“I’m telling you man, ecstasy has nothing on this. You have to trust me.”
“Stop messing with me Kyle, it’s a goddamn music file. It’s not going to do anything.”
Kyle Moran rolled his eyes, chuckling.
“I know, I know, I said the same thing. But it’s not music. It’s…it’s amazing, man. I haven’t even so much as touched a joint since I got into this.”
Ian fingered a large set of headphones. He pursed his lips, contemplating Ian’s suggestion. He was, by nature, an absolute skeptic, which Kyle would have said did not reflect his viewpoint but rather a compulsive need to be difficult whenever possible.
“The first time I tried it, I thought it was total crap. I did.”
“Kyle, you would lick the bottom of a freaking rock if someone told you it’d get you high.”
“Absolutely I would, and meanwhile you’d be in your room stoically refusing to take any chances. What is it gonna hurt you to listen to this thing for ten minutes?”
As he rolled his head back, Ian Wesport groaned. He had already decided to try it, but he liked to make Kyle work for it; it was a terrible habit, but he just hated giving in.
“Give me the stupid headphones.”

Ian slipped the sleek silver headset over his ears. Kyle had brought his own over; his parents bought them for his birthday, the kind of top-of-the-line technological wonder that most kids drooled over in magazines. According to him, the high is at its greatest when the ears are completely covered, and according to the specs these things could block out the noise of an earthquake at a glass factory four feet away. Ian gave Kyle a thumbs up to start the file. Kyle flashed him a self-assured “I knew I’d get you to try this” smile before starting up the sound file on his MP3 player.

It’s like a thousand bees buzzing next to his ear. The first few seconds are so irritating it’s painful, and Ian’s hands flash up to pull the headphones off. Kyle grabs his wrists, shakes his head, and mouths to his friend to close his eyes. The buzzing gets lower and less grating, but it still sounds like some sort of perverted static.
“This is bull, Kyle. I’m getting a headache.”
“That’s normal, stop being a baby and hang on,” he replies, though Ian can’t hear him.
Though he still wishes to hang on to his insistence on being difficult, Ian decides it’s easier to just go with it. He focuses on the noise, which is now more of a hum than a buzz. The pitch is low and strong, and he can feel the slightest trepidation in the foam of the headphones. His temple is starting to throb less, and he breathes slowly, in and out, like Kyle told him to. It’s actually sort of relaxing; he wants to think about how stupid what he’s doing is, but finds it hard to concentrate with the sound.

It’s almost a dull nagging now, something he’s not listening to as much as he is simply hearing it. Bereft of any other ambient sounds, his focus shifts to his head, to the warmth that slowly increases in volume. The sound becomes deeper and richer as he stops trying not to concentrate on it, and he can almost feel the sound swirling around in his head, like tawny brandy in thick, deep glass. He entertains a thought that it’s the vibrations ricocheting off his skull, but it takes him twice as long to articulate to himself as it should. Slightly shaken, he attempts to form another thought but finds that it quickly fades, like a paper crane in a midday breeze, and as they fly he does not mourn their passing, cannot even pay them any attention after a few seconds have passed.

His lips slowly curve upward in a thin smile. He is not conscious of it, however; his consciousness is grainy and imprecise now, and images begin to flash across his inner vision. They seem at first to be sequential but by the time a few have passed he seems to lose the narrative. There are three sounds flooding his ears now, humming and buzzing and ticking in obtuse, abstract patterns that he cannot seem to follow or derive any meaning from. As the sounds swirl about his skull they seem to settle in the back of his head, and he can almost feel them pushing up against the pillow.

It occurs to him suddenly to examine the rest of his body, which he remembers is lying on a bed, but he can’t seem to place himself within the space he knows he is supposed to be occupying. His body seems possessed not by a weightlessness but by a complete lack of reference from which to judge his position. There is no up or down, those terms don’t apply to this space – there is only the sounds, ebbing and flowing but decidedly unlike anything that nature offers. The pace changes at random, the sounds jerking forward or back at illogical intervals. It should be jagged and jarring, and on one level he acknowledges this, but on another they seem to blend together in a way that makes perfect sense, and is in fact euphoric.

The warmth comes next, spreading from his fingertips down his arms. He can feel it traveling down his blood vessels, spreading from the outside in, coming at last to his head. He can feel his mind engulfed by the tide as his thoughts become entirely incoherent. He watches his own thoughts as if from a distance, seeing the images that pass through his consciousness but unable to draw any meaning from them. Like a dream half-remembered even as it happens, experience becomes an abstract concept.

Gradually, like a tide coming in at midnight, something begins to envelop him. It’s a warmth, tinted white, like a light that starts to engulf his body. There is initially a feeling not unlike fear, but it’s far off, like he’s getting it from someone else, and as he lets himself float deeper into the brightness he begins to hear a voice. It could be a hum, it could be someone trying to speak, he is unable to discern anything from it. He realizes distantly that hearing this voice is the most important thing in the world, and without moving he tries to will himself towards it.

He feels, or at least believes he can feel, himself moving through the whiteness, the consistency of a cloud but none of the cold or wetness, and as he rises he can see a large hand, reaching towards him, and he hears the voice so clearly now, and he understands everything, and once he grasps the hand he can finally be happy, and then he’s lying back on the bed and the sounds have stopped and his entire body is tingling like a leg that’s fallen asleep, and his ears are ringing.

He began to move parts of his body as if testing them, trying to readjust to having a physical shell. He looks around lazily: yes, this is my room. This is the physical space I occupy. This is reality.

Kyle was staring at him, head tilted.
“So, uh, what’d you think?”
“I don’t…I don’t even know how to describe it, dude. It was…”
“I’ll take that as a good thing. Kinda weird, though. Most people really trip on it. You just looked like you were sleeping.”
“Whatever it was, I think I need to do it again. Do you have any more?”
Kyle smiles wide, and Ian knows he has misspoken.
“Oh, for the love of-”
“I FREAKING TOLD YOU!”