I start to laugh because everything is funny. The world blurs, like an Impressionist painting. The grass is a verdant green, brighter than ever, and borders blend effortlessly into blurred and uneven contours. I get up and stumble over to the boat house veranda and sit down in one of the chairs overlooking the lake. It is good having a wall behind me so I can focus on the creature trees across the lake. Something is right about throwing my right arm up and behind my head. The tactile sensations of plastic are amazing. The tree on the near side of the lake is vibrating and shining with an inner luminescence, greener than green are the leaves, with light green cores. The creature trees move and sway on the far side. There is a very heavy feeling of weight. It will pass. The burnt taste in my mouth and nostrils will not. I remember that from another time. There is no time, though. I hear a bang – wide! It makes sense. The world is wide, stretched horizontally. Cars drive along the road on the far side of the lake, stretched and moving slowly. I look over. A friend walks up from the lake, stops, then appears near the lake and walks up again. Then he disappears. Then two people walk by in slow motion. I smell pot. Two girls from our group are smoking weed and making out. The world is narrow now, stretched vertically. The railing of the veranda is thin, my sunglasses are thin. They feel good in my mouth. My body appears pale and far away. I am looking at myself from above myself, outside myself. It is just being. A friend comes over laughing. “This is strong shit!” he laughs. He sits in the other chair. Then he is looking away, then looking at me, then laughing, then suddenly in mid-conversation. He looks vaguely snakelike. A wave of brilliant color hits me. “This is just the second part kicking in...we are so screwed...so much stronger than we thought.” I try to say something but can only get out “It’s really...” I laugh, and another friend walks up and gives me a plastic cup with Pepsi in it. The rim is fun to chew. Tactile, tactile. Being is all that matters. “Cold drinks,” the friend who handed me the Pepsi says. “Cold drinks”. A third friend comes over laughing. “It’s different with people, isn’t it?” he asks. His pupils are dilated. This is very introspective for me, I say. I can see every pore on his skin. The sharpness of the lines on his clothes is better than my eyes usually see. He stands me up. “Let’s go back to the house for a minute,” he says. I stumble against the railing. Space is so distorted and I end up leaning on my friend. He has been in the lake. His clothes are wet. Mine are wet. Damp is everywhere. The world is squishy and my face feels puffy. I need to pee. I leave him and go into the bathroom, then come back out and walk across the lawn. I need to drop. I drop and look up at the sky. There is nothing there but the ground feels good so I lie there for a while. How many hours has this been? Is it the same day as before or another one? Back to the veranda. I break one of the chairs. I think. Maybe not. Maybe it was always broken. My wife comes up and smiles, takes away my glasses because I am chewing them again. I give her my phone to keep it from going into the lake. I decide to sit on the edge of the veranda. The celebration is underway. There is now a Chinese pavilion on the lawn and a banquet with black-tie guests. So many people are here and...then they are not, and there is no Chinese pavilion. Candles are burning in small metal containers on simple tables and no one is there who wasn’t, but the lights going up into the sky are like brilliant stars. “Are you okay?” someone asks me. I laugh and then look around. “Am I the only one still like this?” I ask. “Yes,” they say. People ask me to “come back”. Am I really in a coma and imagining all this? What are the lights? No one called paramedics, I hope. I am fine. I just am, and that is enough. The lights are just a flashlight because someone lost something. I walk around and then go down to the boat landing and sit by the water. The stars are out, brilliant. The creature trees are quieter because the world is winding down to sleep. I think it is the same day. My friend sits down and laughs. “That was a blast,” he says. I nod. We stand up and walk back to the tables. A sudden jolt hits me, and everything is mundane and normal. Some residual flashes hit for another hour or so, smeared visions and bright lights, but it turns out only five hours have passed. Time and space are still skewed. It seems a half hour has passed and yet after looking at a clock I see it has only been three minutes. So many thoughts now, so many impressions. The burnt taste is still there, but it is going away.