Tessa’s Magic Mushroom Dance with a Gnome
Tessa was a hippie in the 1960’s. She saw the world today as a chaotic and uncertain place, aimless and very materialistic. The 60’s were messy, but there was a clear purpose: peace, free love and non-violence over war, greed and social conformity. Tessa marched in all the Vietnam protests, put flowers in the rifle barrels of National Guard soldiers, and gave small bouquets to the Police.
There was one thing, however, that Tessa loved about the present time. Laws on smoking and growing marijuana had evolved so that a person could legally smoke weed outside in California. In addition, marijuana could be planted in people’s private yards if it wasn’t visible to the public. Tessa tried to persuade the Garden Founders to plant marijuana in her plot, but without success. She was just happy to smoke in her little garden surrounded by colorful flowers. Her neighbors didn’t approve of the smoke, so Tessa only got high when the other gardeners weren’t around.
Tessa’s plot was planted with flowers that attracted butterflies — including milkweed, butterfly bush, violet blue asters, and classic shasta daisies. She mostly saw orange monarch butterflies, but also an assortment of smaller bright yellow and blue ones. The other gardeners loved seeing the butterflies too; they exchanged organic vegetables for Tessa’s flowers.
Tessa believed plants were like people: if they were rooted in good soil and had a solid foundation, they thrived. She fed her soil spent tea leaves, eggshells, organic vegetable peelings, and grass clipping tea.
On one typical sunny summer afternoon, Tessa went to her garden plot, sat in the white wicker chair and lit a joint. She smoked weed every day and loved the newer cultivated varieties which were much stronger than the stuff from the 60’s. Tessa inhaled deeply and waited for the butterflies to come. She reached into her smock pocket and pulled out a magic mushroom capsule and swallowed it.
Tessa planned for some much-needed downtime this afternoon. She settled into her chair, took another hit of pot, and let the magic mushroom wash over her. As Tessa watched the butterflies landing on the flowers, a slight movement caught her eye. A small blue butterfly had landed on the nose of a faded plastic gnome in the corner of her plot; she could have sworn its eyes blinked — trippy. Then the gnome emitted a very convincing sneeze, or so she thought. The pot and mushroom had kicked in. They typically induced hallucinations when taken together. On one very memorable trip, Tessa listened as the flowers came to life and sang U2’s “It’s a Beautiful Day” to her. Tessa got up, feeling dreamy and woozy — she was high as a kite.
She walked over to the little plastic gnome, reached out and touched the tip of its pointed hat. The gnome seemed to smile and crinkle its nose.
TESSA
(laughing, delighted)
“How cuuuute!”
Tessa hadn’t had a shrooming like this in months. She started swaying and slowly twisting.
TESSA
(singing lazily)
“Dance with me little Gnomeee…”
The young sentinel gnome mimicked her and started a slow dance, moving its hips back and forth and twisting its bubble butt. Tessa was delighted and laughed and giggled as she grooved with the Gnome. She bent down to touch his nose — but the gnome suddenly froze into its standard pose. Tessa was momentarily saddened, but then a butterfly landed on her hair and she was distracted and smiled. Tessa sat back in her chair, relit her joint, and inhaled deeply; the moment with the gnome had passed.
The playful sentinel gnome had transitioned to the Underworld from strict telepathic orders by the Elders. The mischievous gnome was berated intensely by the other four sentinel gnomes above ground because he ignored their pleas to stop his shenanigans. They looked on in horror at the risky behavior of this naïve gnome dancing with a gardener. Their secret world could never be discovered by humans; only the Seer human in the Upperworld knew of the existence of the Underworld where the gnomes lived. A Council of the Elders would be called to discuss punishment for the naughty gnome, and that meant the Pegs of Shame. If a gnome incurred a second infraction, the Scrubbing of The Queen would surely cure them.
CUT TO:
Victor’s Death — Alternative Ending
Victor woke up laying on a cold ancient stone slab deep inside a drafty cavern — he couldn’t move. He thought this must be a hallucination, a really bad dream; but his painful aching body said otherwise. Victor was dizzy and disoriented and had no idea where he was; but remembered some crazy life-like dancing garden gnome and falling through a hole in the corner of the garden; this had to be conjured by an incubus. He felt a tinge on his body, tilted his head, and saw white creamy larvae eating vegetable leaves off his body.
VICTOR
(screaming in horror)
“WHERE THE FUCK AM I?”
The vegetable leaves, of various sizes and shades of green, clung to his body and were tightly wrapped and bound with a clear sticky substance. Strands of vines secured him tightly in place. Victor freaked out and screamed again over this unworldly, disturbing scene. He panicked and tried to wriggle free, but just agitated the larvae which hummed louder while eating the leaves.
Victor heard a sound to his right and strained to turn his head towards what looked like, to his utter amazement, a live garden gnome with its pointed red hat, wide worn leather belt, and furry rabbit boots. Victor shook his head in disbelief. The gnome turned around; he was old and heavily bearded with a large bulbous nose scattered with warts. There was a crop of thick gray hair growing out of his nostrils. He stood several yards from Victor, staring at him with a broad clown smile. The old gnome stood in front of a stone counter littered with varying sizes of roughly hewn stone jars. Victor pleaded for his help.
The Elder Gnome calmly walked towards Victor, put a hand over his chest and said:
ELDER GNOME
(clown smile widening)
“It will be over soon.”
VICTOR
(howling)
“AGHHH — WHAT THE FUCK?”
The gnome remained silent; only echoes responded. Victor felt a momentary reprieve when the larvae had eaten off all the leaves and fell on the worn stone floor, writhing in place. Only the vines remained, but they held fast onto his body.
Victor heard a noise coming from deep within the cavern. It sounded like an old typewriter, constantly clicking and getting louder as it came nearer. He could smell it first — like a strong rotting animal carcass. It stopped next to him, shuffled noisily, and then a set of six long dirty, ugly, chipped fingernails appeared on the edge of the slab. Something was pulling itself up.
A monstrosity balancing itself over Victor’s body came into view. It was a chimera — the body of a spider with six hand feet on two large black splotchy nodes. Its body was covered with angry red scabs, some oozing a putrefied yellow pus. Each node had an udder sac with five foot-long, shiny fleshy-colored teats. The creature’s head was an old female gnome with pockmarked, grayish skin. Her sparse long thin reddish hair touched Victor’s face.
A high-pitched strained squeal issued from Victor’s mouth as the thing’s teats started leaking slime over his body. The abomination maneuvered into a lower position. Its long cold teats, now undulating, laid on Victor’s torso and were squishing him. The creature’s body started contracting slowly, then more quickly — he felt something warm and moving on his stomach. Victor’s eyes were wide open as he shrieked and shook his head furiously from side to side. Small shiny greenish snakes with blind white eyes were coming out of the creature’s teats and wrapping themselves around Victor’s body; he started convulsing.
The old gnome tilted her slightly vibrating head back, opened her black mucousy mouth, and emitted a low growling sound with sporadic grunts. Spittle flew out from her hideous wrinkly lipped mouth and snagged some of her long reddish hair.
He fainted long before the creature spent her eggs into his abdomen. The host was fertilized. After her organ shrunk back inside her crevasse, and the snakes completely covered Victor, the creature navigated herself off the stone slab and — with her two inner hand feet — grabbed Victor’s writhing snake-wrapped body and carried it deep into the cavern.
SMASH CUT TO BLACK.