Everyone else has been asleep for a couple hours by this point, but I’m stretched out on the couch, resting my feet on the glass-topped end table, finishing off a bowl and reading some Borges I brought with me to the retreat in case something like this happened. I’m buzzed, mind racing a mile a minute, and wishing I could be listening to some Doors or Lasher Keen tunes. Unfortunately sound carries like you wouldn’t believe in this cabin and I don’t want to wake the others. They’ve earned their rest.
Man, that was some fucking intense ritual. Though most of it’s a blur little snips keep coming back to me causing my breath to catch and the hair on my arms to stand up. And all that was before we dug into the goody bag and journeyed together. I’m not even sure what all I tried earlier in the evening, but some of it – probably the ‘shrooms – is still coursing through my system, making things swimmy on the periphery and sharp, bright and hyperfocused at the center. I can only read a page or two of Borges at a stretch because everything is making too much sense, sending me off on these mental reveries that last for minutes but feel like hours and hours have passed. I’m having trouble keeping track of where and when I am (who is easy: Onoma Asterios) and hosts are whispering to me from the shadows. They’re strange, new; parts of the Retinue that have never stepped forward before. I’ve already filled a notebook with barely legible impressions, doodled sigils and poetry fragments. This one phrase in particular keeps repeating. Dionysos only knows if I’ll be able to read any of it in the morning – or if morning will ever come.
I glance at the clock on top of the old wood panel television set and it lyingly proclaims that it’s 3:33 AM. Impossible! Last time I checked it was 3:16 and that was weeks ago.
I try to take another pull on the bong but it’s empty.
Fuck.
The weed box is all the way across the room, next to that weird sailboat on the bookshelf.
Why did I leave it there?
Oh yeah, so Akoites could bless the weed.
Look, it made sense at the time, okay?
I propel my bulk off the couch and stagger towards the case when I catch movement at the window.
I blink, rub my eyes til they water, and take another look.
They’re still there.
About six or seven of them: old, bearded, rugged-faced men wearing what looks like ancient Greek clothing, watching me with a mix of horror and bemusement.
I do the only thing one can do in such a predicament: I hold the bong up, offering them some, and then they disappear.
I grab the box and then collapse back on the couch, thanking Dionysos θυρεπανοίκτης cause this is apparently some really good shit.
