Glow Worm

 “Alright, so what’s the catch?”

“No catch. No rules.”

“Bullshit.”

“It’s true.”

“Tell me the price again?”

“A dime. Just like in the old days.”

“Bullshit.” Kai examined the tiny pill. Held in a small zip-lock bag, it was triangular and golden, with white lines spiderwebbing out from the center like an exploding star.

“Where’d you get these again?”

“Leo. He owed me from that time back in Brooklyn. Relax, it’s all-natural.”

“Leo?!” Kai looked nervous now, knowing the other kinds of stuff Leo used to sling in the old days. Stuff other than weed and shrooms.

“How is something like this natural? It looks like something you’d find at a pharmacy.”

“That’s just the packaging, marketing, ya know? In its raw form it kind of looks like honey, but glowing.”

“Glowing?”

“It’s from the worms. They’re biolumious, or something like that.”

“Bioluminescent?”

“That’s the one! All glowy and stuff. They bottle this stuff at the source, smuggle it in, then process it uptown. Real fancy lab and stuff, big money backers.”

“What? Who? Why?” Kai said, asking his fifth, sixth, and seventh questions in rapid repetition.

“Don’t know,” Jimmi shrugged, answering all three questions at once. “Listen man, you want it or nah? I’ve got other people to see tonight.

Kai hesitated, but eventually caved in. He couldn’t take one more evening of lonely, idealess emptiness.

“Fine, I’ll take it.”

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Kai walked through his front door and was hit with the smell of old pizza and weed. The lights flickered and then came on, bathing the cramped apartment in a cool, blue glow. Old and new books were scattered across the room, covering tables, chairs, and the floor.

Kai dumped his stuff on the floor and took a shower, after which he toweled off and walked, naked, to his coach. He packed his bowl and took a nice, long pull.

He exhaled.

Kai pulled the little golden pill out of his pocket and looked at it again. It was small yet had a weight to it that made it feel far larger than it was. As he looked at it more closely, he realized that the pill itself pulsed with a faint, yellow light.

“What the hell?” He said and popped the pill down his throat.

Kai waited.

And waited.

And waited.

And waited.

And then, he felt it. It started with a tickle in the back of his mind. Then it grew to an itch. Already losing his touch with reality, Kai raised his hand and actually attempted to physically scratch this growing sensation, to no avail. Feeling the anxiety creeping in, he stood up and began to pace around his cramped apartment.

The itch grew into an obsession. It was all Kai could think, feel, or focus on. It slowly began to consume him, erasing thoughts of joy, love, fear, anxiety, or anything else. There was only this sensation. And then it started to change. It went from a feeling to a noise. Like the itch, it started small, a whisper from somewhere far away, before it got louder and louder, becoming a mutter, a murmur, a mumble, a buzz, and then finally a sound. A voice.

And that voice said, “Hello Kai.”

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“Hello?” Kai asked, aloud.

“Hello.”

Kai smacked himself across the face, trying to wake up.

“Relax,” The voice said. “Just breathe.”

Kai let out a large exhale. He hadn’t realized he’d been holding his breath. Closing his eyes, he steadied his breathing.

“Who are you?”

“Who do I sound like?”

Kai tried to place the voice. It sounded familiar. He knew he knew it, he just couldn’t think where he knew it from.

“I don’t know. Listen, what’s happening here? I’m really freaking out man.”

“I don’t blame you,” The voice said, calmly, yet with a smirk that even though Kai couldn’t see, he could hear. “I would be too if I was feeling what you’re feeling, about to go where you’re about to go.”

“What? What are you talking about? Where am I about to go?”

There was no reply. Just silence.

Kai’s breath began to catch and his pulse began to race. He couldn’t figure out what was going on. Was he hearing things? Hallucinating? No, he wasn’t seeing anything weird, just hearing this one, eerily familiar voice. He opened his eyes and gasped.

The apartment was gone. The floor, the ceiling, the couch, the lights. All gone. Kai looked out into the emptiness, seeing nothing but black. It was as though he was floating in space, with not even stars to break up the endless darkness. No lights twinkled in the distance, no shapes formed anywhere in sight. There was simply dark.

“Hello?” Kai called out into the void. “Are you there?”

“I’m here.”

“Wha…what is this? Where am I?”

“Where do you think you are?”

“I…I don’t know! There’s just black. There’s nothing!”

“There’s never just nothing. Look closer, deeper. Look past the darkness.”

Kai shook his head, rubbed his eyes, and stared once more into the darkness. Black. Blank. Terminal darkness shrouded his eyes, showing nothing. Try as he might to push through, he simply could not.

“I…just… can’t,” Kai growled, through clenched teeth.

A sigh from the void.

“Then you are not ready yet.”

Suddenly, Kai felt as though the ground had dropped out from underneath him. He was falling, sliding through the darkness, feeling no wind or texture as he slid through the endless void, forever.

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Forever didn’t last as long as he thought it would. After what could have been a day, a month, or a minute, Kai felt a world materialize beneath him. The sensation of falling ended, and Kai found himself stable. Not only that, but he could see again.

And what he saw terrified him.

The world was red and pulsing. The sky was orange and muted, as if seeing through a film of goo. Dark lines crisscrossed above, traversing the sky. No, not lines. Veins?

Kai looked around, slowly moving his head to observe the empty cavern he found himself in, floating, suspended in the same liquidy goo that muffled the light. He looked down at his body and would have gasped, if able.

He saw his body, pink, shrunken, unformed. He followed the tube protruding from his belly button down to where it connected to the sky, disappearing into his host.

Internally, Kai screamed, but no one, not even his mother, could hear him.

“Well? What do you think?”

Kai would not learn to speak for another year and a half, so instead, he thought, What do I think? I don’t…what could I…how?

“The how’s not nearly as important as the why, right? The real question is why did you take that pill?”

I…I was curious! Jimmi told me all this amazing stuff. How it would unlock your mind, your ideas. How it would brighten everything, make it all better. I have…I haven’t been feeling so good. Bored, I guess. I heard about this new stuff that just hit the market and I thought it might, I don’t know, unlock something. Other things don’t do it anymore. High tolerance, I guess. Jimmi said that everyone who’s tried this comes out changed, awoken, like they’ve got a fresh start. I…I wanted a fresh start.

Kai floated in the silence, hearing only his own tiny, rapid, still growing heart beat.

Hello? That’s it, that’s why I took the pill! Now what is going on? Am I still tripping, or is this real? Does everyone experience this? No one mentioned it! Why wouldn’t Jimmi mention this? Is this a reset? Am I restarting from the beginning? Do I have to do it all again?

“Do you want to?”

What? No! I mean, I don’t know. What would that mean? Would I be trapped inside my mind forever? Though it all? Being a toddler and learning to talk and losing my teeth and going through puberty? Will people think I’m crazy if I try to tell them? Will I be able to tell them?

Kai pondered this. Time felt infinite in the place, this womb. He thought about staying here, warm, safe, and secure. He imagined being born, being held by his mother, being taken care of. He imagined growing up, learning to walk and run and jump, all for the first time. Growing pains and growth spurts. Christmas and Spring Break. Would time go faster, the second run-through? Or slower? Would he wait and wait and wait to grow old, only to be back where he started? Unsatisfied.

I can’t! No. No no no. This can’t be it. It can’t come down to this. Why? Why is it all on me? Is this a test? From something bigger? To see if I’m, I don’t know, worthy or something? Is this even real? Please I…I just want to go back. I’m ready, I want to go back. Hello? You hear me? Take me back! I want to go back! Take me back! TAKE ME BACK!

The world started to spin before his eyes. Up became down and around and around he went, spinning and circling like water into a drain until everything got sucked through a vacuum and went black.

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The spinning stopped but the blackness stayed.

Kai was back, floating in the endless void. Darkness surrounded him, enveloping him in its infinite embrace. Once more he saw nothing. Wait. No. There was something. Far out there, a pinprick of light in the boundless black. Standing alone, floating in space.

“Hello?” Kai called out, into the nothingness.

No response.

“Hello?” Kai called again, his voice echoing in the void. It could have been his imagination, but the pin of light did seem to get closer. No, not closer. Larger. The pin of light expanded, growing and morphing into a new shape. A recognizable shape. A man? A glowing man?

“Hello?” Kai said, for a third time. And this time, the glowing man responded.

“Hello again, Kai. It’s good to speak with you face-to-face.”

Kai squinted against the glare, trying to decern the man’s features.

“I really am glad you chose to come on this journey. How do you feel?”

“How do I feel? I mean…where to start? I couldn’t even tell you how long it’s been since I took that pill…does time even work the same here? Where is here? Oh please, why do I even bother, you would have told me that already if you wanted to. Listen, is this it? Am I gone? Am I ever getting back? I am changed, is that what you want to hear? How could I not be, after all this? Please, just talk to me, tell me what’s happening, how much longer it will go on. I can’t…I can’t stand it much longer.”

The glowing began to recede. It lessened and lessened, and Kai stared into the face of the man. He had olive skin and dark brow ridges. His hair was swept back, and his green eyes sparkled. Kai stared into the face of the man. His own face.

“I…you…I…me…”

“Yes Kai, I’m you. I know, I know how this feels. Like your brain is splitting in two, like this is the last fracture that your mind can take before it breaks into a million pieces. But it’s not. You can handle this.”

“I…I can’t…I don’t want to.”

“I know, I know you don’t. But I’m hoping this is the last stop. The end of the line, or maybe the beginning. For me at least. You’re here now. You can see me. That’s how it was for the last guy. I saw him and then he left, then you showed up.”

“I…that was you…the itch…the voice.”

“Yes, I had to get your attention somehow, and that’s how he got me…anyway, that’s neither here nor there. Listen, you get what’s going on now, right? I mean, look at you! It worked! You’re here! You’re thinking and feeling and experiencing. Don’t you feel different? I mean, I know I do. I’ve floated and journeyed for a lifetime, or ten, who knows. But now I know I’m ready, I’m ready to go back, to read, to write, to taste, smell, swim, dance. I’m going now Kai, I have to. You’ll be fine, really. Take your time. There’s really no rush at all.”

And with that, the other Kai began to glow again, brighter and brighter, until he was a shining ball of light that pulsed once and then disappeared, leaving only the darkness.

Kai could only stare, once again, into the dark.

He floated there, simply staring, for a long, long time. Eventually, he began to hear whispers through the void, voices. They were talking about a pill.

Kai tried to look around, still seeing nothing. Until he saw motion out in the distance, a falling body, eventually slowly and staying still, suspended in space. Kai knew what he had to do. He called out to the man.

“Hello Kai.”

“Hello?” The man called back.

“Hello.”