I had completed my first two semesters of college with a 3.8 GPA. It should have been a 4.0, but I forgot to include citations in a final paper. It was the first weekend since school had ended and I stood in my room holding a vial in my hand. An inch tall, a bit thicker than a pencil, it contained two purple microdots. I cradled it, staring, wondering. Did I really want to do this? Did I want to be the Serpent in the Garden of Eden? Tracy had expressed interest in trying acid. Before, I had encouraged it. Now, I didn't know. Did I want to send her down the same path I'd traveled? The moment of truth was approaching, in a green Jeep and I was growing anxious with doubt. Maybe I should flush them down the toilet and that would be the end of it. I wouldn't have to think about it again. But then...

That soft, familiar knock came at the door. My uncertainty vanished, as it always did when I heard that sound. I opened the door and hugged Tracy, maybe for the last time. The fair-skinned angel with the long dark hair and perfectly-shaped brown eyes. Innocent and young, perhaps now only in my memories. What I was about to give her would change her forever. She came inside and we walked into my room, closing the door behind us.

"I'm not trying to scare you, but you know once you do this, you'll never be the same."

"You're OK," she smiled in such I way I could never doubt she loved me.

"But sometimes I wonder if I would have been better off never having done this. I mean, I don't regret anything. I never will regret anything. I just want you to be sure."

"You said it makes you see things differently..."

"It does."

"My paintings suck. I want them to be different."

I hated it when she said that. That girl couldn't produce anything that wasn't beautiful.

"I want to see things differently. I'm an artist. I should see things differently."

She had a point there. Her certainty convinced me. "OK. You're right. Let's go for a ride!"

I made sure I had a couple of blue Valiums - 10mg - in my pocket in case of a bad trip and we made our way to the Jeep. "Drive careful. If we get busted with this shit..."

"Don't worry."

I didn't. I trusted my very soul with her.

We drove to the park with the Beatles' "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" playing on the cassette deck. We approached the airport and, off to the side, there was a hill where a bridge was being constructed for a new highway. A giant mound of sand was piled next to the new road which ended right where the bridge was being built. I had noticed it before with interest and kept my eye on it as it drifted off into the distance. It was so inviting.

As we continued along the highway, I wanted to make sure Tracy was completely comfortable with everything. Maybe I was more concerned with my own uncertainty. "Remember... you won't 'get stuck this way!' Whatever happens, I'll be there. I'm not going to let anything bad happen to you."

She smiled and nodded in complete trust.

"Don't be self-conscious or anything. Just be free. Be yourself. I will always love you."

She giggled and put her hand on mine. I was certain she was prepared and I didn't want to overdo it - that might have the opposite effect from what I was after.

Deep down inside, I hoped her mother wouldn't haunt her today.

After fifteen minutes, we arrived at the park. It was Sunday afternoon and I was surprised there were so few people there. At least we wouldn't have to go looking for a private spot. All the better - more freedom.

We popped the pellets in our mouths and I threw the vial to whatever sprites or elves happened to be in the woods at the time. We sat around in the grass a while, drinking water and smoking Marlboro Lights and talking about Tracy's dad and her sister and her poodle and school and painting and what this journey was going to be like.

Then she giggled. I giggled, "You're starting to feel it now."

Her eyes widened, "Oh... wow... everything is so... beautiful!"

The spring air was warm with a touch of chill in the breeze. We stood holding each other swaying in the wind, our eyes closed, for what seemed like hours. Not speaking or laughing. Just swaying ever so slightly in whatever direction the breeze nudged us - we were a part of it now. That minute... that hour... that day... experiencing just existing with her had more meaning in it than the past two decades of my life. Eventually we let go of each other and kissed and opened our eyes to see what had changed.

The grass was thick and a lush green. In the distance, there were some purplish-pink flowers that had grown in a crescent-shaped pattern. The petals barely broke through the top of the grass. A speckling of blackbirds waded in the flowers, pecking around for food. Random blobs of people walked through the grass, admiring the flowers and feeding the birds. The sun was bright, the sky clear and the image so vivid it almost burned my eyes.

I put my hand on Tracy's back, gently sliding it to her shoulder. I pointed at the grass, the flowers, the birds, "A slice of watermelon."

She saw it immediately. Her face lit up. Her perception changed. She saw things differently now. There weren't birds. There weren't flowers. There wasn't grass. There was a single whole thing, "Oh my God!"

I had just witnessed a birth. A new person had been created. She would no longer see the world as a collection of separate objects classified by senses evolution randomly decided we needed. She saw the truth now. There was no distinction between matter and the forces that glued it together. The Universe was just a giant piece of marble, sculpting whatever forms it saw fit with no regard to our small expectations. We may see an eye, or a nose or a toe; but never all of David.

She held her arms out, the breeze blowing her dark hair back. I knew exactly what she was feeling. She was a part of everything around her. All the trees and clouds and birds and water and leaves and paper cups and stones. Everything we'd come here and observed before we were now a part of.

We ran about the park, barefoot, savoring every single gift Nature offered us that day. We played in the water fountain until the sun dissolved into a deep orange glow that seemed to ignite the clouds. I remembered the giant pile of sand on the side of the highway near the airport. I looked at Tracy with the enthusiasm of a child tearing open a Christmas present, "You wanna do something really cool?"

We hopped in the Jeep and headed for the sand pile, managing to get lost only twice. We parked at the end of the road, where construction had stopped. The sand pile was huge and we dove in without hesitation. The air had chilled since the sun had gone down, but it kept us comfortable as we labored to shape the sand pile with our hands and legs and bodies. We worked for hours, sweating in the cool night until we had created a Sun and a Moon, both with faces smiling at the traffic that passed by on the highway below. The sky was beginning to take on a faint blue glow as morning approached.

We made love there in the sand, sometime between night and day. The acid had worn off significantly by then, but I could still feel it. I think. Maybe it was something else now. That oneness of things existed between me and Tracy. One heart pounded against the other, each with its own beat, both contributing to a new rhythm. I couldn't tell which was hers and which was mine. It could have been her blood flowing through my veins, her sweat evaporating from my skin. Why did our consciousness have to remain separated? That stubborn, elusive thing we call "I." I couldn't even define what "I" was.

Then that warm explosion began to flood me. The moment of creation. The Big Bang. An incomprehensible chain of events set forth so many unimaginable years ago that all impossibly culminated in this event. Two beings, aware. Aware of themselves, aware of each other, aware of the Universe. But we weren't separate. Nothing was separate. Like the watermelon in the park and the smiling Sun and Moon in the sand, everything was one, connected by different things - sometimes by subatomic forces, sometimes by gravity, sometimes by electromagnetism. None of that mattered to the Universe. My consciousness was its consciousness. Tracy's consciousness was its consciousness. It was self-aware, seeing different parts of itself through different eyes, just like my two eyes formed a complete image in my mind.

And in that way, I realized we were one.

Posted by DevilMonkey at 6:30 PM

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