I lay awake on my bed this night, looking up at the cracked ceiling of my apartment. Alone, bored, not able to find a vein. That is how I usually am, and that is how I find myself tonight. When I do get some shut eye, it's restless. Filled with painful pictures and memories from my past. Lately my dreams have been of my ex-girlfriend. She left me not a long time ago. I miss the feeling of her milky white flesh pressing against my body at night. Her warm breath blowing on my chest. Waking in the morning cradling her petite body in my arms. Letting out a sigh, I rose from my bed and ambled in to my kitchen to place a kettle on the stove. Walking over to the cupboard I opened the doors only to realize that I was all out of tea. I was bored of this scene. I sauntered towards the door. On my way out I reached over to the coat rack. Without breaking stride I pulled off one of my brown corduroy coats. I was headed off towards my favorite coffee shop on the far side of town. Walking down the streets, I began to notice that something was different about the city tonight. I couldn't quite place what it was, but I still could tell. Strange glowing signs filled shop windows, sleek automobiles zoomed down the avenues. There seemed to be a great deal more people walking the city. Even though most of this seemed alien to me, it felt as though it all fit in neatly, like pegs into a pegboard.

    I turned the corner onto Columbus Avenue. On the corner, there was a old man, dressed in fealthy, hanging rags. He stood there shouting out to the crowd gathered around him. His voicewas curious; it seemed amplified. He had no bullhorn, nor did he have a mike, yet it seemed totally normal. I began to listen to what he said:

        "You were pulled from my past,

        To this future, what shall it hold?

        This ebbing tide of fear and wonder,

        For this future, who would know?

        He who looks upon these holy scrolls,

        Bits of information, so powerful, so strong,

        WEARING AWAY! WEARING away! wearing away, Morley"     

    The last word, the old man slowly twisted around his tongue, as it passed his dry, cracked lips. As he looked at me, I smiled at what he said. What a peculiar thing for that little man to say. I like that word, it has a nice ring to it.

    "Morley!" I heard the word again, it came this time from somewhere far off in the distance. "Morley!" I heard again. I turned around, as I did the whole world stopped moving, and at the same instant everybody and everything begun spinning into infinity. People, places, sounds, all of my senses overloading in a huge sensory orgasm. My knees buckled and I saw the pavement rush up to embrace me with it's cold, hard arms. The world slowed down , then stopped it's dizzying frenzy. When my eyes focused I saw Japhy, the original Zen, standing in front of me. "Morley? You ok?" said Japhy as he helped me up off the ground.

    "Yeah, man. Can we go somewhere to sit down?"

    "Sure, man. Sure, anywhere you want. You don't look so good."

    We made our way to his flat which was, luckily, about three blocks away. When we got inside, Japhy cleared papers and books off his sunken couch, I then collapsed upon it.

    "Hey More, whad ya take? Your eyes are all red and glassy."

    "Have no idea, my brother. I don't even remember taking as much as a pain killer." I then screamed out loud as a searing pain shot through my head. Raising my hands to my throbbing temples I said, "My head, whatever I took, I'll never, EVER, take again. If I do, I give you permission to shoot me."

    "You just take it easy over there," Japhy called to me. "I have some work to do." He walked into another room. I heard the mechanical pounding of the typewriter banging away in the next room. I lay there. With each stroke of the keys my head throbbed more and more. I noticed gradually that the thumping of the keyboard slowly became softer till it was barely audible at all. This worried me, because whenever Japhy got writing, he would write for hours on end, never pausing, never stopping. One continuous flow of prose. I rose from the couch and walked over to see why Japhy had stopped. I entered the room to find Japhy sitting in front of what looked like just the keyboard of a typewriter. This was no ordinary looking typewriter. In the place of paper there was a television screen. As I looked closer, I saw that all the letters that were being typed, popped up on the screen. I had never seen such a thing. For somereason the word computer came to my mind. What shocked me even more was what was in the safe on a shelf above his head. On top of a stack of manuscripts was a revolver. Japhy didn't know how to use a gun. Arming him is like arming a penguin.

    Japhy turned around with a start. "Morley I didn't hear you come in."

    "I just wanted to tell you I was leaving." I said sounding confused.

    "You sure your feeling better? You still look pale, my little Buddhafish."

    "Fine, fine. I'll see you later."

    I tried to recollect all my thoughts on my way home. Millions of thoughts raced through my mind. What is going on? Where am I? Who am I?

    When I got home, there was a burning smell filling my apartment. I remembered the teapot on the stove and rushed in to pull it off. I threw the ruined kettle into the sink. Turning on the cold water set a bath of steam into the air. I walked out of the kitchen and sunk my self into my easy chair. For no apparent reason I glanced over to my right. There I saw a book, that I knew wasn't there when I left, sitting on my coffee table. I picked it up and read the title The Assignation of a Crazed Goatee Man. Hmmm, this seems interesting. I thought as I opened to a random page in the book. . .

. . .I reached behind my ear and removed the dust cap from the datajack. I pulled the thin fiber-optic ribbon off the floor andplugged the trodes in. In one swift motion I picked up my deck and hit the power stud. In the bloodlit dark behind my eyes, silver phosphenes boiled in from the edge of space, hypnagogic images jerking past like film compiled from random frames. Symbols, figures, faces, a blurred, fragmented mandala of visual information. The smooth cool light of the 3D chessboard extending into infinity, known to most as the Matrix, slide into place. The warmth of the simstem flowed through my veins. I punched in the coordinates for The Amp. The Amp was a high energy tekno dance club on the south side of the matrix, at least it would be if the matrix had any sides. I was cruising along and stopped suddenly, as if I had hit a brickwall. Before me stood a wall of gray ICE that I had never seen before. I punched in a code of some lamer I knew and it let me through.

    The frothy water at the bottom of the cliff crashed unmercifully against the broken rock faces bellow. A wave sent a spray of seawater high in the air, filling it with the tangy smell of saltwater. The scene was entrancing. I had to shake my head to bring myself back to my senses. Even though I have seen things as vivid as this before, I'm still amazed every time I jack in, there is always something new, something exciting. There was an unseen hum, like that of a power station at night, I blew it off as if it was nothing. Still, a deep fear nagged at me somewhere in the farthest regions of my mind 'Danger! Leave! Go back!' It would say to me. I paid no attention to it, and kept gazing on..... All went black . . .

    "I love this, the words seem so different, but it is all so clear to me!" I screamed out loud.

    The rest of the day went along as usual. I felt this day had gone by so strangely that I must put it all down on paper. Iwent to my study. I pulled out my typewriter and started to type away. As I sat and typed I begun to hum a little tune in my head, when I heard a rap, rap, rapping on my chamber door. I opened the door to stare into the mirrored sunglasses of none other then the Raven. His black raincoat draped over his shoulders like a cape.

    "Well hello, good friend Raven."

    "A good day to you, too, friend Morley" he said as he walked into my unpretentious domicile. Raven removed his coat and fedora and placed them on the rack next to my brown corduroy coats.

    "What brings you to this part of the city?"

    "Dreary as it is, I am here for a delivery, as well as a small pick-up."

    "Can I offer you something to eat or drink while we talk? Tea, perhaps?"

    "No, thank you. I spoke with your friend Japhy earlier today. He said you looked as though you had a bad reaction to some drug."

    "Drug? I don't know what you are talking about. I've been clean for days." I was bad enough that he refused my hospitality, but now I was completely offended. "I only saw Japhy because I didn't take any drugs and I collapsed on the sidewalk. By some miracle he found me and took my to his flat..."

    The Raven waved me silent. "I have heard it. No matter. Here take this and forget everything."

    Raven threw a small, imitation black leather case my way. I turned it over in my hands. I felt something inside slide from one end to the other. I opened it to discover a length of surgical tubing and a three cc syringe. There was also was a small object wrapped in plain brown paper. I torn open the package to find a small glass vile that contained a liquid that seamed to be constantly changing colors. I turned it around in my hand and found a label with small letters printed on it. Squinting, I made out the number: 655321. Inside the case there was also handwritten instructions scrawled on a torn piece of paper. While I was inspecting the vile, Raven went over to my bathroom. He extracted an exact replica of the case that he just threw at me, from under my sink.

    "And now, I must say, good day to you, my friend Morley." He turned on his heel and walked out the door. I sat there for a moment, thinking about the case, the vile, what had just transpired here. This has all been a horrible nightmare. I picked the case back up and took out the needle and the vile. I held it there in front of me admiring the colors as they swirled around. Turning the bottle upside down and plunged the needle into the top. I drew out all the tiny syringe could hold. It was all a drug induced dream of the future? I have been lapsing in and out of reality. I thought to myself. With a sigh, I looked out the window at the city lights as the needle pierced my skin.

    I lay awake on my bed this night looking up at the cracked ceiling of my apartment. . . .