I woke bright and early. I turned on my MacBook, checked my email, and discovered I’d been offered two more indexes. I shot back an email to the publisher agreeing to do both for the terms they offered. I always felt better having work lined up. I worked most of the day on the other index. I was making progress and there was a possibility I would finish it before I left Amsterdam. It usually took between two to six weeks to receive payment since I was an independent contractor so finishing early meant receiving payment earlier as well.
Throughout the day, though, I thought of Vanessa. She had sent me an SMS the previous night after I had fallen asleep. The message? “Thinking of you. Kiss.” I sent her an SMS in the afternoon inviting her to go to the concert with me, although it was questionable whether I would be able to score a ticket for her. I wrote that I missed her—and I did—and that I would see her soon even if she couldn’t go to the concert with me. I doubted she would want to go; she did not like jam bands. She never sent an SMS in return and I figured it was because she was sleeping. Work or party all night, sleep all day. I had tickets for the next two nights so I figured I wouldn’t see her until Saturday.
I stopped indexing late afternoon and smoked a bowl. I had picked up a couple grams of OG Kush while walking midday. I made pasta, ate, and saw it was after six. The concert didn’t start until nine. I felt anxious. I wondered if it was anticipation for the show, but I wasn’t sure. I couldn’t place it, but something didn’t feel right. I had another hit off the pipe and relaxed. Given that my shrooming experiences had all been positive, I gobbled the Ecuadorians.
I felt euphoric when I first felt the effects around 7:30. I took a shower, one of those lovely showers that the shrooms welcome with butterflies, unicorns, and rainbows. I didn’t linger, though, as the steam became suffocating. I had a mild panic attack until I opened the bathroom door to let in cooler, drier air. I dried my body with fluffy and felt better. The walls were breathing as I walked out of the bathroom wrapped in fluffy. They tried to escape from whiteness but without success. “Keep trying! Don’t give up now. If you want to be pink or mauve then fucking do it!” I shook my head in disgust and walked into the bedroom.
I stretched my arms above me as high as I could and fluffy fell to the ground. I looked down with my arms still raised. “You don’t like stretching? Fine, be that way. You can stay on the floor as long as you want. I’m not helping you up.” It took some time to figure out how to put on blue jeans. They were unbelievably unruly. “Goddamnit! Your function is to be worn so stop resisting.” All objects seemed to be uncooperative. I sensed a revolt and I was outnumbered. “Fuck, this isn’t going to end well.” Had I done something to piss them off? Perhaps I hadn’t been fully acknowledging their importance. I apologized and announced that I would henceforth respect their purpose.
I kept working on the jeans. They were so unruly. I tried to straighten them but as soon as I bent over they bunched up again. “Motherfucker! This is fucking bullshit!” I got up and walked around the apartment in my underwear. “Everything smells like hair!” Swishes whistled, flowers spewed. I pushed the button for the blinds. They opened and I walked to the middle. No person on the street, but wind rippled the water. A Rubik's cube of colors lit the windows across the canal. “Motherfucker, no one’s going to be able to solve the puzzle.” I walked back to the button. The blinds began to close. I pushed the button again and they retracted. I pushed again and again. “I am getting my fucking money’s worth out of this place, damnit!”
I felt no anger. I spoke incredulously as my thoughts whirled in circles, interconnecting, forming a tapestry of incoherence that made much more sense than logic ever has. I thought of dwarves and saw none anywhere. “Why is 'midget' a derogatory word? Who decides these things? Is there someone in Belgium making waffles who elicits edicts by email to a woman in Delaware who writes in Harper’s that 'cunt' is bad and 'vagina' is good? Fuck the scientists for naming body parts! I want Snoop Dogg to label all body parts. I will use his words and call them Bible. Fuck anyone who disagrees and overthrow the New Yorker for publishing stupid cartoons.”
Whoo, dizziness and heat, my face flush, body feeling tied up in knots. “I can’t move anywhere with my legs bitched together like this. No wonder the jeans wouldn’t fit.” The blue jeans! I ran back to the bedroom and fiercely forced them onto my legs. I pulled them over my ass, looked down, and refused to zip them. “Horrible! My skin hates being confined.” I walked back to the window which was still open. “Here is my cock, Rubik's cube. I masturbate for your pleasure and disgust.” I couldn’t cum so I zipped my pants and buttoned them. “Darkness in my eyes; close the blinds.” I walked away to find more clothing.
The t-shirt did not have eight holes for my arms. “Am I supposed to fit four through each hole? Fuck!” The socks wanted to be anywhere but on my feet. “You fuckers! You are going to do what I want you to do. Get on my feet!” Order obeyed. Shoes welcomed the invasion of my feet. They exchanged vows and joined in holy matrimony. The Boss jacket … sigh. Beautiful, sleek blackness. “I will be invisible to all not privy to style. For those in the know, I will be worshiped as the Dark Prince of Sheen." The fabric was Holy. The jacket whipped around me and fluttered as cape. My arms slid in the snug pussy sleeves.
My watch strangled my wrist. Wallet with moe tickets and cash dropped inside coat pocket and zipped itself shut. Phone dropped in the other and asked me for help. I tried to think if I was missing anything. The watch said 8:30 so I went to the stairs but they had been replaced by an escalator going up. It took forever to get to the bottom. When I opened the door the strangeness of air movement surprised me. I couldn’t understand it at all. “How the fuck? The door is an inch thick and it separates me from another world entirely. This reality has to be modified so there aren’t such stark shifts. Change should be gradual not all-at-once.”
The Melkweg was a good half-hour walk sober. How far by shrooming? Eternity or maybe longer. I walked down Entrepotdok to the bridge and crossed over. The temperature had risen at least ten degrees since I left the apartment, undoubtedly the result of the intense body heat emanating from me. Clarity of thought and everything sharp. Hyper-awareness. Thoughts swam in a river without current. No resistance, no objections, no declarations.
From the zoo, birds flocked randomly, tweeting and flitting about my head. Squirrels scampered under my feet, rabbits hopped beside me, and raccoons scurried ahead to lead the way. Lions roared their approval of me and elephants sounded their trumpets to announce my presence. An ATM blinked at me and I withdrew my wallet. “Here, eat my card." I saw numbers and pressed my finger against one of them. Paper ejected from a slot and I stole them. I put them in my wallet, looking both ways to make sure no one saw the robbery. The machine vomited my card and I took it back. Another successful heist.
I walked down a tree-lined street. The ominous shadows frightened me. I was sure I was being followed. Sure enough, a mad gang of Australian barbarians walked around the corner a half block behind me. I ran as fast as I could and darted down a side street and then made a turn on another. There was no telling where I was. Nothing looked familiar. I slowed to a walk. The temperature had risen again. I was now sweating. I took off the jacket and tied it around my waist. I felt better—not because I was cooler, but because I had managed to tie the sleeves without any trouble. “I am growing as a person. My motor skills are improving.”
I found Kerkstraat accidentally and walked toward Leidseplein. Wildness abounded, throngs of people wandering every which way, none of them real, all characters in a video game. I was the lens through which gamers played. I didn’t want to be the lens. I shut my eyes but the screams became louder. There was laughter from pot smokers and beer drinkers sitting at tables. They were laughing at me, devilishly mocking me in my stupor. They knew more than I, that much I could tell. I felt vulnerable because of this. They were not guides to help me along, but manipulators who wanted to use me, devour me, sacrifice me to satiate their lust for blood and humiliation.
I had to cross the Leidseplein to get to the Melkweg, but there was no easy way to do it. Everywhere giants rode tiny bicycles screeching for hell hounds to rise from the belly of the earth. The gigantic American Hotel loomed as an ornate monolith unleashing hordes of demons. A gaggle of harpies laughing like hyenas made the witches of Macbeth cackle with hatred. Passing through this rung of hell unnoticed was impossible. Everyone was looking at me. I lurched forward, weirdly walking. I broke into a trot to get across the square and the street. I turned to look at the lights of the oncoming tram. The beast was grinding and howling. When it passed I saw a bubble-head in the window whipping back and forth. Jacob’s Ladder. I shuddered and covered my mouth with my hands to muffle the scream.
A cacophonous crowd had gathered outside the Melkweg. Were souls being devoured? Should I enter? The temperature had risen again; I was deep in the chasm of hell. Sweat poured from my brow, dripping down my face. I had been submerged in a vat of greasy lard. Breathing was difficult. I went to the entryway, untied my jacket, withdrew my wallet, and took out the ticket for the night’s show all while shaking like a leaf. I managed to hand my ticket to the person who seemed to require it for passage. I entered the venue, disoriented by the throng of people and the excruciating noise. The band was playing. I looked at my watch and couldn’t read it. The numbers made no sense.
I pushed forward and was pushed forward once on the main floor. Bodies writhed all around me as disjointed sounds came from every direction. I tied my jacket around me again, difficult as it was while being crushed and pushed and pulled. My head swam in the flashing lights. I recognized a series of sounds. A moment of clarity in a sea of chaos. “This is moe. The song is ‘Plane Crash.’” I loosened up a little and started grooving with everyone around me. When I heard the lyrics, “Too fucking high,” I jumped and twirled along with everyone else around me. Long blonde hair plastered wet on the ecstatic face of the woman next to me, sweat drenched the shirt of the dark-haired guy in front of me; everywhere was movement, sound, light, and wet, sweaty, greasy melding of bodies with faces contorted, stretched, melting, eyes bugging, popping, craving, mouths open with tongues wagging and wiggling, limbs akimbo, flailing high and low, in and out, lashing and smashing against everyone, hips swayed and twisted and grinded, legs kicked, bent, stretched, and hopped. Multicolored clothing swirled and squirted like a Pollock in the making. My nostrils filled with the green of cannabis mixed with grey body odor and pink disinfected perfume, a toxic cocktail of colorful fumes.
An infinity of multisensory fulfillment gave way to moments of overstimulated sensory horror. I dizzily forced my way through the contorting and interlocked bodies blocking my way out. I had barely entered the floor space and yet found myself near the stage. Every step resulted in a movement closer to the stage. I would be on it with a microphone in hand if the tide didn’t turn. I found an aisle of space, an area where people were chilling and barely moving except for slowly bobbing heads and gentle swaying. I blasted through and saw the doors. A maze appeared before me and I zigzagged back and forth until I found the exit and burst into the cool, damp air of night.
Massive gulps of air followed by deep breaths then steadier inhalations. “Oh, dear God, that was fucking intense. Thrilling and horrifying. Whew.” My t-shirt was drenched, my head was wet, and my crotch was a tropical rain forest. I slowly walked toward Leidsestraat. I turned right so I could avoid Leidseplein—I didn’t need to deal with that rung of hell again. I wasn’t tripping quite as hard, but I wasn’t out of the woods just yet.
I walked by the American Hotel and hoped it wouldn’t swallow me. I found a street I remembered from previous visits to Amsterdam. Less crowded, quieter. I realized I was heading south, though, so I turned east on a wide four-lane street dominated by cars moving so fast the Indy 500 would have been exhausted. It was unpleasant but there were fewer pedestrians. The oncoming cars were coming right at me, though. I winced every time there was a near miss … which was every time a car went by. It was exhausting constantly avoiding them. I had to get off this street. Death was too close.
There was a canal on the inner side of the sidewalk and I veered closer to the railing. I wanted to run my hard along it, but there were bikes locked to it most of the way. A giant neon monster appeared in the form of a casino. Lights were flashing so angrily I abandoned the railing and ran. I put space between myself and the casino monstrosity. How had I ended up in Vegas? Fuck, I don’t want to shroom in Vegas; I’d be better off shooting up bleach.
I found a street conducive to walking. Few walkers, few cyclists, and even fewer cars. Sweet relief. I walked north on Spiegelstraat, the beautiful high-end street of art galleries, antiques, and shops. The walkers were strolling and there were no cars at all. The cyclists passed casually. I was still soaked with sweat, but I had stopped adding to it. The air was chilly and my face and hair were dry. I mussed up my hair to remove the clumps of dried sweat. I looked at one of the dark windows of a shop and saw a reflection of a freaked-out monster who wanted to eat me. I turned away quickly and discovered the warm glow of soft lights on the street.
Over stimulated sensory horror indeed.
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