Fear.  Fear is what acid does to you.  21 years old.  The first time I have taken acid.  Hmm… 

A few weeks ago I tried acid for the first time.  It was something I had been meaning to do, and never done.  I figured I would try it.  After getting a Driven By Boredom fan to send me a few hits in the mail I invited a few friends over.  This was a mistake.  For the first 3 hours of the trip I walked around with a huge stupid grin on my face.  I couldn’t help it.  I went to 7-11 3 times in an hour because I thought it was the funniest thing in the world   I came up to the counter wondering if I was going to possibly pay for the napkins I was buying.  Why napkins you ask?  Why the fuck not.  I handed the napkins to the woman and started laughing hysterically.  The lights in the store flickered and moved.  Why was this so funny?  What was up with this lighting?  Why is this woman staring at me?  Oh that’s right! The money!  I hand her some money, laughing at her the whole time.  The man next to me peered at me like some sort of deranged bird.  I got really close to him and kinda snapped, hoping to scare him away.  Birds scare easily, but this was no ordinary bird.  This bird was buying beer.  My friend Andy hurried me away from the bird, I looked at the woman, she gave me my money, we fled the store.  This would be an exciting night yet.

After my second and third trip to the 7-11 it became less exciting, I was smiling less and my jaw was hurting like hell.  We decided to venture a little farther.  There were 3 of us now, with more on the way.  We walked a few blocks looking for adventure.  We were stopped by a deranged old man asking us if we knew of any crack houses in the area.   I was quite confused at the time, and just tried not to laugh at him.  A man looking for crack is not a man to laugh at.  He means business.  Do not fuck with him, do not pass go.  We fled the scene again. 

When we got back to my house I couldn’t feel my face and my room was breathing a bit.  A breathing room is a quite unsettling thing.  My friends went outside for a smoke.  I sat there staring at the walls, hoping my house would stop mocking me.  Then the fear hit.  The most terrifying moment of my life was about to happen.  My friend Jamie burst in the door.  Normally this might have startled me, but this time was different.  My life flashed before me and I screamed.  They couldn’t possibly understand the fear that they had inflicted on me.  No one will ever know.  But that moment was the scariest of my life.  At least it was for about 20 minutes. 

20 minutes later my friends Shanna and Tom burst in the door, once again scaring the life out of me.  These people are not normal people, these people are drunks.  Two of the most belligerent people I know, barreled into my house screaming, terrifying me beyond belief.  They started drinking at once and within 15 minutes I had locked myself in my room praying that they wouldn’t destroy my house.  Ironically it was in my room where Tom ripped a coat hanger off my wall and vomited in my shower, but that was later.  First we went to a party. 

So this kid Will was having a birthday party. Fine.  We would go.  I was out of my head at this point and Tom’s drunken driving was accentuated by the fact that we didn’t really know where we were going.  Eventually we go to the party and drove up blasting Skid Row.  Tom pulled up onto the curb in front of the house parking illegally.  Everyone was sitting on the porch staring at us.  To make matters worse Shanna dropped a full bottle of liquor on the ground making a loud crashing noise.  Tom decided he was done with his 40oz and tossed the bottle down next to Shannas.  Needless to say our entrance to this party was amazing.

The party itself was quite a story.  We got there and EVERY SINGLE PERSON was wearing black.  There was like 50 emo kids all dressed alike.  They formed an army of short black hair, black Buddy Holly style glasses, black shirts, black jeans and black Converse All Stars.  It was like going to a Hitler Youth meeting in the 1930’s only they listened to wussier music.  Everyone stared at us when we walked in, and we felt quickly out of place.  I just stood around being terrified while my friends went for more beer.  The ceiling started collapsing in on me and the kids’ stares became more and more violent.  I ran outside and stood there looking at some of the ugliest mutants I had ever seen before.  These people weren’t even human.  What kind of beasts were these people?  They all looked the same, but deformed, and they horrified me.  I had to get away. 

Luckily, my friends hated the party too and we left, back to my house.  This was much worse.  I started screaming because people kept making noise.  My crazy old redneck of a next door neighbor came out side and yelled at us.  I was panicking.  The fear swept over me like nails in my spine.  My friends were going to destroy my apartment, the cops were going to come arrest me and my neighbor was going to call my land lord and have me evicted.  This is when I started screaming.  After an hour of me flipping out, yelling and locking myself in the bathroom I convinced my friends to leave.  Jamie and Tom drove about 50 miles drunk as hell back to wherever they came from.  It amazes me that they are alive.

I sat in my house.  Calm, alone.  I sat and watched the couch crawl over my shoulders and massage my back.  I watched the ceiling swirl and dance.  The breathing of the walls seemed almost normal now.  Everything was right and peaceful.  I decided I would make myself some Ramen Noodles.  Watching water boil on acid was the best thing I have ever seen.  This was almost 10 hours after I took the acid and the hallucinations were the most extreme.  I stared at the water boiling as the stove came out at me.  It attacked me and I had to jump back.  The water seemed to rise out of the pot and circle around me.  The steam spun in circles.  This was fantastic.  I couldn’t believe my eyes.  Just then there was a loud knock on my door.

GET OUT OF YOUR HOUSE!  IT’S ON FIRE! I opened the door to a girl franticly screaming at me.  I was in no mood for this.  I looked out side and it was true.  My building was in fact on fire.  People were outside screaming and running around.  All of a sudden my window shattered and smoke started pouring out.  I had to escape.  I ran outside in my boxers and with no shoes on.  This is not the smartest thing to do in February.  I ran back inside and put on some pants.  By this time my house is filled with smoke and the Fire Department is running around yelling at me.  The strange thing was I wasn’t scared.  I was terrified all night of everything and now I was just calm.  The acid began to leave my mind and I just stood there watching the house burn.  They stopped the fire before it did any damage to my apartment, but the house next to mine was burnt to the ground.  I had to talk to a bunch of cops and fire people.  I even burned one of the firemen a copy of the pictures I took. 

I walked back into my house a few hours after they had put the fire out and let us back in.  My house smelled like fire and there was glass all over the place.  My house was freezing cause of the lack of windows.  I looked at the mess for a second then went to sleep.  Fuck it. The fear had gone.