Friday, May 6, 2011

Joints (or Purple Haze): An old work still in progress...

While I was sifting through file on an old external hard drive of mine, I happened upon a folder of text documents that held some really old writings of mine.  I'm not proud of the quality of this by any means but I think works at different times of development can be very telling.  Anyways here is the excerpt:



The aroma had begun to fill the air since the first puff was taken; it had reached Eric before he knew it. Danielle’s arm was extended, waving the smoking circular item in front of him. Her radiant blue eyes connected with his as he tilted his head up. Eric was taken aside for a moment by her friendly look and his were thoughts lead astray to other parts of her body. “Go ahead, it’s your hit.” she gleefully murmured during a slight exhale trying to hold as much of the euphoric smoke in as possible.

Eric was pulled back into reality away from Danielle’s wonderland. Covered with shock and embarrassment, he quickly reaffirmed the situation. As he reached out for it, he took another glance at Danielle. Through her pursed lips and bodily stoicism, he could plainly she that she was choking, short of air. While he didn’t want to continue the circle, he sternly pulled the emberous stick from her tight clench to allow relief of her pain and suffering. Danielle turned to the other side and began cough voraciously.                                                                                                                                     

Eric’s mind soon floated away from all youthful pleasures. As he stared at the burning stick between his fingers, he thought about how many of his close friends enjoyed this thing that he disliked so much. His eyes scoured the room, looking for some sense of sanity from his moderately asphyxiated peers. It seemed the exact moment Eric began to look up at the group they decided to fix their stare and intent directly on him. All the laughter had died down, no one was choking to death anymore; they all were sitting and solemnly peering at Eric. Fearing more attention than just staring coming on, Eric casually put the joint up to his lips and began to inhale, throwing away years of drug-free behavior. Making sure his friends didn’t laugh too hard at him at school for being a novice smoker, Eric puffed repeatedly and held the smoke for awhile before release like he had seen his friends all do before.                        

Eric proud with his accomplishment, handed it to the person on his left and laid back in his seat to relax. This is when he began to feel strange. It wasn’t exactly the light-hearted euphoria he had imagined and heard it described as. Actually, he started to become overcome with melancholy and his vision began to fade. Eric could feel his eyes rolling back into his head as darkness began to void his vision. With the world slowly melting away, Eric heard a voice of a disheartened friend exclaiming, “Man, I didn’t know you couldn’t even handle one hit!”
      
The laughter pursued Eric on his journey into blackness. It echoed maniacally through his head as it altered from a high pitch to one that was demonically deep. The laughter became rampant until Eric knew someone else was there. “Who are you?” Eric propositioned this with a nearly indifferent tone, almost naïve to the question itself.
      
The voice bellowed back with tremendous veracity and unmistakable truth renouncing within the space, “I am your God!”
      
Pillars were positioned symmetrically in the room where Eric now stood. It was circular adorned with marble statues of grotesque angels and demons. In the center of the room was a series of smooth block steps up to an altar. Eric stood with his head drooping downward; his eyes were focused at the ground beneath his feet. It was a stance all too common to Eric. He used it to handle uncomfortable situations and ones were he lacked confidence. He stood defensively but almost with submission. His father had seen it and so had his gym teacher.   

In an instance of deafening silence, Eric’s toes begin to curl as his foot makes a step forward. “I’m not afraid of you.” he mutters half under his breath as he begins to walk toward the voice.
     
“I will smite you!” the voice roared with enough force to scatter the debris and dust lining the room.

However, this did not faze Eric, he had felt the ravaging wind from the voice against his forehead and continued on. The figure looming before him was like an amorphous rendering of a human covered in a purple shadowy haze. The haze engulfed the body and pulsated brilliantly at the devil’s head. It hovered in the air, arms outstretched, as if waiting to take the incoming soul.

As Eric reached the steps of the altar, he briefly hesitated before starting the climb.  He clenched a fist tightly, his hands shaking with determination.  At this moment, the deity was overjoyed because it believed that Eric had changed his mind.  An ever so slim smile grew on his face.

As Eric reached the top of the stairs he emotionlessly passed through the figure.  The apparition emitted an unnatural scream rocking the foundations of the room and vanished instantly, leaving only an evanescence of the purple haze.  Without stopping, Eric continued down the stairs behind the altar and into the darkness. 

It took quite a bit of restraint to keep myself from editing this at least a little.  This little diddy was written in 2006.

9 comments:

  1. I commend you for leaving it unedited. And its not bad, but I know the feeling of thinking what you wrote was epic back in the day and then you look years later and think...WTF was I thinking?!?!

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  2. I recently found some writing I did when I was in high school and indeed I thought, wtf?!

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  3. Haha, that's a pretty cool recollection that you have there. Man, if I had only documented and wrote about past times I had toked it up. I'd probably laugh harder at what I had wrote than what I was actually laughing at at the time.

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  4. You're so brave to post that! I have a hard time sharing my "serious" writing because I get so self conscious. It's like people can see inside your soul.

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  5. It always kills me when I find my old work, especially philosophical or political work. Man, I can't believe how... unrefined... I was.

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  6. Yeah, I had reading my things i've written in the past. It ruins the inflated opinion of my current self.

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  7. cool read, reminds me of the old days

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  8. lol I didn't even know stoner-lit was a genre.... good work, matey boy!

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