The Main Character Goes On A Trip Alone To Gain Perspective [FICTOID]

“There’s no there there,” Gertrude Stein famously said, and the great explorer felt determined to find it.

Everywhere he went was ///somewhere///, every place was already part of the big picture.

How can I grasp the world if I can never escape the world? he wondered.  No part of a set can adequately describe the entire set, ergo I must go beyond this reality in order to see it as it actually is.

He tried many things in order to gain that perspective:  He kept a lighthouse in the North Atlantic, he hunted with cheetahs in Africa, he documented the migration of a flock of chartreuse crested chickenhawks in Mongolia, he planted seedlings in the wake of forest fires in Australia, he broke his wrist and tore a leg muscle climbing Mount Everest, and to add insult to injury, he managed to smuggle himself aboard a re-supply rocket to the space station only to find he still hadn’t really escaped the world.

No, it’s going to take something else, something far different.

To that end he practiced transcendental medication and tantric yoga and sufism and Zen Buddhism but despite becoming a spiritual grand master, he still failed to gain the perspective beyond all perspectives.

So that left only one option:  Drugs, and lots of ‘em.

His research proved illuminating yet futile until he discovered the wild Ecuadorian deciduous tree toad, a small but colorful amphibian that excreted a toxic hallucinogen through its skin.  

Ignoring the warnings of others, working in secret, he scraped this off the frog’s back, dried it, sprinkled it on an English muffin, ate it, and waited.

He didn’t have to wait long:  He was dead in 15 minutes.

But he did find the perspective beyond all perspectives.

© Buzz Dixon