When we passed people in the halls, Alex would announce, loudly it seemed to me, "Hey, guess what? Tom's on acid. Purple microdot! Isn't that wild?" He was mostly telling people we knew, and who wouldn't really care, but he was telling other people too, people I was scarcely acquainted with.

"Naw, he just making that up," I told everybody, rather unconvincingly, I thought, and hissed at Alex, "Quit telling everybody!"

At this point I began to feel some real serious paranoia starting to creep up on me. Luckily, Alex had a different class than me, so he finally went away, allowing me to relax somewhat.

Second period was Analytic Geometry, and I had an exam that day. That's the reason I had chosen that particular day: I loved doing math when I was high on reefer, and I wanted to try it on acid. Once the teacher had handed out the exams and I had something interesting to concentrate on, my paranoia subsided immediately. It only took me about five minutes to complete the whole exam. The numbers and the equations took on a life of their own, and solved themselves. It was fascinating. I worked through all the problems again to make sure I had them right, which I did, and then a third time just for the fun of it, and that probably took another five minutes total. Then I turned the exam in and opened my math book and worked some more problems for the rest of the hour.

Since I didn't run into Alex for a couple hours, my paranoia didn't have much reason to reappear. Sure enough, thanks to Alex, rumor had got around. But the people who approached me were relatively discrete, limiting their commentary to remarks like, "Far out, man," and not giving me a bunch of shit. I was enjoying my buzz, rather like a very light, intense reefer buzz at this point.

At lunchtime I met up with Alex again, but, since we were off campus, his little purple dots song didn't bother me too much. We met in the off-campus lot, me and Alex and three other guys, and went driving around. We were allowed to leave the campus at lunchtime, but we weren't supposed to drive our cars-- which was why everyone with any sense parked in the off-campus lot: it wasn't as tightly monitored and you could slip in and out fairly easily without being observed. We drove around in the neighborhood surrounding the school and smoked a couple joints.

Reefer always did for some reason really set my acid buzz off, and that day was no exception. I felt it coming on when we were in the car, and even more so walking back, but it really didn't hit me fully until I stepped through the doors into the cafeteria. Then it hit me all at once: the terrific roar of the crowd, the cacophony of voices, the clatter of chairs and trays. The mass confusion as people rushed back and forth all around me. Now I was seeing the trails: a sea of buzzing color, streaking by then swimming, flowing, melting. A mess, but a highly intricate and interesting mess. My eyes darted all around to take it all in. Sensing my agitation, Alex, walking beside me, started in on his song again. I was torn between fascination and terror. I wanted to watch, but I also wanted to run.

I was able to maintain my composure. Then, focusing my attention on individual people, I noticed that they had all become animals. Not the four-legged kind, but humans with the facial features of animals. Some were funny cartoon animals, others were sly or vicious animals. The type of animals they became were indicative of their character. Fat kids looked like pigs or elephants. Nerdy bookworm types became rats and weasels. I chuckled when I passed by them, turning my head to follow their movements, until another interesting character