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Hi, my name is Eddy.
Stories are like little universes that have their own pocket of time. Their time has nothing to do with our time. We can pick up their universe and look at any point in time we want and it’s always the same as the last time we looked. Their world is fixed. Sure maybe if you were the author you could go back and change the story, but mostly a book is a book and that’s that.
Come. I wanna show you something.
Thats me.
I was young, but I had my own place. My parents got me across the boarder when I was little, and I lived with my aunt’s family until I was ten. I don’t remember why I wasn’t with them, maybe I was sick, but they all died in a car accident one evening. Since then I was on my own, trying not to let anyone know I was alone and trying not to get deported.
Unsurprisingly I was an escapist. I discovered psychadelics at 13 and that was that. I was so into it. By 17 everyone came to my place to party and drop acid.
Unfortunately 17 it also when I died.
I mixed acid with DMT and went on a trip I never came back from. I felt myself detach. I knew it the moment it happened. I saw myself lying there for a split second before I was sucked away into oblivion. This wasn’t supposed to happen. This was wrong. Something was wrong. Before I forgot who I was I could just tell that this wasn’t supposed to be possible. You can’t just unlink from your body.
I barrled through time and space for.. well I couldn’t tell you for how long. It felt like a second. It felt like an eternity. I forgot who I was and why I was here. I passed through worlds and experienced a random assortment of excerpts from lives I didn’t recognize.
When I finally stopped I was in a pine forest. The universe came to such an abrupt stop that my entire being gasped for air that I didn’t need to breathe. I was disoriented. So disoriented that I didn’t wonder how or why I felt like I was stumbling and falling down. I didn’t have a body anymore.
“What are you doing?”
I turned toward the voice and saw a native American sitting cross-legged on the ground.
“You shouldn’t be here,” he continued.
“Where?!” I asked, “Where am I?”
“You’re here,” he answered and crawled toward me. “You need guidance.” He put his hand inside my chest and closed his eyes. I saw his face flinch slightly before he went about gathering sticks and stones off the ground.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
“I don’t know how long you have here,” he answered as he quickly bound sticks together with long weeds. He shoved something into my hands and, to my surprise, I could hold onto it. “It’ll keep you safe.”
I felt a pulling in my.. soul I guess?
“I think I’m leaving again.” I clutched the item in my hands and watched frantically as the world started to crackle and fade.
The man grabbed two rocks and smashed them together, making a rhythm as he vocalized something I didn’t quite understand. He danced around me, chanting and banging his rocks. The world went black.
“Be safe, brother,” his voice echoed after me as I was whisked away for another endless journey.
With this talisman I found that I could direct my path. There were shards of light that looked like broken windows or mirrors, and I could choose to pass through them or not. Time and space didn’t exist here in a way that I understood. The shards weren’t always in the same place and sometimes I still fell into one by accident.
I saw identical twins sitting together in the middle of the woods. They cut and pressed their hands together and said, “I will always be with you. And you will always be with me. Body and Soul. Now and forever.” There was a sound, and they both startled. I fell out of their world before I could see what happened to them.
I was in a dingy living room. A woman with red hair and a young boy were screaming at each other. The boy didn’t act his age. He was yelling at the woman like he was an adult and she was a child. But she struck him across the face and he staggered back. She grabbed him, and kneed him in the groin, and threw him into a chair.
I stumbled next into a boarding school. A kid with honey-brown hair sat alone in his room. He was fighting back tears, drawing frantically in a sketchbook. The door flew open and the kid immediately turned away.
”You cryin’ again, queer?”
I bristled and ducked back into the Void. There was nothing I could do.
I saw aliens and mythical creatures. I saw the past and the future. I saw worlds so different from what I know that I couldn’t possibly describe them to you.
And then there’s Andrew.
I met Andrew when he was sixteen. He was in his bedroom. It was dark outside. 3am. He was pacing. Muttering.
In the corner of his bedroom was a black shadow. It had hollow white eyes and a mouth full of sharp white teeth. It whispered in response to Andrew’s muttering.
I couldn’t hear either of them clearly enough to tell you what they were saying, until Andrew suddenly shouted, “Would you shut the fuck up!!! I’m not fucking talking to you!!!”
The shadow laughed.
“You’re not fucking real!! Just fuck off!!”
The shadow slinked out of its corner and wrapped itself around Andrew like a snake. “If I’m not real maybe you should be quiet. Unless you like it in the hospital? Do you like being drugged out of your mind?”
“Not on /those/ drugs.” Andrew rolled his eyes.
“Then shut-up!” The shadow scowled and barred it’s teeth. “You’ll wake up your mother and she’ll have you committed. Again.”
“Come now mr. Black, do you really think she’d do it again so soon. She just got him back, and the drugs don’t seem to have helped.” A second being, similar to the shadow, but white with black eyes, faded through Andrew’s bedroom door.
“Oh. Of course you’re here. Is everyone gonna come back? I thought the meds were supposed to get rid of you.” Andrew said dryly.
“Why don’t you just stop taking them then?”
“Because the counting voice hasn’t been back yet and I fucking hate that guy.”
I laughed at that and all three of their gazes snapped to me.
“Oh come on! Who the fuck are you supposed to be?”
I blinked. People didn’t see me. I was a ghost. Basically.
“Just some dead kid,” I said with a shrug.
Andrew narrowed his eyes at me.
The shadows did the same.
“What do you think, mr. White?” Andrew crossed his arms and shifted his weight to one leg.
“Well he doesn’t /seem/ like a hallucination.”
“Said the hallucination,” Andrew rolled his eyes. “I don’t know why I ask you things. “
“Because you don’t believe we’re hallucinations,” Mr. Black said menacingly.
“Don’t fuckin tell me what I believe!” Andrew snapped.
He crouched down to dig something out from under his bed, then he marched across the room and threw open his window. He leaned outside and lit a cigarette.
I joined him, leaning out and wishing I could still smoke.
“What do you want?” Andrew grumped at me.
“Um, nothing in particular? I’m just unstuck from the fabric of spacetime or something so.. like mostly I want to not be dead anymore. But from you? Nah. Nothing. I’m basically here on accident.”
“That’s a new one,” Andrew chuckled. “You seem familiar. Which probably means you aren’t real.”
“Familiar?”
“Real. You seem real, which probably means you aren’t.”
“I don’t understand.”
“They told me one of my symptoms was derealization. The world doesn’t feel real to me. Except for the shit that comes out of my head. All that shit seems real as fuck and it’s usually not fun shit. So.. you seem familiar. You seem real. So you’re probably not. Get it?”
“Oh,” I said. “Ok. Well since I’m not real, can I—“
“Ask what’s wrong with me?” Andrew scoffed. “They say it’s paranoid schizophrenia, but I dunno. Before that they thought I was possessed or haunted or some shit. Two exorcisms didn’t do jack for anything. At least the pills made the voices and the insects and the.. other stuff go away, but these assholes are still hanging around so.. yea. I’m not sure what I believe right now.”
“Can I help?” I asked, “I mean, I’ve been trying to figure some things out myself.”
“You’re probably not real, what do I care?”
I laughed.
“Hey I have an idea,” I said excitedly and pulled the talisman from my pocket. “Can you touch this?”
I held the bundle of sticks out for Andrew to take. He reached for them and picked them from my hand with no problem. He looked at it carefully, then he slowly reached out to touch me.
His hand went through me.
“Weird,” he breathed. “Where did you get this?”
“From a shaman, I think? I’m not sure. I wound up in a forest and there was this guy there. He made me this and said it’d keep me safe.”
“Has it?” Andrew asked, “kept you safe?”
“I think so,” I said with a shrug. “You should keep it. See if anyone else can see it. That should prove if I’m real or not.”
“Don’t you need this?”
“If I’m not real, do I need anything?”