The day after my second Vivectica™ trip, I remain in my apartment, feeling lost, confused, and most of all angry with myself, knowing these feelings will endure and will probably be harder to combat now that they've been reified by my second experience. Why did I have to do this to myself, again?

Sometime after noon, my pocket computer starts ringing, and I wince when I see Nakomi's name on the screen. Not answering isn't really an option; she'll want to make sure I'm safe and sound after the night's events.

"Hello?" I answer using the video option.

Nakomi studies my face. "Rough night?" She probably notices my bedhead, brown ringlets askew; no brush has touched my hair today.

"No. Rough morning."

"How was your night?" she asks suggestively, with an overly lewd smirk, assuming, of course, that Lenny and I must have done the dirty deed back at his place, one of the four Fs.

"It was great," I lie. I dislike lying to my best friend, but the omission is necessary for avoiding questions about what did go down.

She squeals. "My night was wild! After we got back to my place..." Nakomi proceeds to fill me in on all the dirty deets, and I half-listen. Your friend's nightly escapades don't seem as important when you're questioning your current infinitesimal existence in the whatever-verse, or maybe it's your infinite existence outside of this possibly-not-real life. When you're wondering about Crocodile-Lizard Man, about that thing he put inside of you. When you're wondering if you are even actually a "you."

My hand goes to my stomach, and where I can nearly feel his scale. A slight pressure originates from my core, and I think, it's really, actually there. And he's really, actually out there.

"Earth to Izzy," Nakomi says loudly, and I yank my hand from my stomach.

"What?"

"Where did you just go?"

"I told you. Rough morning. I need to put myself together."

Nakomi pouts. "Fine. I'll call you tonight, when you're feeling better. Maybe you'll actually, you know, listen to me."

Apologetically, I hang up. I can't help thinking of just yesterday, when I told Nakomi I wanted to go back to Psyche-Delish Drug Center. Her response: I should stay tethered to reality.

I fear she might have been right. Because now I feel so far from reality: I feel further convinced that Crocodile-Lizard Man is real. That his scale is inside of me. That the two of us aren't done with whatever it is we started.

During my shower, I recall that Lenny said something about "psychonauts." The term intrigues me because it's new to my lexicon. It reminds me of the word "astronaut," and as I get out of the shower, I look up the word on my pocket computer, noticing it's spelled similarly.

I towel dry my hair. Psychonaut. Aquanaut. Astronaut.

I've had to do astronaut training. When I leave for Mars, I won't technically be considered an astronaut, as that term is reserved for those space sailors who serve as crew. Unless something goes wrong and I'm required to take on a position as a crew member, I will never be an officially designated astronaut. But I will probably fancy myself an astronaut, anyway, especially since I've already emerged from the grueling training process intended to prepare me for the lack of gravity, potential space-sailing hazards, and newfound isolation I will encounter on a spacecraft traveling away from the only planet I've ever lived on. During the final quarantine preceding my journey, I will endure another period of this training, and it will probably be equally terrible to the first. I will doubly consider myself an astronaut after that.

Anyways, how many -naut labels can I claim? Am I a psychonaut, too, especially now after experiencing both entity contact and the supposedly "ever-elusive ego death"?

Hair sufficiently dried, I look up the term's definition. Psychonaut: a person who sails altered states.

People like us, Lenny said.

Hmmm. I guess I've been a psychonaut since my first Vivectica™ experience.

I leave the definition to return to the page of search results. Near the top of the page, there is a result for a Psychonauts Meetup, right here in Portland. Clicking on it reveals the Meetup is accepting new members. They meet tonight, in the private room at a fancy cafe. The serendipity of this can't be ignored. I click "new member."

The next few hours go by in a blur, and eventually, I find myself with a gorgeously foamed honeysuckle-charcoal cappuccino with a scoop of Freeze-Dried Reject Fruit™ in hand, making my way to the cafe's private room and taking a seat in the circle of set up chairs. Various people fill in the chairs around me, and as my pocket computer strikes seven o' clock, a cheerful woman with purple hair sitting right next to me says, "Welcome to the Psychonauts Meetup. I'm Candelina, the organizer. Most of you know me already, but..." she turns and looks directly at me here. "It looks like we have a new member! Would you like to introduce yourself?"

I take a deep breath, ill-prepared for this introduction with my still-recovering mind and its mixed-up thoughts. I quickly collect myself, and say, "Hello. I'm Izzy. I saw your Meetup posted online, and I just thought I'd check it out."

"We're so glad to have you here, Izzy. A bit about us: we believe in psychedelic exploration. And I mean we believe. We believe that there is knowledge to be found in our experiences, and not just knowledge about ourselves—knowledge about the world. We believe in the possibilities presented by our experiences. Psychedelics could be the tool that allows us to rip the fabric of our reality, to see what lies beyond our reality."

"We could be living in a simulation," one guy across from me interrupts, ominously.

"That's Chad," the woman says, not minding his interruption. "His journeys have convinced him that we are avatars in a simulation created by the lobster-looking creatures he often encounters. The sim he imagines is like...a video game of sorts."

"They are playing us," he says, more ominously.

Candelina continues, "His is just one among the theories of our group." She looks at me here, prompting an awkward smile from my lips. Oh God, if Nakomi could see me here...she would shake her head so hard. I have to hope no one here recognizes me and outs me. Too bad my pocket computer paired with other forms of surveillance (like street and business cams) has marked my digital trail right to this meeting, which means I'll start getting ads for psychonaut-related things, whatever those may be.

"Let's go around in a circle and talk about our experiences. Remember: the person with the talking stick—" (she picks up a large lollipop from underneath her seat that I hadn't previously noticed was there) "—gets to talk." She looks at Chad pointedly, seeming to say no more interruptions, Chad, and hands the lollipop—I mean, "talking stick"—to the man to her left. He's cute, with salt-and-pepper stubble, distinct eyebrows, and an easy smile.

"Hello, everyone," he looks at me. "I'm Adham. Most of you—" he looks away "—know me already. Since our last meetup I've had more contact with the machine elves, the result of a combination of Vivecta™, Ketamine 66, and plain ol' Salvia divinorum."

I know that drug centers don't allow for polysubstance use, so it becomes immediately clear to me that Adham's triple-drug trip was illegal, just as my last trip was.

His continued speech is imbued with a seriousness Nakomi would probably find laughable. "The machine elves recognized me. They seemed...more agitated than usual. I'm not sure if I caught them at a bad time, or if they feel frustrated that I can't seem to figure out what they're trying to tell me."

As Adham ends the story of his experience, the talking stick goes all around the circle, and I hear about various entity encounters: Light beings. Terrifying angels. Humanoid grasshoppers (scary). I also hear about one other ego death, and various other mystical experiences. Additionally, people talk about their beliefs: beliefs in external realms. Beliefs in god or gods. Beliefs that humans are divine (one woman claims we are all gods with powers, as are the angels she has encountered). Beliefs that inanimate things (like coffee pots) have consciousness and are alive. Beliefs that this life is not really real.

Unfortunately, I don't find any of these theories laughable. Instead, I find myself carefully considering each one.

Eventually, it is my turn.

"Izzy, again," I say nervously, lollipop in hand. "I can recall two distinct realms from my recent trips. One of them felt like it was the highest or outermost realm I've gone to. I forgot I was a human. I forgot I was an I." Circle-goers shake their heads knowingly; some of them have been there before, I think. "It was like everything and anything was all the same, all part of the same creature—a creature who was both somehow organic and mechanical—a creature with various parts that all shared a singular consciousness." Some eyes look hungry to share their thoughts, but I hold the magical lollipop, rendering them silent.

I take a breath, and keep going. "The other realm, I've visited twice. It looked kind of like a space station? There were lizard creatures. I met the same one twice. I think...I think he was supposed to tell me something, the last time I went. But there wasn't time—he just plucked off one of his scales and put it inside of me. I just feel like...I need to find him."

I stop talking, and pass the lollipop back to Candelina, who says, "That is most interesting. A few of us have met your lizard creatures."

"Crocodile creatures," one man interrupts, and the small clarification convinces me that maybe these circle-goers and I have gone to the same place, because yes: the creatures I've encountered do share many features with crocodiles, perhaps more than they share with lizards.

Candelina holds up the lollipop to shush him. "I don't think any of us have ever been given one of their scales before," she finishes.

I touch my stomach, looking down at it. My voice is small. "I can still feel it. He gave it to me just last night."

I say no more, and the meeting comes to an informal conclusion, with patrons engaging in various discussions with each other, fervently sharing their theories or elaborating on more details of their experiences. Having gotten my fill of this psychonauts nonsense, once again wondering if I'm just haphazardly stimulating my own personal madness, I get up to exit.

As I'm leaving the cafe, I hear someone call my name. "Izzy!"

I turn to find the cute guy who talked about meeting machine elves: Adham.

"Are you over-caffeinated, or can I buy you a coffee?"

I smile. "How about a no-caf chamomile CBD dream cappuccino?"

He smiles back. "One dream cap coming up." He heads back inside the cafe, and I follow him. After he gets us fresh coffees, the two of us sit down at a corner table on the top floor, secluded from everyone else.

"I recognize you, you know. Izzy Belvin." He reaches out to shake my hand, and the action feels so formal considering we just met at a Psychonauts meetup.

"How do you know me?"

"I've read one of your papers. And I saw your TEDTalk."

"You read one of my papers? Are you in genetics?"

"I'm a mathematician."

"Oh."

"I'm working on my dissertation."

I try to feign interest. "On what?"

"On the mathematical implications of true infinity in quantum field theory, applying the theory that information is the fifth state of matter. It's more complicated than that, but I'll spare you the details."

I smirk. It is 2050, and researchers are still trying to figure out quantum field theory, but the theory is still full of holes. People still can't figure out why the physical laws by which our universe runs become essentially meaningless at a subatomic level. I could never study something so elusive, something that offered no foreseeable reality-changing applications. I went into an engineering field for that exact reason.

"What's true infinity?" I ask.

"Well, some people think infinity's just an abstract concept we use to talk about numbers that are too big to name. Those people also don't think infinity—true limitlessness—actually exists. Every time they refer to infinity, they're referring to a pseudo-infinity. A very large number, but a number that ends."

"But you do believe in infinity?"

"I do." He cocks his head. "Do you?"

"I guess I haven't given it much thought. I mean...everything has to end somewhere, right?" Although these words come out of my mouth, I'm not sure if I believe them. They just seem like something I'm supposed to say, something I'm supposed to think.

"Tell me, Izzy. When you experienced the ego death you described earlier, when it seemed like everything was the same creature with a shared consciousness...did it seem like that creature ended?"

I gaze into his eyes before looking down into my dream cappuccino. "It's so hard to remember." But the more critically I think about it, the more I think: no. The creature was everlasting, evergrowing. Unfolding and refolding forever. "Just because I couldn't see the end of the creature doesn't mean it didn't end."

"That's what we say about our universe. We can observe the edges of the universe. It looks like a sphere. But what if there's more that we can't observe from our limited vantage point? What if there are more universes? What if space doesn't end? What if time doesn't end?"

"Like a multiverse?" Multiverse theories had gotten extremely popular during the 2020s, to the point of ad nauseum. That's probably why so many researchers stopped espousing and studying them: funding goes to concepts that can be proven or topics that are trending. The multiverse theory has never been satisfactorily proven, and its trend-worthy status was revoked in the 2030s.

"That's one possibility. But many people consider the 'multiverse' to consist of multiple parallel universes, side by side, each slightly different than the one next to it. Recursive universes, some people think. But that's not even counting the possibility that we exist inside of something else. And what if infinity exists elsewhere, like inside of an atom? Atoms are said to be infinitely divisible. Some people truly believe that. What if there are worlds within worlds?"

My heart starts beating quickly. What he's saying sounds...so familiar. Not like I've heard it before, but like I've thought about it, like I've experienced it.

"Concentric universes," I whisper, almost to myself.

"Exactly," he says.

Our conversation grows more heated after that, as we share various theories on the world while simultaneously getting into the nitty-gritty deets of our work. Darkness has finally settled when he finally asks me, "Are you scared?"

"Of the scale inside of me?"

"No. I actually mean ... of going to Mars."

I've nearly forgotten about Mars, again. "Oh. No. I mean, I don't know. I guess." It's strange my recent life on Earth has seemed far more trippy than thoughts of how my life on a lifeless red rock with two moons will be.

Adham and I exchange numbers, say our goodbyes, and part ways. As my legs take me away from the cafe, Nakomi's face shows up on my ringing pocket computer. She probably wants to talk to me about her night with Simon.

"Hello," I answer via video.

"Well, you look better. Hot date?"

"Actually, yes. I just had coffee with a mathematician," I tell her, omitting the detail about how the first part of our "date" consisted of a psychonauts Meetup.

"A mathematician? And just last night, a musician. So naughty, Izzy. I'm proud of you. Who's next?"

"A magician?" I play along. "I guess Bucket List Item #3 needs to be a magic show."

"Sorry hun. I've already booked the spa. And before I hear any of your protests...just know that we are going."

What can I say? Arguing with Nakomi will forever be fruitless. Our friendship has long consisted of her convincing me to do things I don't want to do. The spa sounds safer than a drug clinic or a club with drug-harboring musicians, anyway.

subchapter | infinity

When humans laugh off infinity as something only possible in theory, we must wonder: why do we assume such a thing is physically impossible? Why is it considered silly to think space might go on forever, not just in our observable universe but beyond it? What if our universe is a microcosm of something larger, just as it itself is inhabited by microcosmic entities, which are themselves inhabited by smaller microcosmic entities? Why is it considered silly to think time has no beginning, and no end? Why do humans have such a hard time accepting the possibilities of ideas beyond our limited perception? Just because our human lives have beginnings and endings does not mean everything does.

Perhaps those very concepts—beginning and ending—are illusions, designed to make comprehending life, time, and space easier for humans.