We watched the eye of Toronto Island grow larger with each passing moment as we glided across the harbor. We docked and vacated the vessel.
Stepping foot onto Toronto Island was nowhere near as transcendental of an experience as my last ferry ride. Stepping onto the mainland of Horseshoe Bay after leaving Vancouver Island is always an interesting experience; leaving the serenity of Nanaimo reminds you of how the mainland's been corrupted by the scars that huge cities has left on the country.
We set foot onto what was essentially a massive city park - that happened to be an island. It was fairly obvious that its entirety had been fabricated by man - the trees, young and meticulously manicured, said so. There wasn't a single sense of nature's feng shui here, yet, the manmade forest was far more beautiful than the asphyxiating atmosphere of Toronto's concrete jungle (except for the thick clouds of mosquitos that didn't understand personal space.)
We wandered past a map on our way to our undiscovered destination. What a huge island this was! Toronto Island boasted a theatre, a small theme park and a small commercial sector loaded with pizza shops and donut stands, as well of miles of paths that cut through the immaculately organized grass patches and sparse forests.
While we journeyed, Hades whipped out the acid and cut a few hits off. The five of us munched our psychedelics and wandered far enough off the beaten path that we felt safe from the civilized section of Toronto Island. After we'd dropped, Fernweh and Scrib absentmindedly wandered off with the bag of wine we'd collectively paid for, but we weren't worried. We'd find them soon enough - with or without the wine. We did find them, but we were hardly prepared for how dire the circumstances would be.
The remainder of the group - me, Hades, Kevin and Squanch - found an inviting patch of grass and graced it with our butts. Kevin promptly impressed me by showing his incredible tolerance to pain by chomping down two of the bhut jolokia (ghost) peppers that I'd bought in Kensington Market. Ghost peppers, bested only by the Trinidad's moruga scorption peppers, are the second spiciest in the world. Merely passing them to Kevin and licking my fingers provides a burn strong enough to cause sweat to bead on my forehead, and I consider myself to be an aficionado of spicy food. Kevin didn't even bat an eye before he chomped and swallowed both of the peppers. Damn.
The four of us set up a fire and began to descend into our psychedelic adventure au francais by roasting up some Hobo Escargot. Squanch found a snail and passed it to Hades, who de-shelled it, popped it on a stick, and cooked it over the fire for a minute. He sprinkled a bit of caesar seasoning and a flake of a ghost pepper onto it and munched it down with a grin.
The sun sank beneath the distant cityscape in Toronto as our minds began to vibrate at an all-too familiar frequency. Unfortunately - as I'd anticipated - this resulted in a massive panic attack for me and I receded into my sleeping bag to try and nap the anxiety off. As any psychonaut knows, sleeping during the peak of an LSD trip is like trying to sleep in a mosh pit - though, instead of being bombarded by elbows and fists you're being attacked by powerful thoughts that leave you far too awake.
This most recent discovery:
Sanity comes in pill form;
you can now put your thoughts in your pocket
and carry them around
until you're ready to take a razor to your brain drippings,
lacerating each loose idea,
chopping creativity into the dust of stars.
Sometimes it helps to have a switch for your brain,
a switch that you can only flip by popping that one last tab.
I pondered the essence of life and my existence while I listened to the conversations that ensued outside my sleeping bag. For six hours I listened as Kevin and Hades spoke. It seemed Squanch, too, was isolating herself from the group for anxious reasons, as her voice was unheard.
I learned much from the two boys. Hades - a philosopher, a deeply curious soul who had grown tired of letting himself be shacked by society's chains - guided the conversations. He knew that here was more for him to see than the charred grill of the restaurant he worked in; he expressed his desires to drop everything and come traveling with me and the boys (a conversation nearly identical to the one that me and Scrib had had a month before.) Hades had been born in South Africa and had thus already traveled halfway across the world, so he figured he might as well explore Canada while he was here.
Hades had a pleasant way of poking at people's inner personalities. He seemed to be bringing Kevin out of his shell; Kevin's "gangster" armor was wearing thin and his soul had begun to leak through the cracks. Soon the two were sharing their opinions on life, love, and laughter. This was a beautiful moment - a classic bonding experience, accentuated by the loving (albeit dangerous) push of acid.
Things would have been much better if the night had stayed this way...
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