sally and the drugs
Cameron Tipton
The year was 1973. If ever there was a liberation for drugs, now was that time. And even more liberated, or so it seemed, was the mind of Sally Windheim, for she went about “expanding” it at least three times a week, and this was nonnegotiable. Coke came and went, smack had its ups and its downs, but acid was forever. Simply put, she loved Lucy.
On the occasion of one particularly enlightening psychedelic experience, Sally Windheim found herself on fire. Not literally, of course, but rather by means of some twisted metaphor of sexual and personal oppression. Determined to extinguish these agonizing flames that consumed her, she calmly but determinedly threw herself from the top of a thirteen-story apartment building, thus putting an end to both her fiery consumption and her inhabitance of a mortal body.
But what did that matter? Sally always saw her body as a vessel to house her consciousness, which found its way there through waves that streamed overhead and keyed into her mind intermittently. I say “intermittently” because Sally had made quite a habit of leaving this vessel and riding these waves. She’d never been much of a surfer, but it was in these moments that she felt she knew how to do anything: she could surf, she could fly, she could simply be . Have you ever heard of anything more beautiful than that?
Well, all that aside, flames extinguished and mortal body destroyed (for she landed not lightly upon a rough concrete surface), the consciousness of Sally Windheim found itself making its final excursion to the Waveland, where she would remain forever.
Or so she thought.
She gladly slipped and slid through the wonderful wonders of Waveland, believing entirely that this would comprise the remainder of her existence, that she would forevermore occupy her days in precisely this manner. And so, one can imagine, it came as quite a surprise to Sally when she found herself falling (though at not quite the speed her mortal body had fallen from the building earlier that day), gaining speed, then losing it, then gaining it again, as if gravity couldn’t make up its fucking mind, when, ultimately, she felt her essence being squeezed into a thin string, a dental floss of consciousness, and before she knew it she was entering another man’s body through his left ear.
Why the left ear? I’m always right.
Traveling through the auditory canal, playing a soul-churning piece on the eardrum, then finally emerging from the tunnel of darkness into the meadow of pink decisions, Sally finally began to understand what was going on. Or, at least, she told herself that she did. She had learned early on that one should never ask too many questions, for they serve only to further confuse the inquirer.
And then dental floss expanded, as if made of cotton and submerged in fluid, until Sally’s consciousness was about the size of a piece of popcorn. From there it exploded, and Sally was mist. She quite enjoyed this feeling, for she now felt freer than she had ever felt before. Though living in another man’s head, she had never felt more in touch with herself. It was at this point that Sally produced a small bag of cocaine (consciousness is a powerful thing), and in the moment it was created it was simultaneously absorbed into her, such that it became her. Sally was c ocaine. And she hadn’t the slightest objection to this fact.
But what Cocaine Cloud Sally didn’t realize was that she now had full dominion over the Pink Meadow. It was her queendom, and she the queen. No doubt exhausted from the incessant transmutations (and probably also the comedown from the cocaine), Sally focused her energy and condensed into a thin gelatinous layer that now rested softly upon the pink pillow beneath.
GRAB THE TURKEY BY THE UDDERS! What? Where? Soft clouds and enchanting snapshots of memories? Glimpses into a fragmented and desolate past?
“What?”
Sally immediately jolted up. Mortal vessel and all.
“How long was I out?”
“Almost forty-five minutes,” he replied.
And with that, Sally buried her face in the palms of her hands, and cried.
“Never again,” she repeated to herself over and over again, wiping the blood and crust of residual ketamine from her right nostril. “Never again. Never again.”
For it was in this moment that Sally realized he was a man.
On the occasion of one particularly enlightening psychedelic experience, Sally Windheim found herself on fire. Not literally, of course, but rather by means of some twisted metaphor of sexual and personal oppression. Determined to extinguish these agonizing flames that consumed her, she calmly but determinedly threw herself from the top of a thirteen-story apartment building, thus putting an end to both her fiery consumption and her inhabitance of a mortal body.
But what did that matter? Sally always saw her body as a vessel to house her consciousness, which found its way there through waves that streamed overhead and keyed into her mind intermittently. I say “intermittently” because Sally had made quite a habit of leaving this vessel and riding these waves. She’d never been much of a surfer, but it was in these moments that she felt she knew how to do anything: she could surf, she could fly, she could simply be . Have you ever heard of anything more beautiful than that?
Well, all that aside, flames extinguished and mortal body destroyed (for she landed not lightly upon a rough concrete surface), the consciousness of Sally Windheim found itself making its final excursion to the Waveland, where she would remain forever.
Or so she thought.
She gladly slipped and slid through the wonderful wonders of Waveland, believing entirely that this would comprise the remainder of her existence, that she would forevermore occupy her days in precisely this manner. And so, one can imagine, it came as quite a surprise to Sally when she found herself falling (though at not quite the speed her mortal body had fallen from the building earlier that day), gaining speed, then losing it, then gaining it again, as if gravity couldn’t make up its fucking mind, when, ultimately, she felt her essence being squeezed into a thin string, a dental floss of consciousness, and before she knew it she was entering another man’s body through his left ear.
Why the left ear? I’m always right.
Traveling through the auditory canal, playing a soul-churning piece on the eardrum, then finally emerging from the tunnel of darkness into the meadow of pink decisions, Sally finally began to understand what was going on. Or, at least, she told herself that she did. She had learned early on that one should never ask too many questions, for they serve only to further confuse the inquirer.
And then dental floss expanded, as if made of cotton and submerged in fluid, until Sally’s consciousness was about the size of a piece of popcorn. From there it exploded, and Sally was mist. She quite enjoyed this feeling, for she now felt freer than she had ever felt before. Though living in another man’s head, she had never felt more in touch with herself. It was at this point that Sally produced a small bag of cocaine (consciousness is a powerful thing), and in the moment it was created it was simultaneously absorbed into her, such that it became her. Sally was c ocaine. And she hadn’t the slightest objection to this fact.
But what Cocaine Cloud Sally didn’t realize was that she now had full dominion over the Pink Meadow. It was her queendom, and she the queen. No doubt exhausted from the incessant transmutations (and probably also the comedown from the cocaine), Sally focused her energy and condensed into a thin gelatinous layer that now rested softly upon the pink pillow beneath.
GRAB THE TURKEY BY THE UDDERS! What? Where? Soft clouds and enchanting snapshots of memories? Glimpses into a fragmented and desolate past?
“What?”
Sally immediately jolted up. Mortal vessel and all.
“How long was I out?”
“Almost forty-five minutes,” he replied.
And with that, Sally buried her face in the palms of her hands, and cried.
“Never again,” she repeated to herself over and over again, wiping the blood and crust of residual ketamine from her right nostril. “Never again. Never again.”
For it was in this moment that Sally realized he was a man.