All Hallow's Eve
There was a sign on the ice machine at the Co-op that said “Don’t Use the Ice ~ You’ll Get Sick.” There were massive thunderstorms that day. The power had gone out three or four times. It was Halloween and celebrations seemed eminent. My Mom was having surgery on her spine. Yitzhak Rabin would be assassinated in a crowded square at the weekend. I was planning on taking a dose of psychedelic mushrooms as my main treat for tricks, or maybe treat for kicks. I had just gotten a new car, well a used car but new to me.I mention all these things cause they all play an important part in the losing of my mind that occurred on Halloween Night in the year nineteen hundred and ninety five. All those play important parts with the exception of the assassination of the PM of Israel. I just remember that happening about the same time. So let me start here ~ there was a guy in Co-op who promised he could get some mushrooms and he came through.
For those of you that have never ingested magic mushrooms, some of this may sound outlandish. For those of you that have indulged in the psychedelic fungi then you will know what I am talking about like you know the smell of your grandmother’s house. Some of this may be hauntingly familiar. The whole day was strange with the thunderstorms and that doomsday message on the ice machine. I shouldn’t have tripped that night but self-control and knowing what’s good for me has never been my strongpoint. Everything seemed OK until I got that psilocybin coursing through my system.
When I got my batch of shrooms from the acquaintance whose name has been lost in the mists of time the goods were old and had dried up and turned to dust. Most of the time when you get mushrooms they look like mushrooms. When they get old and dry out it is very hard to regulate one’s dosage. It’s always sorta hard to regulate the dose with mushrooms cause of varying potency. I ate an amount, which I would soon describe as ‘way too much.’ First, I dosed too early. I must have eaten my allotment at about 8:30pm. I should have waited a little longer. Second, since what I consumed was basically powder it entered my bloodstream way too quickly. I ate my shit and went out into the courtyard to sit by the pool and chat and wait for something to happen. I was talking to Mattais from Holland when the colors and patterns started to appear on the surfaces of ordinary objects. Things started to go crazy in my mind less than thirty minutes after ingestion.
I quickly became unable to converse in any normal human way. I left the Co-op and my friends getting ready for the wicked night to come. It had just gotten dark and I had just started tripping and I decided to go for a walk on campus. Oh… many a night I spent wandering the UT campus just tripping my nuts off. I walked all the way to the Art History building where there flows a little crick that runs off into Waller creek. I sat down beside that crick and let my demons take over my head.
As I had mentioned before I had just found out that my Mom was gonna be having surgery to fix a ruptured disk in her spine. I was worried about that. You should never, I repeat, never ever take any psychedelics if you are worried about something. Psychedelic states have a unique way of bringing that shit to the front of your mind and most likely amplifying it. But it wasn’t that sole fact that opened the floodgates for my personal demons. My Mom’s health was only the catalyst for the storm to come. Somewhere in the night as I sat by the creek and cried about my Mom and as the water trickled down towards the sea, my fears and my ability to think laterally came together to create what I believed was my last night on earth and possibly the end for humanity. Doomsday I tells ya.
As I made my way back to the Co-op the conspiracy came together in my mind. I was sick. I could feel it. My thoughts were confused, my vision was compromised, my breathing was shallow, all this added up to only one possibility, I was sick. And then everyone around me seemed sick. I reasoned that it must be the water supply. I mean the sign on the Ice had said it all “Don’t Use the Ice ~ You’ll Get Sick.” Some nefarious force must have poisoned the water supply and now everyone was gonna die on Halloween and the devil was finally gonna win and the shit was hitting the fan. I could feel it.
By the time I got back to the Co-op I was in a panic and I tried to warn the others. I found Jenny and Eamon in the commons. Their faces were already warped by the sickness. I tried to talk to them but as a result of the oncoming infirmity we were unable to communicate and I grew further despondent. Marcus rescued me from trying to make sense and he took me outside for a smoke. I tried to explain to him what was happening but it wasn’t coming out clear. Marcus insisted that I go get ready to go out. He said we would be leaving for the buses in twenty minutes.
I went to my room. I flew into a rage. I started knocking things off shelves and tearing up books. Someone got Marcus and he came in and tried to calm me down. He said that I had to change clothes that I had shat my pants. I tried to tell him it was from sitting by the crick but at this stage communication had been flushed down the drain along with the whole of human history. Somehow I got myself together enough that I thought I was going to go down to Jester and get on a Capitol Metro bus and go downtown and celebrate Halloween with all the other doomed souls.
As myself, and my cadre of international students/friends from abroad, walked toward the bus pickup the conspiracy against all that was good and alive on earth became clearer and clearer. Now I could see the caustic plan in all its evil grandeur. These people had come from all corners of the earth to celebrate the demise of the known universe. How devious the plans of the devil can be I thought or I thought that I reasoned. Of course reason was trickling toward the sea with the runoff from the day’s storms. Reason had left my side about two hours previous. Reason had failed me from square one, which was when I was holding that bag of psychedelic powder in my hand and deciding how much to eat.
When we got to the busses I could tell that the crowd of people had already succumbed to the water borne sickness. No one seemed to know what was going on. In Austin on Halloween you can take a bus downtown but to me it seemed like state sponsored madness. I got on the bus but I knew I was too far gone to enjoy myself on 6th street so I said goodbye to my friends, expecting that this would be the last time I saw them on this mortal coil, and I began to wander the campus once again.
Campus was pretty empty. Most folks were downtown or trick-or-treating or just enjoying life and not expecting for the world to end. I sat in front of the tower and prayed. Thoughts of revelations and ‘last days’ type theology swam in my head. I was sure that the end was coming that very night and I began to despair. I could hear revelry and helicopters. It was nighttime and the city seemed bright as day. This of course was my perception due to a combination of overcast conditions and dilated pupils. I began to think about my family. I “reasoned” that if I didn’t get to DFW that night I would never see my Mom and sister ever again. I took flight back to the Co-op. West campus seemed more sinister than I had ever felt before. I found my “new” car in the back parking lot right where I had left it. I got in the car without a shirt, without ID, and without any insurance and in my drugged out state I got on the highway and headed for the big D.
About halfway to Dallas, somewhere near Waco, I pulled off into a gas station. I checked the time. It was half past eleven. I had come back to my senses. I realized how foolish all that I had been thinking was and how if I had made it to my Mom’s house I would have felt fucking ridiculous. I turned around and went back to Austin.
I found Lena by the pool. She looked happy to see me and she asked what had happened to me. She said she was on the bus and I was right there and then the next minute I was gone. It has taken me most of nine years to pen what I had been thinking that night and I sure couldn’t tell her right then and there. I was glad to be alive. I was glad the human race was alive. I was glad I hadn’t gotten pulled over, no ID and no insurance and tripping and freaking out about the end of the world, that wouldn’t have gone over well with any law enforcement. Unfortunately I didn’t really learn my lesson, I took psychedelics a couple more times when my mental state was already a little fragile but I never quite freaked out like that again.
“Don’t Eat the Ice ~ You’ll Get Sick” was on the Ice machine cause the power had gone out and they didn’t want the Ice to melt. Duh.
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