On My Sixteenth Birthday

When my estranged father offers to drop acid with me, I start to believe his story.

“I was driving my bus over the I-195 bridge.”

He draws an arc in the air.

“The bus was full of passengers when the acid kicked in.”

He drops his arm, sharp as a T-rule.

“I didn’t think I’d make it across the bridge. The world shifted: the bay now behind me; the bus lifted into the sky — horizontal planes became vertical.”

He floats his right fist off his left forearm.

“We, the bus, everything, drifting off into space.”

He smiles.

“The first time you do it, it should be with someone you trust. Open your hand.”

“You have a lot of people who aren’t good at writing yet telling you what to change about the way that you’re writing… It’s a lot of mediocrity feeding on itself. So you better be radical, and you better hate everyone. Not that I did personally, but that I had to if I was going to protect the thing in me that I knew I wanted to grow.”

— Ottessa Moshfegh