So, I’m not dead, I thought.
I woke up to the birds singing and the realisation that I did not die, the whirlpool I was drowning in the night before did not take me under. I was in my underwear. My feet hung over the side of my aunt’s couch, dirty from her flower bed.
The birds sang.
My mind was strangely clear and I got up, tried to get as little dirt on the carpet as possible and half-walked, half-stumbled down the hallway on rubber legs that felt too long and too short at the same time and the sun rioted through the windows and it was a nice thing. I was warming up to it, didn’t totally feel I deserved it but wasn’t that part of the whirlpool’s lesson?
The sun shined through the kitchen window and lit up the orange juice box that sat on the stove next to the pile of dishes and the beer cans and cereal boxes and part of the night before came back and I remembered how good that orange juice was. It came around right on time.
My cousin Dan sat on the back patio and I stepped around the carpets in the living room and stayed on the wooden floor. Dan dragged off a cigarette and looked over to me with his kind smile, completely unsurprised I was still in my underwear, ‘Hey hey hey!’
I opened the screen door and stepped out onto the patio and the summer day was brilliant and the greens of my aunt’s garden were so green it hurt. ‘Oh, fancy meeting you here,’ I coughed and my lungs burned. ‘Christ, my head.’
‘Yeah,’ Dan raised an eyebrow at his cigarette and examined it. ‘There’s tylenol in there… somewhere?’
‘Cheers, man.’ I looked over the side of the patio to the flower-bed, my foot prints, the torn up tulips and felt a wave of guilt. ‘Shit, I really mangled Judy’s flowers.’
Dan nodded slowly and shrugged with something like acceptance, ‘Collateral damage, man. What can I say?’
‘I guess.’ I yawned and scratched my chest. Someone started up a lawnmower. Life in the neighborhood was going on, unaware of the drug-fuelled debauchery and twisted impromptu rituals that my cousin and I had initiated while my aunt and uncle were out of town.
‘So, uh. We did acid last night.’
‘Damn.’ Dan whistled. ‘More like it did us.’
My shins itched and my body creaked when I bent down to scratch them. ‘Oh, man, oh man!’
Dan shifted in the patio chair and cleared his throat. ‘I have a confession to make, my dear cousin.’
‘What’s that?’ I looked up.
He pointed to the house. ‘You remember that orange juice?’
‘Best I’ve ever had,’ I replied.
A corner of his mouth went up in a wry smile. ‘You remember why you asked me for it, right?’
‘Absolutely,’ I nodded firmly. ‘I was tripping balls! I was in overdrive, dude!’
Dan’s eyes went wide. ‘No, man. It was more than that. You told me you were having a bad trip. You said we took bad acid.’ He put out a hand in a sharp chopping motion. ‘I can’t emphasize that enough.’
‘It felt that way! One minute, we’re laughing at the television and the next I’m in my underwear in your mom’s flower bed trying to climb up the moon! I can’t believe you stayed so calm?’
Dan leaned forward in his chair, ‘I had to stay calm! You know how contagious that shit is? I was beginning to freak out too but I had to keep my shit together because you said you were going to call 911!’
‘I said that?’
‘Mmmhmm.’ Dan stubbed his cigarette out. ‘Imagine my absolute terror when you demanded orange juice to cut the high and I couldn’t find any! I thought you were going to call the cops if you didn’t get orange juice that very second!’
‘Wha– then where did you get that Tropicana?’
‘I found an empty carton in the recycling bin in the basement. I filled it up with water when you were in the flower bed.’
A cicada started buzzing. I blinked. ‘You’re shitting me. That was the best orange juice I’ve ever had in my life. It felt like I was drinking pure Florida?’
‘Pure Toronto tap water, my man.’ Dan grinned.
‘Wow. I thought it tasted like orange magic.’
‘Thank Christ, for that.’ Dan sighed.
‘Wow,’ I nodded.
Oliver Sullivan 