Last week, Mike, an old friend of mine moved back into town.
I hadn’t seen Mike in years, last time we spoke, we were actually having an argument about my wife Mary. He confessed he had feelings for her, me and Mary had only been dating for a few months at that point, but he talked enough shit that things turned psychical between us. I went home with some bruises, Mike got a black eye.
I had left that night with immense guilt that has followed me up until now. Me and Mike had been childhood friends, and I felt I had let something that could have been fixed through conversation, degenerate into a slap-boxing match outside of a Quiznos.
We were young and drunk though, about 18 years old when this all happened, and now another 18 years have passed. Mikes been out of my life longer than he was ever apart of it. But that didn’t stop me from replying to his Facebook message.
Mike had messaged me out of the blue to catch up. He told me he had bounced from town to town, country to country over the years. He made a little money where he could, but most of his adventures had been funded by his wealthy parents. A twinge of jealousy and disgust bounced through me, reading that an almost middle aged man was riding easy through life on daddy’s money, but I still agreed to have him over to my house to reminiscence and catch up on the lost years.
A couple days later, Mike showed up with a pizza from a local place we used to frequent. We ripped a couple beers off of a 6 pack, and chowed down in my den as he began to tell me about all the things he had seen and the places he had been.
One of the things that he described really grabbed my attention though, he went into detail about how he learned to astral project. For those of you that don’t know, it’s the practice of going so deeply into a meditative trance, that your soul leaves your body.
Mike described hovering over his body, looking down at his empty, sleeping flesh vessel (hey, it’s how he described his body) before taking to the nights sky, and exploring thousands of miles before returning home as the sun rose, to mesh once more with his earthy being.
I was entranced, I had always been interested in this sort of thing, but no matter how much I tried I could never get the hang of it. If Mike wasn’t bullshitting me, I could finally have a chance at doing so.
I begged him to show me how, but he told me it wasn’t easy, and in fact, took him years upon years to master.
I must have looked defeated in that moment, until Mike burst out laughing.
“I’m just kidding, there’s always a shortcut, buddy” he said with a mischievous smile as he went fishing around in his backpack beside him and retrieved a small plastic baggie, half full with white powder.
“Is that…”
“Ketamine” Mike replied “it will help put you in a trance like state to get you half way to the other side”
Nobody quite knows what astral projection is, Mikes take is that you are somewhere in between here, and the spirit world.
I thought that was so fucking cool, I had to see for myself.
Abandoning all good judgement, I cut up a couple small lines of the white fluffy powder from Mikes bag and then sniffed them down with a rolled up twenty dollar bill from my wallet. I almost immediately started to feel woozy and tranquil from the drugs, and Mike began to lead us into a guided meditation.
I wondered if I would see Mike in some spirit form, or if we would be invisible to each other.
I got my answer faster then I expected.
One second I was listening to Mike talk me into a deep trance, and the next I opened my eyes to find myself almost nose to the ceiling. I instinctively put my hands up to touch the roof, but they went right through it. My hands were a light transparent blue color, as was the rest of my body.
After some effort of flailing around in the air like a toddler learning to swim, I began to get the hang of it, and I looked down to see myself and Mike laying side by side. Mike was still talking so I assumed he would float right up with me soon enough, he was a pro at this point, so I decided to get a head start on him, and check out some of our old stomping grounds from childhood.
It was the most gorgeous time, floating around the night sky, scaring birds, riding among the under bellies of planes and scaling buildings. I never wanted this to end. Eventually I checked the time on the giant town clock to see that a few hours had gone by. No sign of Mike yet.
I decided to fly home check on him, maybe he was having trouble getting into form like I had?
When I got back into my den, my stomach filled with dread. I couldn’t find mine, or Mikes bodies anywhere. I poked my head into the dens bathroom to find a gruesome sight.
Mikes body had been dismembered into six pieces and was sitting in the tub, his head adorned the pile of gore, mouth agape like he was trying to tell me something.
If I could have thrown up in astral form, I would have. Panicking, I started zipping from room to room, trying to find my body and to make sure nothing had happened to my wife.
That’s when another horrible realization washed over me; Mike never even took the drugs, only me.
That’s when I entered my bedroom to see my body on top of, and banging my wife, and things immediately started to make sense.
That fucking PIECE OF SHIT, Mike, had taken over my body and was going to live my life?! How did he think he was going to get away with this?! Surely my wife would realize sooner or later I’m not myself, right? And how was he planning on disposing of his old corpse?!
I immediately began forming a plan, I would need a new body first though. Unfortunately, it had to be an empty vessel, I couldn’t take an occupied space, I tried that already and failed spectacularly.
I decided my best luck would be somebody freshly deceased, and tried the local morgue, with any luck, as morbid as it sounds, there would be a fresh body or something for me there.
For better or worse, when I got there, I found two coroners examining what looked like a very pale, naked middle aged man on a cold metal table.
“What’s the verdict?” One asked
“Heart attack, right in front of his family too, the poor bastard” the other one said in between mouthfuls of pizza.
“We’ll hurry up and finish your dinner, we gotta drain this behemoth of fluids”
That’s when I swooped in and took over the corpses body, scaring the shit out of the two coroners. One tried to run away and I panicked and bashed him over the head with a metal tank and he crumpled to the ground. I turned to the other guy to find he had fainted, knocking his pizza box and tray of scalpels and other dissection tools over in the process.
I made my way over to the old desktop computer in the corner of the room, and began type this. I called the police first of course, and told them there had been a murder, and they would find a body in my house.
This body I’m currently in won’t get me back there though I’m afraid, I can feel rigor mortis setting in. Just to finish this sentence I’ve had to begin working my appendages like an old well pump to keep from seizing up.
Maybe I can take over Mikes body in pieces? When the cops get there I could start yelling or something… if that doesn’t work I’ll have to find another body fast though.
If any of you have some experience with astral projection, I’ll take any advice you have. I’ll try to check in here and keep you all updated. Wish me luck.