Is it possible to unravel the ego, and if so, to what end? 

Suzi Greenberg, directionless art-school graduate, is in trouble. Veelura Vultee, the high priestess of the Heart of Gold Coven, lures Suzi into the fold with a Helping Friendly Book of arcane secrets and promises to lead Suzi to the nexus of existence located at the center of the dreamscape. 
 
Suzi unravels her identity as directed, but finds the book’s wisdom neither helping nor friendly when her premature omniscience compels the universal force of balance to sequester her in existential purgatory to protect the duplicitous concept of duality upon which the innocence of humanity relies.

In a convergent, yet unwitting venture into the dreamscape, the friends, whom Suzi 
mistakenly discarded after graduation, establish a band of Psycho-Cartographers 
to research the effects of an evolution accelerating elixir and learn of Suzi’s peril while mapping the landscape of perception.

They harness an imperceptible quantity of mass that has gone missing from the International Prototype Kilogram to power a sonic black-hole which transits them to the dreamscape through phase-cancelled space to reach Suzi at the fateful Grateful Dead concert where their collective journey began. 

Can the Psycho-Cartographers rescue Suzi without further corrupting the duality that preserves existence? The fate of one girl, and reality itself, hang in the balance.  

Suzi Greenberg and her roommate, Eve Mendel, sat on the floor between their splattered easels consulting the tickets-by-mail instructions for the Grateful Dead spring tour. It was Suzi’s final winter at Ball State University, and adulthood was hitching a ride on May’s rapid pursuit. She resolved to embrace graduation as if she had aspirations for her future, confident that Mediterranean beauty and a fine arts degree in sculpture would be enough. She didn’t know exactly what it could be enough for, but had faith that the universal flow would deliver the blueprints of her dreams before her father
drafted them himself.

“I can’t believe we have to wait almost four more months for these shows. I’m ready right now,” Suzi said as she fought to unravel
the tangles in her unruly curls.

“Infinity months is more like it.” Eve corrected her inaccurate measurement of time. “It isn’t healthy, all that waiting and wondering.”

“My soul’s got a powerful ache for some reckless abandon.” Suzi stretched out her legs hoping to release the tension which had
stealthily burrowed its way into her awareness.“The shows’ll feel extra buttery after Matsuya’s Intermediate II class. What could be better than seeing the Dead in Las Vegas after four days of shiatsu massage?”

The air conditioned taxi pulled up to the entrance of utopia. Suzi and Eve climbed out, and with the first breath of desert air, their mouths felt like they were sucking on blow driers.

 “You be careful,” The taxi driver said. “They’re all crazies in there.”

“Don’t worry.” Suzi collected her change from the curry-scented driver. “We may be crazy, but we’re nice too.”

 “Yeah, we’re reeeeel nice ‘n reeeeel crazy.” Eve sounded like a deranged hillbilly and began a jimble dance to shed her skin of sanity.

Suzi joined Eve in the two-step shimmy which escalated into a spinning hug. Their howls of joy were echoed by nameless other deranged wolves in the vicinity who were pleased to acknowledge their arrival, and the taxi driver departed with his stereotype still intact.

They walked with purpose toward the Sam Boyd Arena propelled by a force which had already enveloped them. Their pace was brisk and steady, keeping them silent on their determined trek toward Mecca. With each step, their anticipation grew until they flashed their tickets at the parking lot attendants. And once beyond the pearly gates, the heavenly jamboree unfolded before them in all its sacred grandeur. They had arrived.

 “I just never get tired of this,” Eve said, grinning as they passed a group of barefooted hoola-hoopers enjoying the wide expanse of unpopulated parking lot. “I can see why that taxi driver thinks we’re all nuts, but who wouldn’t want to be around nuts?”

 “Mounds,”Suzi panted and pulled a slow stream of hot air through her cracked lips which were in desperate need of hydration. “That’s who.”

 “Mounds bars don’t know what they’re missing,” Eve said, tipping her head back to let her hair tickle her shoulders. “There’s nothing I’d rather be doing than being right here, right now. This is the whole point of everything.”

Eve wished she hadn’t said that last comment, or even thought it. Her act of conscious observation scared away the bashful sense of euphoria, sending it scurrying back to parts unknown.

Suzi nodded in agreement at Eve’s assessment of the purpose of existence and leaned her hands on her knees to catch her blow-dried breath. She tried Driscol’s trick of biting the back of her tongue to release the last of her saliva reserves and used her shirt to wipe the sweat rolling down her belly. “Dry heat my ass.”

They continued walking across the periphery of the lot toward the stadium and reached the first, full row of cars. A group of dread-locked hippies lounged in dusty beanbag chairs on the gravel next to their van. They appeared fat and wavy, like a mirage, distorted from the heat rising
from their hibachi grill. Scents of musk, marijuana and charred beef hung suspended in the fragrant air.

 “I’d kill for one of those meat sticks,” Suzi said. “I’d get one right now, but I’m too thirsty. Remember to remind me to get one later, k?”

 “Oh, okay.” Eve’s response was thick with sarcasm. “And if you remember later, remind me to remind you to get one, k?”

 “You’re no help,” Suzi said. She needed frequent reminders more than Eve realized, but wasn’t ready to explain the reason.

 “Why am I supposed to remember for you?” Eve asked. “If you want a meat stick so bad, won’t the idea just be in your head?”

“Probably, but just in case, I want you to be my backup. I want eating charred meat to be an action item on our itinerary,” Suzi pleaded. “Are you with me?”

 “I’m with you.” Eve put her arm around Suzi like a protective sister.

They walked down the parking lot row trying to scope out a good spot to set up their pre-show camp until the main gates opened.  A clan of seasoned fans sat on blankets in front of cars parked at cockeyed angles to form an arrogant horseshoe of seclusion. They wore tie-dyes of
authentic origin and directed the girls’ attention to another blanket covered in friendship bracelets, knit caps, corduroy overalls, patch-worked halter tops, and feathered roach clips which they were selling to earn gas money to get to the next shows on the tour.

Suzi and Eve continued walking past the vendors, winding and twisting deeper and deeper into the Dead-head’s sanctuary. They stopped to buy 32-oz bottles of Samuel Smith’s Nut Brown Ale from a child sitting on a cooler in front of a Volkswagen bus. The little girl offered an innocent smile and removed the bottle caps with the dexterity of someone much older, a dichotomy which didn’t seem entirely out of place.

Suzi swallowed long gulps of her beer, not stopping to breathe until she’d finished a quarter of the bottle. “That girl seemed so happy, I’ll bet she smiles like that all of the time. It was so genuine.”

“So would you if you didn’t have to go to school because you were on tour with wicked cool parents all of the time,” Eve said, pressing her dripping bottle to her cheek.

“MmmmmHmm.”Suzi guzzled her flavorful ale and agreed with a throaty inflection in lieu of an articulate response.

They walked inward from the edge of the parking lot’s complex circulatory system toward the crowded arteries connected to its beating heart, Shakedown Street.

“Should we go all the way?” Eve asked.

Suzi hesitated, not quite ready to traverse the length of the lot along its most populated aisle. The corridor of earthly delights was teaming with pilgrims on missions of consumption. Above the crowd were index fingers pointed skyward in hopes of ticket blessings. Tour shirts and
tie-dyed onesies called out to be purchased. Paraphernalia abounded and micro-brews beckoned. The fans ate veggie burritos with space butter chasers and sleuthed out morsels of Dead-head enchantments.

“Yeah, I’m ready. Let’s do it.” Suzi exhaled, preparing herself for the claustrophobic experience by soaking the back of her neck with the condensation dripping from her beer, enough to have already loosened the label to a pulpy mess.

They stepped over blankets to reach the edge of the row and squeezed between tables to become one with the slithering masses. Suzi heard a voice, whisper-soft, weave around them and disappear. “Ooooooms, Ooooooms, Ooooooms, Ooooooms.”They looked for the elusive source, but all they saw was a buzzing hive of tan skin and tie-dyes.

“Let’s keep our ears out,” Eve said. “They seem extra stealthy today.”

They pulled over, taking time to observe the happenings and fine tune their attention to the frequency of the hive before merging back into the crowd. They listened for the faintest passing murmurings of another traveling purveyor of magical goodies and used their keenest senses
to identify the next invisible vendor, tracking him until he’d reached a discreet location on the side of a table stacked with piles of dancing bear
bumper stickers.

Suzi tugged the back of the mushroom whisperer’s shirt. “How much?” she asked. And after deeming her worthy, he removed his cap to display his wares.

They completed their illicit transaction and stowed it deep in Suzi’s cleavage before meandering through the crowd toward the west end of Shakedown to inspect their purchase in private.

“I wonder who the band has to pay to allow fan vending. We’ve never been to any other concerts where it was allowed, do you think the stadium gets the money or the city?” Eve interrupted herself and pointed to a girl taking her shirt off in preparation to be air brushed in glow-in-the-dark paisley swirls. “That’s going to be so cool when it gets dark out. She’s got some balls.”

 “I’ll bet you like girls with balls.” Suzi pretended to take a handful of the topless girl’s imaginary testicles and yanked them around like a gay porn star in need of sensitivity training.

A sensibly dressed man moved in front of Eve and obstructed her view. “Look at that tuck-in. Those dock shoes are ridiculous.”

“Forget the shoes.” Suzi steered Eve to the side for a better viewing angle. The flesh artist spayed a neon mist to cover the ballsy girl’s bare chest. “What about that Baptist minister haircut? What events could have transpired for this complete misfit to end up here? Do you think he wants to be here?”

“I have no idea, but he seems pretty interested in the airbrushing operation,” Eve said. “I can’t stand tucked in shirts. They dilute the purity of our un-tucked scene. Why would anyone tuck their shirt in if they didn’t have to? What kind of a person chooses to tuck on their own volition, when tucking isn’t required.”

“His wrongness is creepy. I feel like I’m being violated,” Suzi said. “Let’s move it along. We better set the levels of our intruder alert system to eleven. I’ll bet that guy’s a narc. I see another hostile tuck-in over there, up about twenty yards. He’s checking out those bongs and looks like he’s ready to pounce.”

“Shit, I’ll bet this place is crawling with them.” Eve scanned Shakedown again for signs of an imminent sting activity. “That must be why the shrooms guy was asking you so many questions before he showed you what he had in his cap.”

“Naw, I think it’s cool. Don’t get all freaked out and start up a huge parade of the horribles.” Suzi pulled Eve to the side and put her hands on her shoulders. “Come on, you’ve got to shake the bad mojo.”

Suzi initiated a shimmy dance to restore Eve’s compromised jimble. Uninvited strangers joined in the dance to support their cause and disappeared back into the crowd once they’d laughed themselves breathless.

“He looks like a buffoon, totally incompetent.” Eve shielded her eyes from the sun to better monitor the tuck-in’s movement. “Let’s go diffuse the situation. Those vendors don’t deserve this kind of hassle. We can go all witchy-poo on him. What’s that thing you do again?”

 “You mean casting glamours?” Suzi answered.

 “Yeah, that’s it,” Eve said.

 Suzi reached into her bra to lift her girls northward and tucked the contraband down to the bottom of her cleavage. “Hoist ‘em up soldier, all tits on deck.” They evaluated each other for lopsided perkiness and sidled up to their target.

“I like your tee shirt.” Eve flirted with Officer Dick, disgusted by his comically, generic tour shirt and the pimples along the straight edge of his military haircut. “The colors are so evenly distributed. And the yellow-green combo is so bright. Did you get it here in the lot?” She looked around like she was trying to find a shirt just like it for herself.

The bong vendors turned to each other and laughed at Eve’s blatant condescension to which the tuck-in was oblivious. One of the vendors bowed to Suzi in thankful prayer, hoping that their unexpected distraction would lure the bad man away.

Suzi held eye contact with the vendors to share suppressed giggles and was certain she’d met them before, but couldn’t place where. She absently sniffed her scented wrist and the memory of Veelura and her brothers, Teek and Voltar, solidified into recognition. Teek gave Suzi another one of his kryptonite smiles which sent tingles of lust to her loins. She wished Driscol had been there to witness the event, but she squelched the thought upon remembering her decision to abandon all hopes for romantic advancement.

Teek glanced at the tuck-in and then back to Suzi with a silent plea to continue distracting the imposter so he’d stop tallying the incriminating inventory. Suzi returned to Officer Dick’s side, and Eve handed her the sweet-talking baton.

Suzi put her hand on the tuck-in’s shoulder. “Aren’t you hot in those gym socks? I’ll bet your feet are really sweaty,” she said in a syrupy, sorority-girl voice.

Eve continued the double-team play and ran her finger across the back of his shirt which any true, Grateful Dead fan would never be caught dead in. “Did you see any of these shows? We’ve seen about half of them.”

“We were at this one,” Suzi said and sneakily turned his body away from the table of paraphernalia to get a better view of his shirt. She underlined the show listing below his shoulder blade with a sensual caress. “It was Brent’s second to last show.”

“Tinley Park, that’s the New World Music Theatre, right?” Eve asked Suzi, trying to maintain the flow of conversation to stall Officer Dick as long as possible. Teek and Voltar scrambled to pack up the most incriminating of the items as fast as they could.

Eve reminisced with Suzi about the other shows on the tour, both swirling their fingers in long strokes across Officer Dick’s back as they spoke. He shuddered and let out a tiny moan of ecstasy.

“Yeah, those New World shows were killer,” Suzi answered Eve. “Remember the St. Stephen they played on the second night? It was so good it made me cry my eyes out.”

“We were in the lawn for that show.” Eve included the tuck-in in their conversation using most seductive voice she could muster. “It must have rained the day before because it was just a sloppy mud pit. I loved the way the mud squished through my toes, but it made them so dirty. Did
you see that show?”

“No, I didn’t catch that one,” he said in an awkward attempt to converse with the alien seductresses.

“Which ones did you see?” Suzi tried to appear interested in his answer as if she actually believed that he’d attended one of the shows listed on the back of his shirt.

Suzi bent down to adjust her ankle bracelet and lingered by his feet to offer a clear view of her glistening cleavage.

“I don’t remember.” He seemed uncomfortable by their probing questions which the girls both knew would always yield the same evasive response. Their mission was a success, and he gawked as long as possible before his reluctant exit. “My friends are waiting for me. It was really nice to
meet you girls.”

“It was nice to meet you too. Enjoy the show,” The girls said in unison.

The threat moved safely out of range to be ridiculed by his undercover posse. Suzi and Eve returned to the table which had been cleared of its incriminating merchandise.

“We rule! We rule! We Rule!” They chanted and danced in circles around the emptied table.

“Thank you so much. That was a close one,” he said and shined his spine tingling smile at Suzi. “Don’t I know you?”

“She looks familiar to me too. Where do we know her from?” Voltar asked Teek as he hurried to the back of their windowless van to adjust the hastily packed boxes.“You guys were total day-savers. That situation could’ve gone all wrong if you hadn’t come to our rescue.”

Voltar scrambled up to the front of the van and returned with a book. The binding was tasseled and the front cover reminded Suzi of Eve’s artwork which covered the walls of their room at the boarding house. “Here, I want you to have this. It was given to me for my selfless assistance in  a similar narrowly averted crisis. I want you to use it until the correct opportunity arises for you to pass it on to another deserving day-saver.”

Teek slammed the doors of the van shut and flung a bulky bag over his shoulder. “Look, we’re gonna take off for a while, but I want to talk to you. I remember you from the Brown County Wiccan Festival.” Voltar pulled Teek’s shirt sleeve and dragged him into the crowd on Shakedown Street.

“Look for me,” Teek yelled back to Suzi and was enveloped by the hive.


Keep reading for a peek into the sciency themes...

Scientists don’t know for certain why the official International Prototype Kilogram (IPK) -  a cylinder first made in 1889 from an alloy of platinum and iridium – has been losing mass at about 50 micrograms per year.
 
Over the last 100 years, many copies of the official, physical IPK artifact – kept in a storage facility near Paris - have been created and stored in vaults around the world as a means to verify the mass of the original International Prototype Kilogram (IPK).  Six copies were created along with the original in 1889.  To date, there are 47 copies – all of which adhere to stringent storage and measurement standards.
 
Yet much to the dismay of the scientific community, an undeniable trend of “mass drift” has become evident since the second round of mass verifications occurring between 1946 and 1950.  More troubling still, is the uncertainty as to whether the official IPK is losing mass, or if the IPK and all of its copies are actually gaining mass, but at differing rates.  If the later is true, the IPK would rank second to last in a contest which may ultimately disprove the second law of thermodynamics.

The third round of mass verifications, beginning in 1989, is currently underway and will continue through 1992.  With one third of the measurements complete, every copy except one has gained mass.  The greatest drift, copy #32, was 60 micrograms – while the copies which were first calibrated in 1946 (#43 and #47) and the original IPK were measured to have the lowest mass drift.
 
At the Conference on Weights and Measures held in Las Vegas, Nevada in the spring of 1991 – the national metrological laboratories continued discussions regarding a future redefinition of the kilogram – the only of the seven base units of measurement which is directly defined in terms of a physical artifact rather than a property of nature such as light or the rate of atomic decay.
 
Since the official redefinition of the meter – which occurred in 1960 – as a value derivable using the speed of light, the primary objective of metrology has been to find a way to define the kilogram in terms of some fundamental, consistent constant.  Two possibilities have attracted
initial attention: the Plank constant and the Avogadro constant.
 
However, if either of these two options are to be adopted, rigorous research will be required to determine how the Ampere, Kelvin, Candela and Mole will be affected – since their values are directly linked to the definition of this man made platinum-iridium cylinder.
 
Additionally, Avogadro's constant isn't a specific number; it's a range of values that can be determined experimentally, but not with enough precision to be a single number.  A proposal has been made to pick a candidate value for this elusive constant, 84446886 (cubed).  This value falls within the range of accepted values and is divisible by 12 – a fact which must to be true in order for the definition of a Mole to remain valid.
 
Some scientists insist that the missing (or additional) mass of the kilogram is acceptable and amounts to no more than ‘the breath of god’.  However the mass discrepancy is significant and requires precise measurement in a world that is measuring time in ultra-sub-nanoseconds and length in ultra-sub-nanometers.  The Committee of Weights and Measures will continue to explore this fascinating research effort to define the limits of measurement precision.

Mannie Foldsky, doctoral candidate in organic chemistry, presented his discovery last Thursday at the Interdisciplinary National Conference of Psycho-Physicists held at the Stardust Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada. He discussed his preliminary new success in distilling proto-cells which he described as the essence of one’s essence, a purified reduction containing genetic evolutionary information, free of fragmented mitochondrial noise.
 
He claimed that the research was a triumph, coming as close as anyone has ever come to evolving the “soul” by turning chemicals into pseudo-biological organisms.

He explained how the distilled proto-cells are modeled after (VLDL) very low density lipids, which are the perfect vehicles for trapped molecules of
endocanabinoids and other ergot alkaloids containing the source code for replication. These encoded lipid proteins are similar to those used to create illicit psychotropic drugs which can produce mild to extreme hallucinations. By harnessing energy from various external sources such as sun light, chemical reactions, vibrations from colored light and music, and something he defines as “form constants”, Foldsky has radically modified these basic proteins to create a self-replicating, evolving system which he claims satisfies the conditions of life.
 
“I’ve made more progress in determining how the membrane of a proto-cell could grow and divide” explains Foldsky, “and I’ve been able to copy a very limited set of arbitrary genetic sequences. My ultimate goal is to perfect this process as a means to enhance and accelerate evolution.”

Foldsky explained that his next hurdle will be to induce controlled self-replication of his own encoded proto-cells, which he has named The Ouisa, inspired by the Greek feminine noun which means “To Be”.
 
When asked how the elixir could be produced, Foldsky explained “Once you’ve created the initial genetic base for the substrate and activate it with the catalyst, you can easily extract information from the many initial influences because the modified proteins are so sensitive. Then, I can simulate trillions of random events, which in turn, can produce billions of evolutionary iterations. Then, by controlling the “degrees of freedom” in producing
these random events, customized evolution can be attained. The final product, the Ouisa, is then inhaled as a fine mist and the evolutionary magic
begins.”
 
His research showed that specially extracted, ergot infused membranes, essentially fat bubbles, could theoretically manipulate DNA molecules via simple thermal cycling.  Early tests showed that these manipulated molecules responded to various sensory stimuli in unique and unexpected
ways.
 
“Since I will be testing the Ouisa initially on myself only, I won’t be able to objectively document the results,” Foldsky said. “If everything proceeds as planned, I will need to recruit a research team of Psycho-Cartographers to help me chart the landscape of this new state of being.”
 
When asked if Psycho-Cartography was a new format for research documentation, Foldsky explained, “My team will assist me in creating a multi-dimensional model to catalog the Ouisa’s bio-chemical effects on the psyche in order to capture the intersections where various aspects of consciousness intersect.”

The INCPP (Interdisciplinary National Conference of Psycho-Physicists) has awarded Mr. Foldsky and the Ball State University chemistry department a research grant to fund additional research.