30 Cylus, 725
Tous continued to write, annotating the importance of taking a bath with thick strokes under the word “tomorrow”.Satisfied with her work, she sat back to take a breath. Her pocket felt light; the remaining money had been stashed there after she had purchased the pipe and herb. She wondered, was this herb such the wonder the merchant had made it out to be?
Her curiosity led to the investigation of the weed. She picked up the small sack that contained the leaves and buds of the plant. The first thing she noticed was the unusual smell. Having nothing to compare it to, she couldn’t determine whether the smell was good or bad. So far, she didn’t feel any adverse effects. Maybe that’s what the pipe is for, she thought.
Hesitantly, she took a small pinch of the blue vision herb between her forefinger and thumb and carried it over to the pipe, setting it in the opening on its end. The other end was the site of a mouthpiece, to which Tous placed her lips around. She sucked on the mouthpiece, assuming that whatever “pleasantness” was in the herb would have to get into her somehow. Yet, nothing happened. Puzzled, Tous surveyed the gadget again. Maybe she had to change the way the herb appeared.
Common sense had shown her that the air she had fallen through was much different than the water she had landed in, which was much different than the hard and very tangible rock that had cut her knee. They were all aspects of life, they could all be seen, they could all be felt in someway or another, therefore they all existed. So what was different about this touchable weed that prevented it from being taken into her body?
She already knew not to eat it, or rub it into her skin. That would have removed the need for a pipe. Then she had a resurgence of memory; she had seen smoke billowing out of a nearby cafe, but it hadn’t been the visual of the smoke that had caught her attention but the scent of it. She had inhaled the sweet, yet spicy aroma before seeing the thick swell.
She snatched the flint and steel within her knapsack and enthusiastically struck the flint against the steel until at last a glimmer of light, a spark, had ignited. It grew as it made contact with the weed compressed within the nodule of the pipe. She blew on the tiny flame until it only thin wisps of smoke wafted above the pipe’s end. Lifting the mouthpiece back up to her lips, she sucked in a deep breath.
Oh the pain was so strong. Her lungs were wailing in protest of the heat, wishing for the sensation of almost drowning to return to that they wouldn’t have to feel as if they were on fire. Tous coughed and coughed until it felt like she would heave up one of her poorly damaged lungs.
Why did people find this experience so pleasant? she thought to herself, grimacing and moving to set the pipe on the ground. Before she could however, she began to feel a tingle on her forehead, near her hairline. It spread from her third eye and across her forehead until it reached the tips of her ears. It felt strange, scary, but good.
She scrunched her face up in anticipation of the pain and inhaled another puff of the smoke. The second time wasn’t nearly as terrible as the first, but her lungs still felt like they were stretching beyond their normal limits, trying to rid themselves of the burning sensation.
Having braced through several deep inhales, the world was not like it used to be. The Ethaefal’s skin was buzzing, as though there were hundreds of bees trapped underneath her flesh. It was surprisingly pleasant, however, the sensation being accompanied by a gentle heat that continue to span across the whole of her body.
The warmth spread especially towards the middle of her body, lingering just below the girl’s heart. She gently placed her pipe down on the ground, not quite feeling it leave her fingers. In what felt like slow motion, Tous raised her hands to her heart and pressed lightly against her chest, hoping to feel the beating contained within. The pace at which her heart raced gradually decreased, and with every inhale of breath, she felt herself grow calmer.
Soon, she could no longer feel her own chest unless she were to press firmly against it. The subtle tingling had reached her fingertips. As Tous swayed her body from side to side, her perception of the bed in front of her swayed at what seemed like half the speed.
Ironically, as a girl who was still very new to her predicament of being earthbound, she didn’t let the anxiety of losing control of her perceptions affect her. Who was to say what reality was, anyways? she thought. For all she knew, this was reality, just a slightly different version of it. Then again, as she contemplated what the definition of reality was, who could say what reality really was?
Tentatively, for fear of letting her dream state actually force her into an actual dream, she reached forward and picked up a stick of charcoal. It took her several tries, but eventually she flipped open her notebook to the next empty page and applied steady pressure.
In it she wrote, If reality is a perception and everyone’s perceptions are different, then is there really a universal sense of reality? She pondered then, quite literally placing her forefinger and thumb to her face so that they framed her chin. In the way one with a beard would, she stroked her chin.
Continuing, What does the word real even mean? Existing? Occurring? Being apparent to one’s awareness? If my thoughts are real and I am thinking about a enlarged bat who spews fire out of its mouth, then is that creature real? Is there an act of association when it comes to reality?
Clearing her eyes from their glaze, she veritably looked at her words. The colour, while black, was so bright, much more so than it had been before she had smoked the wondrous blue vision.
What if this is reality? What if this world I live in when I am not on this drug is actually just a dream? Before, my senses such as sight were dimmed, duller than they are when I am high. Who was it to define what reality really was? I feel more alive in this condition; things just seem so much… more. Simply because the majority of the population presume something to be right doesn't mean it is. How can you indefinitely know something when you don’t know everything? I won’t believe there is one person that knows everything. Someone may know a little bit of many things, but that hardly is evidence for omniscience.
She was rambling now, scribbling down everything that came flying from her thought process. These thoughts did not tarry a moment before fleeing from the train in her mind, ergo she wanted to capture all that did as soon as she could.
She stopped suddenly. Fear had struck her like a bolt of lightning. The clouds began to roll in again, replacing the clear skies in her head with a cluttered mess of grey and obscurity. The tingling in her extremities was lessening and she began to feel the charcoal capitulated to the fingers that wrapped around it.
Did she even exist? If thoughts were something that could be considered unreal, then the thoughts that she was thinking could be something planted. Maybe she didn’t even exist; perhaps she was being controlled or was stuck in some sort of dream. Withal, she still thought. She thought of herself, and of how she perceived the things around her, whether they were real of not. She could still calculate and compute and deduce. She deliberated then, that if she could think, there must be a part of her doing the thinking. With this knowledge, she must exist in some fashion. Even if the charcoal she was holding or the paper laying motionless underneath her hand were an illusion, even if her hands and her hair and the flooring she sat on were fake, she knew that she had to be real; she had to be alive in some way or another in order to think and perceive all of these manifestations.
She needn’t write this down in her journal. It was newly accumulated knowledge that basically imprinted itself onto her. Tous took a deep breath, coming down from her high at a rather unexpected and admittedly unwanted rate.
She hadn’t even realised that the sky outside had darkened, the sun replaced by the moon, and her eyes shifting into a luminous violet. She hadn’t even realised her hair had transformed into a gorgeous golden hue or that elegant horns had sprouted from her temples, swirling in an intricate form beside her ears.
She hadn’t realised that Leth was subliminally telling her something.
