Thursday, September 7th, 05:30hrs. Santa Cruz Mountains, California...
A man sat in front of an iMac at a granite kitchen counter with a view over the mountains and the sea. He held a cup of coffee and stared into the lens at the top of his screen.
“The journey of our psychopharmacologist then is ultimately a journey of the mind, a voyage inward,” said Dr. Lovbaum. A webcam showing a classroom full of students in Boston was open in his Skype window. “The trick is to somehow make it back with the flame intact, like Prometheus stealing fire from the gods, then use it for the betterment of mankind.”
INCOMING CALL
(831)777-9311
It flashed beneath the webcam of the classroom.
“Excuse me, please,” said Dr. Lovbaum. He clicked the mute button with his mouse and answered the call.
“Charles, I’m in trouble,” said a man’s voice over the speakers. “I need to see you.” “Yes, of course. Where are you?”said Dr. Lovbaum, smiling.
“I’ll call you in an hour.”
CALL ENDED flashed beneath the window.
Dr. Lovbaum stared right through the monitor in front of him.
“Where was I?” he said.
“Prometheus and fire,” said a promising young girl in the Boston webcam window.
“Professor?” said someone else.
“Yes,” said Dr. Lovbaum, “...and try not to get burned, I suppose. Ok then, the term pharmicon, pharmaceutical mind control, does it really exist?”
“Does it, professor?” said someone.
“Absolutely not,” said Dr. Lovbaum.
****
In an old house on Beach Hill, in the upstairs bathroom, James opened the medicine cabinet. He took a jar of Vanilla Sky bath crystals in one hand and removed a mirror hanging from the bathroom door with his other. He sat on the toilet and placed the mirror across his knees. James poured a mound of bath salts onto the mirror and crushed them with his California ID. He made three lines then rolled up a one dollar bill. His heart raced.
James snorted one of the lines.
His face contorted and spasmed. His teeth chattered. Tears streamed down his cheeks mingling with the blood now flowing from his nostril.
“Arrrrrgh!!! Sweet holy fuck!” said James. He stomped a bare foot on the bathroom floor.
Downstairs, the old house on Beach Hill was in quite a state. Columns of boxes and storage bins stretched from the floors to the ceiling. Mountains of hoarded personal items filled the 200 year old home.
Vera Underwood slept upstairs on a four post bed amid the stacks of stuff. She was a good looking woman in her early sixties. Her face glowed with nighttime moisturizing serum. Her cheek rested on an anti-wrinkle memory-foam pillow. She smiled. Her silk wrap hung open exposing an attractive body.
James exited the bathroom. He entered Vera from behind.
“Good morning there, sunshine,” said James. He sniffled and wiped the tears from his eyes. James was 28.
“You’re lucky I was having a pleasant dream,” said Vera. She stretched out on her stomach. James didn’t break stroke. Sweat already covered his entire body.
“You’re the lucky one,” said James.
“What?” said Vera, “Oh, if only you didn’t fuck me so very very well, James, I’d be done with you.”
“Where’s your son at?” said James.
“Which one?”
“The crazy one,” said James.
“You’re hurting me,” said Vera.
****
Poppy firedanced.
The sun rose behind her. Music played from a boom box sitting on the sand. Bonfires crackled, dying in the predawn. The wind was picking up again. People clustered together in groups up and down the coastline, talking, smoking, and shivering in the cold. Some were nude and regretted it. Some were too high to even feel it, and others were too stubborn to admit that the party was now long over.
Sasha put his headphones down.
He stripped out of his clothes in front of a tent. P.A. speakers and a Honda generator sat on the sand beside it. Sasha lit a cigarette. He stared into the rising sun. His pupils were severely dilated. Sea grass blew in the breeze. Poppy’s firedance was distracting him. Even in the morning light it was making Sasha see trails.
He walked to her.
“I need to sober up,” said Sasha.
Poppy smiled. She touched Sasha’s face.
“You’re naked,” she said. “It’s freezing, Sasha.”
“I have to snap out of this before I see my brother,” said Sasha.
“Wait,” said Poppy.
Sasha picked up a twin fin surfboard from the sand. He ran to the rolling Pacific, hooting and shouting into the offshore wind. He dove into the whitewater.
Poppy noticed half of a sea lion carcass, washing onto the beach up ahead. “Sasha!” said Poppy.
Sasha paddled into a set wave, naked and high. The drop was endless. His fins bit. He bottom turned. The massive lip of water collapsed. A morass of foam and whitewash wiped Sasha and his board from view.
Sasha held his breath.
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