The Root Bark / J.B Quick

I sat in my cousin's kitchen. Actually it was more like a laboratory with beakers and sepratory -funnels, flasks and condensers as well as countless, odd shaped pieces of glass; some empty, some partially full with some unknown liquid or other. In one corner he had a pile of pinkish strips of wood, Mimosa Hostiles, he called it. It was the bark of some tree I was told as I watched as him use a blender to ground the tough bark into a pink powder. He then put the powder through a variety of steps, each of which he did his best to explain to me but admittedly, most of it went over my head. I was down to six weeks of a six month death sentence. My life was over as far as I was concerned but my cousin was adamant that I had to have this experience before I died.
"Terry, I hate to disappoint you but I've done every drug on the planet. How life-changing can this kitchen concoction be, no offence," I said.
Terry smiled that type of smile that hinted his kitchen alchemy held more secrets then met the eye, as he continued to work, explaining the process as he went.
"This isn't a drug, he would eventually say. "Drugs just take all your personal garbage and cause you to perceive THIS world from different points of view. "This..." he said, displaying a pile of an orange crystalline substance on a glass baking dish, "this was a key."
"A key to what?" I asked.
He laughed. "To astonishment. Don't get me wrong. You won't be any wiser or any smarter, any more than you would be if you were suddenly transported to Mars or Saturn."
"Then what's the point," I asked.
"That's no different then asking, Why go to Mars or Saturn?" he said.
It depends on the individual. I like to refer to it as the Rainbow/Radio, Principal."
"And that is?"
Let's say when you were born, all your eyes could see was light in the blue spectrum and you had a radio that only broadcast a single station. Then let's imagine as you grow and make your way in the world you realize you're not alone. Everyone and everything else around you sees everything only in the blue spectrum as well, not to mention they all listen to the same radio signal.
That's essentially what most people are doing today. They don't want the truth, they want to have what they see, hear, touch, taste and smell confirm what they already believe. Truth has nothing to do with it. And for the most part, they like it that way. It's familiar; it's comfortable, even for those whose lives seem anything but.
"On rare occasions, however, should they be lucky enough-as you are now-certain people are confronted with an opportunity to change the channel as it were, or view the entire rainbow, from the outside of the spectrum. Your body will remain in this world; I will be able to see it. It will last about 10 minutes from my end but what you will see is another matter altogether. It won't be a dream or a hallucination either. It will be no more of less a hallucinogen then the world where you and I are talking in right now. The time you spend there will seem rather long by comparison to the 10 minutes or so that I'll be watching you. It may feel like hours or days of even longer from your end. My point is, this key opens a doorway to a new reality. And it's not the same old one we're all used to, viewed through some funhouse mirror of sorts but a REAL world, no different or real then Mars or Saturn is different or real. The only difference is, in this case your launch pad is inside and you'll travel inward. And you won't be alone, either. There are other beings there that inhabit those places, No different than the ones here in terms of their existence. They will approach you and try to communicate with you but chances are you'll be so overcome with astonishment you won't be able to focus on what they're trying to tell you."
"Why do you do all this. Terry?
"Because Jack, once you see that everything you've been taught is wrong, you can either be happy or sad. The sad people are the ones who thought they had it all pretty much figured out. The people who become happy realize that because they now realize that the rainbow is a full spectrum of unexplored colors and the radio is overrun with countless signals to listen to. they lose something they never needed in the first place..namely, the mundane fear of mortality. The things they were aware of, the boundaries and beliefs they were convinced existed all vanish in an instant. They thought the rope was a snake and then they see it is a rope. The good news is the fact that if enough people realize this fact we can throw out the old system and reframe the entire thing altogether from a different set of constructs.
"So why, pick me?" I asked
"Because every journey begins with a single step, Jack. That and I guess it's just your turn. You wouldn't be here if it weren't."
Terry scraped up some of the orange crystals and put it into a test tube. The rubber stopper had two holes in it. One has a tight-fitting, glass rod going inside the test tube. The other had a short, glass rod that stuck out, allowing one to absorb into the lungs, the smoke that was generated from heating the orange crystals.
"What do they call this stuff anyway, Terry?"
"DMT," he responded after my first hit.
"What does that stand for?" I managed to get out after my second.
"Dimethyltryptamine," he said.
When I returned I was speechless.
"How is that possible, Terry."
He shook his head.