The End; The Beginning

Finally, time enough to regale you with the tales of time spent in nowhere Nevada.

I guess I should relay the Burning Man adventure reverse-chronologically, in an attempt to present the facts as accurately as I can. It has been said we remember the first and last moments of an event most vividly, so expect the middle of the tale to trail off, tailing behind truth and veracity. 

Let's set the scene by painting a portrait in the style of Bob Ross. Happy little trees beclouded by darkness, The Profuser and I forging forward, fatigued, foraging through a sleep-famine. We said our goodbyes around 11pm, and drove off, searching for an exit in James' weather-beaten Nissan Pathfinder. From the start we were beset by exhaustion and exhaust, the mufflers of the vehicles in front of us coughing up carbon-monoxide and dust with a bronchitis-like fervor, and fever.   

I had Prof begin the drive, wrongly believing I'd be able to catch some sleep in the 5 hour line out of the event, thinking I'd take over, well rested and ready for travel once we escaped the caravan. The caravan, though - more like a horde of carnivalesque carcasses, periodically reanimated to crawl a few dozen feet and then return to a lifeless state - had other plans for me. I repeatedly awoke as the engines sporadically came to life with a mechanical shudder, their red eyes glowing bloodshot and tired in the dark. When sleep took me, briefly, I would jolt and jostle from its clutches, goaded by sensations of falling. Once I awoke to Prof passed out with his mouth agape, like he was dreaming of sucking horse-cocks. I was tempted to unzip and make his dreams a reality, but we had to move forward; other cars were flashing their lights at us and revving their engines. Both of us continued to slip in and out of the warmth of sleep's womb. Our dreams were abnormally vivid and bordered on psychedelic visions induced from a week-long psilocybin accumulation in our brains. I dreamt we were pulled over by the police, our concealed contraband discovered, but I was in too incapacitated a state to plead the 5th and I passed out. Thinking I awoke, I relayed the happening to Prof, only to be pulled over once more in what was actually a second dream; a dream within a dream. I awoke inside yet another dream, this time where I was the one driving, realizing I had fallen asleep at the wheel, only to look up in time to see us headed straight for a cliff, smashing through a divider and plummeting to our doom. That last dream caused me to truly wake this time, spasming and thrashing. I roused Prof so he could drive us forward 40 more feet. We carried on this way for the entirety of the slow-motion stampede.

Once we broke free, driving on a narrow one lane highway, The Profuser told me he could do no more. His eyes were crossed and spittle or tonsiliths had formed a thick crust around his lips. He pulled over onto the shoulder, I got out and pissed, then took the driver's seat. The drive demanded all of my faculties and before I knew it the sun was rising over the mountains. Old Prof missed it since he was passed out beside me, a roll of paper towels like a pillow placed under his head. Sleep stalked me, pushing down on my eyelids and stilling my mind. A deadly delirium dragged its nails across my white knuckles as they clutched desperately at the steering-wheel. I rolled the window down to let the cold morning air in, stifling any comfort that tried to satisfy me. I sang Bob Dylan songs as loud as my larynx would allow, and by the time the album had looped for the 5th time, my vocal chords were so out of tune I actually sounded like Dylan. Prof had finally woken up, and I asked him to put in a different CD because I was too familiar with it and I needed something to keep me on my toes. He sardonically suggested we stop the music and sing songs. Scooby-Dooby-Doo came to mind. I performed a rendition so stunning that The Profuser was speechless. He looked at me in what might have been amazement or perhaps pure unadulterated malice; I couldn't tell; to take my eyes off the road would have been suicide. 

It was after a stressful stint through torrential rains that the really ridiculous shit started. I began rambling about the comedic potential of a sitcom titled Scoby-Doby-Doo; the story of a crime fighting kombucha mushroom that gets stoned, outsmarts small-time crooks and feasts on yeast. The Profuser wasn't fond of this idea so I pitched an alternative called Scoby-Doby-Jew; a hopelessly romantic Jewish SCOBY searching for kosher yeast, trying to make ends meet in a dead-end job as the sidekick to a group of teenagers who drive around in a van solving mysteries. This too was unimpressive to him. In a last ditch effort I tried to sell Scoby-Dolby-Doo; a documentary on the fermented mushroom that started it all, pioneering what we've come to expect as the gold-standard for modern day surround sound. I'll let you guess the outcome.

I looked over to see he had wrapped his legs in paper towels. He was babbling, repeatedly mispronouncing nuclear as nucular, suggesting George Bush had ruined him while he sat shivering. When confronted about his use of paper towels as pants, he said homeless people use newspaper as sheets all the time so paper towels make perfect sense - since they're more like fabric. To see his folly, just consider the percentage of homeless stricken with mental illness and drug addiction, the profound desocialization that alienation and poverty produce. I for one, question their ability to make sound decisions when it comes to linens and bedding. 

Soon IHOP appeared like a mirage, and we ate. The Profuser's egg yolks looked like they had been replaced with the ink from a yellow highlighter. His sausages looked like miniature dog dicks. I could've sworn his French Toast was actually a yellow sponge topped with a dash of asbestos posing as powdered sugar, but he poured blueberry syrup on it and ate it...so it couldn't have been, right?

Thankfully, I had pancakes.