Rivers of the Mind Episode 1: Blue Topaz

Episode 1: Blue Topaz

The blue topaz crystal represented eternity—it had a pure soul, everlasting and serene. I found it in a creek bed in a little town in the Texas hill country. It was the state's stone. I'd hitchhiked there from Alabama, where I was looking for blue quartz and agate. Lots of blues—the people I met often seemed like they were in need of solace, relief. Agates were for people in need of protection—another popular gem. I found the blue topaz crystal I held in my hands—I already said that—I'm sorry. I strung it onto a hemp cord and kept it in a box with the others. That was three days ago—it was the crystal I'd dug out of my things this morning when I needed comfort. The acid from the day before was still lingering, and I felt uneasy. I checked the clock. 34 hours, 9 minutes. It had been a beautiful trip, just beautiful—but I was ready for it to stop. The place someone goes with acid isn't a place they should stay.

I had taken a lot. More than I'd expected to take. For the first hour or so I stared up at the sky. I was next to a place where someone told me that the government had found a UFO, a big compound. I was hoping to see something—but I quickly forgot about it, and instead just laid in the grass, staring up at the stars. Time seemed to melt away, and I let my mind drift, slowly breaking ties with my body and collapsing into the heavens, until I was surrounded in color. Moments from the last few years drifted over me. The lingering doubt that where I was was not where I was supposed to be melted away—I forgot the feeling that, at my age, with my education, I should have been somewhere in North Dakota working on an oil field, living with a wife and kids and a house and a car—not homeless, wandering the country looking for crystals and making necklaces. I forgot about it.

When the acid peaked, it must have been close to midnight. But I was too far gone to return to my body and to look at the watch. I was somewhere else, somewhere indescribable—when I started to feel myself fall. A great, titanic gravity began pulling me in, and I felt myself, just imperceptibly, slide into what I could only explain as a crack in the universe. Thick, glowing blue energy pulsed around me—I was surrounded by a chattering whirl of panicked voices and sirens—I thought for a moment that I was in the hospital. But I decided to only relax and let it be, to not get bogged down in what might be happening. Whatever was, was—that was that. I waded for a moment in the energy. I wondered what I was watching—hell? Souls were being sucked down into some kind of indescribable deep, leaving their bodies, as I sat still, entirely unmoved. I felt an energy wash over me, taking me under like a great wave at high tide, and spilling over my body. It surrounded me with sounds of peace—if I were dead, I was comfortable with it—I was comfortable, and could accept whatever came my way. A feeling like cold water pouring from my brain and down my bones overcame my body.

The sensation still lingered there as I woke up. It was five in the morning. Everything around me was a solemn and grave blue—the trees and rocks breathed, swirls of fractal patterns edged at the periphery of my vision. I was still tripping, and hard. I looked up and I found the grass around me bent outwards—I wondered for a while if I had been abducted by aliens, but ended up laughing the thought off and founded my bags, hidden underneath a tree. I took out the topaz crystal and waited to come down, overwhelmed with awe at the power of what had happened the night before. I breathed in--”Thank you”, I whispered to the earth. I could almost feel it groan in reply.

That was this morning, and I was still there, underneath the tree, still seeing everything around me breath, still seeing fractals out the corners of my eye, my mind still racing like your mind does sometimes when you're at the peak of a trip. I'd taken enough that I hardly expected to feel totally normal the next day, but not enough that I should have been feeling these effects this far into the day. I had wondered, for the last hour or so, what to do. I needed to come back to reality. Sometime just before nightfall, the idea hit me—vitamin B. Niacin. My friend in Philadelphia used that to come down from a crazy acid trip a few years back. I'd passed a Walmart while walking into town—I'd walk there, buy some vitamins, and then, hopefully, I could come down.

Walking to Walmart felt like it took eons. Cars dragged by, followed by brilliant tracers. Some of them looked like army cars—probably heading to the compound. A few folks glanced at me with suspicion, but mostly paid me no mind—I could feel their thoughts—how sad—how disgusting—so sad to see Heroin destroying this town—coming at me in overwhelming waves. I could hear the gears inside of their engines in minute detail, the sound of teeth gnashing down against gum behind barely cracked windows. I could see colors around the people—most of them were red, some grey, some violet and blue—halos of light behind their heads, and souls quivering behind their eyelids. It was an hour of this until I got to the supermarket.

The flickering of the lights in the parking lot burnt my head, I knelt down against the ground and held my hands over my eyes, at which point I was treated to a vivid swirl of aggravating yellows and blues. I heard a voice mumble nearby, “I can't let my kids see this. I ought to call the police”, my eyes darted up at her. “Huh?”, I asked. A woman, putting her child into a carseat looked back over her shoulder. “I didn't say anything.” The colors behind her eyes said she wasn't lying—I stared into them for a moment and I could tell she was a protector—almost an angel. I could feel pain behind them too—her husband was gone away again, and she was afraid to be sleeping in the house alone. I wanted to give her an agate, for strength—but I knew she was afraid of me. “Disgusting”, I heard her mumble in her thoughts, “He's staring at me—so creepy.”

I turned away quickly, and raced away. I can't hear her thoughts, I told myself. I can't hear anyone's thoughts. Another family getting into their car all looked at me. “Did he just say something?” I looked back at them. Their lips weren't moving. A teenage boy inside of the car pictured himself in my shoes with horror. His little sister thought I looked like someone from her history book. Their mother was preoccupied with whatever she was planning on doing with the guacamole they'd bought at the store—the father was fantasizing about killing me, but still, in the back of his mind, also thinking about the guacamole. It wasn't what you'd think. I walked quicker, trying hard not to start speaking. I can't hear their thoughts, I reminded myself, quieter. An old lady exited the Walmart and started heading towards me. Her cart croaked and groaned. She seemed tired, exhausted, deeply sad—I couldn't ignore her, even if what I imagined were her thoughts were probably delusions. I had to keep reminding myself.

“Can I help you?”, I asked as she opened the back door of her tiny red sedan. My own voice sounded raspy and earthen. She looked at me with a faint smile, but a deep seated fear. She was afraid, and pictured me trying to mug her. I shut my eyes, trying to seal off my own delusions that I could somehow tell what she thought. “With the bags—I can help you load up your car.”, I offered. “I don't have any more money.”, she said, thinking that I was a beggar, maybe. “I don't need any—it's alright.” Without another word, I lifted up the two heavier bags and set them in the back of her car for her. “Thank you young man.”, she said. Internally, I could hear her breath a sigh of relief that I had not tried to hurt her. I nodded and hurried in to the Walmart.

Grabbing a cart and struggling to right my course as I entered the store, I looked up towards the ceiling to try and read the signs. None of the letters made sense to me—all of them seemed jumbled and bizarre. The manager had immediately spotted me. I looked threatening. He was expecting me to steal something. In his mind, he imagined fighting me off with an assault rifle, then engaging me in a knife fight. If he could teach me a lesson, maybe Jill from customer service would finally see he was—I needed to stop. I couldn't hear what they were thinking. The colors I was seeing were from the acid. So were the voices. So was everything.

Trembling, I wandered towards what loomed like the pharmacy, and saw a row of green bottles I presumed to be vitamins. None of the labels made any sense to me. I couldn't read. Irritated, I threw up my hands and pondered trying to find a customer service person. The thought unnerved me—what was I thinking? I couldn't have a normal conversation right now. I couldn't handle that—but now I was stuck in the city. So many of those people in the parking lot had thought about calling the police. If I got arrested, I didn't want to imagine what could happen. Not here in Texas.

I heard a woman's footsteps come by, and I could tell by her thoughts that she was an employee. My delusional guessing was right. “I can't read.”, I said, lying, “My doctor said I need Vitamin B.” Feeling very sorry for me, she headed into the aisle, scanning through the pill bottles with her index finger until she found what I was looking for. She handed it to me, grinning. She was the first genuinely kind person I'd met. Her name was Meagan. She wanted to be a doctor, since her grandmother had cancer. Before that, she wanted to be a psychologist. Her older brother worked at a fast food place on the other side of town, along with two other jobs. Last summer, she'd taken five grams of mushrooms and experienced ego death while sitting waistdeep in the--I grimaced to try and keep these delusions from coming to my head. “Niacin. Do you have any niacin?”, I asked. She nodded again, and found a bottle. “Thank you so much.”, I said. “Do you need anything else? Food, water, blankets?”, she asked. “No, I'm fine.” I started to walk away. She thought about having more of a conversation with me. “Where is he from?”, she thought. I wanted to put my delusion to rest. “I'm from California.”, I said. She froze. “I was going to ask.”, she said. “I think I can read minds.”, I admitted, “What kind of doctor do you want to be? A neurologist?” She was afraid now, but impressed. It was correct. “Let me give you something.”, I said.

I slung around my pack and took out a pencil case full of crystals on strings. The manager was alerted to my presence. I knew, since apparently I could read minds now that I'd taken acid. I fished one out, “This is a tourmaline”, I said. She looked at it, visibly uncomfortable. “It will give you bravery”, I muttered, “Concentration, balance and confidence.” The manager swung around the corner. “Is this guy bothering you, Meagan?” Meagan shook her head, “No, no, I was just helping him find some vitamins.” She also thought I was psychic now, and was staring at the crystal with awe. “What are those? Where did you get those?”, the manager demanded. I froze, wary of his every thought. “They're mine. I make these for people at...at...concerts and...stuff.” I started shaking. “Oh yeah? Look pretty nice, how much do those fetch for?”, he asked, skeptically. “I don't charge money. They're healing crystals.” Raising his eyebrows, the manager scoffed, starting to reach for the box.

The two of us locked eyes, and he froze. I felt my consciousness stretch until it met with his—the two of them brushed up against each other until the walls between them burst away, and I was inside of his consciousness, aware of every movement of his mind and every feeling inside of his body. He tried to jerk away—I held him still. I held him still. I couldn't believe what was happening—I started to panic, to bring my consciousness back into my body. Instead, it tore him away with me, ripping his psyche from its native mind. I could see it peel out of his skull, oozing like a thick red water, inside of which a small person, shaped exactly like him, was trapped. Only he and I were aware of what was transpiring. He came closer and closer until he was sucked into my forehead and I could see him—the two of us were locked in a higher plane of existence which I felt come detached from the other pieces of my being—a long tunnel inside of my mind, covered in mirrors and bright blue lights, where he saw me running away from him—all the while with the image of my physical face stared down at him from high above. He was being dragged along by a powerful force, screaming and pleading for mercy. He looked back and could see his physical body, its expression vacant and pale. Flailing, he tried to dig his fingers into the sides of the tunnel—Meanwhile, I was unable to think of what to do—I was terrified myself—I'd never had another persons consciousness inside of my head before—the sensations were bizarre. I felt the region of my brain where I held him trap light up on my physical body, but another part of my mind was aware of this psychic plane to which I had transported him, and stood in front of him now. He was both a part of me, and apart from me. Hoping to at least make his stay inside my head productive, I tried to speak to him. “Please don't take my crystals.”

“Let me out!”, he screamed, “Please! Please let me out.”

“I swear I didn't steal these--”, I said. I tried to make him cognizant of what I had been through to collect them, sharing my memories. The force which had been pulling him deeper into my mind began to dissipate, and, panting, he collapsed to the ground. I watched him, for a little bit, wondering if he understood—wondering as well if, outside of my still-tripping mind, I was being attacked. This couldn't have been real—I tried to come to him gently, to help him up. He swung his arms up and tried to punch me—it hurt at first, until I realized that it was my mind—it was my decision if his punches could hurt me. He continued hurling his fists at my face and my chest, but I was unmoved.

I'd taken acid only four or five times before, and I'd learned much about consciousness, the nature of pain and suffering and death, the nature of love and hope and peace, the harmony at work in the world. I knew, if nothing else, that as angry as this man was, there was compassion that I needed to feel for him, since deep down, I understood that I could have been in his same place—walked in his same shoes—had circumstances been only slightly different. The anger and hate that the man carried in his heart radiated and lashed out at those around him, pelting them with negative energy, but also withering away his own soul. The two of us were conscious of each other as one. “Stop.”, he whispered, “Stop doing that.”

“Please don't take my crystals.”

He punched me another time and began to run, frantically. I chased after him. “Wait!”, I shouted. He only ran faster. I began to gain speed on him, grabbing onto his leg just as he tried to leap out of my eyes. Shockingly, I was now adrift between our two bodies—the field of unity which I percieved between us stretched as we flew closer and closer towards his face—I could see his iris, swirling in a fantastic array of colors and lights, growing larger, until I was swallowed up by his pupil. I was adrift, then, in a smoldering war zone, which had been bent around the rim of a pipe—a spiral of skulls and bones rose up into my face as I held on to his legs. He was panicking—I felt his stomach sink, an overwhelming, psychadelic nausea filling his guts. I released him, and held up my hand—the visuals of anger and hatred I could feel within him were ones that I had felt taunting me once before—with focus and concentration, I began to replace them with fields of flowers, sunshine, landscapes that I drew from his childhood. As I did, I watched him run from me, and let him do so—the further into his own mind he got, the more I struggled to fill him with light, pulling it out from whereever I could find it. He locked himself away. Feeling the energy of peace that I had spread through his mind surge around me, I began to speak. “Don't listen to what those people on the internet tell you. Someone like Jill doesn't need to see you pretend to be strong or powerful—maybe you can show her pictures of your dog or something.”

“Get. Out. Of. My. Head.”, he fumed. The flowers were torn away as a river of blood ripped through them, a vortex of rage colored like smoldering embers erupting from underneath me, trying to suck me in. I pulled myself out of it, surrounding myself in light. But the sudden assault had thrown me off balance and left me vulnerable to attack inside what I knew was an enemy mind. The manager appeared beneath me, and dragged me underwater. As I fell, I could see my face, my pupils dilated and my face blank. My eyes started to suck me back towards my mind, but I did not follow them. At first, I began to choke under the water; he punched me, knocking the teeth from my skull, and sending me reeling as the two of us sunk deeper and deeper into his psyche. A raging and violent music pulsated around us—I ignored him, breathing deeply and searching for my center. This was all in his head—all in my head as well—if I returned his assaults with compassion, nothing he could do would hurt me. His anger would fall on deaf ears. A light again began to surround me, and I choked out the sounds of music. Suddenly, he was choking on the water he had pulled me into—again, his punches did nothing. I rose up and shot back into my body. The field of oneness which had encircled us receded, and my consciousness reunited with the rest of my mind.

The manager, with tears streaming down his face, stared back in agony, trying to move his lips. His body was paralyzed even as his mind began to regain control. “Get out....get out...”, he struggled to say. Meagan had been watching us with horror, as had several of the other employees, and a group of customers. The employees were hoping, almost all of them, that I'd punch the manager in the face. Meagan was happy the manager made himself look like an ass. A single father with four children shook his head, thinking that I'd provoked something; two older women on their way to a bible study wondered if I was demon-possessed; a teenager who'd come there to buy DXM was hoping that we'd fight. I quickly jammed the box of crystals into the backpack, and ran out the store as quickly as I could.

Frantic and mortified at what I'd just done, I didn't stop running until I got to the road, at which point, I knelt down, clutching my head and stifling a scream. Had it really happened? Was this just the acid? It shouldn't have been the acid. But if it wasn't the acid, then it had really happened. I rocked back and forth. I was hyperventilating. I looked insane—I knew I did because at least four or five people stopped at the stop light thought so—I needed to relax. I knew I hadn't eaten for almost a day. Maybe if I got some food in my stomach, I thought, I could go back to normal. Maybe if I drank some water—I'd been sweating a lot. I thought that must have been what it was—I ran towards a gas station, jaywalking through traffic and stumbling on the curb. Four or five people honked at me. I felt like I could vomit.

I set my pack down near the door to the gas station out of courtesy and quickly ran to go get a bottle of water. Frantically, I tore three or four from the shelf—the front desk worker, who had immigrated from Pakistan three years ago, had already called the police twice that day and in retaliation for the stores owner paying him less than minimum wage, had decided he wouldn't stop shoplifters any more. He had a Master's degree in Chemistry and told his parents he would help them come to the United States once he found a better job. I grabbed a bag of chips, and headed to the counter, slamming my bounty down and avoiding eye contact. I pointed towards the rack of hot food, my finger shaking, “Can I get a bunch of those too?”

“The taquitos?”

“Sure.”

“How many?”

“Yes.”

He had guessed I wanted four, and I meant to say that was right, but I'd gotten ahead of myself. Rolling his eyes, he decided to give me five, since they were going to expire in half an hour, and he didn't care if the owner lost money at this point. He'd taken advantage of the workers as long as they'd worked there, and no matter what his parents said--I needed to stop reading people's minds. It was none of my business. I dug through my pocket for money. “Don't worry, man. I got you.”, he opened the register and quickly slammed it shut. Giving charity to the less fortunate was part of his religious duty—he fantasized for a moment about giving me all of the money in the cash register, but recoiled in shame at his impulse. “Thank you.”

I sat down outside of the store, and guzzled down a bottle of water as quickly as I could, breathing. The visuals began to subside, but in my mind, I still felt like I was tripping—I still felt a chorus of emotions, thoughts and memories all around me. My heart was pounding, filled with anxiety. I was alone, in a strange city, awash with psychic powers. I scarfed down the taquitos, as quickly as I could—I didn't feel hungry—but my mind knew I should be—the food felt strange, richly vivid but alien as it slid down my throat and into my stomach. I could feel the tingle of serotonin in my gut as the food began to slink into my belly. Rather than dissipate, my senses began to amplify—I could feel, in vivid detail, the texture of the pavement, the energy in the powerlines coursing through the air. The smells of the town, a strange mix of cow manure and petroleum, the perfumes and colognes and sweat dripping off of people, the latent humidity in the air, all filled my nose with a palpable thickness.

A hulking black pickup truck, which reeked of energy drinks and chewing tobacco, the sounds of a gunfighting podcast playing at a low volume from the cracked window inched into the parking lot. An ominous wave of darkness came over me, dominating the air—the spirit of the surroundings turned grey. I felt something coming. A wave of psychic pain and terror. The car had driven from Wichita. I searched through the truck—two minds. Arthur Callaway—his brain tense and hyperaware after a police officer had followed them with its sirens on—he pulled over—the officer drove on—heading somewhere else. In the backseat, there was a boy—his name Zachary Mendez. He'd been kidnapped. I started shaking, watching Arthur, an old, husky man who had been discharged from the military in 1970, emerge from the truck and come towards me. His thoughts, as I peered into them, seemed immeasurably dark, and callous. 200,000 dollars. That was the price for this job. I stood up, trembling. If this was real, I needed to do something. Callaway entered the gas station ponderously. The employee at the front counter, who I should clarify, is named Ahmed, looked at him with an ounce of boredom. Callaway didn't like Ahmed—he didn't like having to deal with these sand niggers, he thought—and wondered if it was some kind of Arab who bought the kid he was transporting with a touch of humor.

I stood up and entered the gas station, coughing. Callaway looked at me with disgust, trying to figure out if I was a junky. I bumped into him. “Oh, I'm sorry.”, I said. Ahmed grimaced as Callaway stepped back. “Watch where you're going., he barked. I looked into his eyes. An aura of black surrounded his skull, a piercing grey dominated his eyes. He froze into a rigid stasis, and I felt my consciousness wash over his own. I searched through his memory—learning what he did—as I did so, a creeping sense of dread came over him as the memories surged from whatever part of his brain they'd been locked in. He tried to pull away, but it was no use. Those taquitos were very filling, and now I felt easily ten times stronger than I had felt before. I ripped Callaway's soul from his body—it shot from his eyes and into mine, being drawn deeper and deeper into my mind. Thinking of what he had done—to the kids, to the women, to his own family—my soul began to well with an intense anger. Outside, I watched his face melt into a terror. Within, my own mind began to burn with an intensity I had only felt in my own nightmares. Callaway shot from an icy black tunnel into a swirling mess of cataclysmic energy, being drawn deeper and deeper into my rage—he screamed in terror, crying for mercy. I held him there, overcome myself by anger. I tore the skin from his mind and began to tear at him until his soul was reduced to a skeleton—I threw the memories of what he'd done back at him, and replayed them thousands of times over—I pulled old wounds back to life and magnified them—I drew his consciousness into pieces until there was almost nothing left—tears streamed down his physical body's face, as blood gushed from his nose, and out the corner of his mouth.

Had I killed him? A sense of guilt overcame me—I was a killer—I stopped pulling Callaway in. His soul, now only a few, sunbleached bones, shivered. “Please—please—stop--stop it--” I could have been him, I realized. Only a few steps in my life different, a few missed chances to learn and I would have been him—there are lessons that we learn over and over, one of which is how destructive it is to hate, and I was reminded of it there—I had caught myself in an impulsive cycle of rage and only held onto it. And now here I held the broken soul of a person, one which I could heal, and I'd chosen to let it whither. The two of us both began to cry. I showed him where I came from—Sacramento—I was a healer, I said—I left my life as a geologist to sell healing crystals at music festivals. I showed him the life I might have had—money didn't matter as much as your sense of inner peace—all this time, I tried to show him, he had suppressed a heart full of chaos so that he could make money, survive. At the same time, his mind began to reach its own conclusions, filtering through what I'd said—he needed to turn himself in, he kept saying. He needed to go to prison. “You need to get help.”, I said, “You need to get better” “I need to get better.” “You need to--” “Yes—yes--”

I shot him back into his body. A dead eyed stare overtook what once remained. Ahmed was praying, afraid that something terribly dark had happened. I could see his words, drifting upwards through a thousand tiny frames into some kind of Ultimate. A huge and infinite light, an infinite, fractal nothingness, white as snow, dead as bones and pulsing with life. I cowered underneath it—I didn't know what I was doing—I'd nearly killed a man out of my own rage—the Ultimate was not indifferent, but at peace, at peace with us. Loving in a way where it knew all of our faults but believed in our eventual redemption. Callaway, still sharing his consciousness with me, stared upwards at it, trembling as he regained control of his own mind. The colors around his skull flashed white and blue, with trails of purple. Where am I? He wondered. Texas. I said. Fuck. I hate Texas. He shivered. Well, you'll be tried in Kansas, at least. He trembled. Don't be afraid. I told him. Don't worry. Plead guilty. Find a way to find peace with what you've done. He stared up at the light. What is that? He asked. I don't know. He stared at me incredulously. I've seen it before, but I don't really know what it is. I withdrew from the mans mind, receding. He patted his legs, searching for his phone. Ahmed watched us both with confusion. Either we were both on something, or this was just some kind of American thing he didn't understand.

“Hello. My name is...my name is...Arthur Callaway. I need you to come arrest me...I...I kidnapped a child. I was driving to Houston to sell him to a client....I can't do this anymore.”, he said. Gulping, the man hungup and ran to his truck, opening the door to reveal a child fast asleep in a car seat. Under the influence of sleeping pills. He carried the child out to the curb and sat, motionless, waiting for the police. His mind was blank, save a single phrase which he kept repeating. “I need to get better.” I looked over at Ahmed. He sighed. “You know, the police have already been here twice today.”

“Yeah”, I said, “I guess I did know that.”

<>Solemnly, I bit into the last of my taquito, watching Callaway and the kid sit in complete silence, waiting for the police.

Commentary
The idea with the series was to create a superhero who would fight crime or injustice via compassion and empathy. When I wrote this, I actually made the decision to turn off spell check, so there are quite a few typos, I am sure, that have snuck through before posting this online. Anyway, I hope that you enjoy the series. If you read it, and want to stream the actual podcast, the links are below.

https://riversofthemind.libsyn.com/blue-topaz
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YvUQUFD_-EM
https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/rivers-of-the-mind/id1278391177
https://play.google.com/music/m/I5obttfukzok6ggklvb5umo2mgq?t=Rivers_of_the_Mind

This podcast is based entirely on fictional events. Any resemblance to the many real cases of a man taking acid underneath a hole in the universe and developing superpowers is completely coincidental. Also, Timmy Vilgiate wrote all this. Please don't steal it and sell it on the black market or whatever. Instead, give me your money at patreon.com/timmyvilgiate