Shrooms

"Quit skipping school." Daphne warned.

The worst place on Earth was where teachers had the authority to tell him what to do. He absolutely despised being ordered around by those self-loathing educators. Every day it was something. He was also pretty sure his English teacher preyed on sixteen year old boys.

He was sick of attending that collegiate. He was sixteen, old enough to move out. Suddenly tempted to get his inheritance in his possession as soon as possible, the last thing on his mind was getting his high school diploma.

Daphne commanded him to drive himself to school immediately or be thrown out of the house. On his way there, he stared at the road half-lidded in disgust. Fuck school.

Obnoxious teens crowded the hallways. The odd acquaintance would pop up out of nowhere and insist on having a conversation in the middle of the halls as students walked through between them. Conrad disliked no one. The issue lied in being there, in that school, unable to do things the way he preferred.

He counted down each hour before he was to leave the building and return to his own life.

Eight more hours.

—

He found himself on the floor of his bedroom tripping on the shrooms he had bought from Kathleen at school. She was two years older than he was. The possibility of them being together was unlikely. He walked home with slumped shoulders.

Conrad was a hopeless romantic. He didn't know who on Earth he got it from, if it was even a gene, or a learned behaviour.

He admired Kathleen's profession. She was definitely a hustler. Her lack of interest in him even lit up a few synapses in his brain.

The sooner he got busy with a new hobby the sooner his boners for Kathleen would disappear and stop forming at the thought of her tits. Or what her embrace felt like. The teen didn't know where to start other than allowing his visuals to distract him from his thoughts; each one representing something insignificant to him.

A half hour into his trip, he found himself laughing relentlessly. He then began calling girls from his high school. He wanted to get laid. That was all. The laughter-inducing psychedelic lifted his depressive thoughts. It did its job. Now, onto things that mattered.

Anastasia visited and left. He didn't pay her for the sex though he would have if she had asked. People were never assertive enough. She didn't have to wear that face after they stopped.

It forced him to think some women were too easy. Not worth pining over because of how many times they've been used by men repeatedly. They were no different than hookers who didn't get paid by their pimps.

Every asset, ruined by the past presence of men. He wondered how his dad viewed women if he managed to commit to Daphne. Daphne, the harmavoidant alcoholic homebody. The kind of woman who would get fucked around on in a marriage, Conrad thought.

Conrad reached his destination hours later. The psilocybin peaked, causing the most intense visuals in the teen's perception. He laughed. He cried. Periodically. Bound to an emotional response because of the dose he did.

Kathleen did not warn him about the mushrooms' potency. It was a theme in the way she worked — honesty was not the best policy. It wasn't like the kid was going to die or anything. She didn't sell drugs that could take lives.

His trip was insanely heavy. All he wanted was to be around nature in the backyard with a joint in his hand. Appreciating the sight and smells trees provided made people feel inane again. Centred without silly meditation practices. Shrooms were the answer.