Long Tale Press

The three things sixteen-year-old Elliot Ryan loved most in this world were working with his hands, being outdoors, and smoking weed.

Elliot was currently engaged in the second of these, shortly to begin the third.

Placing the joint in his mouth Elliot flicked the lighter, lit the joint and inhaled deeply. In addition to being powerful and lithe, Elliot was the picture of aerobic fitness. He could keep the smoke down in his lungs for more than a minute, before exhaling in a controlled and steady breath. The immediate result was a relaxed and mellow feeling. Geary had really outdone himself with this batch; he'd have to remember to thank the fat bastard next time he made a score.

Elliot had finished the first joint. He had just begun the second when noticed several things he'd never experienced before, even under Geary's best.

His vision. Though it was dark, he could still make out indistinct shapes in the old stone structure: walls, windows, and beams. As he watched, they began fading into a darkness not of the night, the coming storm, or a combination of the two. Instead, they faded away altogether. In their place loomed different structures, semi-jagged / semi-rounded shapes which were, at the same time, formidable and beautiful.

The cold. The day had been stultifying, and the night had brought little relief. Elliot had been sweaty from the walk. The effort he'd exerted to dislodge his stash only made him sweat that much more. Now, how-ever, as he leaned against the inner wall, he felt his whole body enveloped in a refreshing coolness. His T-shirt no longer clung to his back and torso. His jeans no longer chafed at his thighs and calves. His boots no longer weighed down his feet. In fact, he couldn't even feel his T-shirt, his jeans, or his boots. It was as if he were naked. Nor could he feel the wall against which he was leaning.

Empowerment. By rights, Elliot realized that he should have been afraid, frightened undergoing what was happening to him, yet he wasn’t. Marijuana was no hallucinogen, yet what was doing right now if not hal-lucinating? He knew he was Elliot Ryan, clothed, sitting in some old dilapidated stone ruins. Yet, his senses were telling him something different, something that his rational mind knew not to be true: he was somewhere else, doing something else, and being someone else. Someone else who didn't have to tolerate the old man's bullshit, his mom’s holier-than-thou moralizing, sanctimonious lectures from Parsons, or crap from the Corey brothers. No, this was a someone else who could make all that un-pleasantness disappear, and not in a nice way.

Movement. The contours began a slow and subtle shifting, and Elliot realized that this someone was moving. He began feeling aware of a soft wet surface beneath the soles of his bare feet and his palms bracing against something similar. Then the sensation of moving sideways, up, down, sideways again, passing the jagged / rounded shapes, through variations of the darkness.

The movement took all forms. Sometimes climbing, sometimes crawling, sometimes walking upright. Once, he felt himself squeezing through a narrow opening, before he was able to crawl, then climb into a larger chamber. This chamber was filled with the same odd shapes which he now recognized as stalag-mites and stalactites.

He was in a cave.

He was pausing, but only for a moment, then moving again, this time into a side tunnel which widened, then narrowed. At one point, he had to move sideways. When the passage widened again, he found himself facing a wide lateral gash bisecting the passage. To his surprise, he leaped across the chasm, landed on all fours, then launched into a run without breaking stride. At last, he reached a wall, which blocked any further forward motion.

He began to climb. There were a number of hand and footholds as the upward passage began to narrow, like a chimney. At times, he needed to brace himself with his back pressed against one wall as he pulled himself up along the other. The whole process was quick and effortless as if he'd done it innumerable times before.

How long had he been climbing? He had no idea, then he realized that he was out in the open air again. The surface on which he was resting his hand was no longer a moist hybrid between mud and clay, but actual rock. Above him were two high walls, also of rock, above that, a sky full of shifting rumbling clouds and an occasional burst of lighting.

The light offended his senses, even in the narrow cleft of rock.

Once again, he began climbing. The fact that the rock was now hard, no longer soft like the cave walls, presented no obstacle. His fingers were strong and sure and once they found a place to grasp, no matter how slight, they held with an unyielding tenacity. He was able to pull himself up out of the steep cleft with no more effort than it would take to climb stairs.

At the top of the cleft, he paused. He was atop a high escarpment overlooking a valley of trees and mountains. It was a vista he'd never seen before, and he'd been hiking and exploring these woods for years.

He walked to the edge of the escarpment and looked down and to his right. He could see a clearing, and beyond that a road. Across the road was a farm he recognized - McSweeney's. He could see the farm-house and beyond that a pile of timbers. He was surprised when his nostrils picked up something that smoldered. McSweeney's barn. It had burned down.

Below him, about a hundred feet to his left was a mountain lake. He stood there, studying it with uncanny clarity.

More than clarity. He found his vision shifting, as it had when he first saw the shapes in the cave. He was now looking at the surface of the lake, not from a distant promontory, but from a height of a few feet. He could see a water snake coiled on a rock alongside the lake. There was water glistening off the snake’s scales, as if it had moved through underbrush, still moist from an earlier drizzle. He could see its forked tongue flicking, sniffing the air. As if aware of danger, the snake uncoiled and launched itself into the lake.

Another shift.

Now he saw the snake’s undulating form skimming the lake bottom, sending up clouds of mud, obliterat-ing it from a predator’s eyes, but not his.

Sheet lightning filled the sky, and he felt an angry sound come from a throat that was his yet not his. The snake was forgotten. He found himself running from the promontory into the trees. There was no trail, yet he ran unerringly through the trees down the slope, never tripping or losing balance. Again, he had the sense that he'd done this before; many, many times.

For how many seconds, how many minutes had been running? How many miles? No way of knowing and what did he care anyway? All he knew was that he was outdoors, in the open, feeling an unparal-leled sense of freedom and supremacy. He was going to enjoy it as long as he could. Maybe forever!

He paused in his run and was surprised to find himself in another area he recognized. He was perched midway on the incline between the ridge's apex and North Rim Circle. He recognized it by the street lights and the cul-de-sac where a bunch of new houses were being built. The streetlights were distant so that they did not bother him, yet, he receded into the shadows and remained there, immobile.

Another burst of sheet lightning lit up the sky. Another guttural sound from his throat.

That's when he saw the woman.

She was on the dirt road below him, walking with a fixed and resolute stride. He shifted in the shadows, watching as she walked past him, emitting a scent of strong emotion. He followed, keeping to the shad-ows.

Another burst of lightning illuminated the sky, at which point, the unwelcome light made him stop in his tracks. This time, though, no sound came from the throat.

The woman stopped walking, and looked up at the sky. She paused; the strong emotion had dissipated not at all, but her sense of purpose did. She turned around and started walking in the other direction.

So did he.

He saw the woman stop and reach for something. He stopped as well, squatting in the shadows, watch-ing.

Another bolt of lightning, another burst of thunder. Startled, he shifted from a squatting position to a standing one. In doing so, he put his weight on a protruding root which snapped like a gunshot in the night.

The woman stopped. Had she heard the sound? She appeared more vigilant, more aware. Had she seen him? Did she know he was there?

The woman reached for something again and when she faced the ridge this time, there was light coming from her. It wasn't strong or as painful as the lightning, but it was annoying. He hunkered back down among the trees and the brush.

The woman moved the light along the ridge, coming close to his hiding place. He averted his eyes. The scent of something burning was still there.

Thunder rumbled, and the woman began moving again, rounding a curve in the dirt road.

He began to run, this time, quickly and without stealth

The woman quickened her pace.

He continued to run, no longer caring whether he was breaking branches and dislodging dirt, stones, plus any other detritus that might have accumulated in his path.

Then he stopped, hunkered down again, and watched.

Again, strong emotion emanated from the woman, but slightly different, as though the first scent had been joined by, and co-mingled with another. Again, she turned and beamed the light onto the ridge.

A noise came from her.

The noise meant nothing to him; it was just noise. At that moment, he realized that he'd been trying to find words into which he could put this experience, but he couldn't. His mind was no longer capable of forming words now that he was in this new and unfamiliar form. It was as if his brain had devolved to a more primitive level which could experience sensations and impressions, but nothing beyond that.

More noise coming from her. Silence. Then noise again.

The woman swung the light slowly along the ridge again. A fine rain began to fall.

The woman began to walk again.

He was getting ready to move again, then he…

…found himself back in the old stone structure, leaning against the rear wall, the remains of a joint dan-gling from his mouth.

He was clothed and sweating like a pig on a spit. The fine rain on his face felt good and cooling, but he knew that it would be hammering him within a few minutes.

He stood up, just barely steady on his feet and took a few shaky steps.

Man, what was that all about?

One minute, he'd been here, feeling all kinds of placid, happy, and peaceful.

The next minute, he'd been having some weird out-of-body experience, boppin' through the woods at the speed of light and following some chick on the other side of the ridge.

Now he was back.

Elliot giggled. He was still laughing when he made his way back to the carriage road. In spite of the darkness and the rain, Elliot felt like running. He broke into a fast jog which would take him back to the trail, which, in turn, would get him back to the main road, and back into town. It shouldn't take more than fifteen minutes and if he was drenched so what?

He'd just been on the best damn trip of his life.