Hofmann in Retrograde

Entering the room I felt my hairs stand on end, my palms began sweating, and my chest tighten
like a vice grip. “Experimental clinical trial” isn’t exactly the safest venture, but money was tight, and my
headspace tighter. I hoped to get relief; to escape, even if only for a few hours. I sat down on the exam
chair, looking like it belonged in a dentist office more than a research facility, and immediately began
noticing every drop of sweat, every muscle contraction, and my rapid heartbeat. All that was left to do
was wait.
After about five minutes of my mind marinating in the isolated echo chamber, a nurse walked in.
She was slightly shorter than me, obviously healthy, and had jarringly distinct red hair. No doubt the
program opted for beautiful young women to ease their participants,. The questions on the intake forms
were strange: questions that I thought had been relegated to adult websites and brothels, but now, looking
at who they had sent in, I understood why they were asked. It made perfect sense: the best way to distract
someone from the possibility of experiencing something wretched on a research chemical is to have only
the most attractive and gentle people administer it. Very nefarious, but also undoubtedly very effective.
“Hi Mr. Hofmann, I’m Sadie, I’ll be your nurse today.”
She spoke this through a smile that looked genuine, but regarding the questions I had answered
before being accepted to the trial, I knew better than to let that fool me. She tied a tourniquet around my
arm and began searching for a suitable vein on the back of my hand. Once one was found, she tore open a
small disposable alcohol wipe and sanitized the area.
“Ok, big stick.”
She lined up the needle and punctured my vein. I squirmed and my eyes tightened shut; I hate
needles. She connected the needle now stuck in my hand to an IV tube which was also connected to a
machine behind me. I looked up at the machine and my heart began racing even faster. What was I about
to see? What was I about to feel? Was I about to die? There was no sense in speculating, the experience
was minutes away.
“I can stay in here with you if you’d like.”
Sadie looked at me earnestly.
“No.”
I felt bad refusing, especially after seeing seemingly genuine compassion, but something just
wasn’t right.
“I’m fine.”
Clearly irritated by my response she quickly got up and exited the room. Three beeps sounded
from the machine the IV and needle were connected to, all spaced by even intervals of about two seconds.

Beep
Beep
Beep

I watched as a small bead of fluid left the machine and began traveling through the winding
length of the IV. Spaced by the same intervals as the beeps, the bead would travel several inches, and
then stop. Several inches. Stop. Over and over this agonizing visual countdown to my chemically induced
heaven, or more likely hell, was excruciating, but finally, after traveling the entire distance from machine
to my hand the bead entered my vein. I waited but felt nothing.
Minutes go by and I’m wondering if maybe I’m in the placebo group. I grow more and more
irritated. It seemed like a great deal: get extremely inebriated, get paid, except now I was wondering if
either of those things would actually happen. I needed the money desperately, so I waited.
 I began to lose focus and closed my eyes as the fluorescent bulbs above me were straining them,
and just as my lids shut, my whole world was eviscerated in a period of time that can only be described as
a fraction of a synaptic moment. The roots of my perception torn out of the ground, my mind overloaded
with information I obviously did not have the capacity to process, and a beautifully terrifying burst of
color and sound and patterns within patterns within patterns; I was gone within this world. Ego dissolved
into a fine solution that was sweet like saccharine, but dirty and foul like the coal tar that spawned it. It
was somehow pristine, yet cluttered; wonderfully joyous, yet coated in a palpable grief. The dichotomy of
this realm within me was the purest form of human incomprehensibility.
As I ventured deeper and deeper, the question that had arisen since Sadie gave me the “big stick”
in my hand had taken perceivable form: will this be heaven or hell?
It would be most accurate to describe it as some sort of depraved mix of the two.