tree
4) Walked for miles on logging road
5) Stopped at impossible forest (which one must go through to get to big tree) and ate the shrooms. We each had about nine or ten.
Dan (me) -“Feel anything?”
Max - “Not yet.”
6) Make our way through impossible forest to big tree.
7) Sit by huge tree. Take off backpack. Examine remaining shrooms. Have one.
Dan -“I don’t feel anything.”
Max- “How long has it been?”
8) Wait.
9) Begin to wonder if anything will hap…..ooooo
Dan -“I think I will live here.”
Max- “Wow, it’s so nice.”
Dan- “Lets make or way over to the light and the wind.”
We began to walk through the impossible forest. It was a forest of life and death. Huge trees had fallen everywhere ages ago and the trees that grew up through their decaying bodies were tall and thin. It was a chess game to move about in. I decided it was to hard for me to do so I instead moved my body through it. My body, which was not me, was working just fine. I was pleased that I had the privilege of controlling it.
Dan- “Look!! I can move anywhere.” My body yelled as it jumped from log to log. Max was behind, moving underneath some fallen trees, I knew he was there but my body couldn’t see him. It only saw where it was going, and that was ok with me.
We finally arrived at the edge of the impossible forest. I was smiling inside as well as out. Max and I began talking about how good life is and how the wind blows so. Then, as if bored with the conversation, we began playing catch with an apple. It was magical. The apple sounded like wood when caught and smelled like a beautiful moment.
(Now, I can’t say this was a out of body experience…but who I was and the body named Dan who walked around, were two different enigmas.)
I moved back to the big tree. Max did too. We sat. I peeled a tangerine and gave a section to Max, who was smiling and happy about everything and nothing. However, upon receiving the section of tangerine…he became giddy with joy! I smiled like a grandfather and gave him the rest of the tangerine one piece at a time.
Max- “Look at all the things that I have come to possess!! I love them all!!”
I began to investigate the quantity of mushrooms remaining. About 13. I ate a few.
Then, like snow covering a field the erg to travel built up inside us.
1) Put paper bag in backpack along with half eating apple and tangerine peels
2) Put on backpack, tighten straps, take big breath and stretch arms.
Dan- “And we’re off the monkey cried.”
Max- “Right toe, jolly good.”
3) Make way out of impossible forest to logging road.
4) Walk down logging road.
5) Avoid stepping on giant rocks that weren’t there before
6) ….decide what where the hell we’re going.
At this point both of us were so euphoric about the world and life, we just decided to walk around on logging roads. After a while we ended up at a friend of ours house, and we felt so damn good that we walked right in a had some leftover pie. Knowing our social limits we left in good taste and walked home.
So, I get home. My dad sat smiling at the kitchen table behind a glass of eggnog.
“Guess what happened to me today.” he says.
“What?”
“I was busted by a cop for picking mushrooms out at the secret spot!!”
“Holly shit!! Were you eating them too.”
“You bet! And boy was I giggly during the arrest.”

Anyway, there’s the story. Right now I can say, that was one of the best days of my life. Max thinks so, and strangely enough so does my dad. So, go eat some cyan’s kids.