The plan was simple: get dropped off in the middle of nowhere. Make it back home. Leave notes so no none would worry when we weren't back for a few days. Don’t get the cops involved. Neither of us had a cellphone, they were just becoming somewhat of a thing, and they'd hardly fit well in a pocket.
To this day, I'm not sure whose idea it was. Probably a combined effort in needing a spirit quest or something stupid to do. Small towns have funny ways of finding trouble. I know the LSD was his doing.
We had a summer of premature self indulgent enlightenment. Thinking we were so smart and on a noble Platonism-Zen quest. Like losing virginity- walking around the next few weeks changed, above everything, but still the same. Different, but not in the right ways. Chest out with confidence, when in realty, all it was- was an act of awkwardness and clumsiness. We were too dumb to know to take the condom off our cerebral minds. We were philosophers: Contemplating the universe, chaos theory, parallel realities, chi, energy. Reading: The I Ching, Tao Te Ching, Bhagavad Gita, Einstein's Dreams, and staying up till sunrise conversing along the river bank in a small central Wisconsin town. Fish leapt from swirling eddies to catch morning meals skittering across the moving surface. Everything was a deep and profound metaphor. Or maybe we smoked too much…
Our mutual friend Tim picked us up from the diner and took us way out into the country to get lost in a creepy forest at midnight. Weird shit lived out that woods. Our minds made it weirder.
“You sure about this?” asked Tim in his hesitant yet calculated over contemplated manner. His hand flickered. We sat around slow fading embers of a campfire eating cans of soup heated on coals. Tim smoked his cigarette down to the filter and flicked it into the last bit of fire.
“Sure as hell.”
“Yeah man. We're good. We'll see you in a week or so. Hopefully. Back in the art class.”
“Ok. Good luck.” Tim said standing up. “I better get going. My mom is going to kill me.”
“Ok man.”
“See ya.”
We waved as Tim wandered back through the woods. Somehow he knew his way even in dark. We were stranded with only the little bit of food and water in our backpacks, one hatchet, a compass, and the clothes we wore, oh! and two black garbage bags (which will save our asses a couple times).
Profound beautiful burning sunrise pierced around the horizon and sliced through dense foliage. A bird screamed somewhere in the canopies. Green grass glowed orange. We began to walk towards the sun. Jason opened a small tin can.
“Here, put this under your tongue. Should make things interesting.”
