Chapter 13 — Euphoria
And thus begins Chapter Thirteen.
Now, children.
There we were.
Laia and I.
Still wandering through the banyan.
Paul somewhere spiritually fused with a root.
Kosmo somewhere above ground level because apparently remaining on Earth was beneath him.
And us?
Walking.
Hand in hand.
Reality still bending.
The acid humming softly behind everything.
Then we found a log.
The council nods.
A magnificent technological achievement.
A place to sit.
Children.
We were exhausted.
Not metaphorically.
Actually.
Hours of walking.
Climbing.
Smoking.
Tripping.
Fighting imaginary sword battles.
Avoiding agricultural final bosses.
And now,
my leg had begun remembering something important.
The council leans forward.
It was cooked.
The council winces.
You see,
the MDMA from the previous night had departed completely.
And apparently,
it had taken whatever agreement my nervous system had made with pain along with it.
The burn began announcing itself.
Loudly.
Children.
My leg had spent hours trying to submit a complaint.
Management had finally reopened.
So we sat.
Laia beside me.
Her head against my shoulder.
Mine resting against hers.
The council grows quiet.
Again.
That position.
It had become ours somehow.
Rave raging around us?
Head on shoulder.
Forest silent around us?
Head on shoulder.
Apparently two people can develop traditions remarkably quickly.
And there we stayed.
For a while.
No sword fights.
No wandering.
No talking even.
Just sitting.
Her hand in mine.
My thumb occasionally moving across her fingers.
The banyan shifting gently around us.
Children.
One of those moments.
The kind you know is temporary while you’re inside it.
And precisely because you know,
you want to hold it tighter.
I remember thinking
Don’t end yet.
The council listens.
Not:
Stay forever.
Old Nuo was many things,
but apparently still capable of understanding calendars.
Just
not yet.
Give me another minute.
Then another.
Then maybe one more.
The council smiles.
Eventually,
Laia moved.
Lifted her head.
Looked at me.
I looked back.
And she asked:
“Wanna go to the next level?”
The council immediately becomes concerned.
Children.
There are sentences which should trigger questions.
This was one.
I blinked.
“What does that mean?”
A reasonable response.
The council applauds.
Actual caution?
Do not celebrate yet.
Laia reached into her pocket.
And produced
a little blue pill.
The council goes silent.
I stared at it.
Then at her.
Then back at it.
“Uh.
What’s that?”
“Ecstasy.”
The council collapses.
Children.
Old Nuo understood one thing:
New substance.
The council sighs.
And apparently,
that was enough.
Acid?
First time.
MDMA crystals?
First time.
And now whatever this little blue object actually contained?
Also first time.
The Goa curriculum had become alarmingly comprehensive.
Now.
Laia explained.
There was enough for two.
Half for her.
Half for me.
Not enough for Paul and Kosmo.
The council waits.
And naturally,
we formulated an excellent strategy.
Take it.
Get higher.
Tell neither Paul nor Kosmo.
The council erupts.
A MASTERPIECE OF COMMUNICATION.
Children.
The strongest foundations of friendship are honesty,
trust,
and secretly consuming mystery pills behind your friends’ backs.
The council shakes its collective head.
We were young.
And stupid.
Mostly stupid.
Now.
The pill required division.
I took it.
Tried to snap it in half.
Nothing.
Adjusted grip.
Tried again.
Failure.
Children.
Apparently I had survived rocks,
raves,
burns,
and banyan trees,
only to be defeated by pharmaceutical geometry.
Laia watched.
Amused.
Then took it from me.
Bit down.
Crack.
Two halves.
The council pauses.
Ah.
Technology.
I laughed.
She handed me mine.
We took them.
And then
nothing.
The council waits.
Nothing?
Nothing.
Children.
Once again,
chemistry demanded patience.
So we returned to our position.
Her head on my shoulder.
Mine against hers.
Hands together.
Fingers interlocked.
And waited.
Ten minutes.
Maybe.
Twenty.
Thirty.
Acid time being what it is,
I refuse legal responsibility for these estimates.
The council nods.
Still,
nothing dramatic happened.
No explosion of color.
No celestial orchestra.
No sudden announcement from the nervous system.
Just us.
Then
I smelled her hair.
The council pauses.
Children.
Do not ask why.
Her head was beneath mine.
Humans possess noses.
Events occur.
Perhaps shampoo.
Perhaps smoke.
Perhaps sweat.
Perhaps some combination of forest,
rave,
and whatever product people use when they possess functional hair care routines.
I don’t know.
But the moment I did
something changed.
The council grows quiet.
Affection.
Not attraction.
That had already been there.
Not:
she’s pretty.
We established that approximately seventeen times.
This was different.
A wave.
Huge.
Immediate.
Almost absurd in its intensity.
Children.
For one ridiculous second,
it felt like every warm feeling the human body was capable of producing had been redirected toward one person.
I looked down at her.
Gently.
Probably stupidly.
Smiling.
The council smiles.
And she noticed.
Of course she did.
She lifted her head.
Looked at me.
And then
nothing moved.
The council falls silent.
Her eyes.
Children.
Pupils enormous.
Dark circles almost swallowing whatever color remained.
Mine probably looked exactly the same.
We stared at each other.
No words.
No shared trance gestures.
No jokes.
Just looking.
And time stretched.
Seconds became absurdly long.
The banyan disappeared.
The others disappeared.
The ache in my leg disappeared again.
The entire world narrowed until there seemed to be only two faces and the tiny amount of space between them.
The council listens.
She smiled.
Not broadly.
Just gently.
And I smiled back.
Then,
without warning,
she kissed me.
The council erupts.
No:
“Can I?”
No dramatic countdown.
No cinematic speech.
She simply closed the distance.
And kissed me.
Children.
For approximately half a second,
my brain stopped.
Completely.
Decorative Houseplant Nuo had not prepared contingency plans for this event.
Then instinct resumed operations.
And I kissed her back.
The council grows quiet.
Our lips met.
And
gods.
Children.
I am aware chemistry had entered the situation with all the subtlety of a marching band.
I know.
Serotonin.
Dopamine.
Sensory amplification.
Expectation.
Acid.
Whatever was actually in that blue pill.
Several perfectly boring scientific explanations probably exist for what followed.
The council nods.
And yet.
If you ask me what it felt like?
Heaven adjacent.
The council falls silent.
That is the closest phrase I have.
Not heaven.
I have never been.
Administrative access denied.
But somewhere nearby.
The suburbs of heaven.
A pleasant neighborhood within commuting distance.
Children.
Euphoria.
Total.
Overwhelming.
Not the frantic electricity of the MDMA from before.
Not the visual insanity of acid.
This was warmth.
Affection turned physical.
Every tiny sensation amplified until kissing someone felt like discovering an entirely new sense humans had somehow forgotten to name.
The council listens.
For a while,
there was no thought.
And that,
for me,
may have been the rarest drug of all.
No internal commentary.
No questions.
No wondering what she thought.
No wondering what I should do next.
No insecurity.
No noise.
Just
her.
Warmth.
Breath.
Hands.
The ridiculous softness of a moment that chemistry had turned almost impossibly bright.
Children.
Present day Nuo has lived years beyond that boy.
More roads.
More people.
More love.
More loss.
More versions of himself than Old Nuo could have imagined.
And yet,
if you ask me for one of the most overwhelming sensations I have ever experienced
that moment remains.
The council grows quiet.
Not necessarily because she was some ordained soulmate.
Do not disrespect the memory by forcing mythology onto it.
It was what it was.
Two young idiots.
Barely knew each other.
Deep inside Goa.
High beneath a banyan tree.
One spontaneous kiss.
And a nervous system responding like the gates of paradise had briefly malfunctioned.
The council smiles.
Sometimes something can be temporary
and still be extraordinary.
We kissed.
Stopped.
Looked at each other.
Then laughed.
Children.
Not because it was funny.
Because sometimes happiness exceeds language and laughter becomes the emergency overflow valve.
Then we kissed again.
The council groans affectionately.
Naturally.
And for however long that little eternity lasted,
I was in heaven.
Or close enough that the difference felt administrative.
Thus concludes Chapter Thirteen.
The Log.
The Blue Pill.
The Thirty Minute Wait.
And The Kiss That Reached Heaven Adjacent.
Children.
I had come to Goa chasing altered consciousness.
That was the entire objective.
More.
Higher.
Different.
Anything that could change the ordinary shape of being alive.
And perhaps that was why this moment caught me so completely.
Because for once,
the most overwhelming part wasn’t a hallucination.
It wasn’t a fractal.
It wasn’t a rave.
It wasn’t chemistry bending a tree into impossible geometry.
It was another person.
The council grows quiet.
A girl I’d collided with by accident.
A fellow Pinballer.
A stranger who had become familiar overnight.
A hand that kept finding mine.
And beneath an ancient banyan,
with the universe chemically turned up far too high,
she kissed me.
Children.
From the outside?
Probably two intoxicated idiots making out on a log.
From the inside?
Heaven.
Adjacent.
