Microdosing at Cornet Café
written by: D. Rolland Jr.
The six-hour workweek was a hell of a relief. It arrived just in time, too, like something sent down from the clouds, just when I was about to splinter from burnout. I’d clock out by 2:30 and still have the juice to actually do something with myself. Write. Think. Feel. I wasn’t always running on fumes like after a full day of pretending to be some competent adult. Today was the last of those blessed early outs, and being a Thursday, it felt ripe for a solo coffee sit with my laptop, some books laid out inside a cool café in the city. That gorgeous, public solitude.
Only thing was, I left my gear at home. And my confidence was still hanging in yesterday’s shirt. So I turned back. Made it to the apartment. Sat on the edge of the bed like I was waiting for an answer. The quiet was something holy. My neighbors weren’t stomping or playing reggaeton like usual. The world was holding its breath for me.
I took advantage of the quiet, and I read for a minute, something spiritual, I think. But then slammed the book shut. Too much noise. I was full up. I sat there in that afternoon light staring at the poster on my wall, this painting of a head made entirely out of brains, like it was trying to push itself out at me. My ears started to ring from the silence, and I wondered if it was the Wi-Fi signals crawling through me, trying to make contact. Or if maybe I’d just gotten too used to stimulation, like a dog expecting dinner at six.
The silence got sacred. I thought, God, maybe I’m actually brave. Who else sits and stares down their own damn thoughts like this without even music? No feed. No noise. Just me and whatever crawls out.
And then the thought came, gentle at first, like a breeze under the door: I should microdose.
I had a tab leftover from some half-baked spiritual experiment a few months ago. I didn’t even think. Just walked over to the pen cup, pulled out the X-acto, made the tiniest incision. A sliver, really. I paused. Thought about taking more. But didn’t. I placed it on my tongue like it was communion.
Brushed off my laptop, sucked in my gut before the mirror, and left.
The drive was silent, on purpose. I didn’t want Billie or Chet or even the news. Just the air conditioner and my own hum.
I parked in the usual spot, “two-hour parking, enforced 6 a.m. to 10 p.m.” and walked into Downtown Cornet Cafe. Beautifully empty. Shade and misters. I ordered a green tea because I was being “responsible,” and not adding caffeine with LSD. I then mumbled my way through what resembled an attempt at conversation with a cute barista who clearly couldn’t hear me. Or maybe I just couldn’t speak. Or maybe she was busy, but now I had left.
Inside, the booths were occupied by an older couple having what sounded like the longest conversation of their marriage. I turned around. Accidentally slammed the door. Felt like I’d committed a felony.
Outside again, I found a table. It wobbled. My tea nearly took a dive, and I had to sip both it and the water to steady them. My laptop looked disgusting. Smudged, hair on the keys. I wiped it down with my finger like a raccoon and moved inside again when the old couple finally left.
I sat in that beautiful booth meant for six and opened my writing. Started reading the first short story. Awful. Smug. Like I was trying to be clever in some bar-window reflection scene. Deleted it. Deleted another line. And another. Suddenly, the story was too short and too hollow. Like someone who just got their braces off but forgot how to smile.
Next story. Two old women talking about nothing. Cute, maybe. But not real. Not honest. My friends will read this and think I’m unhinged. Or worse, boring, but tell me they like it anyways.
Panic scratched at the back of my chest. The acid. I could feel it now. It was not strong, but sticky. Like something slowly pressing its fingers into my thoughts and leaving fingerprints.
“Relax,” I told myself. “Breathe. You’re just thinking too much.”
I opened a Bukowski book to recalibrate, but when the barista came back, I hid the cover. Didn’t want her to think I was some misogynist or something.
I heard words come out of her mouth, but couldn’t place them.
“Huh?” I blinked.
“Need some ice? …For the tea?” she asked.
“Oh. Yeah, sure. Ice would be..um. splendid,” I said, and immediately hated myself for using the word splendid.
She gave me a confused look, I think, that made me want to jump out a window, and then she left.
I read some Bukowski, and it helped, a little. I laughed. Sat straighter. Tried to look “casually brilliant” in case she walked back in. But when she did, I could barely mutter “thanks” for the ice. I was all posture, no poetry.
Time passed. I checked my watch: 4:30 p.m. Usually the end of my workday. I should’ve been feeling ahead of schedule. But instead, I was full-on tripping, alone, paranoid, and not in a good way.
This was the point I usually wished for a friend. Not even to talk, just someone close enough to say, “You’re fine.” But I had no one. Just the gothic paintings on the café wall and a stomach full of dread. Panic was now a pot of water placed over a flame. I packed up.
I thought about calling someone. A friend. Anyone. But just picturing that conversation made my skin crawl. “Hey, I’m high and unraveling at a café, can you set aside your own time to validate my existence and not judge me for the next ninety minutes?” No thanks. I couldn’t stomach explaining the mess I’d made, not to someone else and definitely not out loud. I didn’t want comfort. I wanted out.
I ducked into the bathroom to wash my face. There was some surreal local art framed above the toilet – a watercolor of a frog in a business suit? I tell myself, “You’re fine.” Sure. Fine. I nodded at it like we understood each other and left.
Back at my car, I opened the trunk, tossed in my backpack like it was radioactive, and grabbed my sketchpad. A walk would help. Had to. Movement made it all less sharp. Maybe the breeze on my face would whisper the words “You’re fine.”
The air outside was warm and indifferent. Downtown Tucson shimmered in that specific heat that makes shadows feel like hallucinations. I walked fast, like the anxiety might not catch me if I kept moving. I passed a pole plastered with stickers—one read, “Being Human Is Illegal,” I think. But I laughed out loud anyways. Maybe too loud. It echoed. I flinched.
Armory Park was scattered with the usual quiet bodies—people sitting still in that way that says they’ve been moving too long while pretending not to be baking in the heat. I found a patch of grass that didn’t reek of urine and sat down, carefully, like the earth might bite.
In front of me, across the street, was the children’s museum. You can hear the sounds of children playing, which is oddly calming, like background music from a better life. I look up at the skyline and pass my hands through the grass as I observe the sunset. The grass is a bit more coarse than I had anticipated, dry and stubborn, but it’s better than being inside. I pull out my pad but decide not to sketch or do anything in order to cleanse my headspace. Action felt risky.
I’m still occasionally feeling hints of panic deep inside me, like emotional indigestion. I distract myself by breathing, and when that doesn’t work, I start drawing in my pad. “It helps,” I tell myself.
It is still incredibly hard to focus as I try to draw the outline of the skyline I am observing. The lines feel slippery.
I stop and take a listen to what sounds like an older man, maybe a parent, playfully yelling as they play. I begin to resume drawing. My skyscraper is decently drawn for using a mechanical pencil. I take a moment to shade one side of it to add some depth and texture. The screaming continues. It’s not intelligible, but it has gone on a little too long to be a parent playing with a child. It sounds unhinged, mildly apocalyptic.
I look at what I was drawing and see that I’ve drawn a happy, smiling face on one side of the building and a dark, menacingly evil grin on the other. I didn’t plan that. It just happened. The screaming is still going on, and the voice is starting to sound really coarse and unsafe. I begin to realize that it’s probably coming from the other side of the children’s museum. The man nearest me in my periphery sits up and notices something. Not me, our eyes don’t meet, but something passes. A mutual alert.
I see a police cruiser approaching from the direction of the yelling. I decide this place is not safe for me psychologically. Too porous. Too strange. I decide to visit the bar across the street.
I crossed the street into a bar I knew too well, the building was once a funeral home, and the seats inside were church pews. It is very dark inside, sparse yellow lamps provide the only visible light. I order an Old Fashioned. Couldn’t read the menu due to my blurry eyes and electric brain. The bartender looked at me like I was a ghost he half-recognized from a bad dream.
The place was dim and mostly empty. Safe enough. No screaming. No police. No cute barista. I didn’t need company; I needed something strong enough to bully the acid into a corner. Closed out immediately so I wouldn’t look like a drunk, like I had a plan. Took a sip. It was good. Smooth. Too smooth. Then I made my way to the bathroom.
The bathroom was old, like antique old. Dim bulb, cracked tile, the smell of bleach, and resignation. It reminded me of the café earlier, the gothic booth, the faded wallpaper, the moment before panic kicked in. I stared at the door while I pissed. Someone had scrawled “Graffiti is overrated if true.” But “overrated if true” was crossed out and replaced with “boring.” I imagined adding “life” above the graffiti part. Life is boring. Life is overrated if true. I chuckled to myself and washed up.
Back at the bar, I returned to my drink, offered the bartender a soft compliment, something vague, probably unheard. Took my glass and found a small table, sat down, hoping no one would join and talk to me and oust me. I tried to look busy, pulled out a notebook, and scribbled down the graffiti bit, hoping I looked more writer than lunatic. Then realized: that might make me more approachable. I stood up, moved to the back of the bar, sat again. Took another gulp. Didn’t even taste it.
The TV was playing baseball highlights. Silent. I thought about finding a sports bar. It would be louder, with more alcohol, distractions from my current state, and maybe a buzz to dull the panic. But the thought of navigating a conversation in this state? No way in hell. If someone were to even ask me “what team you rooting for,” I might black out and wake up in a straitjacket. Even checking my phone felt dangerous, what if there were messages I needed to answer? Emails? Missed calls? So I buried it in my pocket and kept sipping.
I checked my notebook. What I wrote was illegible, just scribbles and panic. Took a breath. Then another. Then drank like the glass was a lifeline. No second round. No courage for it. Just a ghost finishing his ritual. I wanted to be home. That felt like a plan. I could do that.
Eventually, I stumbled out, poured myself a paper cup of water from the self-serve station. Knocked over the stack. Loud crash. Everyone looked. I felt like a walking apology.
Back at the car, I sat in the dark and cued up Billie Holiday, “Strange Fruit.” She knew. She always knew. It was getting dark. I told myself I’d stay parked for a bit, feel it out. Skipped a few tracks until I found the one that hit just right. Hummed along. Relaxed. Lights on. Engine on. I started driving.
Slow. Deliberate. Every turn, a whispered prayer. Made it home by instinct and miracle.
Still tripping, but calm. Stable enough to fake composure. Got inside. Spotted a pack of American Spirits and immediately needed a cigarette. Changed into soft clothes. Poured myself vodka, just a little, for the nerves. Sat on the porch with the smoke. Just before closing the door behind me, I saw her.
Big black widow. Right there by the frame. Staring. No blink. No movement. Just there. I laughed. Thought: good omen. Some salesman wouldn’t ring the bell now.
Nearly locked myself out. Caught the door at the last second. Miracle number two.
On the porch, smoking, sipping, breathing. Panic flirted with the edges, but I kept it out. I was home. Alone. Safe. Sad, but safe.
Glenn Miller still echoed faintly in my head like I was still driving home. Another sting of panic and guilt. I told myself again: home. Safe. Let it go. I got lost in thought. Mumbled to myself. Realized I never take it easy. I’m always pushing. Always writing. Always grinding for meaning. Then I argued with myself: maybe I’m intense, but maybe that’s what makes me different.
And just like that, I decided: I should write. Be intense. Be me.
“Maybe all of this was meant to happen tonight,” I told myself, sipping vodka, sitting down in my little office. Oldies playing low. Maxine Sullivan now, her voice wrapping around me like gauze.
I looked at my typewriter. A page was already there. Blank, mostly. I tried to read what I’d written earlier. Gibberish. I didn’t care. I started typing again. Free association. No editing. No shame. Just letting it out. The keys jammed here and there. I paused for vodka.
Then I got stuck. Spiraled. Inferiority. Mediocrity. Madness.
I wasn’t typing anymore. I wasn’t even thinking about the writing. Just trapped.
Poured the rest of the vodka. Gagged on the taste. Listened to more music. Tried to sing along. Yawned. Dizzy. Drowsy.
Made it to bed. Took the warm vodka with me. Sipped it until I couldn’t.
Silence.
Ringing in my ears.
Still tripping. Checked the time. 9 p.m.
“Bedtime,” I said aloud. Pushed the glass away. Closed my eyes.
Then panic hit again.
Woke up. Confused. Sweating.
11 p.m.
Still high. Still lost.
Breathed in and out. Passed out.
Woke again. Drenched. Peeled off my clothes. Laid back down.
Spinning.
“You’re a fraud. You’re a liar,” I heard myself think.
“Just kill yourself.”
Didn’t mean it. Or maybe I did.
I slept. Kind of.
By 3 a.m., the trip was gone. Left a chalk outline behind.
Got up at 7. Alarm screaming. Workday.
Hungover, but not like alcohol. Like someone sandpapered my brain. Everything felt slow. Distant. Flat. Joyless. Worse than depression, just absence.
Work was grey static. Forgettable. Motion without meaning.
Got home. Crashed. Slept.
Woke up. Friday night. Nothing in me wanted to move.
No food. No energy. No will.
Wandered the apartment. Remembered the vodka. Drank what was left.
It was warm and stale. It was awful, but it wasn’t even the most awful thing inside of me.
I bumped my elbow on the typewriter. Swore in pain, then looked at the paper still in it.
I read what I wrote.
It was Sloppy. Rambling. Written in the voice of someone trying not to vanish.
But it couldn’t be. Maybe it was good.
I read it again.
And again.
Then I cried.
It wasn’t a loud, dramatic kind of crying, just the slow kind that leaks out of you when you remember you’re still a person.
The tears seemed to extract the dark awfulness that had consumed me that day, and it made me cry more and feel again. These were the tears you get from a hug that validates you and reminds you that “You’re Fine.”
I take the paper out and hold it in my hands like it was the only real thing I’d touched all day.
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