OVER THE SILVER SKY TO THE WORLD OF NEVER : Part 3 - There Is a Reason They Call Marijuana Dope.

WARNING: Rumor has it that Angelina Jolie is on the hunt again. I think she needs a baby that matches her new mansion. So if you're planning to buy yourself an ethnic or brown baby get in now while you still can. Before she snaps them all up and prices soar. Apparently she needs a set of new kids to match her post divorce drapes. And none of the current ones go with her new outfits either. So act now while stocks last, because before you know it Hollywood will have depopulated all of the children over large parts of the developing world. Again. You know she breast feeds them don't you? That's why Brad and her split up. Every night he came home there'd be a queue to have a suck on those fun bags. Sometimes he'd get there after all the neighbors kids had shown up and have to wait hours. Their relationship just wasn't working in the manner he wanted.

(The copyright for this image is the property of World Wildlife Fund.)

"So how's my favorite drug dealer today?" Jake asked as cheerfully as he could manage after climbing all those stairs.
Toby wagged a admonishing finger at him.
"I'm not a drug dealer Jake I am a purveyor of recreational pharmaceuticals. You gotta move with the times. Everybody's re-branding these days. What brings you here?"
"A 187 bus, your text message and a wish to purchase my usual eighth."
Toby began skinning up as Jake took a seat on the couch.
"This stuff is so good I'd recommend going for a quarter. When this is gone, and it's flying off the shelves, I don't know when I'll get any again. Try it first. Then decide."
"Is this a new sales strategy you're rolling out along with the re-branding? Get the clientele baked then go for the up sale. Is business slow or something?"
"It's been better, but it's been a lot worse. Designer drugs are cutting into my retail base."
"So will you be branching out into them?"
"No. There's no way you can know what effects these new things have over years and decades. Now take a hit on that."
Jake took the proffered blunt and lighter. Drawing gently on it as he lit the end. It didn't feel too harsh on the lungs. It was pretty mellow. You knew you'd taken a drag though. He exhaled long and slow. He could already feel the synapses in his head firing off. The disconnect taking place immediately.
"Wow. It's pretty fast acting. Didn't know you had a lava lamp."
Toby had a slight grin on his face.
"That's not a lava lamp Jake. It's a Binary Reality Projector. Always had it here."
"Mustn't have noticed it before." The room suddenly became twenty times larger. Everything instantly moving further away. Everything except Toby, who was now so close their knees were almost touching. "Whoa. This is good stuff. Very spacey."
"You say you got a text from me? What did it say?"
Jake giggled.
"So you've already been toking this stuff then. Don't remember precisely. It just said you had this new green. I'll check my phone."
That was harder than he'd thought. It felt like his pockets had tightened or something. Eventually he managed to work it loose.
"So what did my text say exactly?"
Try as he might Jake couldn't find the text. The last message he could access was a reminder of his appointment with the consultant that had arrived first thing in the morning. The message before that was another reminder they'd sent the day before.
"I must have deleted it. Accidentally I assume. Sorry."
His dealer grimaced.
"That's a ball ache."
"Why?"
"Now I don't know what message to send you when I actually send it. That can create problems. Serious problems."
Jake slapped his thigh with mirth.
"I love it when you do the crazy talk. The text you sent will be on your phone."
"No it won't. I haven't sent it yet."
"Lol. So it's traveled backwards through time then. Amazing what smartphones can do these days. Have you ever been tempted to text yourself to find out what you've been up to? Or do you ask your future self the winning lottery numbers? Do you know any good conspiracy theories?"
Toby did indeed look worried. He'd never seen him worried before.
"No. It won't travel backwards through time. Time travel is impossible, because this you can only travel in the one direction and that's towards what you call the future."
"This wacky theory is way above my head I'm afraid."
"Mine to if I'm honest. Takes a genius to understand time as it doesn't exist as such. Time is everywhere and everywhen at the same moment which is always now. Thing is time doesn't travel in one direction. It travels in every single direction in every dimension simultaneously. Some have theorized that when we find out where it's heading to we'll know all there is to know."
Jake took back the toke as it was offered.
"That's either profound or complete balls. But since you're the leading expert on time in this room I'll bow to your superior knowledge. What snacks have you got?"
Toby waved distractedly towards his kitchen.
"The usual. Sweet and savory. Help yourself while I try to figure out a work round that doesn't bugger up the causality on this time thread. She will not be happy if this doesn't work out right. And if she's not happy you can guarantee she'll share the burden as widely and excessively as she can."

Jake stood up far too fast very nearly loosing his balance. His definitely not cat like reflexes kicked in so he only swayed wildly. Knowing that at some point he'd have to go home, Jake started to practice pretending to be sober. A skill the regular drinker develops very quickly. Hellfire the kitchen was a long way away. Still, he could definitely do with the exercise and some more practice at faking sobriety. Stepping through into the kitchen was like a bucket of cold water to the face. It was brightly lit and ultra modern. Black and white tiles on the floor and red granite worktops. Worktops he just had to run his hands across. They were so smooth. That must take some doing. It was granite. A rock that is famous for not being smooth or soft. Toby hadn't told him where the snacks were precisely. It took Jake 6 tries to open the right one. All the others being empty. Given that Toby didn't live here, this was not so surprising.

Why was he thinking about cats? Maybe because he was staring at several large tins of cat food. Yellow and red and blue. Not quite as smooth as polished granite. A loud mechanical noise, that sounded all springs and cogs came from the other room. At which point all of the corners and edges came alive. Jake was surrounded by those cracks. They were everywhere and on everything with a corner or an edge. Which were essentially the same thing in the majority of cases. The worktops were actually sparkling. Stoner insight told him this was due to them only being smooth in a couple of directions. The corners and edges were in all the others. The next cupboard had all the snacks the munchies could desire. Meanwhile the light show, that consisted purely of a different light than he was used to, continued. That helped him peer more deeply into cupboard recesses. This fitted kitchen must have cost a fortune. Judging by how deep they were. That was a pain. About ten to fifteen meters in there were some Twinkies. He'd always wanted to try them. Though he'd been to the States at least a dozen times he'd always either forgotten about them or not had to time to go looking.

There were two options here. Either he could climb up onto the worktop and crawl in or he could take the Twinkies at the front of the cupboard, which hadn't been there before. On reflection he took those and a couple of tubes of the Sour Cream and Onion Pringles. He had a touch of cotton mouth coming on. The only adverse effect he'd felt so far on this new, unique batch of ganja. Working out the coffee machine took a while. A task made more difficult by all those cracks in reality. Except they weren't cracks his stoner intuition told him. They were infinitely thin, infinitely long slices of somewhere other. Only visible to those who could see them with their minds rather than their eyes, to which they were invisible. Explanations were so easy when you could make them up. Toby was onto something with his crazy new age theories on the universe. He called out to his host asking if Toby wanted anything. The incomprehensibly garbled, staccato reply was interpreted as a 1973 Mr Pibb. That was lucky. The refrigerator was full of them. No milk though. Jake experimentally closed and opened the door. As he'd known, without ever knowing, there was plenty of milk. Ooo and some cheese strings. Knowing he'd require large amounts of calcium he filled his pockets with them before returning to the living room with his load. Toby was playing with his big lava lamp, or Binary Reality Projector. It looked a whole lot larger this close up. Also much further away. Toby was working at a panel about ten meters up its lower half. He'd have to be careful there was no safety railing on that walkway. Jake winced when Toby turned round and stepped of it to stand right next to him.

"Have you got a cat?" Jake asked.
"No."
"Thought not. Here's your 1973 Mr Pibb. Any idea how you can find out exactly what you will be texting me."
"That's already done. Took a couple of days, I'll have to return at some point. I had to get the exact day and time as well so that didn't help. Next time I text you from the future please make sure you remember what it says exactly."
"How will I know it's from the future though eh? You didn't think of that did you."
"It'll say what date and time it was sent on the text you tool. Plainly this foul up isn't your fault. You didn't not know you couldn't have yet hadn't received it... No, that's not right. It's hard doing tenses in a place that doesn't have time travel or the words to describe it."
"I thought you aid time travel was impossible."
"It is but only if you don't not believe it's impossible."
Due to being stoned, Jake wasn't at his intellectual best so this was partly a stab in the dark.
"Isn't that just an extremely complicated way of saying it's impossible?"
"Yes it is. The double negative takes you into negative n space though, linguistically rather than figuratively. Negative n space is the exact opposite of positive n space so the impossible is common place. As long as you understand that you cease to exist before you come into existence."
"Was that another linguistic thing you did there?"
"Indeed it was."
"I've got to say that coming up with all this on the spur of the moment is very imaginative. I think it might be down to this new dope you know. When I was in the kitchen the worktops started doing the slices of other light and I knew it was because the granite was only smooth in two planes."
Toby looked puzzled.
"That's odd. For that to happen there'd have to be another node on this thread. That would cause a lot of interference... unless... That's absolutely brilliant. Even I couldn't do that. Though of course there'd be inevitable inaccuracies due to the inherent instability. This is the work of a master."
"Any chance you could explain that in English?"
His host pondered briefly.
"Not in 21st century English. Late 22nd century Sinanglic would do the job but you'd have to spend years learning it and then I'd have to teach you all about Advanced Planar Chronometric's, prime and sub prime physics. That's far too long. So no. You'll have to trust me on this."
"Oh I do Toby. I do. I'll definitely take a quarter of an ounce of this stuff. It's fantastic. Hand it over and I'll do the honors with the bong."

Two bongs later he was lying on the sofa watching the ceiling fan rotate without moving. Blurred and distinct at the same time. Jake patted his pocket with the baggy in it. Then giggled like a kid that had just discovered its Christmas presents. Things were definitely looking up. He was anyway. Things would be perfect if he hadn't eaten all the cheese strings. Now he was starving again. Aluminum foil would hit the spot. Perhaps there was some in the kitchen. Oh that was a shame. He was paralyzed. No part of his body could be moved and he had a really hard time recalling how he'd moved anything in the first place. The best thing was not to fight it, Toby said in his mind. All you had to do was relax. That seemed like good advice. He closed his eyes and watched the world turn for a while. Not this world. Too many others to count. Impossible to count as such, given they were all identical. Jake rolled over and fell. Onto his bedroom floor. As he lay face down on the carpet he smiled at the knowledge that he hadn't had to endure the journey home. Before he could gather his scattered wits the doorbell rang. Holy crap it was almost nine. He climbed to his feet and went to answer the door. It seemed like the logical thing to do. Only lately logic had been on holiday as far as he was concerned.

When he answered the door a woman stood there. Black curly hair, long expensive overcoat and a large pair of dark glasses. It wasn't that women never came to his door, it was more that they didn't show up at this time of the day. Unless they were wearing overalls of some other uniform. None of them had looked this good or he'd certainly have remembered. That is a wig, he thought as he stood there too stunned to speak. The woman lowered her sunglasses and looked over them at him. She gave a big wink.

"It's about yesterday." She stated in an accent he couldn't quite place. It had a slightly odd rhythm and sounded like a cross between the mid-Atlantic twang and Norwegian English. "I thought I'd come round and explain."
He checked the number on his front door. Yes he definitely lived here.
"Are you sure you've got the right place? Because I have no idea who you are and I could swear we've never met before."
The woman actually stamped her foot before turning away and muttering to herself.
"Oh for fuck sake. I should've checked. Why didn't I check? Now I've got to hang around in this God forsaken backwater for who knows how long. Son of a bitch! Sorry to have bothered you." She snapped over her shoulder as she walked back towards the entrance to the building.
"Did you have a name." He called after her. "I might know whoever it is."
All she did was give him a dismissive wave without turning round. That was strange. Or was it?