Creative Nonfiction Contest Finalists
Drug Deal with God
Mixing LSD and Weed
I waved my hand in front of my face. Tracers followed across the space, smudging the air in an arc. I’d dropped acid before, but this seemed more intense.
“Whoa. Are you seeing what I’m seeing?” I asked.
Ed, ever the philosopher, replied, “Can anyone ever see what someone else is seeing?”
With LSD, I thought I could experience a higher consciousness or tap into dormant parts of my brain. I was taking Intro to Philosophy, and we’d just studied Descartes — the whole idea of not being able to trust our senses. I fixated on the concept of everything coming to us via our senses and our senses could be deceived, combining it with I think, therefore I am. I had proof I existed, but could not prove the outside world existed.
The LSD melded the two concepts. I wondered if my senses were being deceived at that time, in that room. Was I really sitting on Ed’s weight bench in his apartment? Was Ed even real?
We’d met when I worked at Farell’s Ice Cream Parlour — Ed the assistant manager. Blond, smart, funny…
