from the shrouded bottle.
"How about going back to high school, Jeb… that should be pretty funny."
"Ah… high school kinda sucked, man… it was like… not a good time… just drugs and sex and noise to drown the pain and fear and trauma… so like… no thanks?" Jeb trails off.
"Heh." A wave of amusement erupts, following the echoes of the short huff of laughter. Its sound and feeling surround and crush and suffocate Jeb's mind in its swirling embrace as the teeth clench down into the meat of his being and shakes.
There is no room for thought between the teeth and movement, just Jeb condensed by amusement and pressure into a wad of torn and bloody thought-meat, aware only of a single moment, the present. Until the shaking stops and jeb is held, displayed in the jaws of something unfathomable, like a hound delivering its prey unto its master that is vaster and more alien and watching.
No room for panic.
No room for fear.
No room for time.
Just pure awareness, focused on the thing before him, stretching onward and always in the present.
The amusement trails off, mixing and bleeding back into the ever-present humming pants of the darkness, and from within that never-still humming silence the man speaks once again.
"So you've got a couple of choices here, Jeb. I think native insert works the best for this, and that option gives you a couple of things to pick from. One gold roll, two silver rolls, or three bronze rolls. So make your choice… or I'll make a funny one for you."
Jeb feels the man's hidden smile as the jaws unclench, pulling their teeth free from his being in great, wet, silent squelches that thrummed through his mind, allowing him to draw a single strangled breath like thought, and then another, slowly leading toward the solution to a question he knows he must answer.
"Uh… umm… two's better than one and, like, silver's better than bronze, right?… So like… two silvers… I guess. I don't really know, man… this dream is fucked… it's Space Odyssey monolith nightmare all over again. Did I get dosed or…"
The jaws clench down again, impaling Jeb into stillness and silence.
The man answers with a sigh, followed by, "It's to be expected, I guess… always the middle path with you jebs in your old-age arcs…"
He brings the bottle to his face for what must be another drink.
"But it's not a bad choice. Some funny rolls in there, and two is better than one… and honestly the bronze is pretty hit or miss for me. Probably would have ended up giving you plenty of rerolls, so there's that for you to stew over at least… think of all the other rolls that might have been… heh…"
He grins, bright white teeth shining through the darkness of his face.
"So let's get the fun rolling then… heheh."
The jaws release once more, and Jeb's well-chewed awareness spreads out from that long singular moment into the chaining of moment to moment that allows for the perception of time.
The darkness and shadow that engulfed him, the same that held the almost-throne, the overstuffed chair upon which the man sat, began to move with a deepening hum.
Churning and swirling and building into a storm of shadows, lightning of grey, white, green, and blue branches outward, reaching into vague shapes before dissolving once more into the churning darkness that holds Jeb between its teeth as the man watches and smiles.
The hum begins to crackle and groan and grind as the lightning increases in speed and vibrancy, lashing out in incandescent fury as the darkness latches onto something within its depths.
With the sound and mind-shaking vibrations of two world-sized stones grinding against themselves, white lightning reaches out from the darkness into the space between the man and Jeb, held before him, dragging forth behind itself a white, ever-changing shape streaked with dripping darkness.
The white shape, newly born and misshapen at first, pulses and moves and folds into itself, molded by unseen brutal fingers into a panel, a silly little holder of letters, a sign that Jeb reads in befuddlement.
[Netoranger]
|Uncommon Trait|
You are a Netoranger; no relationship is sacred to you. It is easier to get people to betray their loved ones for you, and people in relationships find themselves more attracted to you.
"What the fuck is this?" Jeb sputters in growing outrage. "What a shit idea, who in the…"
He trails off, mind scrambling.
He had to have taken something, right? Or he was having a lucid dream, or an LSD flashback, or… or something right?
"Jeb…" the man speaks, voice hushed and nearly quivering. "This is one of my best ideas today… jeb the Netoranger… Jebediah Ezekiel Greene, The Netoranger!"
His laughter bubbles up, sharp and delighted.
"His dumb, fat, ugly ass is coming for your waifus…hahahaaa! Yes. We roll again."
The darkness begins to churn and hum again as lightning flickers outward, but a sharp snap rings throughout the void, silencing the hum and freezing the darkness as the man waves his hand.
"Let's speed this up some and get to the fun parts."
Grey lightning reaches out of the darkness, dragging behind it a similar but different grey shape to rest between Jeb and the man. It twists and folds and stretches itself out to show.
[Sex Manipulation]
|Common Ability|
Allows you to alter your genitals to your liking as long as the changes are not absurd. Make your penis large, smaller, curved, horse shaped or just add another penis on top because why not? Get rid of your wiener, give yourself one if you never had one. Go wild, the possibilities are there.
"Of course…" Jeb thought. He was always his own worst enemy. Sure, it sucked to be average, but why did he always have to take shots at himself over it? Lucid dreams were supposed to be power fantasies, not… whatever this was.
"Ah, it's perfect, jeb. You'll no longer have to pretend to believe her when she says it's big enough, ahahaha… this is gold. I am so tempted to give you another one… why not? Might as well add as much chaos as I can justify."
The man's smile grew.
"So have another silver roll."
With a snap of his fingers and a roll of his wrist to speed things along, another streak of brown lightning bolts between them, quickly revealing itself to read.
[Metabolism]
|Common Trait|
You have an unnaturally high metabolism, or not. You are able to control your metabolism, allowing you to slow it down to a near stop or speed it up to unnaturally fast levels.
"What?" Jeb's mind stutters. "...but like how's that supposed to work… and dreams don't need to eat so… what?"
"Meh."
The teeth tighten slightly, just piercing into the fringes of Jeb's mind as the darkness stills and the shadows deepen.
"That's… pretty disappointing, honestly…" the man sighs, collapsing back into his almost-throne. "But well, not everything can be amazing… but just this one time, I will take pity on a Jeb in need and grant another roll… and it will give me another chance at what's going to make this so much more interesting for me than just watching your dumb ass redo high school, Jeb."
The man snaps his fingers, and a streak of grey lightning bolts between them, quickly revealing itself to read:
[Digestive Expulsion Independence]
|Trash Trait|
You never piss or shit. Don't ask where all the waste in your body goes.
"Well, Jeb… you literally rolled as low as you could to get that… I honestly don't know what else to say about it other than at least I won't have to skip past you taking a shit when I'm watching the footage between visits…" The man trails off, followed by a quick shake of his head.
He spreads his arms wide, bottle in one hand, the other palm up and empty.
"You see, for every roll that you get, I am going to give another roll to some lucky rando victim somewhere in the US. It's going to be great… we're going to make America great hahaha."
"But like… why?" Jeb asked "I get like this is my nightmare dream thing but… like why all this random stuff dude… we could go and like make something cool and original man?"
Jeb feels the man's attention focus on him as the maw of darkness agonizingly slowly tightens down, the teeth pressing and tearing through his thoughts as the man stands from his near-throne of shadow and slowly approaches him.
Details of the man's features reveal themselves as he walks out of the darkness, a plain green t-shirt beneath a dark grey zip-up hoodie with its sleeves pushed up to mid-forearm to reveal a gold watch on his left wrist, a pair of worn dark blue jeans, and almost black brown boots.
"Because creation… true, inspired creation… takes effort… thought… desire… and care, jeb."
Stepping closer, the man gestures upward with one hand, and a small Earth rises from the darkness below.
"This world… your world… and you, jeb… they already exist. I don't have to do or think or create anything. It's already here with a decent enough setting… a sad little clown to bumble about in it… a ready-made, silly little trauma-and-drama-filled sandbox."
North America rolls into focus, then unfolds and expands until the continent, as seen from space, fills the void between Jeb and the man.
The man steps again and is suddenly only a pace away. He leans forward, drawing Jeb's eyes to the previously shadowed face, a full dark-brown and blonde beard, matching short hair and brows, all framing deep green-and-gold eyes that meet Jeb's own and holds them in a long moment of silence before he continues.
"Because I am bored, jeb. And this is easy. And all of this…" He gestures around them with a slow wave of his hand, eyes never leaving Jeb's.
"...it's because I want you to be fully aware that I am the one doing all of this. It's not some random thing that's happening or some uncaring cosmic system inflicting this suffering on you."
The man leans even closer, Jeb can feel the man's breath on his face.
"It's me. Doing it randomly."
The man's smile stretches.
"For my own amusement."
The teeth grind and tear and chew Jeb into a ball of mind-flesh, aware only of the moment, pure focus on the ever-present, constant moment of the present.
The man straightens, running his free hand , gold watch glistening in the darkness, through his beard. He takes a single step back and is then many feet away. His eyes drop to the map, and as he looks, it enlarges, the continental United States stretching out between Jeb and himself.
"Hmm… I hadn't really thought about how to roll for targets…" He pauses, running his fingers through his beard.
"People, of course… animals… yeah, why not.. could be funny. Places… hmm, maybe later. We'll have to wait and see how it goes."
He drops his hand from his beard and lifts the indecipherable bottle to his lips, taking an ugly glug before lowering it again. Then he snaps the fingers of his free hand, and a green bolt of lightning screams out of the darkness, dragging a pulsating shape behind it. The shape settles above the map and stretches itself open to reveal:
[Torrent]
|Rare Ability|
Allows you to change the weather of the local area to heavy rain, boosting the potency of water-based abilities while weakening fire-based abilities in the area.
"Another meh… but it's something that's bound to happen. So now… who gets the power to make it rain…"
With another snap, the green panel shrinks into a pulsing star and drops toward the surface, impacting somewhere in northwestern Ohio and sending a wake of fading green light across the map. From the site of impact, a pillar of green light rises into the air between Jeb and the man, blossoming into a new panel that reads:
Shannon Myers
Location: Bloomville, Ohio
Age: 34
Family: Married; two kids, James (8) and Samantha (11)
Role: Homemaker; stay-at-home mother. Husband Gerald is a construction worker.
"A solid meh person for a meh power… And Jeb? Don't read too much into the flavor text. It's all pulled straight from the tool. Half of it's misleading, the rest is useless setting fluff, and I'll tweak the results whichever way entertains me most."
A wide smile stretches across the man's face as he snaps again, and white lightning rushes out of the darkness, a white shape dragged behind it. It stabilizes quickly, folding itself into a panel that reads:
[Adventure Line]
|Uncommon Ability|
Stanley Parable - Manifests a yellow line on the ground that will lead you to an adventure if you follow. And by adventure, I mean an interesting event happening in a distance you can reach comfortably. What is an interesting event? Maybe it's a good food place you haven't visited yet, or a dangerous murderer on a spree very capable of killing you. The guarantee is that whatever you encounter will be interesting.
It rolls and pulses into itself, then falls downward into the land below, impacting near central Nebraska. white light spills outward from the impact, and a white pillar rises up to reveal:
Dale Kincaid
Location: Broken Bow, Nebraska
Age: 22
Family: Alone
Role: Co-op Grain Elevator Technician / Maintenance Hand
"...It's interesting, I'll give it that. A little bit of work to set up, but that's just more room to tweak for fun… not too bad, all in all," the man says, staring at the panel in front of him for long moments. "And that's that. Now for the next one."
The man snaps and brown lightning rushes out of the darkness, a brown shape dragged behind it. It stabilizes quickly, folding itself into a panel that reads.
[Tinker - Vehicles(I)]
|Common Ability|
This tinker ability makes you supernaturally good at designing, modifying and building Vehicles. The vehicles you build are certainly marvels of engineering and maybe beyond, but they cannot go beyond the levels of your current world.
It rolls and twists into itself, then drops downward onto the continent below, landing in western Texas. Brown light floods out around the impact, and a brown pillar rises up to reveal:
Wayne Colburn
Location: Kermit, Texas
Age: 38
Role: Single; heavy drinker; works odd jobs and seasonal labor
"Another solid meh… could be funny at some point, if he leans more rat rods than squealer… but not world-changing. Another miss…" The man releases a sigh and frowns as the teeth bear down and grind into Jeb. "So… time for the fourth and final roll… hopefully this one has some umph to it."
The man snaps once again, and white lightning flickers forward, drawing a white shape from the darkness to fold into.
[Loyalty]
|Uncommon Trait|
People are naturally more loyal towards you, being more willing to put themselves on the line for you and be less inclined to betray you.
It collapses in on itself and falls downward, hitting along the coast of Maine. A white pillar rises up from the impact and opens to reveal:
Amanda Rowe
Location: Brackett Cove, Maine
Age: 33
Family: Married, husband Tomas is a fisherman often at sea; one son Owen(10)
Role: Middle-class shop clerk
"Bah, another miss. We started so well, only to end with three mehs and an 'eh, maybe'…" The man's frown twists into a scowl, and the humming breath brushing past Jeb's being, impaled upon the rows of unseen teeth in the darkness, begins to rumble as its jaws tighten. The dark body surrounding Jeb, the man, everything, begins to twitch and ripple.
"No. Not good enough," the man says, his scowl now a near-sneer at the panel before him. He snaps his fingers, summoning white lightning to streak out between them. His lip rises and his eyes narrow as the darkness continues to tighten and grind down on Jeb. The man snaps again, dismissing the not-yet-fully-revealed panel as a grey bolt tears forth. He snaps again as the maw of darkness trembles and shakes Jeb in its grasp, and another white bolt streaks forward.
A snap, then brown.
A snap, then grey.
A snap, then white.
The darkness around them begins to move and bunch as muscles of shadow-flesh flex and stretch, the hum now a maddening, everywhere-everything rumble as the teeth continue to grind and tear at Jeb while he is shaken in the vast unseen jaw.
A snap, and a green lightning bolt rushes forth, settling in front of the man.
The shaking and rumbling die away, leaving only the battered and shaken Jeb, who can't help but read the words the green shape resolves itself into before the man.
[Summon Lesser Fire Elemental]
|Rare Ability|
Allows you to conjure or summon Lesser Fire Elementals out of your energy and command them, such as Fire Spirits, Living Candlelight, Fire Eaters, etc., that can use a variety of fire-based magic or other similar effects. You can only conjure elementals that are equal to or lesser in power than a Uncommon Familiar. The power, shape and ability of the elemental you can conjure depends on your own expertise and power level. The conjured Elemental will draw power from you to maintain itself and use its abilities. The stronger the Elemental, the more energy they will need from you to sustain themselves. If you stop supplying them with energy, they will vanish. If you spend enough time, energy and have the proper skills, you can create permanent elementals who do not rely on you for energy. Elementals are not counted as Familiars by the system.
"Better…" The man smiles. "Much better… but too many rules and limitations. I'll have to clean that up some and give it some extra umph… and I guess this means you get another roll as well, Jeb… after we find some lucky fucker for this…"
The green panel shrinks into a star that falls downward into the middle of West Virginia, sending a green pillar of light upward to reveal the name and information of its victim.
Lawrence "Larry" Beckett
Location: Red Creek, West Virginia
Age: 29
Status: Single
Role: Owner and pitmaster of a local barbecue restaurant ("Beckett's Smokehouse")
"Hah." The man laughs, and the darkness relaxes further, its panting breath soft and low as its grip on Jeb loosens slightly, allowing fragments of thought to begin forming. "Now this has potential… it could be a nice, cozy little slice-of-life story about a BBQ pit master and his living flame pit cooking everything perfectly… in fact, I'll go even further and drop this on him as well."
The man snaps his fingers, and purple lightning lashes out from the darkness, dragging its burden behind it into the space between the man and Jeb, where it moves and stretches itself open to reveal:
[Master Cooking]
|Epic Skill|
You are a real master of cooking, you can cook almost any dish to incredible levels of taste to the point where they might even gain supernatural traits depending on the ingredients you used. You can induce actual foodgasms with your cooking.
"It's a great little touch, isn't it, Jeb?… This could be a really nice, cozy story of a cook and his living flame best friend making magical foods for people or… who knows… maybe he starts cooking and serving vagrants for magical powers… hahah!"
The man releases a long, satisfied sigh, his free hand, gold watch glittering, resting at his waist as he stands in the silence of the darkness's steady, panting breath. He brings the bottle in his other hand up and takes a long drink before slowly walking back toward his almost-throne and flopping down, one leg draped across an oversized arm, leaning back at an angle with the bottle resting in his lap.
"So… let's finish this up, Jeb. I'm getting tired of looking at you… hmm… one or two rolls for you? I did give ole Larry a second roll in a way, and it was a platinum technically…" The man takes another drink. "But honestly, I just don't want to give you a chance at that much power so soon. It's just not as funny… so… let's do three silvers and call it even?… Yeah, that's fair enough for me."
The man snaps the fingers of his free hand, gold watch gleaming, and three streaking bolts of brown lightning branch out of the darkness, dragging lumps of color and shadow behind them to settle between Jeb and the man. They pulse and throb, then shrink and stretch out to read.
[Pretty Up]
|Common Trait|
You receive a cosmetic alteration to your physique and form, making you more attractive, at least by your own standards. Perhaps longer prettier hair, a few inches, different eye color. etc. Cannot completely change your looks, only enhances what is already there, it would take an ordinary person to a fairly attractive person, but still at a level where anyone who knows you would still be able to recognise you.
[Infinite Bowl of Spaghetti]
|Common Item|
A bowl containing an infinite amount of spaghetti, it cannot be poured out but you can take servings out infinitely, the spaghetti that comes out is always comfortably warm and tastes pretty good.
[Fertility Calibration]
|Uncommon Trait|
You can freely adjust your own fertility, being able to freely go from absolutely inert to being so fertile you can impregnate even someone completely infertile at will. Or depending on your parts, make yourself sterile or rival the Goat of a Thousand Young.
"Ha… a power that makes you as pretty as you feel… haha…how pretty do you feel, Jeb? Hahaha, that's a good one… hehe… 'spaghetti for all your days' is funny, too, so that's another win… and finally we have fertility control… so how long until we have a horde of pretty little broken jeblings running around, huh? Hahaha… I almost want to set it on high and leave it there, honestly… who knows, maybe I will… hahaha…"
The man sighs, satisfied.
"That's some good stuff right there. Indeed… I do know what I'm doing, and my ideas are always the best." The man nods once, pleased.
"Welp, Jeb, I'm going to go fuck some of my waifus in celebration of my genius… while you go cry and moralize… after you get over the shock, I guess… Now fuck off."
The maw of darkness yawns open, ripping its teeth free from the chewed mass of mind-flesh that was Jeb.
"This is… so… stupid," Jeb spat.
The jaws slam shut, smashing into and through his thoughts, flattening memory and awareness into nothing, then flooding back as the teeth pull free and the darkness opens again.
"Fucking… fuck…"
The teeth come down, ripping and tearing Jeb into the many scattered parts of Jeb.
A wet, hot pressure shoves the loose pieces back together against the splintered fragments still impaled on the teeth, and the maw opens again.
"Wh…"
And the jaw closes.
Once.
Twice.
Then into a rapid, brutal rhythm:
Open… close… grind… push…
Open… close… grind… push…
Open… close… grind… push…
Each cycle shredding and re-forming him until the pattern is all he is, all he ever was, all he will ever be.
And then…
the jaws open wide…wider than before…
a cavernous void framed by rows upon rows upon rows of fangs and teeth and fangs and teeth…
and it closes…
and swallows…
…In the empty, silent darkness, Jeb reassembles.
Bit by bit, piece by piece, colliding and sticking together until the shape of him becomes Jeb again…
…and he bolts upright out of the darkness of dream, panting and sweating, arms stiff at his sides, legs stretched out in front of him.
Sheets tangled around his limbs like restraints.
His head throbs in time with his racing heart.
Cold beads of sweat slide down his face, chest, and back, each one sending a shiver racing through him as broken, hazy fragments of the dream flicker behind his eyes.
The man laughing.
The jaws closing.
Thoughts splintering and popping between teeth.
His whole body quivers as the echo of breaking, the texture, the pressure, the sound, crawls through his mind. Nausea swells, threatening to pull him under.
He shuts his eyes.
Inhale… exhale.
Another slow breath in… and out…
His heart eases its hammering, no longer threatening to punch through his ribs.
Jeb opens his eyes and looks around.
Yeah.
He was still dreaming. Or tripping. Or…
It was his old room in the condo, after his parents split. That narrowed it down to three out of the four years.
No empty beer cans or Jäger bottles on the floor, and the love seat and armchair across from his bed weren't held together by stains and duct tape… so probably not senior year.
Great.
He was trapped in a lucid dream or bad trip about sophomore or junior year.
Could be worse at least. Could be middle school. Or earlier.
At least he'd had pot, right?
He looks around the room, trying to remember where the hell he used to keep it at this point in his life.
The easiest answer was to check his pockets.
Some things never changed, and he was always more likely to find a rolled-up baggie in his laundry than by searching spot to spot relying on… unreliable memory.
And hell, it was a dream.
He just had to believe it would be there, right?
Jeb stood, peeling himself out of the sweat-damp sheets, and began shuffling through the clothes tossed across the floor, JNCOs and other heavily worn jeans, along with band or edgy t-shirts, all of it thrown haphazardly across the greyish carpeted floor.
He found a couple of packs of cigarettes with roaches tucked under the flaps, and his chain wallet still clipped to one of the cleaner, or at least non-offensive smelling, pairs of pants. But no baggies.
He stopped and really looked around the room for the first time.
His old bed, sheets twisted into knots. The raw mattress visible in places, stained and pocked with cigarette burns. A bowl of spa…
He blinked, eyes drifting over to the other side of the room.
His old PC: heavy CRT monitor, clunky off-white tower, the over-sized office chair with the peeling armrest. And on the long wooden desk that stretched nearly wall-to-wall, next to his bed with the bow…
There.
One of the most prized possessions he'd ever owned.
A three-foot glass water bong he'd saved up for, three hundred dollars cash. That thing used to destroy everyone.
Huge bowl, massive chamber, so smooth you never realized how much smoke you were cramming into your lungs until it was too much, and then it all came spilling out in hacking, gagging, wet, violent coughs that left you a wrung-out, humbled mess.
More than one brave or careless idiot had ended the ordeal vomiting and staring blankly at the back of the toilet seat, unable to think, barely able to breathe, and absolutely feeling every terrible decision that led them there.
It had vanished during a move years later, and nothing he bought afterward ever measured up. He'd eventually resigned himself to small pipes, tobacco leaves, papers…
But here it was.
Sitting proudly on the desk…and right next to it, at the resin and water darkened base, a rolled-up baggie resting on a magazine, a handful of loose shake scattered across the cover.
Jeb let out a slow breath.
He couldn't think of a better way to pass a dream away…
He walked over and gently picked it up.
It was much heavier than he remembered, the water inside sloshing as its pungent, stale smell reached his nose. He had never cleaned this thing, it wore its use and residue with pride, the build-up from thousands of bowls slowly changing the glass from light, pretty pastel greens, yellows, and blues into deep, cloudy tones that only let you glimpse the smoke within when it was filled.
He carried the bong carefully over to the PC and gently sat it down with two hands treating it like the fragile relic his mind demanded it be.
He carried the bong carefully over to the PC and set it down with both hands, treating it like the fragile relic his mind demanded it be.
Then he walked back to grab the magazine and baggie, bowing it slightly so the shake wouldn't spill all over the floor and be wasted, waste not pot, want not… pot, he thought as he ambled back to the rolling chair and sat down, sinking into its distantly familiar embrace.
God, how many hours had he spent in this thing? Gaming, reading, watching, staring, smoking, laughing, jerking off…
He'd even had sex in it once, hadn't he?
The chair had lasted for years before the base finally warped and bent from his fat, dumb ass flopping down into it every day.
Sliding the magazine into his lap, he looked down at the faces of System of a Down beneath the Hit Parader… no… that didn't sound right… wasn't it Hit Parade? He had spent…
The thought jolted memories loose, and his gaze drifted up to the walls, the same walls he'd spent hours covering with pictures he'd cut out of magazines like the one in his lap.
Deftones. Sublime. Korn. NOFX. Operation Ivy. Misfits. Beastie Boys.
Stupid mushrooms and smiley faces.
All of it taped up crooked and overlapping, layer after layer, and later an complete pain in the ass to scrape and cut from the walls.
With a shake of his head he looked back down at his lap to unroll the baggie, then brought it up closer to his nose and eyes and inhaled.
He wasn't greeted by the pleasantly pungent skunk aroma he expected…
Instead, a soft, almost cardboard-pine scent hit him.
Pushing the weed up through the plastic with his fingers from beneath, he saw dense, dry brown nuggets or well… compressed chunks he realized, dense with seeds and stems running through them.
He remembered.
Dirt brick weed.
The most common pot around back then. Twenty bucks an eighth.
Fuck, he thought.
When the hell did I start getting better weed? Was this what I really smoked as a teen?
It just didn't compare to the strains he'd grown or bought over the years… this stuff was just… dirt.
With another sigh, he looked around for a grinder. Sure, the stems and seeds were going to suck, but… well, it was dirt anyway. It wasn't like it could get much worse… but it was still pot, so it'd do.
Did I even have a grinder back then or now or whatever this was?... Or was that something that came later?
It didn't matter.
He'd just use his fingers. It wasn't hard, just slow, messy, and it's not like this brick weed was sticky or covered in sparkling, dank, beautiful crystals anyway.
If this was his lucid dream, shouldn't he have better pot…?
He shook his head, steadying his trembling hands as he crumbled the compressed bud between his fingers. Dust and tiny fragments clung to his sweat-damp skin as he pulled and nudged the stems and seeds out of the small pile growing in the center of the band on the magazine cover. Their frozen faces stared back at him, unblinking.
He glanced around for something he could use to scoop the weed into the bong's massive glass bowl, then resigned himself to just using his fingers.
He reached over and grabbed the oversized bowl stem, pausing to steady his hand before dragging it up from its… whatever it was called… the bit that slid down below the waterline.
Pinchful after pinchful, he transferred the crumbled weed from pile to bowl until it was filled. Then he rubbed his fingers together to shake off the stubborn bits and carefully slid the packed bowl back into the bong before moving the magazine onto the desk.
He reached down to check his pockets for a lighter before realizing he was still just in boxers and a t-shirt.
He lifted his arm and leaned in to sniff his armpit out of pure force of habit… and decided he should probably change shirts.
Or, like… want it really hard and hope the dream made him stink less.
…He still needed a lighter…
Socks and lighters and loose change… where did they all go?
Was there going to be some gremlin like…
He shook his head and scooted the chair over to the pile of clothes, digging through pockets again until he found a Bic lying under the heap. He flicked it once, then twice, and it lit.
He pushed himself back in front of the bong and, in one continuous motion, reached out, gripped it, pulled it into his lap, sat up, leaned forward, pressed his lips inside the mouthpiece, sparked the lighter, and brought the flame over the bowl as he breathed in.
His breath drew the smoke through the bubbling water, the orange and red embers hissing as the brown weed burned down into dust. The chamber filled slowly, completely, and just as the first hint of smoke teased his tongue, he pulled the bowl from the bong in one smooth motion, neither fast nor slow, and inhaled until he couldn't anymore, letting the rest of the smoke trail out of the chamber as he leaned back in the chair.
It was too much, he had to let it out.
It was too rough, he had to cough it out.
It was exactly what he needed, so he held it in.
He forced himself to keep the smoke down, letting his lungs absorb the THC and cannabinoids, or whatever the hell the psychoactive bits were, into his bloodstream. His chest ached. His eyes watered. His throat threatened to burst.
From lungs to blood to brain, he felt it spread, a slow, creeping invasion that loosened the taut wires inside his skull, releasing him from the constant stress and demands chewing at the edges of his thoughts.
Then, deeper, through his body, seeping into muscles and joints, the tension drained out of him, letting him sink even farther into the chair.
He finally released the smoke, doing everything he could not to break into an unrecoverable spiral of coughing. His mouth flooded with saliva and a few small coughs slipped out but he held and continued to breath as smoothly as he could until the last of the smoke finally cleared his chest, and allowed him to take a shaky breath and melt further into his seat.
…
It was quiet, he realized… almost too quiet.
Not the kind he was used to. Not the creaks and groans of an old house, the soft ever-present buzz of distant traffic, or the occasional alarm or siren.
Just the AC.
And the slow, steady hum of the PC fan.
Was it always this quiet back then?
Or… what time even was it? Did dreams have time? Probably. And if he was dreaming about high school, it was probably morning and, yeah…
He sat up with a sigh, sparked the lighter again, pressed his lips to the bong, and drew smoke through the water, filling the chamber before pulling the bowl and flooding his lungs once more.
Held it. Let it spread.
Released it into a drifting cloud before him.
Jeb reached forward, set the bong on the desk, and collapsed back into the chair.
…High school had sucked.
Trying so damn hard to pretend to be normal and not… all the things that were wrong with him.
Hiding in distractions and drugs from the pain of loneliness and hopelessness.
He hoped this dream, or bad trip, or whatever the hell it was, would end sooner rather than later. He really didn't want to dig up all those restless dead memories he'd finally made some kind of peace with years ago.
This was why he'd stopped dropping acid and eating shrooms, the long, vivid bad trips and the fear that he'd never wake up, never come down.
He'd at least learned one thing from it all, the only way to fight a bad trip was to ride it out and try to take ownership of it through sheer force of will and unbridled optimism…
Two things he knew he didn't have.
But he could endure.
And that would have to be enough.
He would wake up eventually.
Then he could go back to bed and forget all about this fucked-up dream…
It was just so quiet compared to what he was used to. Had it always been this empty and quiet after the divorce? He knew he'd been left mostly to his own devices back then… out of sight, out of mind, he guessed.
His dad had packed up and taken some long-haul trucking job after leaving the chair-bound management position at the family construction company. He'd hated that job, and he'd at least partly blamed it for pushing him to cheat while looking for an escape… which had led to the divorce in the first place.
His mom would spend most of the week up in Cincy, working some upper-management position or something… he'd never really asked, and she'd never really told him…
She only came down on Friday evenings or Saturday mornings to make sure the condo was still standing and hadn't turned into some burnt-out ruin…
…and then she was gone again by midday Sunday, back to the new life she was building across the river.
Maybe she was already dating the guy she'd end up marrying in a few years. He wasn't sure. He didn't even know she'd remarried until months after the wedding, sometime in his early twenties.
So at least he'd never really had to hide his smoking or drinking, or any of the other stupid excesses… his means of distraction… during the week… he just had to find somewhere else to be on the weekends. And even then, as he got closer to graduation, she'd shown up less and less.
He wasn't even sure he remembered either of his parents at his graduation…
Rubbing his palms into his eyes, then stretching out his arms with a sigh before sitting up in his chair and looking around. He needed something to do before some invented demon or monster or nightmare spawned forth from his drifting mind.
His gaze was pulled to the Windows logo slowly bouncing around the black screen of his CRT monitor. It never hit the corners. He had watched it for what felt like hours sometimes, blankly wishing time away.
This was the time of Napster and all that, wasn't it… and he'd had a huge digital library of music at one point before fucking Lars opened his mouth. Had they really been losing that much money from Napster? Had things gotten any better? Well, for the multi-million-dollar artists maybe, but probably not for the unknowns…
How did kids even find random new music now?
He had spent… who knows how long poking through weird songs on Napster. Was that what Spotify was for? He had never really thought about it… he had lost interest in new music at some point, just as he guessed all old people did… Comfortable old tunes versus random new noise made by kids…
He had been pretty proud of his music collection at one point, hadn't he? Thousands of songs and artists all hooked up to pump through his stereo system and set of speakers.
He grabbed the bong again, stirring the half-burnt bowl with his fingernail before moving his lips to the mouthpiece, sparking his lighter and filling it with smoke. He removed the bowl and inhaled it all with a quick breath, holding it for a moment before letting it out, head tilted slightly back so he wouldn't have to wade through a cloud of weed smoke to see the monitor.
He set the bong down and scooted to the keyboard, grabbing the mouse and waking the screen to reveal a grey-and-blue background with fuzzy, pixelated icons that he had trouble deciphering for long moments, lost in confusion at what he was actually looking at.
Monitors had come a really long way, hadn't they… everything was so… fuzzy and square…
…he had no idea what he was looking at or looking for, he admitted to himself, before grabbing the bong again, bringing his lips to the mouthpiece, and lighting the last of the bowl to draw smoke through the bubbling water into the chamber. Then he removed the bowl and let the smoke quickly flow into his lungs, holding it for a moment before releasing it upward.
He looked to his side for an ashtray. He had smoked for years…Started in… Sophomore year? Or that summer before, maybe? So surely there was one within reach of his PC, right?… but no, there was no ashtray on his desk.
He pushed back his chair and spun it around, his gaze drifting as he searched for something to dump ashes into, until it dropped to the side of his bed where an overly full ashtray sat, packed with butts and surrounded by scattered ash.
Half-turning, he set the bong back on the desk and stumbled over to the ashtray. Bending to pick it up, he stood and started turning in place, scanning for a garbage can… or something. After making a full circle and giving up, he carried the ashtray back to the desk, set it beside the bong, and flopped himself back down into his chair.
He grabbed the bowl from the bong and used his fingernail to loosen the ashes, then dumped them on top of the butt pile, clinking the side of the glass bowl with his lighter before putting it back into the bong.
Turning back to the PC, he grabbed the mouse and started poking at things, now more prepared for being lost and confused.
Jeb moved the mouse over the icons, waiting for a tooltip to appear, before realizing the fuzzy shapes under the icons were actually letters… and was reminded how dumb he actually was…
He leaned back in his chair and rubbed at his eyes for the span of a few breaths, then leaned forward again and started scanning the desktop for Windows Media Player, or something close to it. He vaguely remembered that all his music had been stored in a library there… he could remember the visualizers, those random colors and shapes, playing as he and his… friends, or people he knew at least, sat around smoking and drinking late into the night, laughing and joking and forgetting what was coming and what had been.
He was craving a cigarette for the first time in years… a true, real craving, like those first months after quitting, when after every meal, every time he sat on the toilet, every morning, every night while lying in bed and staring at the ceiling as thoughts cascaded through his head, his body and mind had screamed for a single drag, a single draw of tobacco…
It had been such a struggle to stop. There was no way he was giving in to a dream and re-inviting that back into his life… even here in the temporary now.
Just don't think about it, he thought… as he immediately thought about the mouthfeel of the cigarette, the taste of the smoke in his mouth, the texture of it passing down his throat, and the satisfaction of it filling his lungs.
It was the smell, he realized, or blamed, as he became conscious of the smell coming from the ashtray. He grabbed it and stood, moving it down to the far end of the desk, well away from him, before returning to his seat.
Smoking was such a pain-in-the-ass addiction. It smelled, you always needed a lighter, always had to buy a new pack, and it left little burns everywhere in everything when you weren't paying attention… There was no way he was allowing himself to pick the habit back up. It was one of the only things he had ever…
He wasn't going to smoke again.
He grabbed the mouse as he leaned forward, trying to better stare at the fuzzy letters below the fuzzy squares that were supposed to be pictures. Searching for what might be the media player, he couldn't even remember what it vaguely looked like, so he had to scan each item on the desktop and actually read its name.
It was too cluttered and messy, VLC players, demos, things he had no idea about, his eyes just sliding past anything that didn't have "player" under it.
Finally, at the bottom of the screen, near the date that read 5:44 AM 10/11/2000, he spotted it.
He clicked on the near-literal play button and waited for the application to slowly load. He watched chunks of the UI load in as he tried to move the mouse around the screen, and its… lag made him wonder if he had a virus or was just asking too much from a…
He glanced over to the tower he remembered being a prebuilt and scanned for a name… was he expecting too much from a prebuilt Dell?
He had no idea about the total amount of storage taken up by music, but it had to be a significant chunk, right? Thousands of songs… he could check, he guessed, but… it wasn't really worth expending that mental energy to go hunt useless information down…
Shaking his head as the UI was still just black boxes outlined in blues and greys, he reached for the magazine and baggie again. Unrolling it and dumping the rest of the bag onto the cover… he had maybe an eighth left? Had this been a quarter bag, or half-ounce, or something else… was there something between a quarter bag and half-ounce? He couldn't remember, it had been so long since he bought anything other than grams or just rolled with homegrown.
Crumble, break, sort. Crumble, break, sort. Until all of it was separated into two piles: one of seeds and stems, one of brown goodness… or at least decentness? …maybe.
He grabbed the bowl from the bong and went to pack it again before realizing it wasn't empty and stared at it for half a second… why had he broken up all this pot when he had a perfectly good bowl ready and waiting for him?
He placed the bowl back in the bong and set the magazine on the desk, swapping it for the bong.
He placed his lips on the bong, sparked the lighter, placed the flame against the weed, and began to draw smoke into and through the bubbling water, filling the chamber as it vibrated in his hands. Once reasonably full, he removed the bowl and allowed the smoke to rush into his lungs, holding it for long seconds before releasing it into a cloud in front of him, obscuring his view of the fully loaded media player.
God, he missed good pot already… why couldn't he have dreamed up some real dank, funky buds of, like, White Widow, Northern Lights, or Strawberry Haze… no, he had to go full nostalgia and populate this dreamscape with dirt brick weed… there was a point when too much detail was too much detail, and the dry bland taste of dirt weed was well past it…
…but at least he had this bong…
He place his lips against the top and moved the lighter over the crumbled up dirt weed that was now more ash than bug and inhaled, pulling the flame against the pot and smoke though the water into the chamber. He moved the lighter in a circle over the bowl making sure every little bit was turned into smoke as he continued to inhale and drag more and more smoke though water before he was forced to lean back and take a breath… then moved his mouth back removed the bowl and crammed as much smoke as he could into his lungs having to pause once to prevent from choking on the bland smoke.
He collapsed back into his seat holding in the smoke and back the coughs that shook his chest before releasing it in a great could in front of him… and he sank in to a great puddle of himself with a coughing sigh.
…
Right, some music would be good, wouldn't it? Jeb thought… before, moments later, un-slouching and leaning forward to grab the mouse and poke around at the… ancient… UI in front of him… not really sure what he was looking at. Windows of stuff, equalizer, visualizer, options, sliders of some kind… and the library window on the left with… lots of… folders? Drop-downs? he wasn't sure… but he poked at them anyway and was led right to his porn.
His massive library of porn.
Why did he have so much porn on his PC and, like, right there on the top layer… not hidden behind taxes or some other innocuous thing? It was right out in the open where anyone poking at the playlist could find it with just one click… oh god, had he been a gooner? A pre-gooner gooner… or… why else would he have all this porn when you could just Google.., ah, right. No Pornhub, no… ExHentai… or whatever other poison someone would pick… right… maybe that tracked… yeah, sure…
…he had a magic dick, didn't he? That and, like, fertility control and net… he had magic penis powers… he thought as he looked down into his lap at his boxers…
He stood up pushing the chair back with back of his legs as he did so and pushed his boxers down.
And there was his penis… damn, wasn't it weird to not have to lean over slightly to look past his old-man gut to see it… He had always been told that 6–7 inches was around average and that it was "big enough," but… his most toxic ex had made it a frequent target of attack and… compared to porn dicks…
He could feel it, behind the muscle at the base that would cause it to twitch and rise, there was something else there… something that wasn't quite a muscle. He gave it a push, flexing slightly, and his penis… stretched… grew. He wasn't sure how the skin and all that still fit, so… whatever. He flexed it like he would spread his fingers, and it spread… its… girth increased… He pushed, almost a thrust, and his balls swelled…
…
He flexed it forward as he spread it open and pushed, and his penis and testicles grew in all dimensions… it hung there like a club… He swung his hips side to side and watched them swing like a great flesh pendulum… did women really want something like this jammed inside them again and again, bludgeoning their… innards… with a meat stick…
He poked it with a finger and yeah, it was a penis… but that slight poke made him aware that it wasn't… just a penis anymore… he could feel the flesh it was made of in a way he wasn't sure he had before… almost like his tongue, something he could flex and move… so he moved it, and the tip flattened, becoming more like a hors…
An uncontrollable shiver spread through his body as his mouth flooded with saliva and his stomach twisted. Cold sweat beaded across his flesh as his hair stood on end, shivering…
He had a normal small penis that was fine, not a… it was normal… Go back to normal, he thought. Just relax and undo and go back, it's a normal small penis, he thought with his eyes closed as he bent over and pulled up his boxers… it's normal, not strange, I can't feel anything strange, it's just a normal penis…
…right. Everything is fine and normal, just… sit back down and smoke some pot and find some music to listen to…
He started to flop down into his chair only to remember mid-sit that he had pushed the chair back, and he started flailing as he fell, landing right on his ass, smacking into the edge of the seat and sending it careening away as he smashed into the floor with a loud "fuck!" escaping him on impact, the condo shaking as he sat there on his ass… sweaty and dumb…
…with a sigh he stood and ran his hands across his ass, expecting some… at least lingering pain, but no… no pain at all… and that made sense, couldn't hurt yourself in a dream, and he did feel pretty good, honestly, he thought as he tilted his head back and forth, cracking his neck, some unnoticed tension releasing.
Then he squared his feet, raised his arms above his head and clasped his hands together, turned, and stretched his back, sending a cracking and popping sequence of tiny stress-compressed stress bombs exploding down his spine… he felt pretty fucking good, honestly…
He squatted and his knees didn't threaten to collapse into themselves, and standing he didn't feel his abdomen ready to rupture into a hernia… raising his legs didn't send the pain or the feeling of bone-on-bone grinding through his body… yeah, he felt pretty fucking good, he thought with a soft smile as he turned and grabbed the arm of the chair, pulling it toward the desk, maintaining his hold on the arm as he lowered himself into it.
Reaching forward, he grabbed the bong and pulled it into his lap as he put his lips to the mouthpiece and moved the lighter toward the… ash-filled bowl… letting out a sigh that caught in the glass chamber and sent the smell of stale bong water up into his face.
He reached forward and put the bong back on the desk, pulled out the glass bowl and slid the magazine close enough that he could pack the bowl with pinches of pot between his fingers. Once filled, he brushed his fingers against his shirt to remove the crumbs of pot, then slid the bowl back into the bong before grabbing it and collapsing back into his chair…
Right… music first, he thought, leaning forward and setting the bong down.
He had been looking for music before porn and then magic peni… before he had gotten distracted and fallen on his ass.
Squinting at the fuzzy screen in front of him, he backed out of the porn and navigated to his library of pirated music. Opening it up revealed a list of hundreds of artists.
Acid Bath, Aphex Twin, Ahmad Jamal, Anti-Nowhere League, Agnostic Front, Bad Religion, Cypress Hill, Marilyn Manson, Moondog, Nine Inch Nails, Wu-Tang Clan, Snot, Rage Against the Machine, Zero Boys, Zoot Sims, and Zounds…
…and many more he just didn't remember or recognize by name. They were all just… the background soundtrack of late, smoke- and alcohol-obscured teenage nights.
here were way too many options for Jeb to choose from… so he clicked random.
He grabbed the bong before sitting back in his chair as the media player, or whatever, did its thing, slowly sorting through the library of songs. He put his lips to the mouthpiece and brought the lighter to the bowl, starting to fill the bubbling chamber with smoke.
Spoiler: Song video
The song started playing, a nice upbeat clapping joined by a bass beat that he began to nod to, bouncing his heel in time. Once the chamber was full, he removed the bowl and filled his lungs with smoke just as the chorus hit.
"Lift your head up high and blow your brains out…"
He spit smoke and laughter that quickly turned into a hacking laugh-cough as he wheezed. It took numerous deep breaths before he had the coughing under control and looked up at the monitor through teary eyes.
He leaned forward, putting the bong well away from any accidental stoned flailings, then grabbed the mouse and clicked Restart.
It was such a stupid song, yet Jeb couldn't stop himself from moving to the bouncy beat. There was no way it could be made today or back in the present, the online puritans who ran the digital world would burn everything to the ground in a screeching frothing rage, like they had with everything from pancakes to mice wearing sombreros, but here and now, in a dream about the past, it was just another funny, dumb song, and he felt good as he nodded his head and bounced his heel.
He stood and pushed the chair away as he started to move his hips and shuffle his feet while moving his hands… he had no idea how to dance, but it just felt good to move… and it was fun… was that why people danced? Was it just fun? Not worried about how they looked, just… having fun, feeling good?
"'Cause life is the game that no one wins…"
It was all so dumb, so he started to move his hips like Conan O'Brien to the beat of the song, the only dance he could think of. Then he started to move his feet, step and turn, then roll his hips to the other side as smoothly as he could before popping them to the beat, then rolling back to the other side with his hands above his head doing… whatever they were doing… while he tried to catch the beat and groove.
"Life's short and hard like a bodybuilding elf!"
He'd really started to feel it, and he felt the smile across his face as he dropped his hands to waist level and started to reach from side to side as he bounced his hips between swings.
"Lift your head up high and blow your brains out!"
One hand stretched out to the side, one pulled into his chest, hips cocked and legs spread wide, Jeb opened his eyes, freezing as three of his restless dead stood staring at him from the open door to his room.
Shane Colton, the loud, confident, black-haired, grey-eyed kid, was collapsing against the wall, his braying laughs nearly a screech. Pointing at Jeb, he barked, "Hey, look at this Backdoor Boy finally coming out of the closet!"
Shane had always known he was going to make it, he just never tried to make it, and then, when he inevitably didn't, he allowed his true meanness to shine through and drag him down even faster before OD'ing.
Amberly Reese, Shane's ever-present girlfriend, brown hair, green eyes, was blushing and giggling, knees slightly bent and shoulders turned as she covered her face with her hand and peeked through her fingers.
"Oh my god, Jeb…"
Shane would drag her down into addiction with