I stood in front of the two-story, plush suburban home with my fist hovering over the door. I took a moment to apprecciate the fact that it was only the first weekend of freshman year, and I was about to crash at Flloyd Flannagan's house. Flloyd was easily the cooloest dude in school, and he and I were getting close.

"Hell, we're nearly best friends," I thought. The prospect put a long, elastic smile on my face. If Flloyd was the coolest dude in school, that would make his best friend a close runner-up. Close enough for the VIP treatment.

"Welcome to the good life Seth my man," I said as I finally knocked on the door. Visions of my new life as a ninth-grade made man flooded my head. I'd be attending the best parties, never have to worry about a fight, score with the hottest (well, the hottest of those not hot enough for Flloyd) chicks. All I had to do was keep kicking it with Flloyd, who made it easy; Flloyd was the coolest guy in school for a reason.

"Waz up bro," Flloyd said in his constantly mellow tone. "Good timing. I was just about to spark the bong holmes." He says all this with a straight face, not caring one bit that he's a lily, Irish white-boy talking like a cholo. But that was Flloyd, he did whatever came naturally, and it always worked out for him.

"Sweet man, let's toke up before your parentals get home."

"Quick," he said with a rather good Schwarzenegger imitation, "come with me if you want to live." I laughed and followed him upstairs to his room.

Flloyd's room was just what you'd expect from the guy, random chaos that somehow messhed together wonderfully. The posters on his walls ranged from Ozzy to NWA. There were intermittent shelves that were decorated with action figures posed in epic clashes, and a wide array of artwork decorated the open spaces between. But the most awe-inspiring treasure I saw was a Spartan sword and shield hanging over Flloyd's bed, a sword and shield that looked exquisitely realistic.

"They're one-hundred percent historically accurate," Flloyd said, as if he'd read my mind.

"Can I play with it," I asked before I could stop myself. My cheeks flared up red-hot, but Flloyd didn't seem to notice; he just laughed as if I'd made a joke and not an **** of myself.

"Well, wouldn't you rather play that first," he asked, poiting toward the four foot bong in his corner. It was a glass medley of swirling blues, reds, whites and greens. It looked like a dream.

"Hell yea man, let's fire it up," I replied. A smile that belongs on a three-year-old with an ice cream cone spread across his face, and Flloyd ran over to a tall dresser I hadn't noticed. He opened the bottom drawer, rummaged through underwear and socks for a moment, and then froze. I waited for him to pull out a fat sack of weed, but he brought out a key instead.

Without saying a word and still smiling like a fool he ran to the opposite side of the room and unlocked a door I hadn't noticed; it seems I didn't notice anything about Flloyd's room other than the dream sequence of pop culture floating across his walls. Flloyd twisted the handle and my breath hitched; it came out in a deflated sigh as he opened it to reveal his closet.

"You got it itstashed in a shoe box or something," I asked him.

Flloyd just smiled back at me and said, "Please," as if he'd never be so obvious. He ducked down and started knocking on the floor. I was confused until finally I heard a hollow clanking and he pulled up a loose floorboard. Again my breath hitched as he reached into space below the floor, and again he brought out a key.

"Do the CIA watch your family, dude," I joked.

"Maybe," Flloyd said in a conversational tone as looked up and grabbed something I couldn't quite see. Then a piece of the ceiling swung down and I assumed he unlocked the attic door. At least I wanted to, but the bright light spilling down from the hole made me first think it was the stairway to heaven. As Flloyd pulled himself up through the hole I wondered if he'd see God.

A few seconds later Flloyd fell out of the light and was back in the closet. "Were you cast out," I asked dumbly.

"Of my own grow room," he asked with a smile. Then he closed the attic door and put on a padlock he'd been holding. He then put the key back below the floor, replaced the loose board, locked the closet and then put the first key in his top drawer this time. Then he finally reached into his pants pocket and pulled out a huge, fluffy bud.

We smoked the whole bud before his parents got home, and when they finally did they'd brought pizza. We pigged out in the kitchen and when we finally raised our faces from the pizza Flloyd's parents had went off to bed. It was midnight, but neither of us were ready to sleep. We sat in the living room and watched cartoons. It was during an old Bugs Bunny short that I made the observation.

"It'd be so cool to live in a cartoon," I said, oblivious to the expierience it would bring on.

"I've been in a cartoon," Flloyd replied casually.

"What! How stoned are you," I asked laughing.

"Pretty stoned. But I'm totally legit right now."

"Ok, I'll play along. How'd you get into a cartoon man?"

"I tripped and fell in." The explanation had confused me at the time, but I understand it all to well now.

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Acid, bro," he said with a sense of wonderment and all the temptation in the world. A tone any salesman would kill to learn. In ten minutes we were in his room, me sitting on the bed preparing to drop acid for the first time. The tab was in my hand, hanging above my eager, out-stretched tongue; I was simply waiting for Flloyd to say go.

"You ready dude," he asked. I nodded.

"You sure about this," he asked for maybe the thousandth time. I was sure from that first inadvertant endorsement. I nodded even harder.

"Then Houston just said lift off bro." I dropped the tab and watched it fall to my tongue like a snowflake. It hit, and I swallowed. Flloyd was smiling and watching me intently, like an eager chemist watching the reaction he'd just caused. "What do you see man," he asked me.

"The same stuff I saw a minute ago," I replied, a little dissappointed.

"Give it time broseph. Have a look around," he instructed. I did, and things slowly started to change. The walls began to look as if they were vibrating ever so softly, the room was slowly growing brighter and more vibrant. And then my sight landed on my broseph's multi-colored dream bong.

The intertwining colors of the bong were now shining neon blobs. They began to flow, and intermingle, forming into radiant patterns. I became tense and quickly looked away.

"Open your eyes bro," Flloyd gently suggested. "Ride it." I hadn't released I'd closed them.

I open my eyes to one of Flloyd's lushly decorated walls, and the posters and artwork begin to converge. They soon become a train, a train made of thought and art and beauty. It blows its horn I hear a thousand songs all at once.

The train begins to chug along the walls of the room, swerving around the now lively action figures that break the stiff constraints of reality and battle with renewed vigor.

The train passes on and begins approaching the wall behind the bed I'm now sitting on. I try to twist around, but instead the room shifts position to give me a better view. I appreciate the convience as I watch the train loop around the sword and shield. "It's one-hundred percent historically accurate," rings out from the back of my brain. Suddenly I notice that this whole time a Spartan warrior has been holding the weapons in place, but the train passes on, and I have to look away for a moment.

The train travels on past the dresser with the first key (as I now call it) and then detours for the ceiling. This time when the room shifts I feel as if gravity has changed. I'm thankful when the train finally flows back down to the wall. Until I see it's heading right for the glowing bong; heading for it and then into it.

Fear grips me as the bong begins flowing again, flowing and glowing. It begins stretching and taking shapes, and again my eyes snap closed. The world becomes a dark nothing, and that's even scarier. From out in nowhere I hear Flloyd's voice float in.

"It's only bad if you don't embrace it man," he says with sage like wisdom. "Fight it, and it'll fight you." 

Something about that rings true somewhere inside me, and that's enough. I slowly begin to open my eyes and a slim rainbow forms across the pitch black landscape. As my eyes slowly open wider a flood of vivacious, glowing fluid rushes into my vision. Sonn I was swimming in it. 

"What do you see now, man," I read in Flloyd's voice as the words float by me.

"Everything," I reply.