Biorhythms

A twist of smoke spiraled lazily away from the glass concavity from which it emanated, coiling into serpentine and more fantastic forms as if snakes and dragons were dancing in the air above the bed. The open window, shutterless, admitted a moonbeam rendered in stark relief by the darkness of the room; this illuminated the mythical ballroom, revealing the reptilian celebrants and their waltz. 1

Delve smiled, watching the smoke, and took another hit. The pipe bowl flared ember-bright. The young male coydog enjoyed the living impressions he got from things around him when he smoked cannabis. He exhaled in contentment, sending the dancers swirling into a much faster, more chaotic dance as many more smoke-creatures rushed to join them.2

Lulled by the cool, soothing darkness and the beauty of the smoke phantoms, Delve felt his eyelids beginning to droop. He forced his leaden lids open long enough to admire the pearlescent gleam of the moon. Then, cupping his hand over the glass pipe to ensure it went out, the young man allowed himself to drift to sleep.3

---4

Delve is looking for something. He isn't sure exactly what he's looking for yet, but he knows, somehow, that he knows what it is, and that he'll know he's found it when he sees it. This lack of clarity seems, for a moment, as if it should be troubling or annoying, but Delve hardly considers the notion before dismissing it, already forgotten. No time for that. 5

Delve is looking for something. 6

A song he once heard but doesn't remember the name of is playing somewhere. His own feet go tick-tick-tick as he runs, scattering dusty, reptilian scents against his nostrils. This effluvia fails to distract the runner from the darker, more organic, oily scents percolating upward from below.7

He runs on all fours across an undulating bridge of moonlight, crossing a plain of thorned tenticular earthen extrusions grasping blindly at nothing in particular, casting his senses far and wide for any trace of the Something he seeks. 8

Something seems strange about that, too. Not the bridge -- of course he doesn't want to have to run through those! -- but the body.9

Delve knows, in a vague way, that his real body is human. Yet he is animal-bodied now, with his own face and his own tail and his own hands, but everything else animal-shaped. Human-featured, as he knows humans, but animal-shaped. A very strange figure to inhabit, and yet, it feels perfectly natural and appropriate, even, somehow, more natural than the waking body he dimly remembers.10

Musing in a breezy way that he must be dreaming, Delve steps off the bridge. From the corner of his eye, he notes that the bridge is in fact a snake of moonlight, its three glittering opal eyes fixing upon him as he walks away. But this is not what he is looking for, so despite his fuzzy wish to look longer at the moon snake, his feet pad onward. Delve goes with them.11

Delve is smoking cannabis with a dragon-man. Delve almost laughs out loud, but he doesn't want to insult his guest -- the very idea of a human-dragon! It's absurd. No such thing exists.12

Rich and ripe, marijuana-scent fills his nostrils, setting him at ease. Surreally, no acrid fuel-scent or personal smells from his companion interrupt or corrupt the pure, heady fragrance of the sweet herb.13

The dragon man bangs his fist on the table, saying something incoherent but very passionate. Delve finds himself agreeing whole-heartedly. The bitch must die.14

More cannabis. Smoke swirls and dances around them, between them, until everything is smoke, the room is smoke, Delve is smoke, and a smoke dragon roars, breathing lightning and raindrops. Then Delve realizes it isn't smoke, but storm clouds, and he is flying.15

Ozone sweeps any other scent from his nostrils, sharp and all-cleansing, followed rapidly by the rataplan of rain. 16

His wings beat once, twice, thrice, angling with instinctive expertise to catch the most favorable wind-stream available, cutting diagonally through the turbulent sky. Lightning, brilliant and iridescent and impossibly abundant, flickers and dances all around, tossing raindrops left and right with searing golden sparks and splashes of vapor.17

Despite the beauty of the lightning, Delve does not want to be struck. He shifts his vanes, and dives into the inviting coolness of the cloud-cover below. A hot electric scent stabs deep into his sinuses, almost painful in its intensity.18

Too late, comes the involuntary thought when thunder crashes all around him, blinding radiance flaring from all sides. Sure of his own death, Delve falls from the clouds into mist, falling like a shed feather from a soaring hawk. Despite his drifting, tumbling process, Delve's eyes and nose work wildly, desperate, trying to peer or smell through the ever-thinning cloud layers beneath himself.19

Suddenly, he sees something beneath himself. Falling, as well.20

Urgency fires his nerves, racing as if the lightning had charged his neurons -- found it!21

Delve reaches for it.22

---23

Delve's eyes popped open in lunar gloom. His fist gripped the long-dead pipe bowl fiercely.24

He sighed.25

I'm getting really tired of this insomnia spontaneous-waking crap, the coydog thought as he sat up, his sleep-dulled eyes slow at first to pick out his lighter lying on the blankets. Delve just never slept well at night, even when he was exhausted. Only cannabis really helped. After a few trial attempts, he scowled.26

Now where did that stupid lighter go?