The Vacationist

Chapter One

On the eve of my 21st birthday I was coming out of a week-long bender that was really just a heavier-than-normal week within a yearlong binge. As much as I wanted to continue partying, I was still a newbie to the world of alcoholism and was really feeling the years' beatings. I slept all day and into the night. When I finally woke up long enough to stay awake, I ate some cereal. Quickly after it went down I threw it all up into the kitchen sink. I could have made it to the bathroom but I knew it would be mostly milk, so I went for what was easy. I was not looking forward to my birthday celebrations but I knew they were inevitable. I couldn't eat or drink so I desperately wandered around the house in a controlled panic trying to figure out what to do with each moment of awareness.

My roommate Nick and I lived a little house that we recorded music out of and called the place Little House Studios. Because we sucked at recording and couldn't pay the rent as music producers, we sold drugs. Most of our profit came from one drug in particular known as DMT. We sold weed too but so did everyone else. The place was shitty but not a complete shit hole. It was charming in a way but wrecked enough to where we didn't mind tearing it up with parties every night. It had one floor with two bedrooms and a bathroom in-between them. On the other side was the kitchen, the living room, and the entryway. We also had a half basement. I say half because it was only dug about five feet down. So if you were any taller than five feet you couldn't fully stand up. Our place may have been small and wrecked but never dirty. Nick always kept the place clean, especially his room. It was important for him to have a clean room and a nice bed in order to make it easier to seduce girls. I didn't really give a shit. My private corner consisted of a dresser, a mattress, a fitted sheet, a blanket and a pillow. I didn't even have a bed frame. Since the house didn't have any interior doors, I considered my room to be the house as a whole. Nonetheless, we kept the place clean. After all, it was a business and our clients had expectations.

Since drinking was making me sick that night I scoured through my drawers to see what other drugs I had. I was out of my personal weed but I could've gotten some from the community table. That weed wasn't as good as mine. That's why mine was gone. I rarely smoked on my own and this wasn't one of those occasions where I wanted to, so I kept searching for something else. I was hoping to come across some pain killers or muscle relaxers but those were gone too. I came across my "brown cake" and stopped. The brown cake was my weakest batch of DMT. I called it brown cake because it sounded better than calling it brown shit, which more accurately described what it was. My good batches were either yellow or white. Most of my friends were used to good drugs especially if it came from me, so I couldn't sell them my brown shit. Although it didn't blast you off it gave you a real fun high. It gave you the kind of high that you were told marijuana would give you when described by someone who had just tried it for their first or second time. After a good hit you could have two to three minutes of treating your surroundings like a canvas. If you wanted the world to be in the hue of purple, it would. If you wanted your cat to be the size of a hamster you could watch it shrink and even hear it make a little squeak rather than a meow. I kept my brown batch for cold or rainy nights when we'd run out of weed. This didn't happen very often so I had a lot of it.

I waited for the clock to strike midnight. Soon I would be legally allowed to drink away my dreams in accordance to the United States. So instead of drinking one away, I decided to create one. I shouted out into the living room, "Hey, who wants to go outside and hit this brownie with me for my birthday?" I didn't hear any response. I started to get a little worried. My house was never empty. I started packing up a bowl and I walked outside to see if any cars were in the driveway. Nothing. I went back inside and sat on the couch alone.

Within seconds I was tripping. Just like a blasting off you feel the effects before you are even done exhaling.