High Thread - Page 431

-- My First Trip
It was a beautiful day, really spectacularly beautiful in the middle of the summer. I had spent the entire day outside playing- that is is ATTEMPTING to play soccer with my friends. The plan was this: When Colin gets back from work we all drop. There were 6 of us; 3 had never tripped before.

Finally, Colin comes riding down the street on his bike and immediately we rush the kitchen. The drugs had already been laid out according to person with a little name tag. Yeah, we were bored before we dropped... Evan was the most experienced one. He was taking five hits. It seemed like so much more than my meager two, and believe me it was. We all go and then...

We wait...
And wait...
And wait...

It'd been what seemed like forever and no one was really feeling much. We decided to smoke a bowl in the garage. The garage was a filthy, disgusting, pothead den. Eight chairs around a small card table that was littered with weed, cigarettes, trash from candy, and whatever other artifacts found their way here... I have very fond memories about this garage. This garage was a transformative place. It was magical. This garage is where I spent my first summer out of high school and my last winter in high school with the closest friends a guy could have. We'd worked together for years at a summer camp where children pay us to hit them with foam swords and tell them a story. This was my home.

-- Bong in face, shit better hit this... "Fuck I'm high..."

Then next thing I know I'm venturing out. It was about an hour before sunset. Out destination: A local lake. I'd walked here before many times, but until now I had never enjoyed the journey so much. I still felt pretty regular, high, but pretty regular; however, the jokes people told were funnier than usual and struck chords in my psyche.

My friend Riley loves basketball. His plan was to leave us to go play basketball until the sunset then hook up with us later --that never happened. He was dribbling as we walked along a deserted street to the public lake nearby. "Pass me the ball!" ... "Man this ball feels pretty good!" (laughter).

For most of my life I was pretty sedentary. I liked exercise, but I didn't enjoy sports and I was rather clumsy and overweight. I just didn't get what all the fuss was about, after all there are cooler things I can do with my imagination. Why would I waste time with these physical things?

Then it hit me. Like a truck. I had never interacted with an object like this before. Manipulating this sphere in my hands had instantly become the most crucial, lovable, pleasing, confusing, intriguing, deep, and most-of-all magical experience I have had until this point in my life. I bounced it. It came back to me. We had a relationship. Me and this sphere. I threw it in the air. I caught it.

I opened my eyes wide and starred at my friend Riley mouth agape. With enthusiasm he looks back at me and bellows, "YEAH?!" I jumped and squealed in excitement, "YEAH!!!"

Suddenly, I was a child again. At merely the age of 18 I had lost sight of what binds me to this physical realm. This body is how I enter the world. Without it my mind, if I had one at all, would be ghostly and glamour-less. A shadow of this temporary vital thing, my own flesh! How I'd abused it with ice cream and pizza! Sitting and hunching!

What was I doing?!

We were in public. The six of us boyhood friends laughing about the MOST obscure shit. We were making so much noise and were obviously on a drug of some kind. Evan had been unusually quiet and then he burst,

-- "People."

And there was silence for a moment. We were walking along a bike path having just exited an underpass. We jokingly had refereed to it as "Der Unterpass" accompanied with raucous giggling. We could see the lake about four football fields away, it was so pretty. So pretty I am useless in describing it. The sky had turned purple and the lush grass on the mountain was swaying in the calm breeze creating ripples down the rockies.

"Hey" was all we got from this passerby who seemed unfazed by our antics. I don't think she had seen us in full force. Quickly she walked along the path in the other direction which, for us, might as well have been the funniest shit that had ever happened. I was crying with laughter now. Doubled over clutching my chest as I stumbled along the path. Another group of people walked passed this time without a word. Then a woman looked at us making fools of ourselves.

This woman gave us one look and a smile cropped over her face that could only mean one thing. She had experienced this. This indescribable reality that is LSD. She grinned from ear to ear and gave us a knowing nod as she passed. She giggled herself even. Somehow the fact that she understood halted the laughter like a dam that was about to break. As soon as she was just barely past us the thunder struck again. This time so strong I actually fell down in the grass. Squirrley and Colin joined me.

Picking myself back up again we came across a pond. It was a little moon shaped puddle where a couple clearly out to have a nice picnic was sitting. In our acid stupor we wandered closer. At this point Riley was giving a play-by-play breakdown of how silly we looked. Still howling with laughter I watched the couple turn and look at the spectacle we were. Riley, talking loudly, wandered up to the water... no into the water. He walked in a ways using a phrase I can still remember:

-- "I am shirtless, knee deep in a lake, holding a basket ball, staring directly into the camera, grinning my ASS off, TRIPPING LSD! How's that for your album cover art David Blaine?!"

In combination with the couples reaction and Riley's antics I lost it. I thought I'd lost it before, but I'd really lost it now. I was floored. Rolling in the grass gasping for breath. Finally, I'd recovered to look up.

Evan's face was stoic and looked lost in thought. He looked at Colin and told Colin he wanted to go back to the house. "Back home?!" I thought? WHAT?! How could you miss this world of nature and beauty and sooo much fun. Colin seemed to realize the semi-seriousness of his request and raised his voice and said, "Anyone want to go back?"

Riley, "HELL NO!"

Evan had always been like the older brother I never had. I offered to go back with him. Squirrley and Daniel were both down for anything. The four of us trudged back the way we came. Leaving Colin and Riley to ruin another persons day...

-- "People?!"

Is what I said when we crossed "Der Unterpass" again. The walk home was another side of acid I hadn't experienced yet. The many layered way of thinking it can bring. Just saying these words was enough to spark a conversation I'll never forget. We discussed interactions with others the whole way back to the house.

Squirrley is the prepared one. He's the boy scout. He carries a multi-tool with him at all times. He smokes weed all day, every day. What's Squirrley? On it. "On it?" you ask. On, weed. On, getting shit done. On, more weed. On, having what we need in times of stoner crisis. Squirrley is on it.

The door from the back porch shut with a slam and Squirrley screamed something about Strawberries. He had bought a pack before we had started. Evan was acting quite distant and didn't react, but me and Daniel ran straight for them. God they were tasty. Squirrley walked over to Evan and offered him one pretending it was like a sacrifice to the gods. Evan took it and his face lit up. He pulled it out of his mouth and just gawked at the fruit. He said, "Whoa." And clearly the aftermath of the strawberry was just as intense as the thing. He looked at us and said, "The whole world is melting."

After some time I really really really really REALLY wanted to go back outside again and meet up with Riley and Colin. We left Evan to his own devices like he requested. Evan went to go play CoD and apparently it was rather realistic.

-- "RILEY, COLIN!!!"

I screamed and ran at my friends when I saw them by the lake. They were standing in a field right next to the lake, laughing, as expected. When I finally came into reasonable conversation distance they both had something to say, but seemed unable to manage to get it out. After a few minutes of laughing for laughters sake they finally pulled it together to point at a tree by the bike path we had come on to get here.

Colin is kind of a dick when it comes to people. He will be loud and obnoxious to strangers. He's horrible when he's drunk. Acid was just as bad.

In some identical twin style finishing each others sentences way Riley and Colin explained this:

"So that tree right there. We were walking by it and I was laughing about how beautiful everything was." -Riley
"I was walking by it and I look at the tree and say, yeah it's what it looks like." -Colin
"I was starting at the mountains thinking about how amazingly silver and shimmery they look." -Riley
"I explained no those two people are having sex behind that tree." -Colin
"I was standing looking in slightly a different direction, thinking about how awkward it would be to walk into people having sex right now. I turned to look at Colin to explain how could that possibly be 'What it looks like'" -Riley
"When I pointed at the two teenagers about thirty feet away obviously having sex." -Colin
"As they pull up their pants and duck behind the tree I realized that it was actually happening right now." -Riley

Finally, once it was explained we were in hysterics again. I asked well where did they go then? Colin said they were still there on the other side of the tree. Riley and Colin had walked about a football field away from the tree, but were still howling with laughter. I said... You didn't walk away and let them leave? No.

Right about then two teenagers start walking along the bike path away from us towards "Der Unterpass." I lost it again.

Riley started explaining what Colin and he had been talking about in the time we were gone and how indescribable this feeling is. When I collected my shit enough to stand he was telling us these phrases that Colin and he had been pondering which sent me into LSD internal dialogue again.

-- "Where is the floor?"

He asked. My thought process was, well, acidic. I started thinking about where the floor was as in the ground. But then I thought about the floor as a concept that a person with a microphone or a strong presence has. Then my brain twisted around ideas of this concept having a place in the world as in a physical location as well as a "place" in a metaphorical and divine sense. When I caught the other phrase Colin was intrigued by. "Who has the ball?" The two mixed and I was sent into the cavernous pit that is your brain on LSD.

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