THE HIT
Published on FEBRUARY 6TH, 2021
God, you could use a hit of something good.
You feel the sentiment deep in your core as you melt into your couch cushions after a long day of work. The stress never ends for you, and your bones never let you forget how much it all burns the joints.
Speaking of joints, fuck, you could use one. Not just any ol' joint though, no. Tonight's a night that you really feel like cutting loose. You want all that tensity to burn away into a billowy white mist before turning and curling into nothingness. You've got something real special, something that'll fix that problem right up.
You have connections, real good ones. The kind who've got connections with connections spanning out into a worldwide spider web of guys and gals who know guys and gals who can hook you up with whatever you need.
You got the hookup for something adventurous and new that's yet to reach the streets. Something governments are considering for distribution to keep the masses' heads occupied while they get stripped and eaten for all that their civilian pig meat is worth. The real Black Bile Billionaire shit! Your guy gave you lots of options to choose from - money's been no object to you ever since you won big - but this one stuck itself in your desires once you heard the name:
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It rolls off the tongue like a slug coated in numbing jelly, doesn't it?
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You knew you had to try it. You have it right here. It's been sitting on the coffee table (obscured of course!) calling your name with a sweet honeyed voice. You uncover the box it came in and rub your palms together in anticipation. You grab the knife on the table - the one you always keep there in case of emergencies - and use it to cut the tape holding the cardboard box secure. Once you tear past it, you find a smaller black box which bears a pleasant textured finish that pleases your fingertips. On the top of the box is a symbol you've never seen before:
Interesting.
It evokes feelings in you that you aren't sure you understand. Hmm… the feelings are unpleasant now that you think about it. A deeply unsettling paranoia sweeps through you, as if the eyes of a hundred thousand hateful strangers were upon you. Scrutinizing you down to the pimples on your ass cheeks.
You decide to stop looking at the symbol.
You take off the lid of the box. Inside you see a bowl pipe and a little glass jar with a black lid, resting atop a pillow of felt. The pipe looks to be made out of a lacquered black wood which has a grain dissimilar to any kind of wood you've seen. You almost wonder if the grain is moving and slithering around like a snake on concrete… but that must just be because you're exhausted.
You delicately take the jar and try to observe the contents, but you can't make them out too well. The glass is a rough, fogged looking kind. You remove the lid and peek inside from the top.
You see things that you can only describe little, off white corn puffs. The puffs bear a red patina, which sometimes mixes with the white to create a pink you'd associate with anemic flesh.
Interesting.
You take the bowl pipe in hand. It has a pleasant weight to it. Feels comfortable to hold and the wooden surface with its abnormal grain is easy to hold onto. You observe that bowl itself actually has a kind of quadragonal shape to it. Not quite a diamond, not quite a square, not quite a rectangle. Something else that you don't know how to describe. You don't recall ever learning of this shape's name in a mathematics course. Whatever it is though, it feels right.
God, you could use a hit of something good.
You reach inside the jar to extract a puff when you notice the slimy fluid inside the jar coating the contents. Your fingers push through a thick meniscus that binds itself the thousands of folds and ridges on your fingertips. You speculate that the slime must be part of the experience as you feel your hand is dematerializing into a gaseous meat cloud. The feeling SHOULD be unpleasant, but… let's just say you've never wanted to take your pants off quite this much.
No time for that though, carnal ecstasy can come later.
You pull out a puff, gently holding it between your index finger and thumb. You decide to sniff it, and your nose is greeted by a scent so sickeningly sweet and pungent like chocolate coated bleu cheese. You wonder if it will be just as creamy.
You are unsure if you are meant to crush it or split it apart before smoking. Funnily enough, cutting edge illegal drugs don't usually come with an instruction manual. You think on it for a moment, then realize that the puff seems to be the perfect size to just rest inside the bowl itself as is, and so there it goes.
It's all ready for you. Possibly the best hit you may ever take while alive. Your excitement forbids you from waiting any longer! You wrap your delicate little lips around the wooden lip at the stem of the pipe, and with its mysterious, unbelievably expensive and rare substance firmly inside, you light the bowl aflame with your $2 plastic gas station lighter. The slime hisses, almost angrily, as it burns away.
The puff ignites into a brilliant luminescent orange which gives way to blue within seconds. The smoke that crawls towards the sky moves with a gait you've never seen from smoke before. Instead of billowing silky clouds of smoke, it takes on the appearance of a wispy tree growing at the speed of a race car.
You breathe deep. Deep. Deeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep.
Just like the smoke in the air, the smoke skitters through your body like a gaseous, yet solid, swarm of ants trying to mimic the growth structure of a tree. The smoke tickles everything it touches and every touch against your yearning cells sends waves of euphoria and a numbing warmth that permeates every inch/centimeter of you to a level you never thought you could feel. You can almost feel the spaces between your cells and the wiggling of the walls as they quake at the marvel of chemical happiness shocking it's way through them.
Your mouth is on fire, your forehead tightens, your extremities tingle, your vision warps, your bowels loosen, your mind swims, your vision warps, your heart races, your pains evaporate, you feel energized, you feel depressed, you feel dead asleep (wake up), you feel wide awake (go back to sleep), you feel, you feel, you feel, you feel, you feel, you feel, you feel, you feel, you feel, you feel, you feel, you feel, you feel, you feel, you feel, you feel, you feel, you feel, you feel, you feel, you feel, you feel, you feel, you feel, you feel, you feel, you feel, you feel, you feel, you feel, you feel, you feel, you feel, you feel, you feel, you feel, you feel, you feel, you feel, you feel, you feel, you feel, you feel, you feel, you feel, you feel, you feel, you feel, you feel, you feel, you feel, you feel, you feel, you feel, you feel, you feel, you feel, you feel, you feel, you feel, you feel, you feel, you feel, you feel, you feel, you feel, you feel, you feel, you feel, you feel, you feel, you feel, you feel, you feel, you feel, you feel, you feel, you feel, you feel, you feel, you feel, you feel, you feel, you feel, you feel, you feel, you feel, you feel, you feel, you feel, you feel, you feel, you feel, you feel, you feel, you feel, you feel, you feel, you feel, you feel, you feel, you feel, you feel, you feel, you feel, you feel, you feel, you feel, you feel, you feel, you feel, you feel, you feel, you feel, you feel, you feel, you feel, you feel, you feel, you feel, you feel, you feel, you feel, you feel, you feel, you feel, you feel, you feel, you feel, you feel, you feel, you feel, you feel, you feel, you feel, you feel, you feel, you feel, you feel, you feel, you feel, you feel, you feel, you feel, you feel, you feel, you feel, you feel, you feel, you feel, you feel, you feel, you feel, you feel, you feel, you feel, you feel, you feel, you feel, you feel, you feel, you feel, you feel, you feel, you feel, you feel, you feel, you feel, you feel, you feel, you feel, you feel, you feel, you feel, you feel, you feel, you feel, you feel, you feel, you feel, you feel, you feel, you feel, you feel, you feel, you feel, you feel, you feel, you feel, you feel, you feel, you feel, you feel, you feel, you feel, you feel,
Everything
You feel everything
Everything feels you (gross)
You are everything
Now you are nothing
Now you are something
You look up to the ceiling and yet your eyes do not move
Yet you still are looking at the ceiling, except that is a lie; there is no ceiling. There's never been a ceiling. You imagine one there because it's comfortable, but it's never been there. All that lies beyond is a sea of thousands of millions of eyes. You were not paranoid, you just could not see but now you can see and you can also see that they see you more than you've ever been seen before. Their eyes strip you down to details you didn't even know. You feel deep fear, and yet immense relief that you've finally found something that understands you for what you are. Entirely understands. Everything. All of you that ever was and will be.
You know they understand, but what do they think? Do they judge? Do they hate you? Do they love you? Do they think you're just neat? Do they want to pull your legs off and watch you twitch and rock around while you bleed out pathetically screeching like the little roach you are? Are they fixated on you in ways one should not be? Maybe they'll put you in a little cage and keep you in their bedrooms at night and feed you with a metal bottle adhered to the cage filled with Mother's Milk. Maybe they'll shove you up their ass with where you can crawl inside and die with the gerbil.
No. Enough. You're done with that. You're done watching yourself be watched and thinking about how the eyes may wish to act upon you.
You fall back down to Earth (?). You try to remember what your body feels like, but you may have forgotten. Oh wait, you shouldn't have to remember. You still have your body (?).
You can feel your skeleton but not the meat. The skeleton is hard and rough and the cartilage is ooey gooey and squishy. You try to feel the bone between the legs but you can't find it. Oh right, that one is really meat. Or maybe you just never had something there at all. You might have a preference.
You want out of the body. Take you somewhere else please, you're thinking. Hoping the drug (██████) will bring you somewhere more comfortable.
The drug (██████) is happy to oblige. They're tired of this place too. You could use some better company.
You're now in a room. Not the one you started in; a different room. Much nicer. Cozier. Higher class (it's July there is no class) (or maybe not). Black Bile Billionaire class, perhaps (what a joy that would be, to start with connections and become one yourself)!
The room is so fancy and extravagant that you can scarcely comprehend it. You can't comprehend it. You can only comprehend an approximation. You imagine the most fancy place you can. It's not the same, but as close as you will ever come.
There's others in the room with you. One a man that Wades in murky waters wherever they may rest. One A Lower God that aspires for more. One a creature that is never dry. One a father fixated on nails, uncomfortably so (they're worth a lot you know!).
There are more, but they're undefined. They're simply shapes in the distance waiting to manifest into something meaningful. They're more like you than you care to admit.
The man who Wades looks to you. His mouth does not move, but he speaks.
"Hello. Welcome. How did you get here?"
You tell him about the drug, the wonderful:
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"Ah, that's good shit. First time here?"
You nod.
"Ah, just visiting?"
Yes, but you would like to stay here. With all of you, you tell him.
"Even with that one there?"
He fingerlessly points to a shape. The shape coalesces into a filthy murderer that refuses to admit what he's done. That's why he ran here, same as you. Except maybe you didn't murder anyone. Maybe you were thinking about it. Or maybe you weren't.
"You would not mind staying in a place with someone like this?"
He points again at another shape. The shape turns into a great ball of burning fire with flesh that burns and stinks worse than anything you have ever smelled in your life. And yet it is refreshing.
"You really would like to stay here?"
Yes I would. This is the only place that understands me.
"That is true, but this is a place beyond all. Many visit here, but few stay. Few can stay. It's an exclusive club. You need to prove your worth is astronomically beyond all reality's bounds. I do not even quality yet, but I am trying."
Interesting.
How much must you be worth to stay here? How much precisely?
"More than could ever be understood by a living mind. Your existence must be more than binary."
I see. I could start working towards it now, couldn't I?
"I suppose. You probably have too far to go, though."
Oh? How much am I worth?
He tells you. It's a pitiful number. It's less than the largest possible negative number. Harsh.
"Don't feel too bad. You're better than average."
Oh.
So, how do I boost my worth?
"Hmm. Interesting. A go-getter, huh? There's lots of ways. Some are really hard. Some are really easy."
Oh, there are easy ways?
"Yes, but they'll still be the hardest things you've ever done."
Oh. Can you tell me about the ways?
"No. I can show you though, at least some of them. Are you sure you wish to see them, though? Once you see the ways to assert your value in the cosmic fabric, you can't unsee them."
I am sure. I made it this far.
"Fair enough. Feast your eyes."
The man who Wades nods at you, sagely.
Billions of images flash before your eyes. Like a slide projector on triple lightspeed (remember those? Maybe not. That was eons ago). The images only stay visible for a fraction of a fraction of a second but you can feel them burning deep into your cornea. The worst sights of the worst atrocities that could ever be committed by one person. Actions that would convince the universe that humanity is really just a vessel for an endless fount of vileness and scum and misery. The kind of things that were they done to you, you'd beg for the swiftest death possible. And the worst of it?
You're the one doing it all. You're behind the wheel. In many worlds and many realities in many increasingly creative ways, you are using atrocity and monstrosity to prove to reality that you are valuable and important. After all, you're a master of reducing things to an existence that makes Hell look like a tropical resort.
You're horrified (or aroused) at the sight of it. You cannot (or can) believe that you could be such a person. A thing beyond man, beyond monsters, beyond vengeful gods. And can you believe that these are the easiest ways to improve your value?
You haven't even gotten to the hard methods.
Every atom of you screams out in desperate cries for deliverance from the depths of depravity that are tempting you. The Fanciest Place To Ever Exist is not worth it (or is it? It's very nice. High class. They get you here). You want out. You had no idea that value came from abject horror (or maybe you've known the whole time). You want out.
Your cells scream so loud that your vision shatters into black.
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It fades.
Light returns to your eyes.
You've come to. Your normal living room is back again and your ass is firmly resting on that couch or yours. The high has worn off. You're awake again.
You are covered in sweat. Freezing, yet hot as hell and shaking. You feel something cold and metallic in your mouth. You look down to see the barrel of a pistol inside your mouth, the tip of it resting against the roof of your mouth. You're holding it with both hands, with one of your thumbs resting on the trigger, prepped to pull. A Hemingway Solution in progress if you've ever seen one.
You stare for a moment at the gun. You then swivel your eyes to the kitchen, where a bottle of whiskey sits. You stare it, then back to the gun. You stare at the gun, then back to the whiskey. After all you've been through, you feel a sentiment resonate deep inside you.
God, you could use a shot.
“The Hit” copyright 2021 by Stephen Faett.