Estimated reading time: 6 minutes
My first thought as the shaman passed me the tall glass of thick green paste was, this looks like a smoothie. From a juice bar. Like the one near the hostel, with the cute Peruvian girls that we tried to chat up with our pigeon Spanish.
My nose was the first to betray that memory. The taste rubberstamped it. I threw it down my gullet, hoping for a quick end to the battle on my senses. I was wrong. The cold and lumpy mixture slowly slithered its way home to rest in the pit of my stomach.
I looked around the room and observed my companions. A couple in their thirties from Canada. A metalhead in his fifties. And then there was big Patrick, my partner in crime. Sure, ‘twas himself that convinced me.
Your liver won’t last three months of boozing. Be good to try a detox at some point. Press reset.
And when those motivational quips didn’t work, he shared the real reason why we should visit the borders of the Amazon jungle. To help him get over a messy breakup, specifically, by taking the powerful psychedelic brew, Ayahuasca. He explained how it had been used for centuries by indigenous tribes believing that it could cure a wide variety of conditions including depression, grief and addiction. They believed that the medicine opened a portal to another dimension (or subconscious), stripping away the ego and connecting the receiver to a higher state of being. The drink produced mind altering hallucinogenic experiences that could fundamentally shift a person’s energy.
Naturally, I agreed. After all, it wasn’t every day your best mate visited you on the other side of the world. Besides, there’d be plenty of time for chasing skirt and partying later.
We lay on the hard wooden floor, huddled in sleeping bags. As the minutes began to stretch, empty buckets at our feet were slowly slid within arms reach. The shaman—fresh from delivering our plant cocktails—was dressed in a patched cloak of bright colours and matching woolen hat. He sat in the corner shrouded in smoke, with eyes narrowed, chewing his tobacco pipe.
The jungle brew contained potent chemicals which almost always ended up being violently expelled from the body. Heads or tails was the sweating man’s coin flip. The first domino fell with the metalhead. Heaps of vomit slapped the bucket, setting off a Mexican wave of revulsion. Soon, each stoic participant was frantically hugging their bucket—buoys at sea, as the room swayed under our feet.
Twenty exhausting minutes later, wiping snot and slime from our faces, we were hollowed out and praying for respite. The physical turmoil ended and in a cruel twist of Pacha Mama’s design was replaced by something much more unsettling.
My trip began with a nosebleed. I sat up, back propped against the wall as blood gushed from my nose and down my chest, pooling in my lap. Curious, I watched as rippled movements disturbed the surface of the shallow basin of dark red. My confusion peaked when I spied swimming shapes. Carefully, I shifted my weight, thinning the pool and was shocked to see jet black eels wriggling around my groin area. I panicked, calling out for help.
“It’s OK,” the manager assured me, lightly gripping my shoulder. “This will pass.”
“I need a hospital!” I cried, pinching the nostrils filled with blood. “This isn’t what I signed up for!”
The man, who appeared to have developed lupine features, looked down at me with a concerned expression before walking away.
I called out to my cabin mates but the cry froze in my chest. They too, had subtly changed form. Within minutes, they had become a drunken orgy of bucking, moaning creatures hidden under the sea of blankets. Their heathen lust escalated, and I visualised myself lost among them, wrapped in their limbs.
“Listen.” A calm voice above the chanting of the shaman. Desperate for escape from that hellish room with bestial delights, I closed my eyes. The nausea faded, and I felt a coolness prickle my hot skin. “Follow my voice. You’ll be grand.”
The inflection on that last word triggered a memory.
“Da, is that you?” I heard his unmistakable laugh. “Where are you?”
“I’m part of the Universe now.”
I suddenly felt myself floating high above the cabin, beyond the jungle, among the clouds. I felt oddly at peace.
“Are you—?”
“Don’t worry about me, son,” he said. “It’s you I’m worried about.”
At once, I felt myself snap from that high vantage point, arrowing back through the clouds. The forest canopy raced toward me. I skidded to a halt, directly above the cabin roof. Through the skylight, I could see the twisted shapeshifting creatures, writhing under the sheets. The other me—immobile and bucket by his side—continued looking skyward.
“I can’t make you choose,” Da said, as I watched the figures become more animated. Twisted limbs reached out, beckoning me to join their orgy. “But if you don’t, someone or something will choose for you.”
A bed sheet slipped off one of the figures, revealing a misshapen waxy form. Ugly, raised welts punched along the curve of its spine. The creature scuttled across the room like an insect to where I lay in the sleeping bag.
“No, I want to go back,” I shouted. “I want to go BACK!”
A hand seized my wrist.
“You’re OK.” I looked up and saw the smiling face of my buddy Patrick. “Welcome back.”
I wiped my dry nose and looked down at the hand, confused. Over his shoulder, I could see the others fighting their own private battles. The creatures had gone. The sinful ugliness that had revealed itself, was gone. However, the images, imprinted in my memory, would remain for a long time afterwards.
But, for the next two hours, and as long as my trip lasted, I lay back and stared up through the skylight. Far above, it was just me and my dear old Da, swimming in the stars.
This story was written for the ambitious creative project, ‘The Weekly Kook’, where I release a brand new short story every week for a year, totalling…yep, you guessed it – 52 stories.
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Check all the stories here as I release them.