The Mud Pie

Damion’s mind wanted to go, but there was nowhere else except the space between his ears. His eyes darted acquiescently, capturing and processing everything around him. The lights, which had a faint lime shade to them; the train’s seats, which all looked like the plaster of bathroom stalls; the windows, marked with scratches and fingerprints; from the gum spots to the skin folds of neighboring passengers, everything seemed as though it was yelling in a pointless chaoticness. He wished to teleport himself back home. 

“So who do you think we should see first?”

“What?” he had to interact now. 

“Once we get there, we got about five or so hours of the festival left.”

Hearing the number hurt Damion as a scooter does to one’s shin, “Who are the headliners again?”

“Purple Heart, Kollar, Hands for Eyebrows, Yank by the Fruit — Ooo, Goseph is at 8:10.”

“We gotta see him!” 

“Last time he performed, he came out of a coconut shooting coconut milk into the crowd!”

“Seriously?”

“Yes, and then he started chucking real coconuts at people!”

“Did anyone get hurt?”

“Probably but you sign up for that when you see Goseph.”

“Let’s run that.” 

Zach, Damion’s best friend, lived for festivals. A music-lover who when he says listens to all types of music, actually listens to all types of music. On road trips to and from college, they would start with Indie rock, and by the next exit, they would listen to the Soprano voice of a local symphony Zach saw just weeks prior. None of it was out of humor or nuisance, but simply because Zach was that type of guy. 

Zach shoved his face into the window, talking to the entire city, “Goddamn, if you can’t enjoy a day like today there is something wrong with you.” 

The sky shed only lavender blue, the sun hit every brick and stone, and the willingness to experience flowed from everybody around. Fellow festival-goers sat by in their fish nets, skimpy tops, rainbow makeup, and retro basketball jerseys. They all followed the hipster demographic with some on the brink of corporate adulthood. A disconnection was present though. The introvert type, Damion viewed sociality as a duty of the human condition. He understood the fault to cram one’s self into a room. The life experience was recognized but to enjoy required a couple of tugs, like an old lawnmower. 

The sight of the city passed into a tunnel of concrete and lights. They had finally arrived at Union Station. Though the train had stopped, the vitality of excitement had only been magnified. Individuals turned into masses while exiting the carts, humbling Damion. From now on he could not be alone even if he pleaded to God. Dodging and weaving through the sea of bodies, he and Zach quickly made it outside. It was a Thursday afternoon that could be mistaken for a Friday holiday. 

“Look at us!” smiled Zach, “Look at fucking us. Two men, two up-and-coming human beings ready to take on a fantastic day!”

Damion put his arm around Zach’s shoulder, “Nobody else I’d rather do it with!”

They walked several city blocks that felt no more than a jog to the fridge. As they approached the entrance they were once again greeted by the crowds. While waiting in line, they listed off everything like a couple double-checking their packing. 

“Water?”

Damion turned around and showed his camelback, “They also have refilling stations.” 

“Wristbands?”

Damion showed his left hand, “You?”

Zach showed his right, “Phone, wallet?”

Damion clenched his thighs, “Phone, wallet — chapstick?”

“Fuck me.”

“No worries, I got two,” Damion handed over one.

“They are useful as is easy to lose. I got gum too.”

Then from his back pocket, Zach brought the thesis as to why they even decided to go. A sandwich bag that contained about six grams of dried psilocybin mushrooms. 

“We are going halves on this right?”

“Let’s balance out the caps, those are where the fun is.” 

“Do you have a scale?”

Damion, mockingly reached into his shirt, “Yeah let me pull out the portable scale I have — no dickhead!” 

“It was just a question.”

“A stupid question —”

“Hey, hey now,” Zach hushed, “Positivity?”

Damion realized his anxiety had got the best of him, “Sorry you’re right. I just want to get these through security.”

“And we will!”

“How?” 

Zached looked around. They were about six people away from being searched. Security looked to be TSA’s younger brother with heavy pat-downs and even asking people to take their shoes off. 

Zach looks at Damion in honesty, “Have you ever done anal before?” 

“W-wh-what? What is wrong with you?”

“You don’t have to be defensive about it!”

“No! No, not that it’s wrong but wh-what — why?”

“I think we are going to have to show these up our butts.” 

Damion’s shoulder dropped, “Dude, fuck off —”

“I’m not kidding! Look,” Zach points ahead. Four people away now, the security crew had just made an example out of one soldier who thought they could sneak contraband behind enemy lines. The boy had tried to hide it in his ponytail but his early hair loss had got the best of him. 

Zach shook his head, “Just a kid trying to have fun — Hey boo! Boo! Boo!” 

Security had taken the bag and disposed of it in the trash while pushing the kid out of line. The kid pathetically tried to fight back but his lack of puberty hindered him. The crowd began to boo in defense of the kid. This halted the line enough for Zach and Damion to further explore their options. 

“I’m not putting this anywhere inside of me,” demanded Damion. 

“You see that kid, if we don’t do something they are going to kick us out!” 

“We have nowhere to put it?”

Zach shrugged and looked at his shorts and shirts, “No.”

Then Damion reflected on his prior sentence, there was one place he would concede, “Zach.” 

“Yeah?”

“Fuck it. Let’s just take them now.”

“Right here?”

“Right here in this very spot.”

“So… just raw-dog these?”

Damion grinned, “You’re not real.”

“I’m here all day.” 

Zach opened the bag. People standing by noticed and snickered, some joking if they could have some. Focus more than on any test, Zach meticulously poured half the amount into Damion’s hands.

“Good?” asked Damion.

“Good.” 

“The worst part.”

“But only so to experience the best!” 

“Cheers.”

They filled their mouths all at once, drowning their tongues in fungus. The taste itself couldn’t be more repulsive. In between the gags and the chokes, they had to chew away at the leathery texture that when bitten into, only heightened the underlying fecal flavor. 

“H-h-ho —” Damion nearly vomited. 

“Don’t throw up!” commanded Zach, “Hold your nose.”

After battling the refusal of his stomach’s pallet, Damion swallowed it all. Zach talked to himself, emphasizing that he was Zach Gisershery and he would not lose to a plant. He held a fist to his mouth with slight tears streaming from his face, and after one emphatic gulp, also completed his fill. 

The two stared at each other in silence for a moment before Damion boasted his dimples. Zach fist-pumped Damion and they recognized their success. Moments later the pair got patted down, scanned their wristbands, and walked right through the metal detectors like actors that had just won Oscars. 

A stench of skunk, sweat, tobacco, and recklessness invaded the summer air. Between the lack of clothes and the cesspool of people, controlled lawlessness rang about. The speakers sounded like an army of humvees revving their engines, striking the center of everyone’s eardrums and body. An IV of regret trickled into Damion. Already everything seemed a bit much, and in a matter of minutes, it was only going to exponentiate. Why do I do this to myself, he thought. 

Zach, jittery like a second grader on cola led the way, “Let’s start off with House.” Damion followed. 

The soft techno beat had heads nodding and swaying. Up on stage, a man in huge glasses and a panda-patterned peacoat held up a pulsing hand. Damion smirked. Anyone where else in the world the DJ would look like an asshole, but here he was the closest thing to a king. 

Zach was in his element, swaggeringly grooving to the music. Damion tried to get in a rhythm, but incoordination shoved him into an awkward half-salsa. The people were all connected by the melodic frequencies of the jumping panda. It was a time when a woman could casually strut around topless and a banker could dance in a rainbow thong. 

“How are you feeling,” asked Zach well into the set.  

“What?”

Zach leaned in, “How are you feeling?”

Damion held a thumbs up. 

“Are you high yet?”

“I don’t think so. Are you?”

Zach shook his head, “I feel like loose I guess. Loose as a goose without a noose.” 

“You should make that into a song.” 

“Call it Goose’s Escape.”

“Why that?”

“The goose escapes from the noose obviously.” 

“Why is there a noose?”

“That’s where the mystery lies!” 

“What mystery?”

“The mystery in the goose!”

“What mystery in the goose?”

“The fact there was a noose around its head! Was he being attacked? Did he try killing himself? Or was he trying to capture a fellow goose?” Zach begged the crowd before him, “Why is there a noose?”

“I don’t know! Maybe the goose was a cowboy —  

“Yes!” Damion jumped up, “A cowboy goose who tried protecting his flock from — Oh my God, I’m so high right now….”

Zach’s smile covered his entire face just as much as his pupils expanded to his whole eye socket, “Yup! Time is no longer.” 

Damion tried to think back to his last sober thought but only began thinking about the act of thinking, which in turn, spiraled him into a cycle of building thought on thought, similar to constructing a Jenga set except without any table. This was the catapult, the initial launch out of the ordinary. The euphoria was inspiring, lifting his mind to epiphanic levels. Then the visuals came. Up on the stage, the cosmic graphics of blue, red, orange, and purple were more than just their shades. They, like the people, danced too in wavy patterns.  

“That’s all color really is,” Damion said to himself, “It’s light. Different types of light.” 

If we too hold color, his mind raced, then by the transitive property humans are a specific type of light. Lights of many lights, some dark, some bright —

Damion paused, reminding himself he was high. A knot of nausea twisted in his chest. Zach noticed his discomfort, “Rub your chest with your thumb.” 

It was relieving as a deep tissue massage. Zach, in slick fashion, slid on a pair of shades. Damion followed suit and the two looked as if the Blues Brothers went to a Grateful Dead concert. 

Zach was a person just as Damion was. Comprehending Zach’s existence was like reaching a top-shelf book, but with each try accidentally pushing the book farther into the shelf. 

“He’s just one person,” and the neurons in Damion’s exploded. He began counting every single person in the crowd, “One, two, three, four… 12… 13… oh shit let me restart. One, two, three… five… eight… damn,” Damion gave up. 

“Look!” Zach pointed to the sky. 

“What?”

“Just look!”

It did not tower nor trap the world below such as the building blocks of concrete nearby. Instead, the marble blue corridor had extended to a welcoming vastness. 

Like a dog pawing at the window sill, Damion reached out his hands, “People have been up there!”

“Some people have even gone past there.”

“Can you go past the sky?”

“I mean, yeah? Isn’t sky then space.”

“But isn’t the sky part of space? Like the sky is space.” 

“Well, we have our space, the sky. Space has its space like where all the stars hang out —”

“So like we own the blue but once its turns that blackish vacuum, that’s space.”

“Correct. We get some and it gets some. We all share.”

“We do. We all share.” 

At that moment Damion’s heat surged with a transcendental passion, “Zach.” 

“Yeah?”

“I’m glad you’re my best friend.”

“Hey! I’m glad you’re my best friend too. Who would’ve thought one drunken night in the dorms would a led to this.” 

A loving laugh from Damion howled, “I’m still mad you ruined my carpet. It was a good carpet.” 

“It was the perfect place to piss!”

Damion stared back at the sky and its wonderful emptiness. 

“Zach, I think we are in this together.”

No response. 

“Zach?”

Damion immediately looked back down, only to see no Zach in sight. Turning around at every angle Damion couldn’t trace his John Belushi. Bodies upon bodies with no names surrounded Damion. The music had picked up in speed as well as the ferocity of the crowd. A calm jam now morphed into an aggressive competition of physicality. Breathing became laborious while his head felt like an anvil. Pathetically, Damion begged the sky for some type of help. The mosh pit had ensued and Damion stood no chance to the work of drugged-up teenagers. Shoved, kicked, and pushed like a running back hurtling the line of scrimmage, he crossed his arms over his head and stumbled his way out. 

“Fuck me,” he whispered after gaining about five feet of space. There had been a slash in his shorts, indicating the work of a veteran thief. He was off the grid. 

His mind became the mind, a separate entity conducting its own process within Damion. He wanted to lie down but there was nowhere to lie. He wanted food but no longer had money. Most of all, he wanted a hug but didn’t know from who. The only thing he could do was walk. His feet steered the ship now. 

“People. They are real,” he admitted. 

Damion sat down at the base of the fountain, feeling like a drifting piece of ice. The mundane intricacies of the human species unfolded. Couples held hands while holding drinks. Mobs of youth jumped and cussed in excitement. Every now and then an individual passed by. It was horrifyingly boring.  

“We all do this… we all do… all of this because of the end. This only happens because we die.” 

The glacier had flipped over. There would be no taking this thought back. 

“This is it. I am existing. They are existing. This is it.” 

What it all a mistake or a consequence? 

Damion popped up and marched ahead. The vendors making minimum wage to the fruitless police officers standing by all choreographed a big middle finger of absurdity, “Screw this!” he said, “How can anyone care about any of this!” 

Twilight hit and the last ray of sun mixed with the first lights of skyscrapers. Only forward, he thought. After more rushing patterns of colors and wavy textures, Damion ended up where it felt like everyone was, Goseph. 

Heightened by walls of neon lasers and exploding canons of fumes and fire, a dumpy man with hair down to his ankles paraded on stage. People held each other on their shoulders and climbed trees. He went from side to side, arms in the air, manually generating electricity from the crowd’s roar. The man hadn’t even said a word nor even held an instrument in his hand. Yet, the palm of his hands spread wide as an eagle’s wingspan, powerful and encompassing. 

“Freedom!” he bellowed. 

The crowd chanted back. Damion kept his march, demanding himself to get closer. After the fifth chant of freedom, Damion had managed to squeeze into the font. 

“Who’s here to have fun?” 

The crowd wooed. 

“Who’s here ‘cause life man gets so tough?”

The crowd alongside Damion wooed. 

“Well, tonight is our fucking night?”

“Hell yeah!” everybody cheered. 

Goseph’s team ran onto the stage with bins, “Who here needs some love?”

A person raised their hand and bam, received a face full of mud. 

“Who wants some mother-effing mud?”

A turret on the coast of Normandy, Goseph fired slabs of wet mud at any possible body. The people loved it. Next, piles of cooked spaghetti sprinkled the crowd. Damion was covered in a mother nature Alfredo. It made no sense, he thought, finally smiling. 

“This man does not give a single fuck.” 

“No, he doesn’t!” a raved fan agreed. 

“This man right here is freaking crazy — get the hell up here!” 

Zach, hopping over the barricade, and flicking off security, made it front and center right next to Goseph. 

Goseph stared in amazement as Zach looked like he was made out of mud, “Did I catch you eating the spaghetti?”

“Hell yeah,” he screamed into the microphone. 

“What’s your name?”

“Zach Gisershery!” 

“I like your vibe Zach! You here alone.”

“No, I’m with my best friend Damion but I got lost after we started tripping because I saw a dandelion — completely untouched and so perfect!”

“Where’s he at right now?”

“That’s a great question — holy shit!” The unity solidified in the eye contact, “Here’s right fucking there no way!”

Damion jumped, ecstatic and complete, “Zach!” 

Goseph invited Damion on stage and the three hugged. From there Damion witnessed the aspect he had overlooked all along. He is this. The crowd and one are just cups to a plate, they aren’t the same but make a set. 

“What’s your name son?”

“Damion Hicken!”

“How’s your night going Damion?”

“I figured it all out!” 

Goseph laughed, “Figured what out?”

Damion reached for a slab of mud, “We come into this,” and then a pile of spaghetti, “To create this. And because we go back into this,” raising the mud higher, “There’s elegance in it all!”

The people thundered in an equilibrium of elation. Damion had done it, did what many refuse or ignore to do and that is to remember he was a human, a whole of this too.