Chapter Four - KlahC

  Mmm… I let Keats pull me along as I happily gaze at the city lights brightly reflecting off the rushing river water. Musing that the river’s constantly shifting constellation was the closest we city folk ever got to seeing the stars…

  My fingers trail along the railing and I try to feel the last of the sun's warmth still stored in the metal flow around my hands. The storm's energy is heavy in the air, dancing around me, blowing in so many directions I start having trouble keeping my hood on.

  “Keats, hold up a sec.” I say as I give up trying to stay dry and instead take three plastic doggy bags out of one of my cargo pant pockets (pockets = never enough), ((yes I have more bags just in case.))

  I place my wallet, keys, and cellphone in one bag and tie it closed, stowing the bundle in the largest of my inner lining pockets. I take the other two bags and place them each over the sides of my earphones, satisfied that my things are now as waterproof as I can make them

  Without thinking I pat all my pockets in a drum rhythm (always gots to make sure things are where they are supposed to be...) and have to actively suppress the shock that each empty pocket generates by patting the place on my jacket where everything ended up last.

  My earphones, now happily protected and perched on my shoulders, begin playing a soothing lo-fi beat that has me whistling along as I start walking once more. Well, I say walking, but really I manage one step and nearly scream as I jump to the side to avoid stepping onto a chalk drawing that someone had left on the riverway path.

  I chuckle at my extreme reaction, surely the storm was about to wash this piece away… But… The drawing is so… detailed… The green forest drawn on the path almost seems to bend around me, making me realize it must be one of those perspective pieces that looks 3D because of the way it was drawn…

  In the center of the forest is a dirt path that seems to wind its way through the trees. Not just that either, but the piece seems to continue for some ways up the riverway, seeming to change further along.

  I look at my feet, at the dirt path, and then up at the storm.

  Huh, well… They likely meant for me to walk on the dirt path part at least. That, and this will all be gone in a moment anyway.

  Plus, that weed must really be something else because it honestly looks to me that if I were to step off the dirt path I would actually get lost in those dark woods.

  Keats clacks his teeth a few times then sniffs at the chalk art forest. Tail wagging, he suddenly starts pulling me down the dirt path, causing me to stumble in surprise after him.

  The smell of pine hits me as we walk along the dirt road. Me following my trusty doggo, wondering if there is such a thing as scented chalk and why I had never seen it before as we head deeper and deeper into the woods.

  The trees seem to have, what even are those? Little bug-elf-creatures, somehow both cute and zerglike at the same time. They seem to live in the branches of the forest?

  Letting Keats take over as navigator, hardly letting myself blink so as not to miss the detail in the world drawn around me. Seriously, who ever drew this? They put so much time into every inch, leaving no spot I could see without its own complexity and depth.

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  The strange little creatures are depicted just… living a day in their lives…

  On the left hills I can see a whole farming community built around and protecting an orange barked tree and its azure fruit.

  Along the branches I see more than one… Blugf? (Bug+Elf? No? You think of one then.) knight riding around on a grasshopper steed, patrolling or fighting the various forest beasts.

  Hah! There’s even one in the valley to the right that’s fighting a huge raven! Little dude looks very much like the Blugf version of the hero who fights the dragon!

  Suddenly Keats and I stumble out of the forest and find ourselves walking along a rocky red crag, the land around me now sand, cacti, and shrubs… I can almost feel the sand shift under my feet as we walk along the desert landscape.

  As a small set of ruins begins to rise up in front of us, I panic. Feeling a disconnect from reality that is… Less common, when doing hallucinogens.

  I stop for a moment, take a few deep breaths and, feeling a little overwhelmed by the unreality of what I am seeing, decide to try and ground myself.

  Box breathing:

  Four seconds in.

  Hold for four seconds.

  Release for four seconds.

  Hold for four seconds.

  I grin to myself as I shake my head, trying to gain a little more control over my senses, and having to admit that… This is actually exactly the kind of experience I was hoping for tonight.

  I open my eyes and force myself to really look around.

  In front of me? A stretch of desert that somehow both seems to go forever and also just cuts off and right where the sidewalk ends.

  I stop.

  Because…

  What exactly was in that pen?

  I pull the thing out again to take another look, the devil-horned chibi cat-eared woman has her arms folded and is giving me a knowing look through squinted white and black eyes.

  Wait?

  Did it change?

  I swear the figure was offering a hug before…

  Looking around me? I can still see the rushing river, now threatening to rise past the floodlines, looking like death to anything that might fall in. I carefully reach out just to the edge of the desert sky and feel the railing sticking out of the sky, protecting me from falling off the riverway.

  Rain falls on my face, my glasses protecting my eyes but each drop that lands on the skin causing me to twitch involuntarily.

  Grounding:

  I close my eyes and listen to the wind.

  I feel the vibration of the waves crashing into the river side.

  I touch the railing, noticing the metal now taking warmth instead of giving.

  I notice Keats eagerness to keep moving, to find out what’s around the corner.

  I focus on the hum of the city that never sleeps, letting it anchor me.

  When I open my eyes?

  I see my excited dog panting and pulling the leash just a little, I swear I can see his feet sinking into the sand…

  I slowly kneel down and reach out, gathering up a little bit of cold sand in my hand, and just… Watch it as it slips through my fingers…

  Two options strike me as the last grain of sand falls back to the desert floor. A. I am super high and this is a once in a lifetime trip that will end soon, or… B. Something inexplicable and likely insane is going on.

  I waggle my eyebrows for no one as I consider the problem… On the one hand there was reality in the way of a broken world, a failing business, a disastrous relationship, wars sprouting like catching fires, and the fact that I was getting older, and maybe, just a little bored of normal.

  I look at Keats, who should be the ultimate in “this is cursed, run for your life”-atude right? But no, the floof looks eager to keep going.

  Good enough for me.

  I take a deep breath before turning my back on the city, heading deeper along the desert path.