Today on the very late YA Indie Carnival, we’re covering evil weed scenes. As you think back to your high school or college days, or beyond, did you inhale? Would you admit it if you did, or are you too mainstream now? Did you ‘sell out to work for The Man’, or are you still ‘The Dude’?
Somewhere on YouTube is a video of British soldiers burning a field of marijuana. As the video wears on…the videographer is getting more and more incomprehensible. Similarly, I remember a story about an American farmer ordered to pull all of the devil weed in his property which had literally been growing as an unchecked weed, naturally, and to store it in their barn until they got further instructions from the DEA. When they inquired of the DEA what to do after that, they were instructed to burn it. The farmer had many long sessions of toiling away in the barn following the instructions of the DEA.
In my own unapologetic tribute to the devil weed, here is a scene from Pazuzu’s Girl involving weed, in a scene most of us recognize from high school, or have imagined at one point or another. Yes Mom, I know you’re reading.
Excerpt: The scene come in where JD and Morpho are trying to figure out how to deal with Morpho’s demonic father, and escape from her father’s demonic ex-wife.
“The point is, do you know how many times I’ve dreamed about murdering people? You weren’t the only one imagining their deaths. And believe me; I’ve cooked up stuff in my head that would make your dad grin. But I haven’t done any of those things and neither have you. Wishing doesn’t make it happen, unless you’re a god. As you said, you don’t have powers.” He squeezed her shoulders again. “Which doesn’t make you weak either, your dad has a screwed up view of the world. Look at Batman. He didn’t have super powers.”
“He had gadgets.”
“You want gadgets? I can make gadgets. I rebuilt that Z-28. You should see the bong I made last year.”
“I’m tech-impaired. And I don’t think a giant bong is going to help in this particular situation.”
“It might.” He pantomimed a lengthy drag on a pipe.
She grinned and gave him a shove.
“Look, look at what I invented!” He dug into a cardboard box in the corner. “I’m going to market it to defense companies when I can get a patent.”
He brought out a contraption that reminded her of Marvin the Martian’s ray gun. It had a gun stock, a long tube that looked suspiciously like a bong and a short plate of fins that looked like the fins from an ionizer used in offices to purify the air.
“Is that a bong, JD? Are you going to aim it at people and get them stoned?”
”No, it started out as one but it’s post-bong technology. It’ll be the new rage in non-violent warfare. It gives people the munchies you get after you get stoned.”
“What?”
“You know how distracting and compelling the munchies are? I once spent four hours searching for an open pizza joint, at three in the morning, when I knew I had a paper due in class at eight. Didn’t you ever see Harold and Kumar Go To White Castle? The idea is that when people are sprayed with this mist, they will stop caring about whatever their mission is and hunt for junk food instead.”
“You’re insane.”
“But it doesn’t project generalized munchies. You know how addictive junk food is? It’s based on that, not just on pot munchies. I got the idea from that movie where the guy ate only McDonalds for a month.”
“You are living proof of the dangers of watching too much television. The inside of your head must look like a cartoon.”
“No, seriously, I’ve distilled the chemicals from particular foods that make them so addictive. There are three different varieties of Munchie Mist, that’s what I’m calling it: Big Mac, Doritos nacho flavor and Hostess Cupcakes. Once the person breathes the mist, they feel an immediate need to get those specific foods.”
“The poor schmucks stuck at the drive-thrus and checkout counters aren’t getting paid enough. How did you distill it?”
“I was stoned and me and Jonesy started talking about war and wouldn’t it be cool if we could solve the violence thing. Distilling stuff isn’t hard at all. A crap chemistry set from Big Lots can do it. I made something else too! Booger Blaster! The other day, I woke up with the worst allergies ever, after my run-in with your dad. My eyes were swollen shut with mucus, you know, gunk, and my nose was all goopy—”
“That’s enough detail for a clear picture, thanks! So do you blow dog fur and pollen at people?”
“Close. This other formula stimulates histamine production. You just turn the ionizer to this setting here. So it doesn’t matter what people are allergic to, peanuts, dogs, pollen or whatever. They turn into walking snot-wads. I got the idea after Jonesy called me a snot-wad.”
He was so eager, she had to smile. “That’s very clever. Disgusting, but clever. I don’t think it will help us, but maybe it’ll get you into MIT.” She inspected the fins for a minute. “So why didn’t you tell me about being a mad inventor? Why don’t you have stuff in your car, like the Batmobile?”
“There is stuff in my car. It just doesn’t work yet, not the way I want it to. I’m having some problems with the pulse generator. And I thought you’d just make fun of me and blow me off if it didn’t work right.”
“I’m still gonna make fun of you. But I wouldn’t have blown you off.” Morpho walked her fingers through his so they were interlaced.
End Excerpt
To expand the idea of the devil weed to other scenes in which there were ‘substances’, because we all know that marijuana is a ‘gateway drug’, I also give you a scene from a short story I wrote called Beergarden. It begins in a new beer garden in Germany. It was inspired by my husband’s experience of sitting in a beer garden in Germany, watching the bees that hovered around peoples’ beers get utterly drunk. In this scene, Eva Worker, the main bee character has found her sisters and a wasp who chased her earlier ‘sampling’ the wonderful new human ‘nectar’.
Excerpt:
The humans and bees were still attempting to do their mutual swatting and flying dance, but the waves of the giant hands were barely flops now. And the workers weaved and teetered at the edges of the glasses as though they might fall in. One of them did. She plunked right into the liquid, and instead of fighting to climb out, she took a long drink from the fluid.
“Jurgen, you have a bee in your beer. And I think it’s drunk.” One of the human males told the other, who picked up his glass with Eva’s floating sister.
“Awww. Poor bee. She’s had too much to drink. Here, let’s dry you out.” He fished her out with a spoon and dumped her on the table, laughing. Hilda Worker, the swimmer, appeared to be laughing too, as she preened the liquid from her wings and legs.
“Hey, there’s pollen in my beer.” Jurgen exclaimed without very much concern.
His fellow clapped him on the shoulder, “Drink it, it’s good for you.”
Jurgen upended the glass into his mouth.
Eva drifted closer to make sure Hilda was all right. The other bees didn’t appear to be worried as they stared at Hilda in a stupor. What in the Hive is going on?, Eva thought.
“Eva, sister, come here! You must try this. It is wonderful. It is a new nectar and it comes in giant tanks. The humans drink great rivers of it and they don’t seem to mind us sharing.” Hilda’s mandibles clacked happily and her eyes seemed… muddled. Her pheromones also smelled of the sweet rich nectar.
“What is wrong with you? Why are you not taking your load to the hive?” These bees, like Eva, were all first season foragers, new to the outside world. Surely someone would notice the absence of a bunch of new foragers.
“We will. Come join us first, Sister Eva!” A chorus of striped behinds waggled at her. One of them waggled so enthusiastically that its owner also fell into the glass she had been perched on.
“Oh, another one down.” Jurgen Bee Saver smiled. In went the spoon to his friend’s drink. He dumped Sister Dagmar unceremoniously next to Hilda. As Dagmar consumed the liquid beaded on her legs, a larger black and yellow shape wobbled toward them in the air, from another table.
Eva zipped into the air, her stinger ready. But the yellow jacket that had chased her earlier, waved her off now with a wiggle of antennae and a surge of the same tangy scent that drenched Eva’s fellow bees.
The intoxicated wasp landed uncertainly on the edge of the table, almost fell and then righted herself, turning back to Eva. “Ah, little bee, I’m sorry about earlier. You want some of my meat? It’s still all chunky but I could chew it for you.” She offered a partly-digested piece of meat . “You want?”
“No thank you.” Eva declined quietly and sank down to the surface of the table. She still eyed the wasp with caution. The humans shooed the couple of bees remaining on the glasses, downed the rest of the liquid and rose. They placed their steins next to a sea of other empty glasses on the table, and left. They had been there a while, it seemed. How long had her sisters been there?
The wasp nodded, “I am Worker Gertrude. Who are you, little bee? Come here. I will not eat you.”
Eva edged closer, and Gertrude hopped suddenly next to her. A wave of pheromone swept over Eva, as Gertrude nudged her in the side, “Hey, you are cute for a Honey Bee.”
Eva almost tumbled off the table again, and backed away, wings over legs. Bless the Queen! she thought, Non-queen wasps wanting to mate with female bees? My own sisters shirking their hive duties? It is summer. It’s too late for Hive Fever. The eagerness to get out of the long sleep of winter often drove workers to act a little strange. But this?
Her sisters waggled at Eva again. Gertrude twitched her antennae and stumbled towards the glasses. “Come! There is plenty of nectar to go around. We shall all share, yes?” Gertrude pressed.
Hilda and Dagmar scrambled up the sides of a couple of glasses and dumped themselves into the films of beer at the bottom. Eva finally followed the bewitching scent, picked a glass, and climbed in. Well, I did want to explore. And oh, Sweet Flower, does that taste good! She sucked up the beer and wallowed in the remaining drops, her pollen baskets soaked.
“And they are all different. There are different nectars. Can you smell that? Try this one, Eva!” Hilda tapped and bumped at her from the walls of one of the other glasses that had a pale golden wheaty smell. Eva slowly buzzed over, after dunking in two more glasses of the dark, rich, sap-colored nectar.
Some indeterminate amount of time later, the sky darkened and the twinkling lights became clearer overhead. None of them could drink another drop without popping.
Gertrude was first to pull herself from her glass. “Ai, I must return to the nest. I have meat for the young ones. And lots of this nectar. We had a good time, yes? I will do this again tomorrow! Maybe I see you here, little bees.” She flopped off the table, her wings beating erratically. She landed on the ground, and Eva crawled to the edge to see.
Gertrude lay on her side for a moment. Then she righted herself and slowly crept across the ground, narrowly missed by a huge pair of shoes. She called back, “I’m okay. Everything’s okay! Everything’s great!”
Eva followed Gertrude’s progress, holding her breath, until their new wasp friend disappeared into the bushes at the edge of the wall.
***
Eva didn’t have a good memory for how she, Hilda, and Dagmar finally made it back to the hive. And neither did they.
Mitzi Worker, their receiver bee, just buzzed in confusion and looked around her, trying to comprehend the waggling, bumping and weaving rears the girls were showing her as they accidentally bonked into each other.
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen this dance before,” Mitzi said, hesitant. “Um, can you do that again? I might be crazy but it looked like you just said ‘make a left at the dog’. Okay, there I’m definitely wrong. I’m pretty sure you’re not trying to tell me the flowers are burping.” She looked desperate.
Eva touched her gently on the leg.
Mitzi looked at her in panic. “I really did study. I just don’t understand. I haven’t been able to understand anyone coming in tonight.”
“It’s ok, sister. We’ll show you tomorrow.” Eva brushed the girl’s face with her antennae. “Be at peace, sister. Come with us tomorrow.”
“But I can’t, I mean I’m a receiver. I’m supposed to be here. Oh, let me get your pollen.” Mitzi collected the soggy nectar-soaked gloop from all of them and disappeared into the brood comb.
***
The next day, Eva crawled from the hive entrance wondering if her antennae were going to fall out. And it felt like some crude human boy was trying to pull her wings off, but there was no one to sting. She meandered aimlessly, gathering pollen from the numerous park flowers along the way to…somewhere.
End Excerpt
This story is available here on Amazon in the anthology Into The Ruins: An Anthology of New Beginnings.
To see what some of our other authors have been up to in their bong days, check out these sites:
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But when they learn that the Nephilim might be involved, it becomes clear that they’re all in extreme danger…
A magical game of Hide n Seek begins.
Find the missing player and win.
The game resets; everyone forgets and starts to play again.
The mystery of a Mythology is easy to enjoy. The reality is much harder to accept.
Ready for a new kind of teen paranormal romance?
Also look for:
Of Sun & Moon, Book 1
Whispering Evil, Book 2
Book 4, Shadows Rising, coming Fall 2012
