It stepped out from behind a hemlock and sat down directly in front of him, mimicking his posture.
He started to cry. Then he started to laugh. It was the same sound. shrooms q hussie
Underneath was nothing. Not blackness. Nothing. A friendly, patient void that smelled like rain on hot asphalt. It stepped out from behind a hemlock and
They sat in silence for a long while. The creature—the Hussie—began to pluck strands of light from the air and weave them into a small, intricate net. Q watched his own thoughts detach from him and drift away like dandelion seeds. Regrets turned into blue butterflies. His fear of dying next Tuesday became a small, barking dog that the Hussie shooed away with a gentle kick. It was the same sound
The forest began to fold. Layers of reality—past, present, the memory of a bad breakup, the smell of his grandmother's kitchen, a comic panel he'd drawn in high school—became translucent sheets of vellum, stacked on top of each other. The Hussie stood up, and as it did, it peeled back the top sheet like the lid of a shoe box.
Q looked into the void. He saw himself at eight years old, crying over a dead goldfish. He saw himself at twenty-two, drunk and screaming at a mirror. He saw himself tomorrow, making coffee, forgetting this entire conversation except as a vague, golden ache behind his eyes.
He chewed the mushrooms. They tasted of dirt and lightning.