Drew Vaughn Jones

        Kevin makes a rumbling flame sound effect swirling his hands in front of his stomach and rising them up to near his brow. "Yeah, I just can't seem to yet...yeah, it just can get really bad. I just want to silence my parents that are inside of me...and not see either of them in me anymore...I mean that's...it's quite complex I guess."

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        "Well yeah, it's complex trauma." Mrs. Saunders affirms, "That's one of the things I'm trying to get put in the diagnosing criteria. The complex trauma, developmental trauma. Because people think of PTSD as one incident, but really PTSD can be more complex, various different factors that stem from abuse."

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        Kevin then says tangentially "If you haven't seen that 'Zeitgeist III: Moving Forward' movie yet, I highly suggest watching it sometime. It's a really good documentary. It's actually what made me better understand my own struggles with mental illness. There's like four parts... and it's all really well executed...the first part...Part I: Human Nature...I've watched this part a number of times now online...gets into how child abuse has lifetime impacts on adults. You might find it quite interesting as someone who's in the field of counseling and psychology. It has these interviews with a handful of leading psychologists and sociologists...with one of them I remember getting into how the Nature vs. Nurture concept is actually a false dichotomy...another one of the psychologists speaks about this thing called epigenetics...it's like how a child's development has additional influences on top of..."epi" meaning "on top of"...on top of already genetic inheritances...whereas external or environmental factors such as abuse...can alter a child's genes making their likelihood for disease, like Bipolar for instance, much greater...they talk about how it can be directly attributed to child abuse. Also they go over how PTSD from severe childhood trauma...can often times lead abuse victims into making unhealthy choices in their lives...like doing criminal stuff and like addiction." 

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        "That is quite interesting. I'll have to look into that. What did you say it was called again?" Asks Mrs. Saunders as she jots down the title on a sticky note pad, "Okay, so let's continue with your intake. This documentary you were just describing can be a good segue. Ok umm..Have you had any history of alcohol or drug use?"

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        "Not with alcohol...but I suppose...I could say...I've partaken in some drug experimentation in the past."

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         Typing, she next asks "Anything used on a regular basis?"

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        "Like addicted to?..like narcotics...or pain pills? No. Nothing like that...no hard drug addictions." Kevin states firmly.

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        "Okay."

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        "Well, I mean...I used to smoke a lot of marijuana at points in my life...I don't know...not sure if I was actually addicted...but I think it was more of a habit, ya know." Kevin has a bunch of memories flashback of him smoking bud and really enjoying it at times but also remembering how a lot of times it made him feel really anxious.

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        "Right."

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        "I did have something happen when I was in my first year at art school...in the winter of 1998...in the dorm rooms..." He pauses to take a deep breath before delving into this next part of his life, "There was this spontaneous encounter in one of the dorm hallways...an opportunity arose...and I had the chance to try some LSD for the first time...it was these two triple dipped hits of sunshine blotter...so like 6 hits of this pretty powerful clean acid...that I took with this Native American guy..." Kevin reaches up and gently pulls at his earlobe in a long, slow, downward stroke, "...towards the end of the trip... something happened that hit me...really hard... although, the first 4 hours or so...of the trip...was like nothing, I had ever experienced before..."

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        It was a little after 10pm when the first wave hit. "You feel that?" Kevin looks over at Native. He's wearing a black cap with a N patch on the front, the brim pulled low having the sides curved inward, looking at Kevin from under it with one sharp eye. Native has his long black hair pulled back and fitted through the opening at the back of the cap, that flares out some like a rooster's black tail feathers, as the rest flows down over the hood folds of his baggy spruce green sweatshirt. He lounges in a small recliner with plaid upholstery in greens and browns and dark orange situated near shelving against the white dorm wall. Perpendicular to the wall, situated next to Native's recliner, extending outward from the wall and his recliner, is one of the standard couches the dorms come furnished with. Native has one black and green Puma sneaker propped up on the corner of the coffee table that sits in front of the couch, his half pipe Jnco jean pant leg drapes down, almost touching the carpet floor. Kevin slouches at the end of the couch, furthest from Native, his body turned a tad, gazing to the right, at someone that's beginning to look a bit different than he remembers him looking like.

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        Native snickers a little, "What man, you okay?" He has a slight hint of a smile on his long angular face that seems to elongate from the crown of his head stretching down to the tip of his chiseled pointed chin. His long nose follows this angulation as his earlobe seems to be pulled taught, attaching far down on his jaw line, with the tip of his ear pointing upward and back along the same angularity.

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        Kevin watches, as right behind Native's head, right behind the recliner and the back of the couch, a tapestry divider, serving as a makeshift wall hung from the ceiling, begins to flap back and forth waving ripples rapidly. "What do you got a fan back there blowing?"

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        Native grins at him puzzled and chuckles "Man it's winter time, I don't have any fan blowing."

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        Kevin gets up to take a look for himself. "Man where you going?" Native says with a touch of concern. Kevin walks around the couch along another makeshift tapestry wall, not believing Native, and pulls the edge of the one tapestry back enough to look in. There's an empty bed pushed into the one corner of the single room studio dorm, a dresser next to it, with boxes stacked on top each other, tall, at the foot of the bed.

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        "That's where I sleep man, c'mon." Native says, still sitting in the recliner, from the other side of the tapestry wall.

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        Kevin sees no fan in there. "Ugh, sorry man, I didn't realize." He walks back around and sits back down on the couch in the same spot. He returns his gaze over in Native's direction. The tapestry wall has slowed down to a slow motion vertical wave. "Whoooaaa."

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        "Hey man, you see what they got on TV?" Native gives a nod with brim and a flicker with one hand from the armrest. Kevin looks over. Buffy the Vampire Slayer is on and Seth Green's character is talking. His face is a pinkish lavender, his hair flame red and spiked with each spike growing up and backwards in a crawling motion, his nostrils flaring large, his eyes golden yellow, his eyebrows bright orange and furry, his ears pointed and demon looking, as he speaks calmly about some plot point.

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        "What the fuck. That's the fuckin' Devil." Kevin glances over at Native, mouth agape.

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        Native looks back from under the curved brim with that one sharp eye, "Is it?"

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        Kevin notices how Native's face is even more accentuated now. 'Is Native the Devil? No, he's a friend. The TV is the Devil.' Kevin thinks to himself strangely, but somehow feels sure of this assessment. He then looks over to his left at the other white wall of the studio dorm. He then sees something extremely bizarre. The wall has this cantaloupe and orange sized lumpy patch of bubbles with mouth-like openings breathing off of the surface. With each gasp of breath, this large patch of bubble-like mouths expands off the wall a few inches, then shrinks back down in undulating protuberance. 'Native's room is alive.'

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        "If you think that's something, you gotta try eating peyote out in the desert sometime." Native laughs "I was out there one time and the whole sky opened up...and I met God."

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        "Wait, you can see that on the wall too?" Kevin asks bewildered.

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        "You didn't hear me? I said, sometimes I look over and can see my walls breathing."

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        "So you're making that happen?"

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        "Hey, my roommate is gonna be back soon. Let's go for a walk outside. Let's have a little adventure." Native says. Kevin has no objections. He peaks past another tapestry walled-off area behind the TV stand and out the glass door of the balcony. He sees it's snowing really good out there. The falling snow is a pale vermilion hue from the incandescent exterior building lights and street lamps.'This should be fun.' he thinks to himself.

"Yea man, it'll be fun." Native says to Kevin, putting his hood up over his cap, then throws on his long black winter coat, turning upward his thick pointed coat collar. "You're gonna need to bundle up."

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        They take the fire exit staircase down a few flights of stairs to Kevin's dorm room, briefly, so he could get his snowboard jacket, beanie and some gloves, before taking the elevator down 6 floors to the lobby, then out the 2 sets of front glass doors of the Park View Three student housing building and into the amazing snowfall.

The snow on the ground is about four inches deep of soft fluff. It's all an orangish peach color with dark brown and violet shadows around the shrubbery under the warm looking incandescent street lights. Black tree trunks rise like great pillars alongside, and all the way down, the courtyard walkway on the left. Above, the canopies of leafless branches are barely visible behind the descending blur. Kevin looks up at the enormous amount of snow deluging from a medium grayish purple sky as snowflakes patter his face. He feels, as he begins to saunter to his right, as if he's moving through curtains of snowflakes, almost like they were falling in coordinated sheets or like they were aligning in vertical planes, that then had these narrow hallway-like openings he could transition from one to another and walk inside. He shuffles along the sidewalk with his arms and hands outstretched in front of him, like he's swimming or flying through these narrow corridors, until it just becomes too much to catch all the transition points from one curtain opening to the next, and gives up. He stops and embraces the sensation of snowflake blankets wrapping all around him. He feels this warmth cover him in what is otherwise a freezing evening.

   

        Native stops ahead of him a couple paces looking back "You coming? Let's go to that park down there."

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        Native leads the way, walking a number of strides in front of Kevin, heading West on the snow covered sidewalk that runs along North Commons of the Allegheny Center block. Kevin looks down momentarily to watch as the snow parts from each of his footsteps in the fluffy powder. He then looks up again to see Native is walking a hundred feet away from him, as a smaller figure, way down the sidewalk. 'How the heck, did he get that far away, that fast?' he thinks to himself in disbelief, "Hey! Wait up!" Kevin runs to where Native had stopped, standing looking back. Kevin catches up "Why did you run down here like that?"

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        Native chuckles a bit "I've been walking man. I walk fast I guess."

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        "No way man. You were just a few feet away from me, I looked down at the ground for few seconds, and look up and you're like a hundred feet away." Kevin says with all seriousness.

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         Native chuckles softly again, his chin tucked in deep between the sides of his high collar, "I don't know man. Time can be a funny thing." He pulls out a box of Marlboro menthols and sticks a cigarette in the center of his thin lips, clamping firm on the filter. "Want a smoke?" He says out the corner of his mouth as the cigarette pops up and down somewhat.

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         "Sure... Thanks." Kevin takes one. He lights it up and hands Native his lighter. Kevin studies Native's face closer as the sparks of flint flick and then a flame lights up his strong angular features. Native is a couple inches shorter and has a wiry type frame, although seems larger and almost mechanical under the boxed, squared off shoulders of his long, black, buttoned up wool coat. His head, under the hood and cap, is seemingly large for his body. His long pointed face begins to resemble something almost dinosaur looking with subtle scales appearing on the bridge of his nose, brow line, and chiseled cheek bones. There looks to be some small tuft of tentacles protruding down from the tip of his chin. Maybe more like feathers. They stand there smoking as the snow continues to fall hard. Kevin considers that maybe Native is really an extraterrestrial shapeshifter and he's only able to see his true form in this altered state of perception. Kevin thinks how interesting it is to be standing along a snowy street smoking a cigarette with an alien time-traveler from another world. But then it occurs to him that he's probably just hallucinating. He's never seen anything in real time like this though, only via computer generated imagery in movies. Native shoots Kevin a quick smirk, that almost makes his face seem feminine for a second, again glaring with only one eye, the other hidden by the curved cap brim. There's a fierceness Kevin suddenly senses deep under Native's surface but seems to be far outweighed by his outward friendliness. Kevin internally acknowledges: Native's not someone to mess with. Standing there with this mysterious type of character, the lavender snow falling everywhere like feathers from a massive pillow fight in the clouds, making yellowish orange starburst showers under each street lamp in the rows of street lamps receding down the empty two-lane North Commons in both directions. The permeating silence is interrupted by the barely audible muffled sound of snowflakes landing, making the moment feel inexplicably surreal.

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        "You been down to this park before?" Native asks in a upbeat tone. Kevin shakes his head. "There's something really cool down here you gotta see." He takes a hard drag off the smoke then makes a shivering sound "Let's keep moving, I’m getting cold standing here. You ready?" Kevin nods.

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        The two tread side by side at a medium pace smoking their cigarettes. There's nobody out, no cars; there's this ambient dystopian feel like a movie. To the right are some basketball and tennis courts across North Commons, straight in front of them the Allegheny Traditional Academy, and over on the other side of that, Mercy Providence Hospital. They cross at the curved corner of North and West Commons, hang a short left and make their way diagonally through a parking lot, then a small alleyway westward till they come to Arch Street.

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        As soon as they pop out of the alleyway, standing ankle-deep on the sidewalk, their eyes are hit with another blast of an even brighter orangey peach snow buried street. Snow-capped automobiles parked dormant, under brontosaurus neck street lamps immediately overhead, resemble robots in fetal position lining one side of the roadway. Both their attention is then instantly drawn to a blazing flood light coming from fifty feet away, ten feet on top a rumbling roar of a fast approaching machine barreling down towards them. Seeming to Kevin to have the qualities of a gigantic train engine, a yellow and black painted, dual-wing, city plow dump truck pummels a reverberating cascade of snow to the curbs. They climb between two cars, through the hip-deep snow bank, where they then run across the street, jumping and plunging into and climbing through the other snow bank and upon the edge of Allegheny Commons Park.

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        The park lamp posts are all turned off, leaving the snow covered ground a natural bluish lavender gray. All the intersecting asphalt walk paths in the park are now covered 6 inches deep, as is the rest of the vast park, making it seem more like outstretching wilderness. The two meander onto the park terrain under old massive trees with large gnarled trunks. After walking a dozen steps amid the dark enchantment, Native turns to Kevin. "You see that over there?" Behind the torrent of grayish downpour, a darker, large, geometric edged shape emerges.

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        "That building? What is it?" Kevin wonders.

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        "It's the National Aviary." Native says.

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        "Well, what's in it?" Kevin asks having never been to one before.

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        "What do you think? Birds." Native says in an obvious tone.

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        "Oh yeah, okay. So that's what you wanted to show me?"

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        "Let's try to get in it."

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        "What do you mean get in it? Like, break into it? I'm not looking to break into it."

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        "There might be a door open." Native looks directly at Kevin.

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        "No way. It's gotta be all locked."

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        "Let's go see if a door's open." Native winks then starts to walk toward the building about 50 feet away.

Kevin follows right behind, "What do you want to go in there for?"

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        Native looks back over his shoulder, "To see the birds."

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        As they slowly approach, Kevin's able to better make out the building complex; geometric shapes are revealed more visibly clear as the density of descending precipitation lessens the closer they get. It has a squarish brick building at the front corner, brick along the base of the side with a huge glass-paneled roof structure that curves up from the base and peaks at the top forming a crest that runs the length of what resembles a green house. The glass-paneled structure forms a significant part of the building complex; it's curved peaked roof snowcapped like a mountain. There's a half dozen or so dark cypress and spruce trees that stand like ominous guards near the front entrance and around the one front corner of the edifice. Native leads Kevin around the left side of the squarish front entrance, to a longer rectangular brick building extension, the top half having more glass windows all the way around it, which also has a series of concrete partition, rib-type structures to the architecture. In between one of them is a windowless metal door. Native walks right up to it, pausing for a moment with his back to Kevin, who’s standing a few feet behind him watching. Native reaches down and grabs the door handle and pulls.   

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        "Damn it...what the...this was open." Native says in low dismal voice.

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        "It's locked, right?" Kevin asks, "What do you mean it was open?"

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        "It was open earlier." Native slowly turns, putting his hands in his coat pockets as he tucks his chin deep inside his collar; his square boxed shoulders raised toward his ears. He stands there near the door peering at Kevin. There's a defeated, angry, darker energy coming off him, "Your doubt locked it."

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        "What are you talking about man? It's night, in the middle of the winter, there's no way they would be leaving any of these doors open." Kevin feels this really eerie vibe emanating from Native. He almost looks like some type of goblin soldier.

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        "The mind is a very powerful thing. It can shape your reality. Open minds can open doors. Closed minds will keep them locked." Native slowly walks right up to Kevin with his hands in his pockets and shoulders high. His angular face now having the look of an ancient stone statue of an Aztec warrior as small cracks divide up his features. "I went in there the other night. It's like a jungle. It's warm in there. I said 'hi' to the birds and meditated on a rock near a small pond. With my mind open I was able to enter." He nods his head slightly "You, don't get to experience that. Your doubt and fear is your own cage." Native walks slowly away from Kevin northward toward the back of the aviary complex passing under some smaller trees, branches like thin black bird feet with talons grabbing up and out in different directions. Kevin is confused but follows Native.

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        Ten feet away, up in the bare limbs of one of these smaller trees, the shape of a large black bird perches. Kevin stops in Native's tracks. He perceives what appears to be a mammoth crow or raven, the size of a small vulture, with its tail feathers hanging low, looking over at him. This seems extremely odd to Kevin that a single crow is sitting there at night in the falling snow, while also knowing that ravens live in the mountains not in cities. He thinks that maybe it's a bird that's escaped from the aviary, but he can't make out what type exactly. Or he's hallucinating it. He decides to see if it’s real. He grabs a nearby lower branch and gives it a shake to try and scare it. The bird does not move. That really creeps him out as this estranged sensation comes over him. It just sits there perched on the limb, without moving an inch staring into Kevin's soul like an archaic symbol of death. He turns to follow Native’s footprints in the snow, giving one last glance over his shoulder, and in that instant, the crow has vanished. "Hey! Where you at? Did you see that large bird in the tree over there?" This question falls on deaf ears.

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        Trudging through snowdrift, to the back of the complex, Kevin catches up to find Native. A grouping of smaller storage sheds, some visitor building with a gazebo type roof, and the back side of the long, glass paneled, greenhouse-looking structure can now be seen in a clearer three-quarter view by the wanderers. All the glass of these larger connecting structures is fogged with condensation, although from this closer rear angle, tropical plants and other vegetation can be seen inside. Steam rises from multiple exhaust ducts. This all begins to have semblance of a megalithic hydroponic spaceship at a docking station out of some kind a sci-fi movie.  After a pause, they leave the aviary and circle back eastward through the park; the snowfall suddenly ceasing into a quiet lull.

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        "And then there's this guy." Native says unamused and snickering a bit. Kevin pivots to see to his left fifteen feet away, small bushes surrounding a concrete rectangle base about six feet high, with ornate carved reliefs on the sides, which has standing on top a dark gray horse with a saddled figure.

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        "Who is it?" asks Kevin looking up at the carved stone statue.

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        "Oh c'mon man, you should know this. He helped start all this. He's one of your kind. It's George Washington."

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        "Oh...I couldn't tell… its dark. It just looks like some Civil War general or someone." Kevin says uninterested.

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        "He's just another colonialist to me. You know... I'm not going to blame you for what your ancestors did centuries ago...but I'll tell you, their type of mentality is what has destroyed the magic in this world. It's the origin of what keeps your mind closed. I'm trying to help you open it." Native pulls out another cigarette and lights it, "What the Buddhists speak of, Emptiness, is true. There is no separateness. Walls are built out of fear or the desire to control others. All walls begin in the mind as a disconnect with all interconnectedness."

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        Kevin's confused by what Native is talking about, while secretly, still doesn't believe he went in the aviary the other night. He finds that impossible. So he's kind of not really listening to what Native's trying to explain. Kevin in his nineteen year old naiveté shrugs off Native's perspectives on life knowing not what he's suppose to gain from them. Native seems to be speaking in cryptic, abstract concepts, he figures he's too young to grasp. He chalks it up to Native being six years older than him, "I want to head back to the dorms." Kevin's beginning to feel the cold now; the insulating clouds have parted revealing a crisp, clear, star-lit sky.

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        "Alright man." Native chuckles softly "Let's roll."

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        On the way back, something quite phenomenal takes place.

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        The duo march along the northside of Mercy Providence Hospital on the shoveled and salted sidewalk; a rhythmic crunching under their feet. Kevin stares over to his right to a rear pull-up entrance at the back of hospital. He could swear he sees something out of a Ritz hotel scene: decorative carpet under an awning of sparkling golden lights illuminates a bellboy in a fancy red suit with gold fastenings and red hat as he helps someone with their luggage from a shiny black Limousine. It makes no sense; it's a hospital. He looks away, thinking to himself that he's seen enough for the evening, drops his head low to watch where he's walking while keeping up a good pace with Native. He can't help but glance over to his left, at the street lights and neon signs across the thin strip of park, to West North Ave. He would testify he witnessed figures in the distance: Muppets and Star Wars aliens were mingling in and out of the bars.

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        Native and Kevin round the end of the hospital heading south towards the gymnasium of the Allegheny Traditional Academy, when Native stops. Kevin stops a few steps ahead, then turns around to Native, "What? What's the matter?" Native points to his left with his one finger, holding his pointing hand up near his face. "Whoooaaa." Kevin expresses in surprise.

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        Near the entrance of the tennis courts is a stone drinking fountain with a stream of gushing water spurting out the spout and up into an arch, into the air, and coming down onto the ground creating a mound of ice a foot high. There's a freezing cloud of mist near the head of the fountain. Native smiles at Kevin, who stands there mouth hanging open, "C'mon, let's get closer to it."

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        They both approach with a sense of caution; Kevin with a sense of awe. As they step closer, the mist disappears and the spurting arc slows down to a bubbling dribble at the spout that congeals within an instant. The two discover on the ground, the ice mound sloping out in all directions in a about a five to seven foot radius and gradually flowing into the tennis court entrance about ten feet. Kevin gawks at the large ice blob out in front of his feet as it begins to bubble and morph in shape. It's sheen glazed surface starts to take form right in front of his eyes. Inside the bluish green and gray, although clear ice blob, all of a sudden the ice manifests into some type of see-through dinosaur skeleton vertebrae rising up and out of the surface of ice, like a segmented spine of a sea creature rising up and breaking the surface of the water it's swimming in. It suddenly becomes more tubular in shape like an enormous octopus tentacle with mechanical or fractal looking icicle blades rotating along it's twisting tubular surface in opposing rotations. This see-through creature tentacle becomes completely three dimensional, with it's exterior rotating bladed segments, it writhes out of the mound of ice and into the tennis court twenty feet in tapering length, twisting and turning out and under the tennis court net. As it writhes with pulsations, Kevin follows with his eyes this massive technical ice formation back to where it's coming out of the mound. Staring down at the mound, all of a sudden a leviathan creature head with rows of icicle teeth begins to protrude up and out of the mound, "What..in the fuck..is this!"

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        Native jars Kevin with a thrown elbow into the side of his shoulder, snapping Kevin out of his visual immersion. Kevin looks up and back at Native when he says "Let's climb on it!" When Kevin returns his focus on to the ice, the sculpted creature morph has reformed back into the ice mound which now has a watery slick and rounded top with undulating ice ripples going down the one side into the tennis court like a wavy and lumpy chute. Kevin hesitates so Native goes first. Using the side pole of the chain link fence entrance, he steps up onto the top of the mound in his snow covered sneakers, then pushes off, sliding off the rounded mound and down the extended chute, "Yeeeeeeeeeeeeyaaa!" Kevin then does the same, steps up holding onto the fence entrance, and then slides down, feeling the rippled and lumpy ice under his feet, and sliding into the chain link fence. Native tries running on the ice and his baggy snow covered pant legs flop all about as he stays in one place looking like something out of a Loony Tunes cartoon. Kevin starts laughing. Native almost slips and falls on his way back over to the mound. He climbs up and slides down again, right into Kevin laughing, giving him a hockey check into the fence, and then starts to laugh himself. Kevin checks him back into the fence laughing and goes up for another slide. They did this for number of times, bumping into each other and shoving each other laughing, having genuine fun like they were kids again. This lingering play that ensues conjures a euphoric magic for Kevin as the ice shimmers and sparkles and the snow glistens in microscopic crystal refracting radiance. But like every moment in life one experiences joy, ever so slight, or even enhanced to a great degree by mind alteration, it's only ever ephemeral, and that moment dies.

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        The comrades gather themselves and begin to head back over to North Commons to return to the warm dorms awaiting them, when from behind them comes a voice.

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        "Hey there, could I ask you two something?" Asks an average looking man in casual attire as he walks up from the direction of the rear entrance of the hospital.

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        Kevin is startled by the voice. He quickly turns around and takes two steps towards the man stopping him in his advance "No! I don't know who the fuck you are! Nor do I give a fuck who you are! Get the fuck outta here!"

"But..but I was just..." the man attempts to reason.

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         "I don't give a fuckin' shit! Who the fuck you are! Or what the fuck you want! Fuck off, get the fuck away!" Says Kevin adamantly.

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         The man turns and slowly walks back to a car parked near the rear hospital entrance.

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         "Whoa man. I didn't know you could yell like that. What was that all about? You know that guy?" Native asks a bit freaked.

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         "No, I don't fuckin' know him. And I don't like some stranger walking up on me from behind in the dark." Kevin states, still in a fight not flight mode.

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         "Yeah but look at that guy, he's just some normal looking dude, not some shady gang bangin' hustler on the street or anything. He might of just needed some help with something." Native assures Kevin.

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         "I don't give a fuck. You don't walk up on someone from behind when it's dark out and not say anything until you're only fifteen feet away. I don't care. I just want to get back to the dorms now." Kevin says not budging from his stance still looking at the guy, who stands at the car with the door open.

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        "I was only trying to get directions!..." The guy yells over to the two then sits down into the car and closes the door.

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        "See what I told ya. Man, you just scared the shit out if me yelling like that. Damn..." Native chuckles a little, still a bit astonished by Kevin's reaction. "I mean, he's only one guy and there's two of us. I don't know man, I guess we should get back."

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        They enter the lobby and then the elevator. Kevin now is wondering to himself why he felt it necessary at that moment to blow up like that on that guy. As they ride the elevator back up to Native's room, this brooding unsettling feeling comes over Kevin. He's never held off and yelled at a stranger, let alone anyone in his life, like that before. What was that anger exactly? A pang of guilt pierces him.

Kevin steps into Native's apartment briefly and then says "I think I'm gonna go down to my room. I think I gotta be alone for a little bit."

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        "Are you sure man? My roommate left a note saying he's not gonna be back till late-late. I mean, I'm still tripping pretty good right now and I would think you are too. Why don't you just kick it up here and watch some movies for a few hours till you come down off your trip? It's not always that good to be off by yourself, you know." Native insists.

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        "I have to. I just know there are some things I need to think about." Kevin refuses to heed any warning, "I'm gonna go. I feel..I gotta be alone."

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        "Okay." Native knows he has no control over him and says with a touch of concern "Just don't get lost, alright?" Kevin closes the door behind him and starts toward the elevator. Native opens the door and pokes half his body out and says one more thing to Kevin standing in front of the elevator, "Oh yeah, another thing...stay away from mirrors." Kevin turns to look and nods a single nod to Native.

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        The entire dorm room is dark when Kevin opens the door. It feels comforting as he steps in closing and locking the deadbolt behind him. Like a warm dark cave. His balcony faces out towards the student housing parking lot that has less street and building lights in the vicinity. A purplish hue comes in through the glass balcony door making a soft glow on the carpet nearby; the balcony railing, black against the outdoors. There's a handful of cars left parked below; students who also chose to stay in the dorms over the holiday break.

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        Kevin realizes he needs to relieve himself and slowly walks over and enters the bathroom leaving the lights off. He flushes and turns back towards the living room, although stops in the bathroom doorway. He turns around looking at a dark image of himself in the large bathroom wall mirror unable to make out any details. He steps closer towards the mirror in the darkness. The whites of his eyes are barely detectable. Standing there for a moment he rhetorically thinks 'What am I going to see other than what I truly am.' He reaches back and feels out the light switch on the wall behind him 'Only for a few seconds.' He flips the switch and looks at nothing but directly into the dilated windows of his soul with the deepest intentional penetration. Then flips it off again and walks into the living room and sits down on the couch. He picks up his roommate's stereo remote, turns it on and pushes play. A medium paced drum beat is met with a snake rattle sound effect that collaborates with a bouncing bass line and then keyboard chimes... "Awake. Shake dreams from your hair..my pretty child, my sweet one..choose the day and choose the sign of your day..the day's divinity..first thing you see..." In the background plays Jim Morrison's "An American Prayer" as Kevin enters into a darker inner vision.

 

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        This memory is intact in its virtual entirety. All the vividness of the trip with Native is in the forefront of Kevin's mind. But he sums it up for Mrs. Saunders, "... basically...I met this Native American guy in the dorms...he was a few years older than I was...he had some experience eating peyote in the past...a fellow art student...a real technical illustrator...after we dosed, him and I walked around this nearby park in the neighborhood all tripping out...There was some pretty weird and strange stuff that I experienced but also some really cool and fun stuff too...but I'll save you the details...so when we got back to the student housing building, I went back to my dorm room... Native advised me not to...said I should stick around with him and watch some movies till the trip wears off...he was genuinely trying to look out for me...although I insisted to go back to my room to be by myself...my two other roommates had gone home for the holidays...so I was all alone...still tripping hard. That's when this dark awakening I had, happened..." Kevin begins to elaborate.

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        "What happened?" Asks Mrs. Saunders.

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        "Well...that's what I'm gonna try my best to put into words...I'm trying to think of the best way to describe it...let's see..." Kevin closes his eyes for a couple seconds to think, "There was this...super fast, welling up, of memories from deep within me…and they were all put on display in the forefront of my mind...this sudden inundation...that pushed a part of myself out...and I gained this kind of objective perspective...more like, I became the objective perspective...like my consciousness had ascended to a peak of a mountain, inside of me...a heightened inner vision...like an internal vantage point...and had a three hundred and sixty degree view of my childhood memories that we're these sort of lakes of memories in the valleys below all around me...and that I had this kind of telescopic insight...that allowed me to zoom down into the more traumatic of these memories, into the revealing nuances, of what made these traumatic experiences so ethically wrong...like a deep wisdom inside myself that was able to see this collection of memories...up close in a way I had never looked at before...in this crystal clear revealing way...and then the wiser objective perspective translated it into direct knowing to my lesser aware naive self...that the degree of childhood abuse I endured was not common at all...this sent my more naive self into a state of shock...because I never knew what was happening to me was not ever meant to become normalized for me...but it had been...and I didn't know how to process all this realization...because what all happened to me was far from being 'normal' in any sense. This is what sent me into a tailspin of severe depression and anxiety for a number of years that followed...as I attempted to sift through all that was revealed and realized."

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        "Okay" Mrs. Saunders says in a manner that she's trying her best to understand.

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        Kevin continues, "So, it was the LSD that acted as the catalyst...it's what awoken me...it was the bright light that shined into my ignorance...it awoke a wiser objective aspect of my being...that sorta shook me out of my naive slumber. I was so sheltered by my parents in ways...so dominated by them...I wasn't allowed to actually express...umm...like rightful anger...about all the things that were happening to me...I was just always shut down at the slightest urge to stand up for myself...and my own individuality...my opinions...were always suppressed or dismissed by my parents....my perpetrators."

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*For further reading on the topic pertaining to use of psychedelics to access repressed childhood trauma see the book "How To Change Your Mind: What the New Science of Psychedelics Teaches Us About Consciousness, Dying, Addiction, Depression, and Transcendence" a 2018 book by Michael Pollan. He documents the experiences of others who were able to access repressed childhood memories of trauma in similar ways to what I describe above in this excerpt.