“Hey, Jimmy! What the hell happened to you? You look like shit.”
“I have been through the eye of the needle.”
“What?” Brad responded. “I don’t care if it’s speed, coke, heroin or cough syrup, if you shoot it up, it’s bad news. When did you start fucking with that loser-ass shit?”
“Dude, I’m not using needle drugs. You know better than that. It’s just a metaphor. I’ve been through the eye of the needle. I’ve seen what’s on the other side. But it’s not the other side. It’s right here. The Kingdom of God. The ultimate reality.” Brad shook his head.
“Well, wherever the hell you went, apparently they didn’t have showers. You smell mighty ripe. And what’s this Kingdom of God shit?”
“Don’t get hung up on words, man. Words are just representative of reality and all of this,” he looked around at his dusty carpet, strewn with In n’ Out bags, pizza boxes and discarded face masks, “this is representative as well. It’s just a shadow. A projection filtered through the lens of your mind.”
“It’s representative of terrible housekeeping. Are you tripping or did you finally eat so much acid that it’s permanent?”
“No, I’m not hallucinating. Not any more. But you are.”
“I’m sober as a judge, Jimmy. In fact, that’s why I came to find you. My roommate smoked the last of my weed a couple of days ago and I just got paid. I wanted to check with you first so I don’t have to pay all the taxes down at the dispensary.”
“Weed?”
“Yeah, weed. So I can get high. Do you have any or am I going to have to go to Main Street Supply?”
“Weed doesn’t get you high.”
“The hell it doesn’t. Do you have any or not?”
“This will get you to a higher plane.” Jimmy reached in the watch pocket of his jeans and placed what he extracted on his palm. It looked like an intricately carved sphere, about the size of an English pea, but bright orange.”
“What the hell is that? Acid?”
“No. This is natural. If you ingest it, it will connect you with the other side.”
“With what?”
“The other side.”
“Well, it is Friday night. But I’d have to stay here. The last thing I want to see if I’m tripping is my roommate. How much?” Jimmy shook his head as if the idea of payment was reprehensible.
“Money is a subterfuge. Part of the scales that will be shed from your eyes.”
“All right. Let’s do it.”
Brad put the tiny object in his mouth and it tasted bright and warm. The room shifted and he saw that it was no more than a drawing on the wall of another room. Another world that grew out of this world like a square expanding into a cube. The view was incredible. He saw through his heart. Through his gut. His old eyes were a blindfold that had now been removed. At last.
Literature in Small Doses 