The House of the Vegetable Read online

  Don, feeling now quite dopey from the broken sleep, tottered off to the bathroom, first though making sure to retrieve his shoes, in which he’d stowed the keys and trusty sap.

  Stepping out into the passage, Don now saw the bathroom light was on.

  Holding his shoes behind his back he stuck a head in, pushing back one of the saloon doors, it making a light creak.

  A polite cough. Someone in the toilet cubicle.

  Don still needed to go though, and after returning his shoes to the bedroom, was forced to use the basin.

  After cursorily rinsing it out, he headed back to his room and lay back in bed, deciding to try stay awake and wait till the person had finished.

  Don lay back in bed listening for the creak of a batwing door or footsteps. Shortly he dozed.

  He woke up after what had only seemed like a short nap. Rising, Don went to check the clock again. An hour had passed.

  Don, now feeling quite sleepy, steeled himself, pushed up and went again to the toilet, but not picking up shoes this time.

  The light was still on. Opening the door to the bathroom, the light cough again.

  Don used the basin again, then stomped—as quietly as he could—back to his room. He lay back on his pillow. What the hell? Was it someone else or had that person been sitting on the bowl for an hour?

  Don’s need to urinate forced him to rise again once more that night—and although the toilet was now unoccupied, the sun was already rising, and his chance had passed.

  Tonight was the ceremony. He would have to purge.

  He would just do what he had to do. He would simply see it as part of the mission, he thought, just another obstacle in the path toward his goal. As long as no-one realised the keys were missing, and he didn’t lose his mind, or turn into some Thornapple minion, or die, after drinking the stuff, he could try again on Sunday.

  Don still needed a bit of luck, and last night it just had not been with him.

  Chapter 16

  Saturday was spent preparing for the ceremony. Breakfast was light, and the rest of the day spent fasting. Some time in the morning was spent by everyone cleaning the common room, preparing the mattresses, blankets, pillows—and of course buckets—as well as hanging heavier fabric over the windows to try to cut out some of the light from the street.

  The brew was being prepared up in Thornapple’s kitchen. No one, of course, was allowed to go in during the process.

  After completing the basic preparations, the afternoon was then meant to be spent relaxing, clearing the mind. Don spent it mostly staring blankly at the page on Katha Edulis in his plant book in a mild, but constant, state of anxiety.

  In addition to the general fear of taking a potent mind-altering substance, Don had, throughout the day, kept on getting stabs of nerves, imagining whoever had just walked in had come in to call him out on the missing keys.

  Part of him was also entertaining the-slightly paranoid—possibility the drug might act like a truth serum, causing him to spill his guts and reveal his true reason for being there. Various unpleasant scenarios subsequently played out.

  Finally at around six-thirty everyone trooped slowly into the common room. The tough mattresses were all neatened up around the perimeter of the room, each with blanket, pillow, towel, bucket and a roll of toilet paper.

  Thornapple was already in place as Don entered, sat on one of the central mattresses in front of the mural wall. The low table Don had seen up in his room, was now down here in front of him. On it were a glass bottle of brown liquid, an ornate clay cup, a pipe, two short carved and decorated sticks, a sort of small narrow fan made out of what looked like guinea fowl feathers, as well as a few other bits and bobs. Thornapple was dressed in the same green shorts Don had seen him in the other day, but now with the addition of a similar hued vest and was sitting cross-legged, hands folded in his lap, eyes closed.

  Don asked Ephedra, who was just ahead of him, if there were assigned places.

  “No, just sit anywhere,” he told Don. “It’s a solo experience.”

  Despite having choice of where to sit, in the shuffle, and being one of the last to enter, he found himself unfortunately to the right of the Mandrake—who Don still felt less than easy around—and also directly opposite Thornapple.

  To his right at least, to make up for it, was Damiana, whom he hoped at least he could call on for help if things got out of hand.

  As Don took his place on the mat, he nodded a polite greeting to Mandrake.

  She stared at him for a moment then leaned toward him and asked, “You know that girl?”

  “Uh, no,” Don said, not sure what she was talking about.

  “That girl was me,” Mandrake said.

  Don stumped for how to respond, just turned to face forward, beginning to have even greater regret about being sat next to her.

  After everyone had settled, Thornapple started to click two sticks together and then began chanting softly.

  The chant initially sounded to Don to be in a Native American language but after a little bit, picking out a few of the mumbled words Don realised it was in Afrikaans.

  Still continuing intermittently with the chant, Thornapple took up a pipe off the table. Not the same one that Don had seen him use the other day, this one was a more traditional pipe shape, but also carved with a goat-like design.

  Thornapple lit the pipe, sucking in the smoke, then exhaled an almost bright blue cloud of smoke. With his free hand he picked up the feather object off the table and began wafting it about, directing the smoke about the place around him.

  Slowly standing (and somewhat uneasy on his feet, Don thought) Thornapple moved over behind Acacia, who was sitting on his right. The looming vegetalista took another big puff on the pipe, blew out, directing the smoke over the down over the back of Acacia’s head, then using the feather directed the blue-white cloud down along the line of the man’s back.

  Thornapple then did roughly the same to Kratom, who was next, and then continuing around circle anti-clockwise.

  Halfway, Thornapple seemed to appear distracted by something and shuffled over to the one of the large windows. The sun had just set, and the room was now starting to darken a little. Thornapple pushed back a curtain a bit and stared out at something for a long time, just like he had with Don the night before, some of the members seeming to shift uncomfortably. He finally appeared to snap out of the trance, took another toke of the pipe, blew it at the window and then continued around the circle.

  Reaching Don, Don began to feel significant unease as the tall man walked behind him. He felt the gust of breath on the top of his head, smelt the oppressive, slightly sickening smell of the tobacco. Don then experienced something like all his hairs standing on end. The sensation was strange, a prickling, tingling, gathering at the top and back of his skull. Don resisted the urge to turn. What was going on back there? Was he being made a fool of? Now a strange burning at various points in his body. Bellow his belly button. He was relieved when he saw the giant figure moving off in the periphery to his right, continuing on the process with Damiana.

  Having completed the smoke ritual, Thornapple returned to his mattress where he collapsed back down.

  “Consider your intent,” Thornapple said, voice quiet but seeming to boom clear in the room. He then took the bottle of brown liquid and poured a measure into the clay cup. There was a raised carving on one side of the cup but from where he was Don couldn’t make out what it was.

  Thornapple then nodded to Acacia, who rose and moved to sit in front of the table facing Thornapple.

  Don saw Thornapple speak. What’s your intention? Acacia answered something, Don couldn’t quite make out the words, but thought it sounded like, “Soul family.” Thornapple extended the glass and contents to Acacia. Acacia took it and drank.

  Again going anti-clockwise, the various House members rose to drink. To Don it sounded like all of them were saying something like, “Soul family.”

  Don had thought before
that he might be able to somehow spit the stuff out, but saw now, with this setup, that wasn’t really going to be doable.

  Finally his turn, the vegetalista nodded to him, giving him the faintest of smiles. Don rose and went to sit before the little table.

  “Have you decided on your intent?” Thornapple asked.

  “Uh, seeking guidance,” Don said.

  Thornapple seemed happy enough with that and handed him the cup. Don took it and drank. As he did he saw the awful burnt out eyes of Thornapple above the cup. The mixture tasted bad he thought, but not as bad as he’d been told.

  Well no turning back now, Don thought, as he returned to his mat.

  Damiana was next and then the rest of the room one by one. Don though now paying less attention to them, just concerned with what immediate effects the drug might be having on his body.

  Nothing happened for some time. After everyone had gone to drink, Thornapple took up a chant again, this a different one, although still in mumbled Afrikaans. His voice was deep, gravelly and cold.

  The room grew darker. The last rays of the sun were vanishing. The light from the streetlamps was not enough to penetrate the curtains. How long had they been there already? He did feel a bit odd, but the chants themselves, and the monotonous clicking of the sticks seemed to have a strange hypnotic effect.

  He realised his heart was pounding fast. He was hearing it in his ears. Thoughts rattled in his head. Was this really the best idea? Taking a powerful psychoactive with a group he was with under false pretence? The surreal nature of the situation seemed to strike him, and he smiled for a moment.

  Had it been twenty minutes now since he drank? Or longer? Shorter? Don wasn’t sure. He realised now that the room was just about in complete darkness. Sitting, listening to the chant, it seemed now increasingly infernal, burrowing into his skull.

  Don’s reverie was broken by the sound of retching. Coming from across the room. Was it Kava? By now the place was too dark to really make much out.

  This seemed to shortly set off a wave of violent vomiting. Christ, it sounded as if entire organs were being retched up. It was animal, unpleasant.

  Don felt his heartbeat quicken even faster, if that were possible. He still felt no nausea and began to get worried about it. What did it mean? He didn’t really want to have it first come out the other end? Would he be able to make it to the toilet? It was so dark. What if his limbs weren’t functioning great or if he were just so out of it that he crapped his pants? In front of Damiana? He was working out the sequence of movements he would need to drop his pants and then lever himself over his bucket when the visuals began.

  ◆◆◆

  Don closed his eyes. Initially he saw bright, almost neon mandalas, the kind he had seen on the walls in Thornapple’s room. Only brief flashes, then a sensation of moving through a tunnel and then he was in a clearing. A sort of forest scene.

  He opened his eyes he was in the room. He closed them and was in the forest again. He opened his eyes and now was still in the forest. An intensely vibrant and impossibly lush tableau. Clear and warm, he could feel the mugginess and humidity, breathing almost difficult because of it. All the visuals were brilliantly scintillant. As Don looked around he began to take in the absolute detail of the place. The detail, the reality of it, was astonishing. Every leaf or section of bark was so intricately patterned, he thought surely this could not be a product of his own mind. Had all this information just sitting around in his head going to waste?

  The forest scene then started to move, and Don realised, with some degree of alarm that the whole scene had been constructed by the patterns on the backs of snakes. As they began to move the scene began to move and Don felt his first wave of nausea.

  He sucked it back.

  The snakes writhed, and he saw detailed patterns. Blinking eyes.

  Don continued to watch the visuals for what seemed like some time. This is okay, Don thought. The sensation was not unpleasant, sort of relaxing. If he could just hang like this till the stuff got out of his system that would be just fine. No in-depth soul searching for him.

  Don then became aware of a deep humming, a vibration that seemed to rise in intensity until it was dominating everything, splitting apart the scene.

  For a while he seemed to black out, or least he had no memory of what happened next. When he came to, became aware of himself again, he seemed to have been for a while making sounds with his mouth. Now he was somehow obsessed by the space between syllables, between letters. What was the actual moment where one sound ended and another began? Where was that exact point of change? Don tried to find it, saying, “ma, ma,” quietly to himself. Slowing it down as much as he could. Don seemed to do this for some time. The activity was quite pleasurable.

  After this, or before, linear time, he had to confess was starting to feel a little subjective, a little rubbery. His mind began returning like a tongue seeking out an ulcer on the inside of the cheek to something he was not completely conscious of, something he did not want to think about.

  Another instance of blackout or mind wandering and when he came to he was out in the corridor.

  Don couldn’t remember getting up and walking there. When he looked down though he realised—with a surprising degree of calm—that he was without form. Just a sort of floating thing. Something. He had no body but was somehow still able to turn his head to direct his gaze.

  His “self-thing” began to move. Forward, passing through the front door and heading outside. The night was dark, and Don was somehow aware of huge presences in the garden, but was not concerned with them at the moment.

  He propelled forward, both as if by choice and not, moving up to the security gate next to the garage, the one he’d been through the night before then through it and up the steps to rooms above the garage, roughly following the path he had taken yesterday evening. Through the black fabric hanging over the doorway, through the living room, which looked in a much greater state of disarray than he’d seen it yesterday, through the bedroom and into the bathroom.

  In the bathroom he “stood” for a moment, before his gaze turned up.

  Directly above in the ceiling was a small square, half metre by half metre, access panel. It appeared to be glowing.

  Don’s awareness pushed up through it and into the small space between ceiling and roof.

  It was dark up here and Don was aware of blinking, trying to get his eyes to adjust to the dark. Initially nothing, then slowly Don began to make in the blackness a white rectangle.

  Something about the shape looked familiar. It took a moment of staring at it before he realised, of course, it was a standard sized paperback.

  It was then turned over and through the gloom Don could now start to make out the back cover. There was the usual blurb and an author’s picture.

  After a second Don thought he recognised the picture. It was of him. Slightly excited, he reached forward to pick up the book to get a better look.

  As he did the book suddenly began to glow, as if white hot and Don immediately pulled his hand back.

  As he did he now heard a rumbling, loud, terrifying, then suddenly from down below as if through a hole in the bathroom floor a black river of something poured up towards him.

  Spiders.

  Their mass hit him, buffeting his body somehow. Some of the creatures attached to him and then with the force of the wave were pushing their way under his skin. Despite not having a form Don felt the pain. It was intense and ratcheted up as more and more creatures burrowed in, soon filling him up until he felt himself being split apart.

  Don’s body then seemed to explode and he was he was floating in space.

  He had died.

  He didn’t know how he knew but he just knew. The goddamn plant medicine had done him in. He’d taken on this stupid mission for Lam and he had died. His spirit had detached from his body and he was sailing now through the ether. And all he could see forever were billions and billions and billions stars.


  After what might have been a second or a month, the vision of the universe slowly, puzzlingly, seemed to grow lighter. The stars were gradually beginning to dim.

  After a further indeterminate length of time they had just about disappeared and Don realised he was lying on the wood floor of the common room, next to his mattress.

  The room was dark, as before, but some light now filtering through the curtains, allowed him to make out the figures in the room.

  Most were lying on their backs or sides on their mattresses, Salvia and Mandrake were sitting. Thornapple was still sitting, slouched, cross-legged, rocking back and forth slightly, still clicking his sticks. To Don’s right, Damiana was on her side, looking terrified, mumbling something but Don couldn’t make out the words.

  When Don turned to look forward again he noticed something that he was sure hadn’t been there a moment ago.

  Behind Thornapple Don now made out, in the gloom, another figure.

  What he had a second ago thought was part of the mural he now realised was floating above Thornapple.

  Lying in a state of quiet terror, Don took in, what he could best describe, with the limited tool of language, as an alien, insectoid, version of the Greek God Pan.

  It was sitting—hovering above the vegetalista, its position almost mirroring his, cross-legged, slightly hunched over. It appeared to be constructed of sickly green light and black, chitinous carapaces. Huge, twisting, almost technological looking horns erupted from its forehead. It also had what appeared to be a huge, disproportionate erection.

  Various other forms seemed to be zipping around it, but they were more ethereal. Don found it hard to focus on them, to see what they were.

  Don also now made out what also could be only describe as cables, having a distinct technological quality to them, emerging from the being. Dozens or more of the things were pushing out from the Pan-insect’s body, neck and face. The cables pushed out from the creature, writhing down to enter Thornapple’s body. Smaller cables seemed to push out from Thornapple, the air now seeming thick with them.