This trip was, in a nutshell, different. From the very beginning I could tell. With acid, the changes in perception had been gradual; my mind had seemed to expand with the passing moments. With ketamine, I became disoriented and numb rather quickly. Soon I not only couldn't move my limbs, but I couldn't feel them. Sleep seemed like a great idea as the floor swayed and walking became too difficult and risky. I curled up on the floor and closed my eyes.
The next thing I became aware of--after hours had seemed to pass--was that I was no longer in my body. No, I was completely sundered from myself; I couldn't feel or control my body at all, but simply floated on the gentle updrafts of air, simply watching my corpse. Eventually I got tired of the sight and turned my attention to my present environment. Wherever I was now was not where I had been before: the room with its sparse furniture had been replaced by a vast blank expanse, populated by a thick white fog, my consciousness, and my body--which quickly vanished from view once I stopped paying attention to it. Occasionally bright flashes of light would appear, followed closely by a low-pitched humming almost like thunder. Other then that, it was quiet and blank. Nothing happened. Once again, I have no clue how long this experience lasted. Time had no relevance...eons or milliseconds could have been ticking by and it would be impossible to tell the difference. Honestly, it was turning out to be a bum trip. I wasn't seeing anything, wasn't feeling anything, wasn't learning anything--I might as well have been sober. At least then I could have moved and interacted with tangible objects.
Eventually the fog solidified into what looked like the world I had left behind some indeterminate time ago. Color and sound returned, but touch, smell, and taste didn't. It was all so uninvolved, like watching a movie; you watch and listen but can't do anything to change what's going on. There's a human term for this, I believe: ghost.
Just as I said that--or thought it, I really couldn't tell--a figure slowly materialized, appearing each layer at a time: organs, flesh, plating, features. He was bigger then I expected, still a bit stiff from rigor mortis it seemed, but it was
"George?" This time I knew I had spoken aloud, but in what language I could not fathom. "What are you doing here?"
He shrugged, and the gesture was so familiar that I wanted to cry and embrace him. I willed my--what? spirit? shadow? mind?--forward and we almost hugged...we were both incorporeal and could not touch. Instead, we faded into each other, passing through one another's intangible bodies and briefly overlapping. After a time we drew apart.
"So, how are things going?" George scratched at his neck, where the breathing-plates were permanently splayed out, stuck gasping for oxygen that wasn't there when he died and probably wasn't wherever we both were now, either. "Anything new?"
Anything new? Where the fook would I begin? "There's crackdowns in D10. MNU has decided to stop outright killing us and start making us into willing slaves. It's like something out of 1984--" With a jolt I realise that talk like this was what drove him into the darkness in the first place. "I'm sorry. You don't want to hear this."
"Not really." George sardonically grinned. "Basically its all the same. MNU sucks, poleepkwa have no power, and its never going to change." His voice was candid and bitter, softening as he continued. "And you know what? The world keeps turning. Regardless of what's going on."
That was true, and ended the conversation with its infallibility. We sat on the floor--which still had no texture associated with it--and talked about things of no real importance, as if this was a normal day, just another day when we had nothing better to do then chat and joke around. It was bizarre, so normal and yet abnormal; George was dead...I couldn't be talking to him, but here he was, wherever here was, talking to me instead of being in an afterlife of some sort. I inquired about this.
"Hey George?"
"Yeah?"
"What was dying like?"
His mandibles twitched slightly. "It wasn't like anything. It just was. I was so sick of living in a world where everything was turning too fast...I guess I just wanted to be somewhere where none of that mattered." He waved a hand around, encompassing the entire place we found ourselves in now. "And here I am."
I did and didn't understand. George had wanted serenity and silence, and he'd certainly gotten that--was still getting it, even with me here--but it still seemed so cold. "Doesn't it get lonely here, by yourself all the time?"
George laughed and got to his feet, and this time he was not bitter or sarcastic. "Lonely? Olo, you can't be lonely here." Light flared beneath his shell, which became clear like glass and allowed the rippling patterns to show through unhindered. My friend was transformed from a dull black 'prawn' to a shining being of light. Behind him others shone, appearing behind him in flashes of light. That strange humming was back in the air...they were all connected, I felt, but could not understand. I shrunk back in amazement.
George put a hand on--through--my shoulder and an electric current tugged at me. His voice came from all around. "We all go here in the end, Olo. Every single one of us. We're all connected." His eyes narrowed slightly. "I think its time for you to wake up, Olo."
I could feel my body tugging at me, like my heart was a fish on a line that was being pulled in. Frantically I looked over at my body--it was stirring slightly. "No--wait--I don't get it! Where is this--"
Feeling returned in a rush and my eyes snapped open. I was back among the living and feeling nauseous--the walls were crawling, the ceiling flipped and sung to me. I wasn't back down to earth quite yet, but that place where I had been with George was firmly behind me.
Was it all a dream? I can't deny that I took the drug; it influenced my body and brain and--it would make sense--my mind as well, but I don't think it was a hallucination. Whatever I experienced was something more...something real. Somewhere beyond the stars, where time and space don't matter, I think George is waiting with the uncountable millions of our people.