Meagan attempts to escape from the base in order to find tobacco, but real tobacco, to stop the white flowers, as she believes her ancestor instructed her to do in a vision. She soon finds herself in unexpected danger.
CAST
Kyla Valenti: Meagan
Donna Yu: Maureen
Dylan Tilton: Bobby
C.j. Hackett: Gas Station Clerk
Dominick Vilgiate: Jacob
Timmy Vilgiate: The Moon, Cameron
PRODUCTION
Script, sound design, recording, directing, score by Timmy Vilgiate
Series art by Jesse Robertson
Sound alike music by Collin Estes
MUSIC
"Norepinephrine" by Timmy Vilgiate
"Section 107 of the Copyright Act: Limitations on Exclusive Rights: Fair Use as performed by David Bowie", by Collin Estes
"Take the Kill" by A Bad Night For A Hero/The Yeti
SOUND EFFECTS (only ones from freesound are listed)
Stairwell with Echo Front by ibirdfilm
Flames 1 by Shastrocks
Bowed 01 by soundjoao
metal gate by OldSchool_
city night hum 04 160927_0989 by klankbeeld
City Night Ambience w: Airplane_1-2 by SteveMannella
Small rocks in a creek by Hitrison
Ambiance_Night_Crickets_1Car_Pass by mshahen
Irritating flourescent light hum by pfranzen
Utility room front by blaukreuz
Frog croaking by Benboncan
City at Night_Ambience by Broken_Head_Productions
Road ambiance - Passing cars by Breviceps
Heavy Breathing by Shinplaster
ohm_singing_cool2_cut2 by thanvannispen
sh_shop_door_bell_openclose by shall555
Cicada, Close, A by InspectorJ
car door opening5 by supersnd
car door slam by theshaggyfreak
Ambiance Idling Car by 1san
p22 by stixthule
Sweep-cymbal by hannagreen
Drone_BowedCybmal [sic] by ceich93
Cymbal_Swell_106 by FiatLuxx
SCRIPT
The darkness of the dormitory hallway hummed with a sharp
and forboding timbre, seething with the various languages of the nocturnal
drugs—languages of sleeping pills, painkillers, and sedatives prescribed to the
various inhabitants of the base—languages that filled every inch of the hallway
with varying shades and colors of silence and slow burning fire. No one was
sleeping easy that night. Almost intutively, I slipped into the mushroom
language—my pupils dilated, and it became easier to see down the hallway. Light
from a tiny beeping fire alarm illuminated the whole corridor in intermittent
bursts of red. Vaguely, I remembered the way to the exit—though each groan of
metal or sound from beneath a door made me fear that the white flowers were
moving in to attack me, the drumming of my heart, heard in my ear drums, acted
like a war drum, filling me with courage. Confidently, I pressed on.
As I wound
my further through the building, I started to hear whispering voices, just
barely perceptible through the air vents. Closer to the administrative section,
they became more intelligible, at least intelligible enough for me to recognize
them: Maureen and Bobby, discussing the days events in fearful and awestruck
tones. I turned to move up the stairs, which I remembered going down to get to
my room earlier that night. Hearing my footsteps, Maureen sharply cut off
Bobby. “Shh. Someone's coming up the stairs.”
“Fuck, what
do we say?”
“I
don't know...we'll...just say we couldn't sleep.”
Turning the corner, I could see their shadows cast against
the wall by the faintest light of idling electronics in the administrative
section. “Maureen? Bobby?”
“It's that
one chick.”, she whispered, “What's her name?”
“It's
Meagan.”, I called up, in a quiet voice.
They came to the top of the stairs. “Couldn't sleep either,
huh?”, asked Maureen, suspiciously. Bobby gulped, still visibly drunk, and
unsure of his balance. “No—I couldn't.” When I emerged to the top of the
stairs, the two both looked me up and down. Maureen's face
twitched—suprisingly, her eyes had changed—their shape was now rounder, her
nose more acute. She looked knowingly at Bobby. “What? Something wrong?” I
didn't know what to say. “What do I look like to you? What...what color hair do
I have?”
Nervously, I gulped, fearing that I'd stumbled into some
kind of trivial argument that would hinder me from finding tobacco. “Brown.”, I
sighed. Bobby shook his head. Maureen continued. “And what color are my eyes?”
“Blue?”
“I wonder what that means.”, she scratched her head.
This wasn't
a trivial argument, I started to realize. Maureen had been changed by the
accident too, and now she was trying to figure it out—no psychic presence had
been there to guide her through this change—no explanation or forewarning had
been given. She was horrified, yet masked her fear underneath a confidence, not
at all misplaced, in her ability to figure it out. She liked puzzles, I could
tell—the mystery of all of this enthralled her just as much as it scared her.
“That's what you look like to yourself, isn't it?”, she smirked, “I've got it.”
“Well, hell
no. I don't look like a...”, mumbled Bobby.
“What
does she look like to you?”, I wondered aloud
Bobby gritted his teeth. “I don't want to talk about it.”,
he grumbled. Maureen squinted at me, studying my widely dilated pupils. “You
don't think I'm crazy.”
“Of course
not. I--”
“You've
noticed it to. You've...changed, somehow, after the accident, right?”
“Yeah, I
mean, the mushrooms--”
“Something
is going on here. Something is going on.”
“I think that I have a buddy who saw that guy in that
hospital room around town”, mumbled Bobby, sitting down and working on
unbuttoning his shirt—he felt very hot, very drunk, and very tired, “It's
really weird. I think this...I don't think this is...this...Maureen? What did I
say earlier? ….Aw fuck....man...It's happening again.”, he looked up at her to
finish his sentence. “This isn't a space lab.”, she said, “This lab still does
whatever it did in the sixties. I just know it. Only they've figured out how
to...how to get results. Like that netflix show. Strange Places or whatever.”
“Well,
actually—“
“Bobby. Show her what you can do?”
Bobby took
of his shirt and stood up, irritated and stumbling. Suddenly, his body erupted
into weak blue flames, burning the sweat from his skin. Once the flames
subsided, he was no longer drunk—but he seemed terrified as his drunkenness
already started to creep back up on him. The alcohol would build up in his
body, until it poured out of his sweat glands and demanded to be burnt away. A
cycle he was already too familiar with.
“What about
you?”
“I--”,
I glanced at a nearby clock. 3:45. I needed to hurry, “It's kind of
complicated—I really wish I could stay and talk about this guys, but I've got
to go.”
“Where are
you going?”
“I
need to go find tobacco. It's really important.”
Maureen rolled her eyes, reaching into her back pocket to
hold out a cigarette box. I heard it make a slight whining sound, almost
whistling. The cigarettes pulsed with a life of their own—when I closed my
eyes, I could see spindly pink flowers with five petals that danced along a
massive column. A calm, yet high pitched humming rose through the air. I felt
my arms buzz with a weak electricity, my spine becoming anchored firmly, but
weakly to the present. It was not real tobacco. “Not that kind”, I said,
pushing away the box, “I need real tobacco. It's urgent. I don't have much
time.”
“Tell us
why.”, begged Maureen, gripping my arm before I could turn away “You can trust
us.”
“Maybe
later, okay? This is really complicated, but if I don't find some tobacco, some
flowers are going to kill you all with their minds. I swear I'll tell you more
later.”, I whispered, pulling my hand away and running into the administrative
center, the main area of which was locked, although a corridor leading to the
tram entrance was still open.
The tram
entrance was guarded by two guards, who sat drowsily in rolling chairs with
automatic weapons at their sides. I switched into the English language so that,
in case I had to interact with them, I could do so without seeming like a loon.
Maureen and Bobby followed me, a few yards behind, thinking that I didn't know
they were following me. It was annoying. I knew that they thought their
conversation was really important, and it must have seemed very important to
them at the time. But as curious as I was about why Maureen's face looked
different to everyone and why Bobby had to light himself on fire every couple
of hours, I was also really frustrated and didn't want to waste any more time.
The guards spotted me approaching the gate and rose from their seats, ordering
me to stop. Almost without thinking, I pulled them into the language of
silence—I grew weak at the knees, and started to feel myself fall down—but I
didn't care. The silence was all I needed—embracing me like a long lost friend,
the silence pulled me in—I watched as drowsiness overcame the two guards and
made them pass out...Strangely I was still awake. I stood up—or fuck no—I was
already standing, yeah...right. Well...whatever. I mean, what do you care what
I do, you fucking asshole? I just...fuck...I need to get out of this...fucking
language...I tripped over my feet while I went to grab the officers ID badge.
Shit. I totally forgot what I was doing.
“Hey go
fuck yourself”, I shouted, flipping off Bobby, Maureen, and like...everything
basically. Man, this language is awesome!, I heard one part of myself say. No
it's not you dumbass, you need to get your shit together. I replied. Nah, fuck
that. Retorted the other part of me. But I guess I've got some important shit
to do...I...I think? I struggled to make myself swipe the card, and unlock the
gate—I pushed as hard as I could against the silence as my head started to grow
heavy and my eyelids droopy—The silence loomed below my feet like a monster
made of infinite void, a monster trying to wrestle me down into its murky
depths-yet I simultaneously saw it like a welcoming pair of arms ready to wrap
themselves around me and....Oh shit. I'm in the tunnel. Fuck. How did I get
here? I finally withdrew from the silence, having walked through most of the
tunnel in a half-sleeping haze.
Emerging
into the open air, I headed towards the gate, security pass in hand, before I
saw two transluscent frames making their way through the forest. Just barely, I
could see the outline of John, talking to one of the ghosts I had seen in Dr.
Whitebalm's laboratory. For just a moment, I watched them—they were too far
away to hear—but I decided again that I did not have time to waste investigating
whatever it was they were doing. I swiped the card at the gate to make my exit,
and headed down to the road.
It felt
magical to return to the open air, to walk under the night sky—so magical that,
it was easy to forget my mission, or to at least let it slip to the back of my
mind. In the mushroom language, I felt that I found a miraculous harmony with
the earth—exhausted as I was, the night air seemed to replenish me. This world
was my home and I felt at ease—free—within it. The light of the moon, just a
phase past full, shone in a sea of stars and incandescent clouds. Noise from
passing cars scattered over the dense wooded hills in shattered jewels—the dirt
under my feet swelled like the breathing chest of a sleeping giant. The trees
hummed soft homages to the sky—frogs in the ponds by the stream eyed insects
with hungry stomachs, shooting out their tongues to swat them from the air and
yank them into their mouths—tiny fish babbled through the creek, hunting for
algae on river rocks, alone in a miniscule world of water which seemed to them
to be the entire universe.
But when my
feet touched the pavement, something inside of me seethed. An all-consuming
anxiety, a frustrated rage at the separation I now endured. The city, small as
it was to the English parts of my brain, seemed an immense and menacing
abomination of flickering, off-colored artificial suns and steel monsters in
the psilocybe language. I clutched my stomach, and uncomfortably returned to
English, but even in that language, the city felt miserable, since my brain
remained covered in beshroomed sensations. An unsettled paranoia crept up the
muscles in my spine and my neck. The headlights of passing cars seemed like
eyes that studied me with disgust, fear and rage. I felt off balance—no longer
confident—no long brave, but suddenly exhausted, cognizant of how terrified and
hopeless I felt through my whole body—my teeth chattered, not so much out of
cold, but out of fear. I retreated from the sidewalk and onto the grass,
breathing deeply to try and calm myself down by looking at the moon. “Hello
moon.”, I whispered. “Hello Meagan.” The moon was reassuring. But what could I
say to the moon? Did it even want to talk to me? I imagined it turning its nose
up at me and saying, “I am much better than you Meagan, after all I am the
moon. And you were so rude to Maureen. Why would I want to speak with you?” And
I guess that really had bothered me, you know, being so mean. I felt like I
should have taken the time to support her through her struggles with, you know,
looking weird and not really knowing what was happening. “I'm sorry moon.” The
moon, being a large piece of rock, did not actually reply, but instead, in my
imagination, let out a palpable sigh and told me, “It's a-okay, Meagan. I'm not
mad at you at all.” I sat down on a bench and looked around at the city.
Vaguely, I could make out a smoke shop. But they wouldn't be open now. Not at
four in the morning. Perhaps a gas station was my best bet.
I scanned
the horizon for gas stations—a single seven eleven sat about half a mile down
the road. I took off for it, walking as quickly as I could. I flung open the
door and immediately headed to the front counter to look at the tobacco. The
florescent lights cast uneven and strange colors over the room, making it seem
like some sort of awful carnival attraction. “Can I help you
ma'am?--Ma'am--Excuse me...? Can you hear me? If you don't respond to me I'm
going to need to call the police”
“Can I see
those cigarettes?”
“I'm
gonna need to see your ID--”
I hadn't grabbed my wallet. Of course I hadn't grabbed my
wallet. Oh well. Maybe I could figure a way around it—maybe I could just tell
him the truth. “I just want to talk to them. I need to hear their languages.”
“What?”
“I
need to talk to them. The Spirit ones, probably.”
“Ma'am, I'm
going to need you to show me your ID, or you're going to have leave.”
Just then, the door sprang open. “Meagan? What the hell are
you doing here?”
“Is this
your sister, Jake?”
“Jacob?
Is that really you?”, I asked, half suspicious that this was another trick of
the White Flowers.
“Yeah
she is.”
“She
autistic or something?”
"Well don't worry about it...Anyway. I just came in to buy a few of
these. It's been a long day, man. Geez. Did you see that shit with the fucking
terrorists? Shit. Totally like a giant fucking sinkhole ten feet from my
house.”, Jacob pulled three five hour energies out of a rack and set them on
the counter, along with a wrinkled twenty dollar bill. The man, seeming to feel
bad for Jacob, sighed and took the money. Jacob led me out to his car. “What
are you doing here? I thought they said that you were a witness in the
investigation with the sinkhole or whatever. You are Meagan, right? You didn't
get body snatched or something? Shit. What a fucking day.” The two of us got
in, and he quickly downed a five hour energy. In his mind, I saw a flurry of
languages—one of them still embryonic, and warm, so inaudible as to seem
practically insignificant; another that now enterred his body matched the
language of the coffee tree; and then overpowering them all, an immense,
insectoid presence I knew at once to be methamphetamine. I shut my eyes to see
what it looked like, and all at once I found myself in a field of crystalline
grass, higher than my eyes could see, that brushed against my skin like silk,
giving a gentle electricity. An intelligence loomed in each blade, and in the
ground beneath. A language of motion, alertness, activity, visceral and soul
searing awakeness. But the mind did not come from the grass—rather the grass
came from the mind—the trillions of tiny insects looming in this vast open
plane, urged me forward—they like their prey to run. My eyes shot open and back
into English. “Meagan? Can you hear me? Do you need to go to a doctor or
something?”
“I need to
find tobacco.”
“Well,
they probably had some in that gas station, do you not have your ID? I didn't
even think you smoked. I mean. Tobacco. I heard its super addictive. I mean, who
am I to talk, but seriously, like, that stuff will give you cancer. Meth, I
think, like just hurts your teeth, but I brush my teeth like nine times a day
since I started, and my teeth are fine, but, what, did you just start or
something?”
“Not that
tobacco. Real tobacco.”
“What
do you mean, like...Indian Tobacco?”
“Yes—yes.
Do you know where I can find some?”
“Like...a
farm? Probably a farm. I mean there's lots of farms around here, and maybe they
have tobacco or something, but I don't think there's any Indians around here.
We could look but...Wait, why do you need to find tobacco? What's going on?”
“I—So
remember how I told you about that weird homeless guy who came into work?”
“Yeah,
I remember that, what does he have to do with it?”
“Well, he's
a psychic.”
My brother's eyes grew wide. Just then it hit him--I looked
like I was tripping—tripping really, really hard, and my neck and my shoulders
were covered in faint blue bruises. “He's a psychic?”, he asked, seeming to try
and take me seriously. “Yeah, he's a psychic. He visited me in a dream, and he
told me to come to this farm, you know, the one with the mushrooms. Well, I got
there, and there was a big hole in the universe, and it was too much for the
mushrooms to handle alone, so they sacrificed themselves and passed their
powers on to me. Now I'm trying to save John, the homeless guy, from these evil
white flowers.”
“Hmm. And
you...what? You need tobacco for this?”
“Yeah.”
“Alright...you
know what...I know a guy. Let me make a call.”
He stepped out of the car, and opened his phone, looking
through his contacts. I tried to listen in on what he was saying by switching
into the Mushroom language, where my senses felt enhanced, even though they
felt sorely offended by this steel monstrosity in which I found myself.
“Hey—yeah. Sorry. I know its late. Today's been a crazy fucking day. Did you
see what happened on the news? It was like ten seconds from my house. I was
just getting off of work and I stopped at the---Yeah. I am. But listen. I just ran
into my sister—yeah. Yeah. Her—Yeah, she did—Yeah I know. I don't know whats
going on, but she's tripping really bad. She just told me all this weird shit
about some psychic homeless guy and I think she needs a place to calm down—Oh
you're tripping too?--Oh Fuck, dude. Sorry. Well is it okay if we come
by?--Yeah. Thanks man, you're a life saver—I'll head there now. Hey did you see
what happened on the news? Yeah it was like ten seconds from my house. Right
there, exactly. I got to go and check it out and I was about to...Okay. Cool.”
Jacob
opened the door and pulled the car into reverse. “My friend Cameron says he's
got some Indian tobacco”, he lied, with disturbingly little effort, “Why don't
we go down there?”
“This is
serious, Jacob.”
“I believe you, don't worry, Meg.”
“No you
don't.”
“You heard what I said, didn't you.”
“I've got
mushroom powers, Jacob. Of course I can hear what you said.”
“How long ago did you take the mushrooms, Meagan?”
“Shut up,
Jacob. This is real.”
“How long ago did you take the mushrooms?”
“I didn't
just...you know what? Stop the car.”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“You're gonna jump out, I'm gonna have to run after you, and
its gonna freak you out because you're tripping balls. That's why.”
“I'm not
gonna jump out. I promise. I want to show you.”
Rolling his eyes, Jacob pulled over onto the shoulder of the
road, almost leaning out into a ditch. He locked the car so that I could not
leave. I reached towards his mind, and effortlessly pulled him into the
mushroom language—suddenly, the colors in the air became more vivid, shifting
just slightly into unreality—his vision became seemingly crystal clear, but the
world stretched out of proportion—his head detached from his body and his hands
felt miles away from his arms—the methamphetamine shooting through his system
sent his brain into overdrive—his thoughts ran on neverending loops—he looked
on with horror as time seemed to slip away—feeling guilty to have hurt him, I
switched him into the language of alcohol—at once, all of his fear melted into
a depressed, burning haze—his heart rate slowed down...his head started spinning,
and his vision went blurry. Then back to English.
“What the
fuck was—what the--did they—did they--do something to you?”
“No—the
mushrooms chose me. They chose me, Jacob! Do you believe me now?”
“I—I--I
don't know. No not really. Not really...no. I've been up for three days,
Meagan.”
“Not
really?”
He recoiled in fear, “Don't do that again. Don't. Don't.”
“I'm not
gonna. I'm...sorry. I know it scared you.”
“Man
I've got to quit this shit.”, he leaned back in his seat, his heart racing
faster than I'd ever seen a heart beat. “That was terrifying.”
“I'm
sorry. Again.”
“It's not,
it's not your fault. I haven't slept for three days. So what...you—the
mushrooms gave you like...the ability to make people trip or...something?”
“I
can hear the languages of everything. I can hear meth and alcohol and acid and
the sleepy drugs at the hospital.”
“And
like...make people feel them with your mind?”
“Yeah.”
“And you're
looking for tobacco?”
“Yeah.
But listen, you can't tell anyone you saw me. I'm not supposed to be out here,
and I need to hurry back.”
“Okay.
Huh...Tobacco. Man, I don't know shit about tobacco. If you were looking for
meth, I could find you meth, but like...tobacco...Well you know, Cameron might
actually be able to help. I knew Cameron in high school, and he knows a lot
about drugs. I think he took some kind of drug in the Amazon, it started with
an I or something, he did it on a volunteer trip, I don't know, he's mormon or
something. Or he was mormon before the drugs. He probably has tobacco if its
anywhere.”
“That's
who you were talking to?”
Jacob pulled back onto the road, not bothering to signal,
and floored the accelerator until he reached easily thirty miles per hour over
the speed limit.
“Yeah. He
knows a lot of people. He could probably help you find some Indian Tobacco or
something. Where...where did they take you?”
“You
know the old water treatment facility everyone thinks has UFOs?”
“Yeah? Oh
shit, there? No way. So you talked to aliens?”
“Not
really. It's actually just a place where they make satellites and shoot them
through wormholes. There's no aliens.”
“Oh...okay.
Well that's kinda lame.”
“Kinda.”
____
Jacob's friend Cameron lived outside the city, in a rural
subdivision guarded by a gate with a somewhat bored looking attendant. Rolling
his eyes as Jacob pulled through, the attendent opened the gate, allowing my
brother to take off down the dirt road. The house was small, surrounded by
thick branches of mesquite and tall trees. A faint smell of marijuana lifted
through the air. As we neared the door, I could hear the sounds of David Bowie
playing from an old record player—a blacklight was visible through the door.
Cameron sat on the ground, wearing three-D glasses and coloring with crayons.
“Whoa! Dude!”, he fell over laughing from behind the door. “I was just thinking
about birds...and now you're here! Come in my friends! Teach me!”, he stood up
and opened the door, his pants falling slightly below the waistline, before he
recognized us, “Whoa! Wait, nevermind. I totally thought you were bird gods.
What's up, my man?”
“Not much.
Hey, this is my sister, Meagan. Meagan, Cameron.”
He kissed my hand and closed the door, looking paranoid as
he flicked off the blacklight and turned on the regular lights. A deers head
hung from the wall, next to a Pink Floyd poster. The kitchen was stacked with
dirty dishes; a half eaten bowl of ramen sat complacently on the table. Cameron
turned down the music. “Sorry, I know that's a little intense. Come on in, make
yourselves at home. Do you smoke?” Cameron asked, taking a bong from underneath
a table. “Sure”, said my brother, still shaken from the mushroom language. He
took a quick hit and then passed it to me. I listened in to the language,
shutting my eyes. Before me, there appeared a dazzling swirl of calming green,
blue, and purple lights—these lights coalesced to form a humanoid being with
fairy wings, made up of a patchwork of all of the colors, a spear in one hand
and a shield in the other. At once she was both a healer and a warrior—I felt
my brain come alive with a strange ferocious calm—a complacent paranoia--I
opened my eyes. As much as I wanted to get to know marijuana, I needed to focus
on Tobacco. I passed it to Cameron, not bothering to take a hit.
“What are
you on man?”, asked my brother, leaning back into the chair, now uncomfortably
high.
“He's
on acid.”, I said. Cameron looked up at me, smiling. “Whoa! She got it right.
That's crazy” My brother smirked at me. “How about you? Jake told me you were
tripping, right? Having a rough time, or...?”
“I'm
not tripping. It's actually really hard to explain.”
Jake bit his lip, awkwardly nodding. “Yeah. It kind of is.”
I did my best, though, and by the time I reached the end of my story, Cameron
had gotten back onto his feet to look through his bookshelf. He retrieved a
book and showed me a picture of a white flower with five petals. “Is this the
one you're talking about?”
“Yeah. What
is it called? Datura?”
“Datura
strammonium. It's an anticholinergic deliriant. It contains scopolamine.”
“I think I've heard of that.”, said Jacob. “From the Vice
documentary?<---[cameron]” “[Jacob]Yeah, yeah.” “I know someone who tried this
once, and he ended up in the hospital for three days. It's bad shit. That's
crazy what happened to your friend, though. But it's kind of amazing, I mean
like...wait so you've got like...mushroom powers?”
“Yeah.”
“I can
totally see it. You totally give me that kind of mushroom power type of vibe.”,
he stared into my eyes, “That's amazing. You should...hey. You should read this
book.”, he handed me Food of the Gods by Terence McKenna, which I'd heard of on
the internet somewhere but never read, “You'd really enjoy it. Anyway, so what
do you need? Tobacco, you said?”
“Yeah,
but real tobacco. That's what my ancestor said, anyway.”
“Oh, yeah.
That makes sense. Uhm...”, he flipped through the book, “So you're probably
thinking of Nicotiana rustica. This. I read somewhere that some tribes used to
smoke this with datura to balance it out. The Cherokee or the Navajo or
something.”
“Do
you know where I can find it?”
“Fuck...I
don't know. Uhm. I could probably go on reddit and see if anyone there knows.
Or maybe like...erowid. Wikipedia. Something. I don't know. Do you want to
color while I google shit? I have like one hundred and twenty eight colors and
all these glitter crayons”
I exchanged an uncertain look with my brother, who shrugged,
feeling slightly too intense and paranoid to be in this house. “Sure”, I said,
getting down on the floor and retrieving a sheet to start coloring. I gently
moved aside Cameron's drawing of a bird god, and then shifted into the mushroom
language—coloring was a lot better in the mushroom language. I worked on
drawing the moon, trying to use as many of the colors as I could. Everything
was glowing, and squirming, and, you know, generally it was just a good time.
“Hello Meagan. You're just fine.”, the moon said in my drawing. It was
reassuring. I would hate for the moon to be mad at me. After a few minutes of
this, Cameron spun around in his computer and read aloud, “The high
concentration of nicotine in its leaves makes it useful for producing
pesticides.”, he said, clicking to another tab, “And then someone on an old
reddit post says they use it to make nicotine gum. So I'd say those are your
best bets, because they wouldn't sell that kind of shit out here. Oh hey,
you're drawing the moon? That's super cool. I love those colors.”
“Thanks!” I
liked Cameron. I genuinely liked Cameron. He seemed like such a nice person,
and he'd believed everything I'd said. Granted, he was on Acid, but that didn't
really seem like that big of a deal now. “You wanna go?” [asked Jacob]
[cameron] “I have some here, actually. Nicotine super good for your brain. Or I
think. I don't know. Man, like, what even is a brain. Fuck.”, he stepped out of
the room, and I went back to coloring. About twenty minutes later, the sounds
of a piano started filling the house—this continued for a while before Cameron
shouted, “Fuck, sorry, I got distracted. What did you need again?”
“Nicotine
gum!”
“Oh yeah. Yeah. Okay! It's right here.”
Cameron played a few more chords on the piano before running
out to meet us. He handed me a box. “Can I take this?”
“Yeah,
totally. You gotta save the universe or something right?”
“Thank
you so much! You're so kind.”
“No, thank
you. It was so great to meet you. And to see you Jacob. You're both so
beautiful. I hope that you guys find peace.”
Jacob looked up from his drawing of a skull filled with a
giant, buzzing city. “Thanks. Are you ready to go, Meagan?”
“Yeah, I'm
ready. It was great to meet you. Thanks so much for helping us.”
Trembling, we left the house, heading towards the woods. The
language was difficult to grasp, it
eludes me, but deep within the packets of outwardly innocuous gum looms
something great and powerful. My hands began to vibrate as I held onto the
package. What little of the plant remained in that box locks into something
greater, something universal. This was it. This is it. Is. Is. Is. Somewhere in here is the key to defeating the
white flowers, and saving the world. As vast as it seemed, it is difficult to
understand—all of my attempts to learn the language held within result in
evasion—I hear the faintest sounds of screeching and moaning, like whales. The
more I press into it, the more noise it seems to make. I am making it upset.
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