Scratching the surface with a psilocybin mushroom chocolate would be a good start, but I wanted to see between the chinks of reality’s armor. So I piled on with three hits of LSD, and headed to Mackenzie Park before the world started to melt. Sitting on the cliffs two hours later, the clouds had rainbow hues. There were little slits in the sky over the ocean. Bats? No, they weren’t really bats, but what were they? Birds? Were they even there? Consciousness was getting slippery. The goddess looking down at me couldn’t be real.
Confident that I was high as I could be, I decided to strip away the final layer of mundanity. Between two buds, I smeared on a mustard colored gob of DMT, the spirit molecule. The DMT immediately caught on fire when I touched a flame to it. Tamping it out with the lighter I inhaled once. Suddenly, I could see every crest of every ocean wave with startling clarity. There was a rushing sound, a buzz vibrating every molecule of my being. Careful now. One more hit? Alone, it was difficult to bring the pipe back to my lips, but I managed.
As I exhaled, a wave lept up the lava cliff, a foamy white hand waving ‘hello’ with such
flare, such… personality. I lay back with a prayer to understand life, to gain perspective on what it meant to be me, and closed my eyes.
I know what you’re thinking. Drugs. Drugs aren’t the answer. They only provide escape. Reality is the day to day grind. You might be right, but what I ended up seeing felt more real than washing the dishes or waiting in line at the grocery store.
There were cogs, gears in different shades of brown. The teeth were squared off, and they were layered over one another, slowly spinning. But I wanted to see beyond them. Fascinating as the cogs were, I knew they were only a wall of sorts, blocking me from… I wasn’t sure. With my eyes shut, I tried to glimpse around, tried to see beyond these cogs.
A light switched on in the upper left portion of my field of perception, and as I glanced up, I noticed a red ball floating in front of it. The red ball was small, and I knew there was someone behind the light, but I couldn’t see who. The ball began to float from one side to the other, the cogs spinning, seemingly going about their mechanical duty without any consciousness.
“Hey,” greeted a good natured male voice behind the light, “what’s the square root of… no one gives a fuck.”
There was something candid about the voice, and I peered, trying to see who it was. Without an accent, I thought he sounded like a typical white guy.
“What’s the quantum meaning of all the… no one cares!” he proclaimed with gusto.
I detected a cynical note, a jeering sort of tone in his voice. The ball floated back and forth, and there were bright lights in my periphery, framing the cogs.
“Life is really precious,” declared the voice. “Wait, no it isn’t. You could jump off the cliff right now, and no one would care.”
Now I was sure that this being was more than a bit malevolent, taunting me. Without mentally forming any words, I frowned, thinking that my family would surely miss me if I died.
“Yeah, they might miss you, but they don’t matter. Nothing matters!” He sounded cruel with a comical affectation.
With a wordless impression, this red ball character explained that everyone I knew would blip out of existence. We would all die, and no one would remember any of us.
“The big bang happened, everything expanded, and will go on expanding long after you’re gone. You don’t fucking matter in the least.”
This realization was quite disheartening. This was DMT, the spirit molecule? I had been much more pleased by the rainbow hued cloud goddess I’d seen before hitting the pipe. She had looked down on me with a kind benevolence. Before taking two tokes of the deemster, I had conjured a feeling of gratitude and thanksgiving. I had wanted to love and feel loved by…
“You got a great story, sure bro, but nobody fucking cares!”
Now there was canned laughter.
Flustered, I sat up, deciding I’d had enough of this red ball’s negativity. I was being trolled.
Opening my eyes, I looked out at a pixelated world, so obviously digital in nature. The ocean and sky were comprised of square dots, but be that as it may, I was stone cold sober. More sober than, well, sober. What was I doing with my life? Drugs. How stupid. I didn’t need drugs or sugar or any of the gnarly shit I put in my body. I needed to take my life more seriously. If there was no one that really gave a fuck about me, then I needed to give a fuck. No one would be there to tell me to get my shit together. Why would I consume anything that was unhealthy? Weakness and habit, that’s why. It was time to be real with myself. Time to evolve and drop all the poisonous crutches.
Though my eyes were open, the red ball being was still there, standing to my right, an invisible presence hovering over me.
“I just punked your ass, Mr. Mushroomjesus,” blurted the voice.
Blinking at his ominous tone, I was surprised at how keenly aware I was of his energy. He was right there, a shimmer in my periphery.
“Mr. I like purple, give me a fucking break. I just punked you!” The ghost was spitting the words with venom. “You piece of shit, thinking you want to know what’s real. You don’t give a rat’s ass about truth, and I just punked you.”
“Interesting perspective,” I mentally told the ghost without looking up.
“Interesting? Really, you loser?”
The ghost gave me quite the ear beating, a mind beating, and then it drifted off down the coast with a cruel laugh. Five minutes later, the DMT had worn off, and I could no longer see the pixelated nature of reality. My perception was still warped with mushrooms and LSD, but the smiling goddess in the clouds was a side note. The bats, sure I could still see them, but I knew they weren’t really flying out over the ocean. It was all mental fluff, distracting fluff, and I hadn’t come here for that.
As I climbed back into my wheelchair, I scoffed at the idea of suicide. How stupid, even if I didn’t matter. Truth. I cared about truth, didn’t I? A little irked at what the ghost had said, I suddenly felt alone. Mackenzie Park seemed mournful as the offshore breeze sang through the Ironwood canopy. I picked up my ukulele and strummed, but the bright and happy strings resounded with a hollowness that underscored the lonely vibe. I almost teared up.
“What’s the square root of… no one gives a fuck,” I repeated aloud to myself. I knew what he had meant. Obsessed with science and the workings of the brain, I often relayed what I learned to others. They didn’t give a fuck. Not really. All my stories, all my insights went in one ear and out the other.
I frowned. There was something deeply unsettling about the ghost’s words. It had obviously been watching me for quite some time. Had he really mocked the fact that I like purple? Who was that jerk?
It was a hallucination, not real, you might contend. Well, what part of reality is real? A mutual consensus of verifiable facts that can be scientifically validated, like rocks or trees, those things are real. A voice in your head on psychedelics is not only delusional, it’s insane. Is it? And yet, a year and a half later, I remember the encounter. The experience affected me profoundly, and I can’t help but wonder if I’ll meet that asshole of a ghost when I slip out of my skin. Until then, what’s the square root of… ha!
