vktr
Trash Lord
@ArcticJunky
The room ebbed with energy. The hazy blue light flickered as people slunk past, their voices inaudible over the thump of music that was generic beyond recognition. People told Aiden that dropping acid was like seeing things for the first time, which was a bland understatement into comparison to what he was experiencing. The bottles varying in contents and empty food boxes scattering the coffee table were captivating, the texture so visible and naked that he felt as though he could see the molecules they were composed of as they vibrated in his vision. They were somehow hilarious, just being there.
Underlying the fascination of the visual anomalies was a stress that he needed to be doing something, going somewhere, finding someone, but he was far enough gone from reality that he couldn’t place what it was, or if it existed in the first place. Part of him knew that taking hallucinogens around strangers was taxing, especially on the scale he was risking, but he neglected to remember how they made the people around him untouchable. He went to this party with a few friends, some of which offered him spiked sugar cubes. With a mentality of “why not”, he accepted more than he knew was healthy, urged by the promise of a thrill.
More people. They were a part of another world, blatantly unaware of the untapped intensity he was experiencing. The hallucinations tapped into his auditory senses, warping voices to sound ominously low or inhumanly high. To his left, a scruffed late twenties was having a conversation with a red head. He couldn’t read their body language, but his brain conjured paranoid backstories and conclusions to their conversation. The man might’ve said something to him, but he found it impossible to have any grasp on time. It easily could’ve been an hour since he turned away. He was struck by the pressure of adhering to social politeness. He fought to act normally, but couldn’t find a way to feel anything because he was experiencing everything at once. Thoughts formed and flashed too quickly for Aiden to be able to vocalize a response, and his jaw clenched in rotations as his tongue lay stupidly. It was as if he could see the tendrils of his brain in a physical sense, that there was a bubble in his head that displayed things to the conscious part of himself. Like where he thought of as home, where he fit as a being. The comfort of his bedroom tugged at him so strongly that if felt like part of his consciousness was in the other side of town, curled between a pile of pillows in his modest studio.
Numbly, and without thinking, he grappled with his phone, the illuminated screen seeming disgustingly small, far away, and alien. In his mind, he might be able to leave a message for his later self, the self that would awake through an invisible wormhole and be dumb, a lifeless putty. Messages pinged almost the top of his screen, but the reintroduction of social interaction was terrifying enough that he adverted his eyes.
He jammed his phone into his pocket just in time to secure it safely before the brunt of the effect hit his brain. The sensation of constantly falling to the left flooded his body and he struggled to remember what breathing felt like. I’m too high, he thought as the last concrete string of mental words before cascading into a blur of racing thought tracks.
Several hours later, he felt a though he’d traversed multiple universes, wrung out and exhausted. He’d become more accustomed to the sensations and was able to follow what was going on, but his brain still made nonsensical conclusions for things. The night had passed its prime, so the crowds had filtered out, leaving a handful of people that lived at the house and stragglers like himself who were too blasted to walk or call a cab home.
He hazily recognized his coworker Daniel, a lanky borderline douche who was attractive enough to receive love confessions on craigslist. Acknowledging the eye contact, Daniel joined of the musty sofa, leaning back like he was in a beach chair.
“Hey dude, having a good time?” Daniel asked with a drunken tilt. He wasn’t a bad person per say, so the question was genuine.
“Yeah, uh, tripping balls,” he laughed, picking at loose couch threads.
“No way? Nice. Yeah nice, how you feeling?-”
He must’ve blacked out or overloaded because the next shutter of awareness was his long term friend Ben was hauling him up his front steps. Ben’s girlfriend Tesa was trailing behind by the cobble entrance, tugging down her skintight dress and shifting in her heels. On the elevator ride to his fifth floor residence they held a dusty silence, undoubtedly guilty of Aiden’s state, being the ones who aided and encouraged him on his journey. Throwing each other weighted glances, the couple muttered to each other and he clambered with his front door.
“Thanks,” he slurred pathetically, raking his hair off his face and trying to keep his eyes steady. “Yeah, of course,” Ben said quietly with a nod. “Call if you need anything?” He offered with the reluctance of a man who’d be asleep within the hour and would prefer not to be bothered. Aiden wasn’t capable of anything more so he stiffly shut the door and stumbled into his bed, staring at the ceiling for an immeasurable amount of time before drifting asleep.
The room ebbed with energy. The hazy blue light flickered as people slunk past, their voices inaudible over the thump of music that was generic beyond recognition. People told Aiden that dropping acid was like seeing things for the first time, which was a bland understatement into comparison to what he was experiencing. The bottles varying in contents and empty food boxes scattering the coffee table were captivating, the texture so visible and naked that he felt as though he could see the molecules they were composed of as they vibrated in his vision. They were somehow hilarious, just being there.
Underlying the fascination of the visual anomalies was a stress that he needed to be doing something, going somewhere, finding someone, but he was far enough gone from reality that he couldn’t place what it was, or if it existed in the first place. Part of him knew that taking hallucinogens around strangers was taxing, especially on the scale he was risking, but he neglected to remember how they made the people around him untouchable. He went to this party with a few friends, some of which offered him spiked sugar cubes. With a mentality of “why not”, he accepted more than he knew was healthy, urged by the promise of a thrill.
More people. They were a part of another world, blatantly unaware of the untapped intensity he was experiencing. The hallucinations tapped into his auditory senses, warping voices to sound ominously low or inhumanly high. To his left, a scruffed late twenties was having a conversation with a red head. He couldn’t read their body language, but his brain conjured paranoid backstories and conclusions to their conversation. The man might’ve said something to him, but he found it impossible to have any grasp on time. It easily could’ve been an hour since he turned away. He was struck by the pressure of adhering to social politeness. He fought to act normally, but couldn’t find a way to feel anything because he was experiencing everything at once. Thoughts formed and flashed too quickly for Aiden to be able to vocalize a response, and his jaw clenched in rotations as his tongue lay stupidly. It was as if he could see the tendrils of his brain in a physical sense, that there was a bubble in his head that displayed things to the conscious part of himself. Like where he thought of as home, where he fit as a being. The comfort of his bedroom tugged at him so strongly that if felt like part of his consciousness was in the other side of town, curled between a pile of pillows in his modest studio.
Numbly, and without thinking, he grappled with his phone, the illuminated screen seeming disgustingly small, far away, and alien. In his mind, he might be able to leave a message for his later self, the self that would awake through an invisible wormhole and be dumb, a lifeless putty. Messages pinged almost the top of his screen, but the reintroduction of social interaction was terrifying enough that he adverted his eyes.
He jammed his phone into his pocket just in time to secure it safely before the brunt of the effect hit his brain. The sensation of constantly falling to the left flooded his body and he struggled to remember what breathing felt like. I’m too high, he thought as the last concrete string of mental words before cascading into a blur of racing thought tracks.
---
Several hours later, he felt a though he’d traversed multiple universes, wrung out and exhausted. He’d become more accustomed to the sensations and was able to follow what was going on, but his brain still made nonsensical conclusions for things. The night had passed its prime, so the crowds had filtered out, leaving a handful of people that lived at the house and stragglers like himself who were too blasted to walk or call a cab home.
He hazily recognized his coworker Daniel, a lanky borderline douche who was attractive enough to receive love confessions on craigslist. Acknowledging the eye contact, Daniel joined of the musty sofa, leaning back like he was in a beach chair.
“Hey dude, having a good time?” Daniel asked with a drunken tilt. He wasn’t a bad person per say, so the question was genuine.
“Yeah, uh, tripping balls,” he laughed, picking at loose couch threads.
“No way? Nice. Yeah nice, how you feeling?-”
He must’ve blacked out or overloaded because the next shutter of awareness was his long term friend Ben was hauling him up his front steps. Ben’s girlfriend Tesa was trailing behind by the cobble entrance, tugging down her skintight dress and shifting in her heels. On the elevator ride to his fifth floor residence they held a dusty silence, undoubtedly guilty of Aiden’s state, being the ones who aided and encouraged him on his journey. Throwing each other weighted glances, the couple muttered to each other and he clambered with his front door.
“Thanks,” he slurred pathetically, raking his hair off his face and trying to keep his eyes steady. “Yeah, of course,” Ben said quietly with a nod. “Call if you need anything?” He offered with the reluctance of a man who’d be asleep within the hour and would prefer not to be bothered. Aiden wasn’t capable of anything more so he stiffly shut the door and stumbled into his bed, staring at the ceiling for an immeasurable amount of time before drifting asleep.
