#explore alberta

Tangle Falls

📸 by @danschyk

July 01 2021 LSD (Singular tab, Concentration unknown)

It seems to have become a tradition of mine to do this on the national statutory holiday of Canada’s foundation as a country despite not particularly caring too heavily about the holiday or its related celebrations overall. Just the night before, I had purchased what I would soon learn to be the strongest acid I had ever taken and was about to embark ob an unforgettably strange and equally intriguing journey.

381 and 642 had arrived to join in at around noon but closer to 13:00 than the top of the hour. I had only just met 642 a few days prior as he had been visiting 318  from his hometown over the course of the week, but oddly enough we both connected right away and felt comfortable enough with each other despite the ever so brief period of time spent together in preparation. It was his first time doing this and I myself am just slightly more experienced than his friend.

Once we had chosen to begin our journey, we sat together in the room and conversed about various topics while we awaited the effects to kick in. The two brought gummy bears which were promptly devoured. An hour passed relatively quickly when we decided to get ready for a walk. As I had instructed earlier, they brought the largest bottles of water they could find. I had some gatorade powder sitting around which we decided to add to our drinks before heading off for the purpose of electrolytes. It was the middle of a heat wave here int he city and temperatures were expected to climb as high as 38º on the celsius scale which was record-breaking heat in my hometown. 

During the preparation of the drinks was when we first began to feel the effects set in, and it hit us like a bus followed by a nuclear level aftershock. Half the powder ended up on the counter, and soon so did the water. I instantly became sticky, particularly in the hands and fingers which remained throughout the day. No matter how much I washed up, the stickiness would not cease. It took us what must have been 15 minutes or more to get out of the house and on the path, but it felt like hours of constantly getting distracted by each other goofing around and attempting to fill up these water bottles which included the sarcastic and humorous mention of snorting gatorade in which I was immediately lost in uncontrollable laughter while in the other room grabbing a sheet of paper to be used as a funnel. The two came in to check on me and were mesmerized by the assortment of hand made artwork strewn across the bed during my search.

On our way out I decided to grab my portable speaker, despite not knowing whether I actually wanted to or not. This was a good decision. From there, we began our journey- at least until we got up to the top of the hill and past the off-leash dog park. This is where we decided to turn back not three minutes after we left fora backpack. “Trust the pack,” 642 said as we made our way back to retrieve it. Of course, more was done while back at the house than to simply retrieve a backpack. A piss was taken, promptly followed by the shout “Oh, my face,” as 642 spotted his reflection in the bathroom mirror. I stood by the door leaning up against the washer and dryer machines. The textured wall parallel to where I stood had drip stains scattered across it, presumably due to lack of care. A pair of womens faces formed in a depiction of traditional West-African artwork on the wall as rectangular cell-like patterns dances and morphed around them, wavering like water gently disturbed by a summer evenings breeze. By the time we were finally on our way, it must have been nearly 14:30, only half an hour spent preparing and attempting to actually get out of the house. But lord, it felt like a couple of hours at the very least.

We attached the portable speaker to the exterior of the backpack and I queued up two albums in proper order: “Music Has the Right to Children” and “Geogaddi,” both created by the Scottish duo Boards of Canada. Fitting for Canada Day, I thought. I had listened to the first mentioned album frequently in high school and had only rediscovered it years later, about a week ago. When I listened to it in full for the first time in 8 years, I knew I had to trip to this  at some point. Before departing the second time, 642 found himself rather happily pleasuring his fingers with a slightly used kitchen sponge he found whilst using the bathroom and decided to bring it along with him on our walk.

We made our way up the hill and into the dog park for the second time, our weird alien music blaring in the hot summer afternoon. As we made our way through the dog park, the environment quickly turned from familiar to unfamiliar and unearthly. Not uncomfortable though, more so just uncannily slightly different from what we would consider to be the normal state of the area. From here, we slowly made our way to the natural park by the apartments onlooking the river below. We took a moment to enjoy the sight and parked ourselves on a bench. There was nothing like this in the two guys’ hometown, and I enjoyed the view anyway. I couldn’t help but become distracted by the odd behaviour displayed by the grass sitting right next to us. It waved in such strange ways, shifting around in plates, gently sliding into each other like perfectly identical puzzle pieces. It was a sight to behold. Out of the corner of my eye. while the grass plates arranged themselves and the sky danced its dance, I witnessed the body of 318 wave back and forth before his neck began stretching out far beyond the length in which it realistically should. At this point, I came to realize that what we had was far stronger than anything I’d ever taken before. And to think I was earlier considering taking two.

The music continued to play throughout each song seemingly fitting perfectly with what we were doing at any given moment and the transitions timing themselves seamlessly with the changes in our activities. A piece of music from the formerly mentioned album titled “Rue the Whirl” played as we walked the street from the dog park to the second location- a piece of music build around a loop stuck in a groove. Paired with the relatively unchanging surroundings as we walked in a completely straight line, it felt as though we too were also stuck in that same loop, step by step, going nowhere despite absolutely going somewhere.

We made our way down the path under a bridge which a constant stream of traffic travelled above our heads. We stopped for a moment to watch the water graze past us at such unprecedented speeds. We didn’t stop here for long, but the riverbank not five minutes past the bridge was where we selected to spend the most unforgettable portion of our adventure.

Upon planting ourselves at this riverbank, we were greeted by a swarm of mayflies and other assorted aquatic insects who had seemingly taken an interest in our presence. Whether they were simply interested in us or they wanted us to leave, we were unsure. Every individual fly left a sharp haloing trail behind which was quite delicious for the eyes. They landed on us, they walked around on us, they certainly did take quite an interest in us and surprisingly enough, we didn’t really mind them much. The track “Aquarius” Played in the background as we sat and watched the people on the other side of the river enjoy the day off. They felt very alien to us while the flies were the ones who felt more like one of us. The two quickly became attached to this song, which was pleasing to me as this is one of my personal favourites of the two albums.

There was this one fly that stick out in particular to the three of us. A larger orange coloured mayfly with big bright green eyes who had perched himself on 642′s bag. He didn’t move when poked or prodded at, nor did he flee when we crowded around to see him. He was simply at ease. He was comfortable with us and we were comfortable with him. 642 reached his hand out to the fly who had put its front leg atop his finger as if to hold hands with him. At one point he flew up and parked himself directly on 318′s lips, where he happily sat for a moment or two before returning to his spot on the bag. We named him after the two guys’ friend who was unfortunately unable to make it out to the city to visit and experience this with us.

We had consumed our water fairly quickly at this point, and I was beginning to experience a minor but sharp pain in my abdominal region every time I leaned in close to the fly. I hadn’t eaten since the morning so I attributed this paint to the combination of being hungry, being high, the extreme heat, and possibly drinking too much water a little too fast. The environment was incredibly stimulating, and when I look back to this moment I can only envision bug-eyed patterns in the sky, the water, and the grass and soil with the halo trails of busy flies, darting across over field of vision at every possible second. I took a step back while the lads continued to self stimulate with rocks, water, and that damn sponge. I became increasingly intrigued by a bird that had caught my attention and I began to follow him. He did not seem to be concerned with my approaching him which i found pleasant but odd nonetheless. I also found myself collecting leaves and plants to share with the boys. One leaf in particular really caught my eye. The veins were so clear and distinct, and they looked like tiny culdesacs within tiny neighbourhoods. This leaf joined us for the rest of our adventure.

About an hour and a half of fooling around later, we decided it was about time to start heading back as we were nearly out of water and were still fairly thirsty, and beginning to feel a tad hungry as well. It was surprisingly hard to leave this small and seemingly forgettable area next to the water. The time we spent here truly made it feel like home, in some ways more than my actual home did. We once again stopped under the bridge, this time to remark on the incredible nature of the situation we had just found ourselves in, intensely bonding with arguable the most irritating aspect of mother nature herself. We took some photos of the water and the plants, and shared some photos and videos of events that had taken place a few days prior to this experience. The photographs behaved in ways they shouldn’t. The still images moved and altered themselves similarly tp those tacky holographic cards and framed photos one might purchase at the local super centre or perhaps a small craft sale. Cyclists passed us as we continued to stare in awe at the photographs, feeling their vibrations as they approached and departed from our point of standing. We watched as they passed by, each leaving a trailing halo behind them. It was a beautiful day.

Upon arrival and entry to the home, a wave of cool air came over us and the experience mellowed out almost instantaneously. I will admit this was mildly disappointing. Not mildly- quite severely actually. It had  been roughly three and a half hours since we had first began to feel the effects and this sudden change indicated that the most intense (and in my opinion, most enjoyable) portion of the experience had come to an end. We were all becoming increasingly more famished and rushed to satisfy our thirst before gathering in the bedroom to discuss acquiring some food. It was increasingly difficult to get ourselves organized. 642 had described this as though out of all the possible versions of each of us, the most incompetent of personalities were what took hold of us for the vast majority of the day, the other pieces of ourselves managing to break through for only seconds at a time before losing control once again to the fool within us. We spent several minutes desperately trying to gather our thoughts and things, deciding what we should get, and once again collecting ourselves and our money in anticipation to go get food. Then our crew of high imbeciles were off once again. 

The walk to and through the parking lot was sobering to say the least, and uncomfortably so. Existing in such a civilized and populated area felt artificial and surreal, like some sort of weird fever dream. Being indoors felt claustrophobic and unsettlingly bleak. It was a stark contrast to the isolated but free world of the bugs, plants, and river we had such joy in spending time with just hours earlier.

I had entered the pizza shop to place our order. Interacting with sober people on acid is difficult. They don’t feel like real people, just programmed AI at best. It’s strange. The lady attempted to converse, as I suppose is to be expected. I did not remember how to interact as a human being in society. She said it would be about 4-5 minutes and I promptly went out and relayed the message. They misheard and were shocked the food would be 45 minutes. While we waited for our food to be ready, we headed on into the dollar store a couple units over tp kill some time. This was the longest 5 minutes in history. We ended up picking up a 4 pack of giant crayon-shaped sidewalk chalk. We did not need this item at all, but it too ended up joining us on our adventure. The subtle expectation to make a purchase proved itself o be all too real for 642, despite not really being expected to do so in the first place. 

Once we had successfully obtained our food, it was off to the park we went again. We decided to park our picnic of morons back underneath the bridge. There were some m8ld concerns about looking weird eating pizza under a bridge by the river, but we decided it didn’t matter. We were having a pizza picnic, it didn’t matter where it was held. Human activity and behaviours are only as strange as one allows them to be, and people are unlikely to notice others acting mildly out of the ordinary due to their own insecurities about themselves and how they believe others are going to perceive them. This realization is one of the most freeing things in the human experience.

There was a shrub of sorts next to where we sat that was covered in what must have ben 30 or so large spiky caterpillars. This detail isn’t inherently important to anything, but it is important to me that you are starkly aware of it. It was here where we really began to feel things mellow out. We were absolutely still feeling it, but it was far less intesne than previously. It was very calm here. We sat and heavily enjoyed each others company. We opened up the pack of sidewalk chalk and each chose one of the 4 colours available. 318 Chose the red one, which he proceeded to then get all over everything he touched with his sweaty red chalk covered hands. 642 chose the green one and I went with blue. 

Once we had devoured our food, we set off for a stroll along the water and the rocks. The two wanted to catch the fireworks and we had a couple of hours to kill, so on we went. The sun slowly descended over the horizon as we continued our stroll backward through the park. Multiple stops were made on our journey to sit and relax, reminisce in the events of the day, and browse the endless assortment of stones available to us to take as souvenirs, which 642 indulged in. He grabbed several stones of varying shape, size, and colour to bring home to his girlfriend. At one point we could audibly hear him mutter “why do I do these things for you,” as he hailed the bag full of rocks over his shoulder.

The end of the day approached quickly and seemingly without warning. We found ourselves atop the hill where our adventure together began, surrounded by neighbours, all unfamiliar faces. Music still going strong. The 3 of us sat together, sharing photos and sharing the current experience as bright flickering lights filled the sky above us. This was a peaceful end to our day. 

I returned to work the next day. This was a mistake. The day was miserable. i in no way felt unwell by any means, but I felt wrong in being there. The work environment was dark and barren, a stark contrast from the dream-like experience taken place the day prior. I felt like I did not belong there in that moment. It felt cold and lonely. It was the kind of desolation I never wish to experience again.

Soundtrack

Zeus, Wolf Dog at Yamnuska Wolfdog Sanctuary.

Cochrane, Alberta Canada 🇨🇦 10.15.2021