Olympia, Washington, 1981:

I stared at the chalky blackboard, my gaze externally vacant. But, inside my mind, dewy yellow spirals traced along the edges of the blindly green-black board that was smeared with soft white clouds of poorly-washed off chalk. White eyelashes slashed my vision like icicles as my head bobbed slowly, blackened apparatus-like bodies in A-line skirts and ironed kakhis and blue jeans floated around me: the other students.

I tried not to laugh when I realized they couldn’t see anything that I was. My pupils must’ve been the size of the moon.

On my way to school, I’d taken a tab of acid that I’d bought from Danny, when I saw him the Saturday before- for my birthday. Then, first period on a Monday in February, my vision could barely stay focused on the board, and my skin was going transparent.

That was the first time I took acid.

My friend, Elouise, bumped her shoulder into mine as she sat down in the desk beside me. “Hey, May,” she said to me. I had a hard time focusing on her face as I replied, “Hi.”

“You cool? You look…” Her voice trailed off, or I didn’t hear her.

“Huh? Yeah.”

“Uh…” Eloise squinted her eyes in suspicion. I’d tell her about the acid at lunch.

I scribbled down little drawings- of records and forests and strange animals- in the back of the class, while the saddened old teacher hobbled around, coughed to himself, and talked, very reptatively, about Medieval Europe.

It felt like only moments later when three o’clock rolled around and me and Elouise and Amy began our often-daily walk to Amy’s house, which was a couple streets down from the school. The sidewalks rolled by in rainbow colours while my friend’s elbows knocked against mine. My fingers were red with the cold wind, and we hurried to Amy’s.