Through the Virgin Mirror
a short story feat. ‘Thom Pope’
It’s a shame detective Holmes lived and died before the synthesis of lysergic acid diethylamide. What wonders could have been unlocked if he had insight into the breath of an active world. Had he another twenty years, I harbor no doubt he would’ve gained the recipe and had his burners bubbling with ergotamine tartrate. Though it’s a tricky trend for the hophead, trading tourniquet for the tab. Never the twain shall meet. Even I in my halcyon days snuffed a fair share of battered morphine pills (believe it or not, such was before my love affair with tobacco), but I wouldn’t dare switch for a drink or a tab. Except fortune favors a compromise. Despite having fewer feelings than a calculator, I never lost the romanticism of the poppy’s natural byproduct, and even though its more potent syntheses flooded the market, I always sought the authentic touchstone. Alas, without a script, I relied on cancer patients looking for a side income, and in time, there were none.
Now, from where I hail, access to the tab is as common as rocks to a quarry. Sweet city of gold, one hundred and ten miles northwest, where it seems the right people have more blotter paper than baggies, whether it’s rotting sunshine or high octane, and were I not scheduled to move deeper south, I’d be there accruing a venerable stash. Bound is the hand and foot.