Aiden's *Trip* Home
General Disclaimer: This story may contain scenes of a graphic and/or sexual nature. As such it is not suitable for view by persons under the age of eighteen. Please respect the law in your area, it's in place for your own good.
Mission Statement: This story was written and collaborated on by one or more members of TheMishMash. We are a team of like minded friends who strive to bring humor, drama, adventure, and sordid affairs to the masses. Comments and questions are always welcome and we can be contacted through our user page here on SoFurry. Please denote who you're asking for when leaving a message. Sincerely... Ghoti, Bones, and Scratch.
Aiden's *Trip* Home
Written by: Ghoti (Based of an idea from Bones)
Content: This story contains hallucinations, drunkenness, and a backfired practical joke. No Yiff here people, Sorries.
Personal Notes: Ghoti says, "Bones was over to the house the other day, reading some of the new stories and gathering inspiration for his soon to be pretty pictures. He mentioned his disappointment at being 'ordinary' (Which is really just an unfortunate by-product of hanging out with two psychos) and said that he'd have to borrow stories from me and Scratch to even have half a chance of being interesting. While I didn't agree with him (I find his normalcy to be very grounding in this insane world we live in) I did get a good laugh out of the idea he gave me based off of a tiny detail in a story I haven't posted yet. This is that idea as imagined by myself. And don't worry, Aiden will be fine."
"What're you doing?" Bones asked his roommate.
Scratch banged his head on the inside of the refrigerator in surprise then backed out. He offered the skunk a sheepish look as he placed his paws behind his back. "Nothin'." He replied.
"Show me them stubby fingers, ScarFace." Bones demanded.
The one eyed lynx reluctantly presented his paws for inspection. In one hand he held a bottle of dark yellow liquid. In the other he had a pill bottle.
"You're NOT trying to drug him again?" Bones asked with a note of disbelief.
"These things are like napalm for the adrenal glands." Scratch said as he shook the pills. "If they don't get a rise out of him, I'll quit trying, I swear."
"You're putting them in that old ass pineapple juice of his?" Bones indicated the plastic bottle. "I know back alley rummies who couldn't drink that without puking and it doesn't affect him." They were talking about their other roommate, Ghoti. The bat had a very selective list of things he would drink. Juices of all kinds topped the list. The skunk reached for the pills and took them from the bobcat. "What're they SUPPOSED to do to you?" He asked.
"Make you hyper. Fuck you up pretty good if mixed with alcohol." He shook the bottle and it's fermented contents sloshed. "They've gotta work."
Bones looked the pill bottle over once more before handing it back. Scratch had made a sort of life's ambition out of trying to get their friend high. Ghoti shunned drugs of all forms and wouldn't even drink anything caffeinated. The reason being, they didn't have any effect on him. Bones personally suspected the bat's chemical resilience was in some way linked to his other favorite drink. A certain red organic effluence the bat referred to as "sanguine".
Bones shook his head and grabbed his coat off a nearby hook. "Just don't kill him. We wouldn't have most of the nice stuff around here if he wasn't so good with money." He admonished. "I've gotta go out for a bit." He jangled his keys in this fist. "Have him call me if y'all want dinner brought back."
"Will do it." Scratch said, waved goodbye to his friend, and went to work spiking the bat's juice.
An hour later, Scratch was in the library, pwning noobs, when he heard Ghoti arrive home from work. The bat worked as a janitor at the local medical clinic and carpooled to work with the armadillo who helped him clean the place. Scratch knew the 'dillo and his three brothers so paused his game and went to the kitchen to pass a few words.
Ghoti was hanging up his jacket and Aiden, looking mellow and relaxed as always, was sitting at the table. "Hey, Kool-Aid." Scratch said.
"'Sup, Freckles?" Aiden replied smoothly. Like all armadillos, he was identical to his brothers. He was, however, easily distinguishable due to his demeanor and a tendency to always wear sunglasses, either over his eyes, or like now inside the house, lifted up and resting on his brow.
"Nothin' doin'." The big cat replied. "Work alright?"
Aiden shrugged. "Push a broom, wash a window, polish a table, lather, rinse, repeat."
"It's easy money. And good money because nobody else wants to do it." Ghoti chimed in. He had took a seat across from Aiden and was leafing through the morning paper which Bones had left on the table.
"You gonna chill for a little while?" Scratch asked the 'dillo. "I can get you in on a game or two." He hooked a thumb in the direction of the library.
"Nah." Aiden replied with just a hint of disappointment. "I gotta get home."
"Shame, I'll see you later then." Scratch said and made to leave the kitchen.
"Not if I stay to the left of you, Patches." Aiden replied with a smirk.
"Har-har." Scratch called over his shoulder and made his exit.
Somethin' to drink 'fore you leave?" Ghoti asked the 'dillo.
"I won't turn it down." Aiden said.
Ghoti got to his feet and retrieved a glass from the cabinet. He checked it for a letter G, found it didn't have one, and set it in front of his co-worker. He then retrieved on of his personal glasses and went to the fridge. "What's your poison?" He asked.
Before Aiden could answer, there was a knock at the front door followed by the sound of the doorbell ringing. "Hold that thought." Ghoti said and went for the door. "Looks like the mail dude has a package." He called back. "Help yourself to the fridge, Aid. Just don't mix up our glasses for your sake. And stay away from that carafe in the back."
Aiden was one of few outside animals who knew about the bat's periodic consumption of blood and had no desire to try any. He rummaged through the fridge for a bit, and settled on a bottle of unfortunate looking, piss yellow juice. Although it didn't look that appetizing, it had a strong alcoholic aroma. Ghoti frequently fermented his own juice and Aiden, having a certain resistance to drunkenness himself, liked to test his work from time to time.
He poured himself a glass and sipped it cautiously. He suppressed a gag and somehow managed to choke it down. The almost chewy liquid crawled down his throat and lit a small, cold fire in his stomach. Aiden coughed, then tried another sip. The second wasn't as bad, and when it joined the first, they appeared to agree to stay down. For awhile at least.
Presently, Ghoti reappeared bearing a small brown package. "The pineapple?" He asked.
"I suppose." Aiden said. "All I can taste is booze." He managed another sip. "And a lot of it." He added.
"It's pretty stout." Ghoti admitted. "Don't over do it, Aid. I gotta put this in Bones' room 'fore Scratch finds it." He lightly shook the small box. "I wonder what it is."
Aiden drank a little more, grimaced, and set the half empty glass in the sink. "I better stop there." He said. "I'll see myself out."
"Well enough." Ghoti waved with the paw not holding the package. "I'll see you Monday."
"Laters." Aiden called and left via the front door. Once outside, Aiden lowered his shades and walked to his truck. Halfway there, as he attempted to retrieve his keys from his pocket, he dropped them. He bent down, snatched them back up, and when he righted himself, a wave of dizziness washed over him.
The armadillo staggered, maintained his balance and belched sourly. "Ugh..." He exclaimed. "That jungle juice was a mistake." He continued to his truck and got in.
Sitting behind the wheel, he closed his eyes momentarily, attempting to clear his head. When he reopened them, he caught sight of the recently departed mailman continuing his rout through the annex. Aiden watched with uncharacteristic bemusement as the mail truck pulled over and the blue uniformed raccoon official got out to hand deliver another package to the house up the street.
Although he was distanced somewhat from the man and the female hare that met him at the door, Aiden could see them with unusual clarity. The hare took the package from the mailman, the raccoon appeared to thank her, then suddenly, the man seemed to morph somehow before Aiden's eyes. His shoulders bulged obscenely, threatening to rip through the back of his uniform shirt like twin machete blades. And his previously docile, "just doin' mah job, Ma'am", face elongated. Rows of needle sharp teeth branched from the raccoons gaping maw and he lunged for the hare's throat.
A thin, whispery scream escaped Aiden's mouth and he squeezed his eyes shut. After a few moments spent looking into an eerie darkness where strange shapes with strange colors floated and weaved behind his eyelids, Aiden hazarded another look up the road and saw an uninjured hare woman closing the door and the perfectly normal raccoon mailman returning to his truck.
Aiden gaped at the doorway where the nightmare had took place a few seconds earlier, then shook his head forcefully. His head swam for a second in time with the turbulent sloshing of his stomach's contents.
The armadillo started his truck and pulled out of his friend's driveway.
He and his brothers lived on the other side of town near the highway, as he entered the short length of road that wound through a small thicket of trees, he began to catch glimpses of unfamiliar faces staring out through the winter bare limbs at him. Determined to get himself home despite whatever was wrong with him, Aiden tried to ignore the phantom countenances.
He fought to tear his attention away from the populated tree line and looked to the sky. There he beheld many oddly proportioned birds of mystically bright colors. Instantly beguiled by their radiant plumage, Aiden lifted his glasses to see them without their hues diminished. An outside observer would have seen an armadillo weaving a truck in and out of both lanes of the road at a mind crippling 9 miles per hour as he appeared to be craning his head to look at nothing in particular among the clouds.
Aiden awed over the artful avian apparitions above him and giggled childishly.
Suddenly remembering he was in a moving vehicle, he returned his attention to the road in time to see the silhouette of some large animal as it leapt from the tattered tail end of the tree line in front of his truck. Aiden swerved to miss the living inkblot and instead hit it head on where it seemed to dissolve and cover the world in darkness. Aiden screeched unaware that the quick movement of the truck had caused his already forgotten sunglasses to slip back over his eyes.
In his psychedelic state, Aiden tried in vain to rip what he perceived to be clots and shreds of the shadow animal's body or bodily fluids from his own body and the interior of the car. By grace of blind luck or a Higher Power, his truck managed to stay on the road without his help.
Abruptly, he abandoned his attempts to disperse the all encompassing shadows when he saw the upcoming turnoff and his mind teetered away from his imagined threats. Calmly, Aiden turned down the side street and then onto Main without incident.
Once on Main Street however, the vibrant kaleidoscopic doors of hallucinogenic Hell opened wide and spewed forth a mingled nightmare fantasy land born of some straight jacketed lunatic's deadliest and most entertaining fantasies.
All along the shops on the right hand side of the street, regular everyday animals walked hand in hand with grotesque abominations or childlike fairytale creatures. Here, an otter in a conservative business suit walked next to a ten foot iridescent green dragon wearing a porkpie hat and a smoking jacket. As Aiden goggled at the dragon, seven sparkling fairies, each representing a color of the rainbow, flitted from out of the huge reptile's jacket and flew in front of his truck. The armadillo watched their progress across the street and saw them fly into the park and get immediately snatched out of the sky by the gnarled and twisted hand of a living tree. The ent stuffed the pixies into its knothole mouth and their tiny pained cries were mercifully cut short. The tree gave him a small salute and lumbered off into the park on its tentacle-like feet. As the tree vacated the stage, Aiden noticed a rat of abnormal proportions had been standing behind it. The male rat, not familiar to the armadillo, was quite tall for his species and wearing a sailor outfit. Aiden was torn between laughing at the gangly cross dresser and screaming at the decapitated head of an opossum that floated above the rat on a string like a balloon. Fearing the satanic schoolgirl-boy-rat-thing would notice him staring, Aiden returned his attention to the shops on the other side. Out of The Empire, a sort of catch all warehouse that wished it was a supermarket, came a brown furred rabbit girl with a serious look on her face. Aiden watched her deposit the garbage bag she was carrying, which to his drug addled mind appeared to be dripping some viscous neon yellow fluid, into a nearby dumpster. After the giant, sentient, purple mushroom that lived in the dumpster greedily ate the presumably radioactive offering, the rabbit girl took note of him staring and flipped him the bird. Out of her raised middle finger came a cone of radiance that washed over his truck. Inside the light he heard fiddle music accompanied by heavy percussion rhythms and felt the urge to sing along to the non existent words which he though might be something like "I'm a dandy boy and I've got a brand new toy." The feeling passed and the lightshow and ho-down soundtrack faded leaving a prismatic snowstorm which had gems of all colors falling interspaced with the crystallized water droplets. Aiden marveled at them until the diamond cut gemstones began to steadily increase in size and began to strike his windshield. Web-like cracks appeared in the glass and brackish ichor leaked onto the dash from the hairline fissures. Due to the singular scintillating aroma of the dark goo, Aiden found himself collecting some of it on his claw and tasting it. "Hyabusa, my favorite" He mused to himself and eased ever onward in the truck.
Once past the shops and into the final leg of the landmark trip home, things seemed to level out. The world still retained a level of saturated vibrancy and momentary incidents of unparalleled illusion still prevailed over reality, but Aiden had markedly less trouble paying attention to his driving.
That was until, in the middle of the last turn before he reached the street he lived on, a giant cupcake, chocolate, with butter cream coconut icing and a cherry on top, crested the opposite side of the hill he was approaching and began to roll on it's side down the incline toward his truck. Equal parts mesmerized and terrified, Aiden brought the truck to a screeching halt and braced himself for impact.
Unable to tear his eyes off his singularly unique death as it wobbled down the hill, he simply watched it come for him. At the last second, the gigantic pastry was heaved to the right, presumably by either gravity or some over industrious dung beetle, and fell onto it's base.
"Marmalade..." Aiden said for no particular reason and took the opportunistic lull in surrealism to drive away.
He made it to his driveway without further run-ins with homicidal baked goods and parked his truck behind his older brother Alton's jeep.
Aware on some deep level that something was seriously wrong with him, he dreaded the walk to the front door. Nonetheless, the armadillo gamely got out of the truck and immediately fell to the ground in a ungainly heap. Looking up at the side of his truck, he began the arduous process of climbing back to his feat. Once he was standing again, he cautiously navigated his way around the vehicle and toward the front walkway. The world tipped to one side and then seemed to heave itself the other way. Subsequently, an outside observer would have seen a gray skinned 'dillo who was doing a very passable impression of a drunken sailor. Somehow amid the temperamental back and forth undulations of the ground, he made it to the front door and fell wearily to the floor of the porch. Unsure if he would live through whatever had happened to him, but positive that he couldn't get the door open to save his life, he settled for bawling for his brother. "Alt!"
Feeling increasingly sick as he gripped the porch in attempt to steady it's seesawing sway, Aiden called again. "Alton! He'p me!"
The more muscular brother opened the door and saw the cool 'dillo laying on the porch in a shivering, pitiful ball. "The hell's wrong with you, Aid?" He queried.
"I dunno, Alt." Aiden replied in a somber voice. "But you gotta get me to the bed and help me strap it down somehow. This shit's intense." Having made his plight known and relayed his needs as best as he could, Aiden gave up the ghost, puked into the nearby hydrangeas, and passed out.
*****
Meanwhile, back at Ghoti's...
The bat was sitting next to Scratch watching the big cat release his murderous tendencies on woefully inexperienced tweenagers. He had a glass of the stout pineapple juice in his hand. It was, in fact, his third glass. Scratch appeared to be in an even fouler mood than usual as he shot up imaginary enemies and swore at the feminine voiced 12 year olds who controlled them.
The bobcat couldn't believe the winged little shit had downed two glasses of that poisoned piss and hadn't even gotten drowsy.
Ending Time Stamp: Friday, January 14, 2011, 3:55 pm