I've been hiking in the Sierras up above Yosemite all by myself for the last three days following my fate and it's been great. The weather's been perfect, sunny days with a gentle breeze and crystal clear nights with a million stars in the sky. I've seen a few deer, some squirrels and a lot of other small creatures along with thousands of birds all the way from little sparrows and finches to some big hawks and plenty of vultures. But thankfully, I haven't seen one other human being. It's both thrilling and a bit scary hiking alone because if something untold should happen, like breaking a leg or being attacked by a bear, well, there’s not a whole lot that you can do except pray. And there are bears in the woods. If you don't hang your food high up in a tree at night then you're just liable to wake up with one in your sleeping bag with you looking for food. I have seen a couple black bears up here but they're shy creatures who always run when they see me. One night I was sort of attacked by something about the size of a raccoon but it was too dark to see what it was. It screeched, barked and hissed at me until I got up and moved my sleeping bag about a hundred feet away. I figured that I must have been too near its den.
Anyway, like I say, I’ve been in the woods for three days when I see a beautiful little meadow with what looks to be a rusty hand pump sticking up out of the grass. As I get closer I see an old dilapidated board shack that's sort of collapsed in on itself and is now just a pile of splintery gray lumber. This is a real pretty place. There's yarrow, foxglove, nettle and milkweed growing. Scrub oak and manzanita surround the meadow with a few cottonwoods growing here and there. Even some blackberry bushes but no blackberries yet, it's too early. It feels good here so I think I'll spend the night, but first I'll relax a little, sit against the pump and smoke a joint. I tried working the pump but it's frozen up with rust. I did uncover the well by taking some old boards off the top of it. I dropped a pebble down it and heard a splash so I know there’s still water down there. Ahhh, there's nothing like a little grass to take the kinks out of a hard day of hiking. Yup, this is a very pretty place.
After smoking about half of the doobie I started getting some really good rushes up my back. I think this a bit strange because I've been smoking the same weed all week and it hasn’t happened before. In fact, the rushes are getting stronger and a little scary. WOW! The last one almost took the top of my head off and here comes another one feeling even stronger...
I don't know if I lost consciousness or not but I am no longer in the meadow by the pump. I am on some kind of flat weird plane and it's pretty ugly too. I can see all the way to the horizon. It's completely flat with small and medium sized black boulders scattered around it. There's no mountains or hills and the ground is a kind of brown-yellow color. The sky is all blackish-gray and cloudy looking with no sun, moon or stars showing however it's light enough to see the horizon. On the horizon there seems to be some kink of flashing so I think that maybe it's lightning. I hear some clattering so I think that maybe its thunder.
As it keeps getting closer I can't tell exactly what it is but I do know that it's neither lightning nor thunder. It's really still with the air so clear I can see and hear really well. As it gets closer I can see the glinting of light is coming off of what looks like polished metal, like gold or brass, and the sound is coming off of those metal surfaces as if someone is pounding on them with something hard. It's big, whatever it is, because it fills the whole horizon. I'm getting a bit concerned because it looks like it's coming my way and there's nowhere for me to run to and nowhere to hide. I guess I'll just have to stand here and see exactly what it is because it is definitely getting closer all the time.
Now it's close enough for me to see what it is. It looks like a line of shields like out of some old Roman movie. The glittering and the noise is being made by soldiers pounding their swords and spears on those shields. They're yelling something but I can't make out what. Maybe it's some language that I don't understand, or maybe they're just yelling. They're marching in a line and are coming my way. Finally they’re close enough that I can make out their faces. When I do I get so frightened that I hope that I don't pee my pants because they ain't got human faces! They have monkey faces. Or more like chimpanzee faces and they're almost as big as I am.
‘HOLY SHIT!’ I think ‘ I’m on the Planet of the fucking Apes!’
They keep getting closer and they do not look friendly either. They stop about a hundred feet in front of me, quit banging on their shields and stop yelling. They just stand there staring at me with their yellow eyes and their mouths hanging open showing me their long pointed canines. I'm too scared to say a word. I just stand there and stare back. We all wait. For what I do not know.
The biggest one detaches himself from the line, comes straight up to me stopping five or six feet in front of me. He looks at me for a few seconds then says, "Go back."
But there's no place for me to go back to so I just stand there and look at him. After a couple minutes more he looks at me as if I was stupid or something then says again this time more forcefully, "Go back!"
I’d like to accommodate him but even if I could 'Go back'. I am too scared to move. After all, nothing like this has ever happened to me before. And let me tell you folks, I’ve taken a lot of strange and powerful drugs in my life but I ain't never had a tripp like this, and this one’s pretty much on the natch (You really can't count a couple of tokes.) So I just stand there waiting. After a few more minutes he screams, "GO BACK!"
When he does the whole damned monkey army starts screaming too, "GO BACK! GO BACK! GO BACK!..."
He's pacing back and forth in front of me waving his sword and yelling at me to "GO BACK!"
I figure that if I get any more scared I just might pass out getting out of this hell and wake up someplace else. Somewhere nice. All of a sudden he stops pacing. He raises his sword. The chimps quit their screaming. Everything gets real quiet.
He looks at me and says in a low menacing voice, "FOOL! Don't you understand? Men in heaven are DEAD!" With that all the monkeys start shouting "DEAD!" They draw it out into one loud long scream, “DEAAAD!”
It keeps getting louder and louder and louder. I’m so frightened that I cover my ears and close my eyes. When I do the screaming does a fast fade and everything gets quiet...
When I open my eyes again I'm back in the meadow, sitting with my back against that rusted old pump next to the collapsed house except now it doesn’t seem so friendly. A cold wind has come up from the north and the sun is going down. I know if I'm not out of the area by sunset, that vicious monkey army will be coming back after me and this time they won't be so friendly. So I am out of here. I put my pack on and down the trail I go.
I hike a lot so I’m in pretty good shape. I can walk 10 miles with a 40-pound pack over rough terrain, no problem. That is what I do. I walk most of the night before I start to feel safe and don't stop until the sky starts to lighten. Man, what a tripp! It has really shaken me. I have no idea of what to make of it. Little did I know or suspect that this was just a preview of coming attractions. That there would be plenty more times in my future in which I’d have to be out of town by sundown to save my skin.