Posts
Mortin Enaw on Earthpebbles
Right now I have two days sober, but before that I had 250 -- I was being really terrific. I'm an addict, but I'm not addicted to alcohol or cocaine or any of the things people from Earth get snagged by. I'm addicted to these:
Those are pebbles. Quartz pebbles, specifically. Rose quartz, really specifically. And I'm not from here; I'm a ferrule from the World of the Other Normals, which means I look like this --
-- and I find quartz pebbles highly awesome to smoke.
You know, I wish I could clarify what it is about smoking earthpebbles that I enjoy. I guess that's the nature of any drug -- if you could explain it, you wouldn't be caught up in it, would you?
When I light up some good quartz, I instantly have a certain looseness of mind, but along with that is a certainty -- a certainty that I'm doing the right thing and everything is going great. It's hard to be relaxed and certain at the same time!
But you know, honestly, with drugs, it's the lost moments that get you. I'm not the kind of person who smokes pebbles and then just sits around -- I like to get stuff done. But one time I smoked them and couldn't find my keys, and I spent 20 minutes looking for them until I realized that they were still in the door from when I came home excited to smoke, and I thought:
"You are doing NOTHING right now other than being a earthpebble addict."
Soon after that, I met Perry Eckert and went on some crazy adventures with him and actually got one of my friends KILLED by smoking earthpebbles, so there's that too. You can read about it in this book, The Other Normals:
As a result of these things I decided to quit earthpebbles. The first thing I needed was a wife. Luckily I have an amazing one. One who taught me that earthpebbles were fine for a younger person. That they were a phase that a lot of people go through. But that when I was smoking them, I was really trying to go back in time, and there's no drug in the world (any world) that can do that.
Now, I've stayed away from pebbles for almost a year -- except for a few days ago. I was celebrating the release of The Other Normals, which is the first book I've ever been a character in, and a friend of mine left me a little rose as a gift.
I saw immediately how I would like earthpebbles to be a daily part of my life again.
But then I tried to think: what had they really given me?
- They didn't help me make money
- They didn't help me with members of the opposite sex
- They didn't help me do anything artistic (I always thought they did, but when I looked at it later, I was like, Eh...)
--------------
Thanks for stopping by, Ned!
Don't forget to check out Ned's new novel, The Other Normals, available in book stores now!
