Me and Johnny were doing stupid things lately. Stupid, but awesome. I was invited to Emma’s birthday party. Johnny wasn’t. It was her parents. I could already hear them saying, “That Johnny is a bad egg,” and “That poor Hefty and his mom… make sure you invite him over.” I hated the sympathy.

And that’s all the party ended up being. A big old sympathy party. Emma had a SWEET house. There were wonderful Corinthian pillars holding up slick metal beams that were painted jet red. The red went all across the front gutters of the house, and it made the whole place look like a Ferrari got smacked with an old Tuscan villa. I hadn’t seen a house this nice since Christmas, before Mom got cancer, and Dad got the divorce. We all used to drive around on Christmas Eve and see all the lights on all the houses of all the people who had more than we did.

Not any more they don’t. Not to me, at least.

Johnny’s mom dropped me off. As I closed the sliding van door, Johnny shot me a wink and mouthed five-thirty. I knew what that wink was for. It was the wink saying remember the plan. “Thanks Miss Rice. See ya, wouldn’t wanna B-yuh!” I said to Johnny, and they were off.

I approached the grand front door. I never imagined I’d drop acid at Emma’s kick-ass house. Johnny got some from some Norwegian dude. He said he’d already done it, and that it was lit a-f. How could I say no? I legitimately didn’t know how to do that to Johnny. I mean sticking around him might actually help me out. He was already having sex with girls. I could still hear him saying, “I showed my penis to a girl at Wal-Mart, and we had sex in the bathroom.”

I didn’t even believe having sex was an option.

Entering through the house, I figured I would just relax and party a little. Then I saw Emma’s mom. She looked about ready to cry. “Oh…” was what came out. She shoved me into her whopping breasts. “You’re so welcome here in my house. You tell your mom she’s so brave, and strong, and she’s gonna make it.”

So much for partying.

After I unlatched from her breasts, Emma’s mom let me go to the basement. I walked down, hearing my friends playing downstairs. It was lit a-f. A ping pong ball whacked my knee as I emerged into the basement. And as I did, everything stopped. Everyone turned and looked as if Death had entered with a bloody scythe.

Here comes the sympathy.

First it was Max, then Tom, then Luli, then Kyle. Everyone had a different level of reality to their condolences. It was weird getting condolences about someone who wasn’t dead yet.

Then Emma came up. I looked at her apologetically, like sorry, I didn’t mean to steal the birthday spotlight. She hit me with a hard thud and crying eyes. I hadn’t told anyone about Mom’s condition for a few months. Now that everyone was finding out from their parents, I was suddenly awkward. Awkward for not informing everyone. “I’m so sorry, Hefty. I didn’t know.”

This was the last place I wanted to be. “Yea… it’s crappy… but it’s all good. We can still have a party, right?”

Everyone seemed surprised by how relaxed I was.

“Right?”

Then Tom took a ping pong ball, whacked it on his paddle, and smacked me dead between the eyes with it. I lurched at him and tackled his ass.

Emma cranked up the bass, and the party reignited.

I drank this oragnic imitation Ginger ale, ate some things called whore-derves, and danced on Emma’s new VR dance game. With the goggles on, I was on some rain planet, dodging earthquakes with dance moves.

I could hear Tom talking through the loud music. “Johnny told me about Dark web, bur,” he said.

“It’s nuts dude,” I said still jiggling in the VR goggles, “I wonder what VR shit Emma could buy if she was on Dark Web.”

“Probably some super real porno. You could buy some Jell-O and pretend like your touching the real thing Heft,” said Tom, tipping a ping pong ball off my nose. VR fucks with the real world, but the real world fucks back.

I was gonna buy a VR as soon as I got home. Then my alarm went off.

My pocket vibrated. I pulled out my phone, and saw the numbers: 5:30.

Time to shine. I hesitated cause the party was so much fun, but then again—Johnny.

I went to the bathroom. The marbled white tile and red toilet made the bathroom look like a Ferrari pooper. A ping-pong ball smacked against the outside of the closed bathroom door. Music was blasting bass into the ground.

I heard my friends on the other side of the door, but they weren’t enough. They were fun, but they just reminded me of what I was losing. They didn’t make me happy. I pulled out the three gummies in my pocket.

I tasted the gummies and thought that maybe nothing would happen. That Johnny got screwed over. They didn’t taste bad. They didn’t taste like anything. I didn’t get any sudden rush like the weed or anything. I was the same.

I flushed the pooper and pretended to wash my hands. Then I went back out in the world.

Fun, frivolity, innocence, and youth were on the other side. Luli was dancing on the VR headset, and Kyle and Jasper were playing ping-pong, and Tom and Alex were shooting Nerf guns at one another. Everyone was having a blast. It was I, however, who had the biggest secret in the whole room. I grabbed a Coke and a ping-pong paddle.

“Let’s do couples,” I exclaimed. I didn’t feel different. I already swallowed down my secret. No one suspected a thing.

I started to really enjoy ping-pong. The ball whipped and snapped back and forth, and before I knew it, the ball got easier to hit. I was sweating, but I could also see the ball before it hit my paddle. And the music. THE MUSIC was FINALLY being played correctly. Emma played really crappy music, but the tunes were absolutely fire. Lights were flashing around the basement. I forgot how good Coke tasted from a metal can.

Before I knew it, I was dancing in VR landia, dunking basketballs in Emma’s private basketball court. The fluorescent lights gave me a whole new vibe. Shivers were crawling up my spine. I couldn’t smell anymore. My ears were warping, but I kept making baskets. Tom commented on how good I was swishing. “You just gotta make a line with your eyes of the ball’s arch,” I said. And I could see it! That line. I was sweating pretty hard now, and then I thought about my phone. It had to be 6:30 by now.

I looked into my pocket and saw the numbers: 7:42.

I shot straight back into my head. This was it. This was the acid. I was tripping… and that made me laugh so hard I couldn’t believe. My friends couldn’t believe it either, and before a moment passed, the phone rang. IT WAS JOHNNY!

“JOHNNY!”

“YOOOOooooooOOOOOO,” I heard from the other end.

“You Shleister! You were suppose to pick me up at 6:30!”

“Guess what, I … Oh yea… It wasn’t gonna happen, but I’m HERE DUDE. I’m outside. COME OUTSIDE!”

I smiled, and then laughed. WHAT the FUCK. I was tripping at Emma’s house! Shhhh don’t think too loud, or they might hear you thinking it. That’s how it works.

I put on my shoes, and said my goodbyes, making sure everyone received the proper farewell. Emma wasn’t looking at me sad anymore. She was suspicious. She also didn’t hug too hard. I was pretty sweaty. Then I shot upstairs.

“Are you okay?” asked Emma’s mom, catching my exit.

“I’M FINE! Never BETTER!” I yelled at her. Volume control was something other people gave a shit about. It wasn’t for me. I turned and exited like a British guard. Johnny was indeed outside. In his mom’s van. Driving, I assumed.

The drive took nearly an hour to get to Johnny’s, even though it was 2 miles away. There must have been a grand total of zero cops on the road, or any concerned citizens with cell phones. We were trashed. Reality started bending. Blurring, and mostly shifting and melting like the fabric of the car’s interior was pancake batter.

Johnny was telling me about what he was going through, and I kept laughing, and then freaking out on Johnny for not picking me up on time.

“But think about it… You’re here NOW.”

“Whoa…” I thought. “That’s epic.”

“Guess what else is epic?” he said, “you want to play drums.”

Did the pope shit in the woods? Of course I wanted to play. I wanted to do everything. Johnny had an incredible drum set at his house. Johnny sucked at drums, but I wasn’t half bad. In fact, I started to get pretty good. Johnny would patter on his bass guitar, and I could wail.

No one was at Johnny’s house. His mom was on one of her dates again. Johnny wore his dad’s prize bass, plugged it into its 120-watt amp, and left the amp buzzing. I sat carefully around the gigantic set. When I touched my butt-skin to the drummer’s throne, I activated. It felt funny sitting, like I didn’t really stop falling into the seat the entire time I drummed. I grabbed the drumsticks, acclimated the high hat, the crashes, the snare, and the double bass pedals. This all was just too funny.

“CLEVELAND, ARE YOU READY TO ROCK?” I screamed. I clicked a drumstick: 1-2-3-4.

It got loud.

The music was jamming out of both of our instruments. However good or bad it actually sounded, the world may never know, but if you were to ask me at the time; we reinvented rock ‘n’ roll.

And after a good 20 minutes of fucking around on the cymbals, toms, ride, and cowbell, it was time for a challenge. The double bass pedals.

I sat into my butt, and lifted my feet just above the metal pedals. I only needed tiny taps from the balls of my feet, and a little ankle pressure, and thuds from my thighs, and before I knew it, I had pistons on my legs.

Passing 150 beats per minute, and then 200, and then 300, and then 400, and then a thousand, and then ten thousand. Was I really going that fast? Did it matter? I was fire.

The last thing I saw was Johnny’s face. It was astonishment. He was proud, and then everything went red. I knew my feet were moving ten thousand miles per minute, but I lost the brakes. I didn’t even know where I was anymore. How could I stop? I was watching light bulbs drip off the ceiling not moments earlier. Now, I was in a field of red, and in the corner of my vision, I saw a figure. A bearded figure.

A curious character in my imagination. If I wasn’t tripping I might have shit a brick, but it was all illusions, crystals in my mind. That figure couldn’t harm me.

He had a turban, that seemed to be wrapped in gold. He didn’t seem nice, but he was welcoming me, warmly. He had an extraordinarily long white shirt, and white pants that were tucked into perfectly polished combat boots. He had a beard, a long one that puffed out of his jawline. His eyes were cast downward. He couldn’t see me, but he was completely present with a shiny handgun in hand.

Wow was all I could think. My red vision was blocked by a giant face that started gobbling up this turban guy. I blinked, realizing that it was Johnny’s face. Talking. Johnny was talking to me. The red was gone. The figure was gone.

Johnny stared at me, then repeated, “YO are you OKAY?”

“Yea, stop yelling!”

“Shit well don’t scare me like that.” said Johnny.

“Like what?”

“Hey, dumbass, you’ve been on the ground for like ten minutes.”

“What?” it couldn’t have been longer than 2 seconds. “No way.”

“Yea, actually, you like conked out. BUT DAMN. I’ve NEVER heard anyone crush the double bass like that.”

I sat up. The light bulbs were still melting. I wondered if it would be like this forever.

“Where’d you go?” Johnny asked, sitting down next to me. We were both staring at the same light bulb. I wondered if Johnny saw it like I did. I wondered if his trip was identical to mine, or 100% different, like string cheese vs. sirloin steak.

“Somewhere else,” I said with certainty, “I think… I think I just saw another planet.”

And then we dissolved into laughter.