Chief Piece: The Combine of the Wyvern Luncheonette (Gabrielle Ruban)

The clunks and clangs ring in my ears as I wander in. So many different sounds are emerging from all sorts of directions. Some-- boisterous and intense, some-- softly buzzing, smoothly tangling in between all of the heavier hubbub. Everything, interconnected, like the thread and stitchwork of a well-made roll of fabric. Some sounds resonated, while others flew over my head, grazing the lobes of my ears.
There was a lot going on. Movement was blossoming from every corner in sight. Not a space wasn’t occupied. There were lines everywhere; you had your idle lines such as those in the tiles on the floor, in the planks of wood in the tables and chairs, in the various foods in sight. You also had your active lines, mainly composed of blocs of people. These active lines intermingled just like the many sounds that bounced from wall to wall. Compact in numbers, each person there had some sort of purpose; some were there for substance consumption, others were there to assist them in the process. Those who were assigned consumption, stood in line-- a line that was uniform in overall structure, however it was constantly fluctuating in length and anthropomorphic content.
Once they reached the endpoint, they were served. Those that served there, were just a few individuals who fell under the other category of occupations, those that assist. Receiving their materials, they head back to their stations. Each individual, a different representation of a specified gear, worked in partnership with other analogous gears. Some were grouped by their level of seniority, others were characterized by their interests and social class. After finishing their assignment, they return to the lineup. This queue, however, was different. Here, the individuals disposed of their remaining materials, where other individuals-- those who had the responsibility of helping the consumers-- took their used tools and scrubbed them so they could be placed in the pile of supplies, ready for the consumer’s usage. Just like in a factory, each component worked together to repeat this ongoing cycle.
I walked in line, apprehensive and unsure. Quivering, overwhelmed with the unfamiliarity, I was surrounded. I froze, almost as if my blood was replaced with ice. Hardened, stiff, the world felt like it was on a pause-- but really, it was just me. As I froze, everything around me continued on, time proceeded to pass, almost as if I wasn’t even there. I tried to break through the anxiety and did, at least, to some degree. I reached the final stage and received my supplies. Holding the components in hand, I walked over to one of the stations. Hesitant, I sat down at the closest one to the exit. Their eyes-- beady, blood-shot-- were not welcoming. Receiving glares and harsh mutters under the tongue, I proceeded to get up from the station and leave for another. Even more reluctant, I found another. This station seemed more miscellaneous, filled with people who didn’t seem to share a common trait. Receiving polite welcomes, I sat down and began to work on my assignment.
Finishing my meal, the group and I--in unison-- walked over to the final queue, where we disposed of the remaining substances. After going through the final process, I walked towards the exit, ready to leave permanently. However, I felt a certain calling within me, encouraging me to return in the future. This longing within me was so strong, I couldn’t resist. As I was walking away from the combine of the wyvern luncheonette, I made mental plans to return the next day.

Video that caused someone to trip for first time

Step into the Sensory Box- Video found on LSD Reddit. The person who posted it said this video influenced them to take LSD for the first time.

Schizophrenia and LSD, not a true connection.

http://mentalhealthdaily.com/2014/03/28/lsd-and-schizophrenia-does-acid-cause-mental-illness/

Schizophrenia and LSD, not a true connection.

Chief Piece - Neil

It’s ten fifteen, which means H period: I’m free. I leave class in CT, walking over to RTS. As I walk through CT, the white walls seem to be from the future;. I’m walking in the world of 2001: A Space Odyssey. It’s just me and the white, milky walls. The futuristic tunnel leads me straight to a glass door. I push the glass door to go outside and the sun is firing translucent rays down at the scorching pavement. As I make my way across to Roberts, I see the road is losing a battle to time; there are alligator skin-like cracks along the pavement. Finally, I open the door to Roberts, walking down the steps and entering RTS. The paintings on the wall of Mario traveling in a two dimensional world and Link on his horse immediately strike me. The vibrant red color of Mario’s world ignites the wall on fire, and I see Link leave Hyrule castle on his horse and travel along the wall on his way to save Zelda the princess. As I shift my focus to the center of the room, my ears are instantaneously saturated with the sound of electronic synths and driving beats. I see the noises flashing in front of me in the air, pulsing in red, green, cyan, magenta. I check the time: ten forty. I take a seat on the couch and grab a purple controller. The kids next to me are playing Super Smash Bros and I see them furiously pressing the buttons on their controllers. The flying thumbs become hammers hitting whack-a-moles. I look up at the kids to see their faces; they are focused and stressed - and intense. Despite this, they’re still seem to be having so much fun; I see all kinds of emotions pouring out of their heads like characters. The match ends and I get into the game. My character: Link. Three, two, one, the game commences. As I press the buttons, I see my character’s sword flashing around in a blur. He’s jumping on all the platforms, dodging all of the other characters, attacking with his swordsman skills. I check the time: eleven twenty. The period has been over for a while now and as I was lost in time and the excitement of the game I had no idea. I leave RTS to go to class. Man those kids know how to have fun.

Brett Helquist Sketches

These seemed kind of like more structured versions of the sketches in one flew over the cuckoo's nest. Brett Helquist was the illustrator in the Series of Unfortunate Events and when I initially saw the sketches in Cuckoo's Nest, they reminded me of the drawings in the Series of Unfortunate Events, so I posted two pictures of Helquist's sketches (not from the series of unfortunate events) here.

Chief Piece- The House

A few days ago I was released from the combine, they placed me in the town of West Hartford. I guess they liked this town because it isn’t too remote but isn’t a city. I never thought that I would be leaving the Combine. In my many years there, I was the first Chronic to be released. I’m worried that I’ve gotten used to being handled by the black boys and the big nurse and that I won’t be able to survive on my own. They’ve put me on parole and have shrinks and officers checking in with me all the time. I’ve forgotten how great it is to shower when I please and not have some hairy guy shave me against my will. As part of my parole they make me bag people's groceries at Whole Foods. The job is fine, I get tired often and get bored. I have to pick groceries up, put them in the bag, be nice to the customers (4). The cashier doesn’t like me, he thinks I’m crazy, like I am. He thinks I’m dumb or deaf because he always makes fun of me to the other co workers. To be honest it doesn’t really bother me that much. During my breaks I like to eat at different spots. One of my favorite spots to eat at is at Kingswood Oxford, it’s this school right across the street. KO has a really nice campus. They have beautiful fields that look over the street, I like to sit there when I can. There’s also this guy who rides around in a red car. I think he’s the campus police or security guard. Every time I even hear that car I run as fast as I can since I know they will throw a fit if a psycho like me was on their campus. One time when I was there I went by this house on campus. I was shocked that someone lived right in the middle of the school. Then I looked into the windows and saw posters and desks and realized it was a classroom. I had never seen a classroom like that. The whole building looked like it was ancient. The paint peeled like dry skin and the colors were very dim and there were cracks all up the side of the walls, not the place that you’d expect children to learn in (4A). The cracks were filled with mud that looked like blood oozing from the building. Right when I was peering into the window this woman walked out. She dressed as if she were homeless but judging by her books she carried she was a teacher. She wore a shawl that looked like she had knitted it herself. It hung to the ground; I wondered how she walked without tripping on it. She had her hair in a bun and wore odd sandals. She had a scarf that looked like there was a raccoon around her neck. When she saw me I turned my back and walked away, I was afraid that she would see me as a threat and call the campus police who would send me back to the Combine and I did not want that to happen.

Hewett Day

I am immersed in the combine. Everything I hear and see is at this school are the inner workings of the combine: their curriculum, social groups, sports, all part of the combine. (4) I am surrounded by a sea of red and black. There are cries of victory coming from both young and old as the quarterback runs the ball into the end zone, winning the game. Their uniforms are covered in black pieces of turf and their faces are drenched in sweat but their faces are happy. I don’t think I see pure happiness like that in years. The mass of red and black rush the field to join the celebration.The players work together like a well oiled machine; those who don’t meet expectations are benched and blamed for the team’s shortcomings. Those who are gifted are praised and hold  the positions of power; they are the team captains and quarterbacks and coaches. (4a) Everyone underneath them must listen to their every word. Together, they must perform each play with calculated precision and timing- there can be no weak links as weak links cause failure. There is no room in their plays for creativity or outside thinking. For a player to be quick on his feet and change the play is not praised- rather he becomes worthless because he is unable to work with the rest of the machine. The outside of the machine is just as polished as the inside. They all wear the same uniforms and do the same warm ups. I do not belong here; I am too out of place for this school, for this society. Everything here is a product of the combine;  their smiles are carefully crafted with perfectly straight teeth and smiling eyes; and their clothes are all high end. I am nothing here,so it will be easy for me to make my escape.

Emma Smith Chief Piece

As I walk down the hallway of KO I cannot help feeling that I have yet again entered some sort of factory. Not a factory to make some sort of new product, nothing you would see in commercials, no, something more standard. Some sort of person that, once they had been chewed up and spit out, was gonna be just like all the other items coming out of the mold, perfectly shaped. Even now, the students are starting to figure out their roles in the machine. There’s the girls, all leather boots and cardigans and fake smiles, each one just like the other. [4a] Then there’s the boys, at the other end of the hall, suits and ties and trying to be adults already even though you can tell all they wanna do is get outside, get away. It’s like I’m not even here, really. The machine doesn’t stop for me, just keeps churning, there’s too much to be done for such a minor figure to be a distraction. Quick smiles and questioning glances are all the acknowledgement I need, though. I’m stealthy. I’m an infiltrator. I know how all this works. It’s all the better if the students won’t talk to me; all I need to do is serve my time here and get back to the hospital.

I peer into one of the classrooms, where the students are learning some sort of writing style. Nothing they’ll ever use, unless they want to impress their friends with how intellectually advanced they are. As a teacher gives me a glance, I see a glimmer of what I always see in the Big Nurse’s eyes. She is rigid and unswaying, staring me down, willing me to tell her what I am doing here and why so she can force me to leave. I don’t tell her, just bow my head and melt into the side of the doorway. She scoffs and returns to teaching, and I can almost hear the clock ticking in the background. Of course she needs to follow her tight schedule, because if the students don’t get to the essay writing today then they will miss the new vocabulary tomorrow, and then they will never be able to escape this convent because their education will never be sufficient. The teacher needs to ensure that all her student projects are functioning bits of machinery, coded to perfection with every skill they need, or else the whole system will break down. They have to be educated, confident, intelligent, before they can even dream of leaving this little isolated combine and going out into the real world, where the boundaries of how they can live are even greater. [4] I can’t wait to leave this combine, and not just to get back to the hospital, but to get away.

Chief Piece(s) together the idea of football - Rob (T.F.) Downes (IV)

Bobblehead men, dressed in bodysuits covered in the a blood of their enemies. Their masculinity hurts, it burns, like a flaming spear just piercing your eyes. My nostrils shrivel to the pungent aroma of radiating sweat that flows off in waves from these bobblehead me. I feel them looking at me constantly, smelling out my inferiority, bastards.  I can sense them fueling themselves off the other spectators. I resist their glares, their animal gazes. These ape-like men, dressed in their large body suits, scratching and sniffing and biting each other. They enjoy throwing themselves on each other. They enjoy jumping and falling and running into other people. This seems like a very inefficient way to settle their dispute, but they continue anyway. The crack of flesh on flesh causes the ground to shake, my teeth to rattle. The sound radiates through my body and I share the pain of the man on the ground. The smacking sound is like a punch, painful to everyone around. I notice all the people around me violently yell and shriek each time one of the red monster men knocks over the other sweaty creature in front of him. They too are barbarians, yet they are mice in comparison to the field. They cheer, but I sense their fear of being in the position of one of the fallen men. These ape men in flaming body’s, they celebrate the utter destruction of the monstrous man in front of them. The dispute is settled through moving a ball. Only one man may grasp this ball. This one man is chosen and protected by all the men. However, the small man with the ball, surrounded by the apes, seems to be afraid of the ball. Each time he receives the ball, he throws it away as soon as he possibly can. A fellow red bobbling man catches the ball and runs into his box. The crowd then erupts, and an earthquake then ensues. Bodies are everywhere, and I’m lost in the crowd of flailing corpses. The red bobbling men walk off the field, leaving behind a pungent trail. The aroma so strong that I begon to cry from its sheer strength. As they leave, I witness them removing their heads and walking off into the distance. The tiny people of the crowd follow them, admiring their ape-like ways.

Where did the combine go?

Chief Piece: “It’s the truth even if it didn’t happen.”

Write your piece in the space below. Work on being as descriptive as possible, using visual, auditory, tactile and olfactory imagery to bring the location to life and fully expose how the Chief would see it. Think about what you want to expose about the KO location and the people in it as well.

I sit cross legged on the ground and wrap my arms around my knees; hence,  pulling into myself attempting to make myself appear smaller. I still don’t understand why I was invited to “courageous conversation”, but the the hate the machines spew isn’t as loud in this room so I prepare to remain as long as possible. I almost desperately want to lounge on the deep couch; I want to relax and stop pretending to be stupid; I want to ask these kids what a “courageous conversation” is. I don’t give in to my desires and tuck my head down onto my knees pulling in even further to avoid the detection while kids walk in with their lunches. My mouth is watering because of the smell and I can taste the salt swirling in the air and seasoning the entire office. The sugar joins the group dancing with the salt in the air.

Short red hair, glasses and pink everything don the child who begins the meeting and to my utter shock appears to lead the meetings. I was certain that the well dressed man sitting cross legged in the chair congruous with the entrance would be the conductor. He is the only adult in the room and that usually implies authority but he sits among them. In fact, there don’t appear to be any forced divisions in the group. Everyone is comfortably sprawled on the available surfaces including the couch, chairs and like me the floor. The small girl with red hair who is apparently the leader introduces herself as Shelby to me. The other kids in the room all seem to know her and are unfortunately more interested in me. There isn’t anyone to tell them that I am deaf with me so I am faced with a predicament. Do I keep up my facade? I can’t sense the combine for possible the first time in my life. I heard it’s evil mutterings as I walked through the school's cafeteria to arrive at this destination; tables with boys who all wore the same garbs all adorned with the whale; tables of girls tapping on little black boxes. They were consumed by these rectangular machines as they slowly extracted their souls turning them into heartless robots for the combine.

I am catapulted back into the room when a girl taps my arm and notice the entire group is looking at me expectantly. Shelby realized that I had missed her question and says, “What pronouns do you prefer.” I’m being tested and don’t know the answer. In that moment I chose to pretend I still hadn’t heard her and try to be obviously def. She asks if she had somehow me and I wonder when the last time someone had been concerned about putting me down. The white people often discriminate against Native Americans and while in the Hospital I use my ethnicity to sell my story in this room there were many people of color and they don’t judge others like them.

Chief Piece - Math Classroom

Equations fill the air, choking everyone in the room. They slowly move in the breath of the wind from the open windows, until they fully surround their target, forcing themselves through their ears and deep into their minds. I can see them writhing in pain. Their eyes twist and turn, hypnotizing themselves to believe the right answer. There is only one right answer. Everyone knows that every problem has one set solution. Life has one set solution. One.

There is no room for creativity. The formulas are “body” guards that stand right inside the door, hiding until a spark appears in a small eye. Just a fleeting moment. Then, they open their mouths and suck all the light away. Their job is to make sure each child follows a formula. Words are burned into their chests with a pencil made of hot steel.

1. Always follow the teacher. They are the ultimate leader.
2. Do not show frustration or weakness. That is an automatic failure.
3. Everyone has a specific role. Do not break it.
4. Small mistakes can tear everything apart, so don’t mess up.
5. Stay in the box.

I want to hide in the closet and become invisible long enough to disappear completely. All of a sudden, a negative sign is misplaced, and the teacher sprouts fangs and roars; the sound rips through the air and stabs the little girl, creating another scar. The guards quickly take her away, as she has not followed the fourth burned rule. The vacant look in her eyes afterwards confirms that another one is lost.

I watch as each child is taken away into the abyss of society. I try to hold onto them. I try to not let them fall. They will never stop falling. The black hands that grip their minds are much stronger than my grip. I know that they are not completely broken, stolen, numb. (4) There is still time left, but with each fleeting moment, another screw that holds the creativity in their minds is painfully twisted undone.

All of a sudden, I hear a sound push its way through the walls. A laugh. It pierces my ears with sadness, but underneath the cracks I can see floating bubbles forcing their way steadily through. They are dancing and singing and softly bouncing through the air. (4A) The bubbles give me hope. I cannot see the owner of the joyous sound, but I can picture the screws tightening with each bubble that escapes their mouth. It’s a small break in the system. The guards jolt me out of my vision, as I can hear screaming and discipline that stifles the laughter under a bed of needles. The bubbles are all popped. Each and every single one is gone so fast, it seems as if they never existed. This place is no different than the ward. Happiness is gone so quickly that no one is sure if it even exists, and if it is just something we imagine. A scream erupts out my mouth, and the guards charge at me with ferocity, their needles piercing everything in my body until my mind becomes completely undone.

Chief Piece- Regan

This is utterly woeful. The first time they let me outside the ward since i went in and they take me to observe some damn high school. The only good thing that came out of this experiment was the decent food that the KO cafeteria provided me.  I don’t even know why i agreed to be part of this experiment, other than i had not gotten a taste of the outside world in over thirty years. So when they offered to let me be part of experiment in which they drag me to these places and see how different people react to the deaf, mute, dumb Indian tied up in a chair in the corner (4). By far this school has to be the worst place that they have taken me. The black boys wheeled me into the corner of the campus’ cafeteria and left, only coming back to observe when the kids showed up. However, they did not get to observe kids as individuals, only as mass groups. None of them even paid me a glance, but i got a good look at them.

The first thing i noticed is that a high school is not much different from the ward.  Everyone has their own groups located each distinct by one characteristic. You have the athletes flaunting their varsity jackets, the way i did when i was their age, and only talking about their own accomplishments. Then you have the gossiping girls or  the overachievers or the forgotten (4A). These forgotten are the people who have been cast off by the combine that controls them like the chronics in the ward. They sit off in their own seclusion saying nothing; however, they are much more then what they appear. While everyone else only notices actions and sayings, I look for the one thing that tells all about a person the eyes. The eyes of the forgotten kids tell their sad story, the unfocused pupils show the person deep in thought, constantly scanning and desperately searching for someone to notice them. The rest of the story is told by their slumped shoulders and sullen face as they come to the conclusion that they are doomed to a life off in the shadows of those who are more accomplished and important. They are consistently kept down by the teachers running this combine. This is most apparent when a teacher calls out a member of the forgotten for not wearing a tie, but ignores an athlete that makes the same mistake. I feel for this one kid and as i am being wheeled out without being noticed manage to make eye contact with them for long enough to know that this high school is nothing more than a ward using the facade of education to keep kids in the combine.

Homecoming, The Dancing Dungeon

Eight O’ Clock at night, I wander through the door toward the big desk. I get stopped by the teacher at the front door and she has a small black device and she tells me to speak, but I act as if I can’t hear her. Then she asks me if I am deaf, but I don’t respond so she can’t catch me faking. She scrunches her evil forehead and says I can go past, so I do. I get to the table to pay and I give them my $5. I walk inside and WHAM! I crash  into about seven other people. The massive crowd of teenage bodies rambling and moving about is overwhelming and I reside in a corner of shame and fear, hiding myself from the terrors of the crowd. As the dancing and craziness goes on I get more and more fearful of the other humans. I feel small compared to all the big people there. I hide from the others and attempt to leave, but I get stopped at the door. The terrifying evil teacher halts me in the doorway and tells me I can’t leave. I was trapped. I couldn’t escape the dungeon of crazed teenagers attacking the floor with their feet from their jumping. I escaped through the back door. That was terrifying. I thought I was dying.

Apara: Chief Piece

I have to jostle the people in the halls to get to the Theater. The rush of people actually moving is so different: there are no horrible sights - people crucified to the walls, people staring off into space, people turned into vegetables. Everybody dumps their backpacks in front of the auditorium like sacks of dead stones about to be ground into our lunch. Ugly, lively chattering noises invade my ears and worm their way into my head, sure to stay there for the rest of the day.

The Big Teacher pretends not to run things here, she hands the power of announcements over to her skinny white cronie, David. His presence is so small, yet it looks over the crowd like a tiger waiting to strike. David’s voice fills the air, while I pretend to follow along on the screen that hurts my eyes, and he calls up Mr. Bisgaard. He may be the most “powerful” person here, but we all know it is Big Teacher that wields the axe. The people are like a pulley with parts being constantly removed and replaced due to wear and fear. At the end of each announcement, I can hear the buzzing at the base of my skull; people talking and then clapping their hands off. I think that it is their way of avoiding being crucified. Little teachers glare at the cogs from their places in the shadows,

Big Teacher comes up next, and screams at us about citizenship and behavior. She threatens to send us to the axing factory, which is where all the good parts of the factory decide how to beat up the bad parts of the factory. If I get sent there, I have to go back to hell, so I decide to pay attention: “I don’t want to hear about drugs or alcohol or fights,” she says. Well, there’s no problem there. The white fog condensates if I drink or take drugs that the Big Teacher does not shove down my throat. They put me in a perpetual state of dis-ease, but it’s better than the shock shop. However, this place does have a lethargic shop. For whatever reason, the school decides to punish students by making them sit in a creaky room haunted by the ghosts of people bored to death, those ghosts whispering in my ear a series of pings extremely loud music that I can’t hear, and hissed swears.

Leaving is like trudging up, up, the never-ending staircase of life. Everyone drags their feet as little teachers usher the kids to their impending doom with large smiles on their faces. It is no use. We cannot fight the wave of people, we cannot stop moving. We are just another piece being placed in the machine, jostled, twisted, sanded down until we fit (with no regard of how much it hurts). The incessant noise at the end of assembly lodges itself in my head again, and for the rest of the morning I a whistling like madman, and the overseers glare at me like a defective cog.

Skylar Barron: Cafeteria Chief Piece

I waited in line for what seemed like hours on end, just to get the pizza. I started so far back in the line that I couldn’t even see the  food; however, I was slowly moving forward. I started to be able to see the pizza. First, I saw the end of the pizza. The pointy, sharp, dangerous edge. It was cut so precisely that it looked angry. The pizza started yelling at me, I thought it would stab me with its knife like end. Then as I started to see more and more of the pizza, the more and more angry it got. The pepperonis grew to the sizes of saucers and developed functioning eyeballs: they stared at me like they were plotting my most violent, brutal death. The pizza stuck out its tongue and spat at me when I came too close to it, but the worst part was when the wench looking lunch lady tried to put it on my plate. Both her and the pizza were the most angry, aggressive, alarming beings I have ever encountered(4). The woman - no. I don’t know if I can even refer to her as that. The creature- lifted up her choice of pizza slice to give to me, and she picked the most evil one. The pepperoni was angry, very angry. It was burned and smelled like wet dirt that has been left on the bottoms of shoes for too long, which is probably why it was angry. But the way she put it on my plate, the way she wound up with a full forced arm swing and punched the pizza down onto my plate, I swear was going to start and earthquake. There was so much force behind the delivering of the pizza onto my plate that my plate when flying out of my hands, down and down and down. (4.a) shattered. I could feel the fear build up in me. I could feel my insides tense up and then they began to eat themselves apart.  I could feel the eyes all lock on me and start seeing through me. I could hear the people start to whisper. Idiot. Idiot. Idiot. It was not my fault, but I was to blame. I could not. I did not. What to do? I let out a noise. It started off as a quiet groan, but it escalated, quickly. It turned into a high pitched, all consuming shriek that made everyone in the cafeteria think their ears were bleeding. I threw myself to the ground, and sat by the pizza. The pepperoni eyes were no longer angry, they were dead and sad. I picked the pizza up and coddled it. I lay on the floor with the pizza, as tears fell down my face. The tears landed onto the pizza. Tears that would once anger the pizza, now drowned it and put it out of its misery. I cried until the pizza was gone. Completely dead. And when I could feel that it was gone. I was gone too. Blackout.

Why Do We Laugh?

And, if you're interested in listening to a great Radiolab podcast episode on Laughter, listen to this:

Pink Floyd - Comfortably Numb (with lyrics)

Comfortably Numb relates to One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest as it is conversation between a doctor and a mental patient and it has a strong connection to drug use and LSD. It even had the working title "The Doctor" before it was officially changed to "Comfortably Numb." This song also came out in 1979, during the decade that spent much of its time reflecting on the counterculture of the 60s.

Quotes... (deep)

“The key to growth is the introduction of higher dimensions of consciousness into our awareness.”
- Lao Tzu

"A friend of mine drew 11 self-portraits during her first LSD trip"

https://www.reddit.com/r/Psychonaut/comments/1q8spm/a_friend_of_mine_drew_11_selfportraits_during_her/

This reminded me of the drawings in the book.

Contemporary Combine?

Magic Trip