something.”
That got Abe’s attention. He sat up, the energy of the universe flowing through him, the stars and wind against his back, and he levitated from the rock as if willed to do so by a powerful force. There was an electric pulse on the night air and he could feel it now. It originated deep inside the pit of his gut, tethered to the shadowy, naked form of Carly, hidden just behind the bushes. He was drawn to her. It was meant to be. There he floated above the ground, his legs no longer responding to what his brain was telling them, his torso drifting, barely supported by them. Wait, was he drifting or was he walking? He couldn’t tell anymore.
His floating stopped a few feet from her, his center of gravity shifting as he wobbled atop a pair of rubbery legs. The pulse was stronger standing next to her, the dull hum of the world originating from where she was standing, as if Carly herself was the center of the universe. Was she, he wondered, the center of the universe? He didn’t know. There was a lot he didn’t know; he was beginning to realize that. The universe was a vast expanse, far greater than he could ever conceive, and he had seen but a fraction of an inch of it. Tears started to form in the corners of his eyes as he finally understood what the universe was trying to tell him.
“Those were really good mushrooms, weren’t they?” she asked.
“Yeah,” Abe snapped back. For an instant, he wished his mouth could match the poetry in his mind. That his mouth worked at all astonished him.
“Will you dance with me?”
He smiled and giggled oafishly. “Yeah.”
“Dance with me,” she cooed. She shimmered, as if she were made of gemstones, and as she swayed, the moonlight glimmered off her curves. Her eyes locked with his, her sway becoming a writhe. Then the writhe became a swagger and she took slow, sensual steps toward him. A twirl, a wave, a beckon. She was dancing now, fully invested in the throes of a lurid seduction. “Dance with me.”
He wasn’t going to blow it this time. Abe began to dance. There was no rhythm to his movement, no fluidity, no poetry. The moves he made were absurd; a prancing duck amid elegant swans fared better at attracting a mate. Carly smiled; the dance was enough. Every molecule in his body exploded, awash in tingling arousal, doused in a transcendent, enlightened glow. This moment, this moment right here, was the very best twenty or so seconds of Abraham Collins’s life.
It was then that Abraham Collins realized that not only was he dancing rather poorly, but that he could not stop dancing poorly—or stop dancing at all. Something else had taken him over, thrusting his legs in the air before slamming them back down on sharp stones and prickly burr patches. And as he tried to gaze down to see the state of his feet, he realized something odd: he couldn’t look down. It was only then he noticed that Carly didn’t look like Carly at all.
The drugs weren’t wearing off, but he was beginning to see through them. This wasn’t Carly; this wasn’t anyone resembling Carly. Sure, she was lithe and beautiful, but it wasn’t her.
No, this girl was different. A waifishly thin goddess with a ballerina’s body and a virginal face pristine with innocence; she shone in the moonlight like a ghostly angel, wisps of magic misting off her as she moved. Her movements blurred, blending together—a liberal mix of her speed, the shadows, and the psilocybin coursing through his veins. He couldn’t take his eyes off her, not for a moment. Not even to look at where he was dancing. The fog of the high was lifting ever so slowly, but for some reason he was no longer in control of his own feet.
“Do you love me?” she whispered.
“Yes,” he answered without thinking. He wasn’t sure why.
“Will you love me forever?”
“Yes,” he answered again without hesitation. “I will love you as long as forever and more.”
“Then I will see you at the bottom.”
It was then and only then that Abe saw that his feet were no longer touching the ground. He was floating—the earth a hundred feet below. He hadn’t flown or ascended in any way; rather he had danced past the rock he had once reclined upon and found his way over the cliff. Abraham was falling, his velocity far outracing