Welcome Home (pt1)

A low steady rumble pervaded the place in a deep russet register that I at first took to be the sound of the blood rushing through my ears.

At some point I came to notice tiny daggers of dusty gravel pressing sharply against my back, and gradually I began to take sense of a million other tiny things in my surroundings: the searing heat, the individual rough-edged burrs of sand grains that bored into the flesh in the back of my arms, and the thick, humid air from which my weak and shallow lungs struggled to wring oxygen.

Even after convincing myself that I really was still alive, it took what seemed like another five minutes to finally coax my eyelids open and take a real measure of the place.  They felt as if they'd been sealed shut by some gruesome paste of dried blood and mucous, and they only gave way when I clawed the goo away with the hard edge of my filth-encrusted fingernails.  Slowly I brushed away the last irritating granules of dirt from my lashes and waited patiently while a cool, soothing bath of tears washed over my burning sclera.  Finally the trhobbing of my temples subsided, and my eyes darted about for clues.

I was apparently in the shadowy corner of a small, rough chamber hewn from the living rock, separated from the rest of the room by a small stoney ridge approximately one meter high.  I could perceive a strange irridescent red light burning from over the limens of that ridge from my supine position.   Not sure what to make of this odd circumstance, or the fact that the low droning rumble around me had not subsided but instead seemed to have quickened slightly and passed perhaps a meter or two behind me, I waited what felt like another five minutes before summoning the courage to roll onto my chest.

As I did so I heard a great dull crash, like the sound of hollow splintering wood or bone.  Stopping immediately I held my breath, silently inventorying my person for any trauma and tried to identify the source or at least the location of the person or thing making this noise.  I was okay, but no dice on reading that sound.  It had been too sudden and I had still been too disoriented to take any reliable notes.  There was no sign that whatever or whoever made that dreadful noise had passed, but I couldn't hold my breath forever, and that began to weigh upon me.  At some point I decided that my lungs held less than another minute's worth of breath in them, and I started to silently count to myself.

". . . Fifty-one one-thousand , fifty-two-one thousand, fifty-three-one thousand . . . ".  Suddenly I was startled by the sound of what seemed the sandy grinding of heavy feet pivoting and tramping away into the distance.  I couldn't help myself and gasped for breath just as I heard what I imagined to be the violent slam of a thick, rusty door about four meters ahead of me about four meters ahead of me.

I had no idea where I was, who or what was here with me or whether my current efforts at movement had been noticed.  I simply froze myself into place, struggling to take as low, light, and shallow gasps of air as possible while I tried to make a more complete auditory survey of my surroundings and bracing myself against some type of assault.  But none came, and slowly I noticed that the low continual rumbling that surrounded me since I woke now appeared  distant and muted, barely perceptible.  I decided that most likely what or whoever had been here earlier was gone and that I was alone in a closed room; or if I was not alone, I had at least I was consciously being allowed the opportunity to recollect myself and arise.  More likely I was alone.

I crawled up on my haunches and leaned againt the rough stone parition, glaring over its edge into the wild scarlet room before me.  I was alone.  At least now I was.  A set of course swirling tracks lay in the dark sand floor below, extending from a stoud iron-cladded door about four meters away to the centre of the chamber.  But they seemed to give little indication of the way of their making or who or how many or what size of person or thing may have made them.  I fruitlessly traced and retraced the path of these tracks with my eyes trying to imagine how and when they had been made when I noticed a pendulous dark object intruding on the upper periphery of my vision--a hanging stalagtite about  half a meter in front of me. 

Wherever the hell I was or whatever the hell was going on, one thing was clear:  That "recommended dosage" language was a bunch of bull.  There is no "recommended" anything when it comes to Ibogaine.