The Tea Is Spiked

The tea is weak and I am imagining it spiked with something scandalous

Like mushrooms or moonshine

Should I finish the whole cup?

What adventure might I set upon?

I can feel little bits of it probing into my fingertips and toes

The numbness is quite a feast for the senses

I let it wrap around my wrist and begin to do the storytelling 

In my stead

The children had long ago gone to bed and I found myself with an unexpected evening alone as my wife had done the same.  Her soft sighs crawling across the hallway and into each room, setting all the minds at ease to know that she was here, and dreaming a protective dream whose atmosphere surrounded and shielded all who could hear.

I lay back in my chair, close my eyes and inhale from the long wooden pipe.  In seconds the smoke has passed through my lungs, into my blood and taken a direct route to my mind.  eyes still closed, I see and feel starbursts of light as synapses are opened, reopened and new neural pathways are formed like shortcuts through the woods or alleyways in a far-off city.  the doorways are open and I intend to step through them no matter what peril may await me.  Far away I hear the soft sigh of a sleeping woman.  She is dreaming.  She is not protecting her dream and it is wandering the world, unaware that anyone may be listening in.  That 'anyone' is me.

I feel the smoke scatter and fizz away like soda bubbles, liquid, gas, gone. 

 And I open my eyes.

I am not in my study, not am I in my chair.  I sit on a white sand beach.  The sum is bleechingly bright and all shapes are washed out in its brilliance  I hold my hand to shield the sun but instead it blazes through me and I can see the bones of my hand as in an x-ray.  I rise from the sand and walk away from the sun.  It is not in a single spot but placing itself always just above me and to my left.  I spot a stand of trees to my right and decide to escape the blinding bright.

One step into the forest and the sun is gone.  Turning back I see that the beach has been replaced by the mouth of a dark cave that I have just exited.  It does not occur to me to go back.  I am in the forest and there is a sense of urging to continue forward.  Or more specifically, not stand still.  I begin to walk quickly forward and my footsteps are echoed evenly, as if I am being pursued.  Unwilling to look back I begin to run through the deepening brush.  Tree limbs slide across my clothing as I rush.  The density of the forest slows my escape and threatens to stop me altogether.

Trapped, I look to the trees for escape.  I begin to climb on of the white birch-like trees limb by limb.  At its top I find myself trapped by a horrible lack of options.  The forest rakes with malevolent sound, all in the pursuit of myuself.  I am now noticing the bright white moon washing out the tree tops around me.  It is just as bright as had been the sun earlier and once again I raise my hand against it.  Once again I see my fragile bones and the disfiguring arthritis slowly building its fortification that I may never use them again.

Exasperated, I throw my hands to my side and search for a way out.  the moon has dimmed and I am powerless to move as I see the sky descend upon me.  It is a million crows and the shards of coal that are their eyes.  It is black and silvery, reflected upon the arrow-head beaks,  open and searching.

I leap from their wanting madness and fall, branch by branch, faster and faster until I am a bullet train sweeping downward past cities and villages and places no stops would ever be made.  The ground is rising violently toward me.  as I approach, I spy a single drop of water on a single blade of grass.  it is the exact point at which my descent will end and it draws nearer and appears to get larger.  

By the time I reach it I am splashing into it as a lake or ocean, dark and suffocating.

I have been holding my breath.  The world is wet blackness.  The crows are not here but I can not surface for fear of their attack.  I search the darkness for some escape.  

A light!

Dim, but undeniable.  I begin to swim toward it in the cold ocean.  As i get closer, the dim light becomes brighter.  I can feel the breath in my lungs going stagnant and my chest heaves one time, letting me know it is concerned.  I kick and swim toward the light, which is now burning my eyes and, as i get ever closer, I shield them with my hand.  The heat and brilliance is pulling me in and I once again see the intricate systems of bones surrounded by pulsing veins struggling to move oxygenated blood.

My chest hitches again.  I watch as the arthritis is burned away like flesh from a sun-dried carcass.  I am out of air and my whole being is demanding one thing!  I am powerless to deny it!  I inhale the dark water and the bright light.  I feel my heart stop and there is a silence to the world no one has ever felt.

My lungs are full and I let them expel.  I open my eyes to see my hand before me, almost touching the hot lamp on my desk.  I can see dim red light passing through the webbing of my fingers.  Smoke has surrounded them and I hear the lovely sigh as my wife's dreams send their protection to all who can hear.