At the Mind's Edge: A Drug Addict's Story

It was a chilly evening in southern California, where I found myself tensely standing on the front porch of a stranger. Steeling my nerves, I knocked three times on the door in front of me. Almost instantly, it opened, revealing a woman. Like a child in a candy store, she intently eyed me, her inspecting gaze doing nothing to hide her building nervousness and excitement. We introduced ourselves, awkwardly shook hands, and she promptly invited me inside. The apartment was neatly cared for, but quite bare, carrying the feeling of a sterile laboratory. A table and two folding chairs were all the furniture that was in the main living room. Plain, white, undecorated walls left the place feeling all the more empty. We sat down, and after a few minutes that felt more like an eternity of idle chatting, she stood and made her way over towards her bedroom, beckoning me to follow her. 'Thank God,' I thought to myself. Small talk had never come easy to me, so I was thankful that portion of the night was finally over.

Down a short hall and through an open doorway, I came into a remarkably dim room. A mattress lay on the floor against the far wall, and a small television, the only source of light, sat on a table directly across from it. The atmosphere of the room felt like something out of a horror movie. I stood awkwardly near the door, apprehension silently growing. She had already sat down on the mattress before I entered, and she playfully pat the bed beside her. "Well, are you just going to stand there?" She had clearly begun to overcome her nervousness. I could not say the same for myself, my heart skipping a beat before continuing to thump wildly in my chest. "Oh, sorry!" I said and quickly sat down next to her. I couldn't bring myself to look at her and shyly held my hands clasped in my lap. "Nervous?" she asked, her sickly sweet yet teasing tone practically dripping from her words like honey. "I thought you said you had done this before?" Quickly, I responded, "I have! It just... never really gets any easier, I guess." Her face donned a wry, sympathetic smirk, followed by a look of realization. "Oh! Here, I've got something that will help you relax." She turned away from me, towards the head of the bed, and reached into the slim space between the mattress and wall. Turning back to me, she held out a lighter and something I had never seen before.

It was a small glass tube with an orb-shaped swelling affixed to one end of it. There were two narrow holes on the spherical end, and the entire thing was tinted a milky white hue. "Is that a pipe?" I asked, genuinely curious. "I take it you've never smoked crystal before?" she responded, sounding almost giddy. "I haven't," I responded, a slight tone of exasperation creeping into my voice. "I don't even like pot. I seriously doubt this will do what you want it to do." "Just try it," she prodded. "Trust me, you'll love it." "Alright, I guess." I wasn't convinced but didn't see the harm in trying. Smiling from ear to ear, she began to bring the pipe up to my mouth. Confused, I asked her, "Shouldn't I be doing this myself?" She replied, "You've never done it before. There's more to it than you might think. Now, when I tell you, breathe in steadily." She flicked the lighter and once again brought the pipe to my face. I gently pressed my lips to the mouthpiece and exhaled as much as I comfortably could. She held the lighter under the other end of it and began to rotate the pipe back and forth. Within a few seconds, I could see white smoke begin to swirl within the hollow orb at the base. "Now," she said gently. I began to draw my breath, sucking in the smoke. It tasted intensely chemical and smelled vaguely like gasoline. Once I could no longer maintain the flow of air, I withdrew my face from where she was holding the pipe and proceeded to hold my breath.

One second, five seconds, ten seconds, twenty... I held it in for as long as I could, then let it all out at once in an almost gasping breath. It tasted worse on the way out. "Well, what do you think?" she asked. "This is nice," I lied. In truth, I didn't feel any different. I would only learn years later that I had managed to not inhale correctly. "Well then, shall we begin?" she said as she reached over towards the TV. With the press of a button, the room went pitch back, and we finally got to do what I had come there for in the first place.