“I got the good stuff. The good stuff that’ll peel your eyelids off and strip away your ego. You’re living in a fog. The world is much more colorful than you think. Lift the veil, man. Lift the veil.” Charly was practically hanging off the toilet bowl, reaching under the stall to jingle the mini-fermentation inhaler.

“I don’t even know who you are!” shouted the man through the wall. His feet were shuffling in anger on the other side. He nearly slapped the inhaler out of Charly’s hand.

“Hey, hey! Don’t try to steal from me! I worked hard for this stuff. I thought we were friends.”

“I don’t know you! I just want to go to the bathroom in peace!“

Charly scoffed, “In peace. You don’t even know what peace is.” Liberation, now that was peace. Peace from all the evil people, the government people, people who wanted to take everything from him, all the fun stuff anyways. “Try it and maybe you won’t be so anal.”

Everyone who was stupid had a strange way of getting angry quick. If stupid was abolished would that mean angry people would become extinct? Hmmm, he thought, I don’t know the answer to that but sometimes two plus two equals five. Doesn’t it?

The neighboring stall door slammed shut. “Get a job, you piece of crap. Dope only breeds negative behavior.” The entire set of stalls echoed and shook and Charly thought he heard the man say, as he was leaving, “Learn to love yourself.”

“Psh, whatever.” Charly opened his hand with the inhaler and reflected on a painful life but refused to focus on it for too long. “We’ve had a lot of fun, haven’t we, little guy? I couldn’t imagine leaving you behind. You’ve been so good to me.” He couldn’t think of a single person that he had ever met that didn’t use some sort of substance to enlighten themselves, reduce stress, or try to make the dark thoughts go away. Always trying to escape with chemicals. The destruction of awkwardness. The death of one’s adult self and the birth of one’s younger self. That was the goal of chemical dependency, was it not? Was that so wrong?

He rubbed the clear cylinder and considered the small substance inside. Stardust; that was what he saw within the confines of that little tube. Magic, an enchanted magic that no one else possessed, a magic intoxicant catered to his own brain chemistry that he wanted endlessly for others to try. He had something special. Sharing was caring after all and five dollars a hit was a good deal to Charly.

Slowly he pressed the activation button on the side and watched as the contents spun and bubbled, a yeast-like layer forming at the top, giving it the appearance of a mocha macchiato. The stuff was already ready. Science was a wonder. Smart people were always so good at innovating and opening up the human mind to new possibilities.

Without much more thought he lifted the inhaler and pressed the release button and breathed in so quickly that the substance, the name of which he couldn’t even pronounce or remember, shot into his throat with a sting and hit his brain like a sledgehammer, throwing off his equilibrium instantly. It tasted sharp like old vodka, and bitter like mushrooms. But his senses faded after that, as his salivation glands went into overdrive, causing a stream of drool to seep down his chin and leak onto his chest. The smell of blueberries came to his nose, where there was the sour smell of urine before. So sweet, so yummy. The stall door was a mile away, distant and blurry, but somehow, he managed to reach for it and open it with limp arms. Strangely it was an oddly satisfying feeling to open the door. His senses, numb only a second ago, were now buzzing to life again as the door open into a world of bright, eye-piercing color, mostly green, with a landscape of foliage, blueberries and strawberries mostly, opening up along a gold-brick path in front of the stall.

The bathroom was gone, along with reality itself. He breathed in deeply, his lungs straining to take in the new scents that weren’t actually there, that didn’t exist, and were only in his head. Sunshine created pillars through the leaves of the bushes along the path and was more real than anything he had experienced in the grimy city streets. The blue and red of the berries leaked like dripping paint onto the bricks as he passed. His soul felt release, euphoria of the eyes and mind. Ah, the energy and vigor too! It was like being born again, seeing the real for the first time, breathing for the first time, despite having done it a thousand times before.

Charly inhaled deeply and didn’t feel any pain or stiffness in his chest. Fresh air. He touched the berries and his hands melded with the blue and green dripping paint, his skin becoming the texture of molasses and bean bags. He checked his shoes and they were untied. They would be fine, he thought, he wouldn’t be tripping any time soon, as long as he remained on the path. Besides he wasn’t that important anymore. The universe opened up above him in the sky, in a kaleidoscope of stars and galaxies, the sun became enveloped in the mixing of cosmic colors and amorphous shapes.

“What does it all mean?” he directed the question to the universe itself, in a confused state of welcome delirium and heightened perception. In the sky he heard nature speaking to him, telling him he was small and his existence was meaningless to the greater cosmos. “I am a man but who am I really?” A thousand times he asked this question to nature itself, to his hallucinations, to the clouds, but never would receive an answer, no matter how insignificant he felt during these head trips.

Everything was so clear, so vivid; breathtaking sounds, all around. His mind was at peace, his sanity resurfaced through the haze of reality. He was free. So free, so united with nature and warm from its embrace. Melting, the trees melting, the sky melting, washing waves of rainbow over his skin and then suddenly, like a splash of cold water to his face it was gone. He was left standing in the bathroom, his arms slowly falling back down, becoming heavy, chained down by gravity and anchored by reality. The color, the rainbow colors became gray, the room around him contained harsh lines with rigid shapes, lines that went nowhere. The shock was powerful, stabbing like a knife, and he instantly missed that feeling he equated to the natural world, the world behind the veil.

He turned toward the bathroom stall, the same stall he came out of, and was returning to with hunched shoulders. Why did he have to return? Why did he have to put himself through this? To get back to where he belonged? The fog was back, the mental fog that proved to him that he didn’t belong here. The fog that shrouded his reactions and made him slow and dull, like a zombie. Why did he feel like he couldn’t think or express sadness? He wanted to cry but of course he couldn’t, not ever after taking a trip. Was he asking the right questions? Probably, right? Did it matter? Life was about journeys and this was where his life was taking him, unfettered and free of responsibility and anger, and just about any other emotion. Down in the toilet was his most desired substance, floating there, waiting for Charly to cut another piece off and put it in the inhaler and press the button to ferment and grow mushrooms on it, the spores contained in the upper capsule of the inhaler. Was it the mushroom spores or his own crap that made him trip out? Oh well. He was too dazed and confused to think of the right question to ask. Another trip. Another piece of shit.