ARTWORK: Milly Yates
Mushrooms By Neve Traynor
Pesky little eavesdroppers, their red bulbous heads nosing out of the dirt. Pompously round, suspiciously still. Like a snob with a secret. I want to know the secret. So I’m crushing dried caps into my banana-berry smoothie. Fly agaric, amanita muscaria, or the fairy toadstool if you don’t know your shrooms. Look for the big red hats with white freckles popping out under pine trees. Even an amateur like me can’t get it wrong. Now they’re shrivelled and flaky in my fingers. The rotting odour digs down to my stomach, hurling my guts around. I gag and slam on the Nutri Ninja lid. Any second thoughts drown in the whirr of the blender. *** “The girl treks, unabashed, over the mountain summit,” I murmur like a literary David Attenborough, “empty cup hanging limp in her hand, having slurped her way into imminent abandon.” My guilty pleasure when I’m alone is self-narration. What else am I supposed to do, while I’m waiting for the yawning to begin: the tell-tale sign of the mushies taking hold. Nausea inches up from my stomach, which shoots me a suspicious glare: This, again? I stumble along a walking track that is only just visible in the dead leaves. The Canberra bush is a smudge of thick eucalypts. A sign stands by the path: “Warning Poison Baits”. My bowels squirm. Why are these plants so difficult to digest? Mother Nature gifted us with psychedelics, only to chuck in the drawback of neurotic nausea. It’s no coincidence that the poison in fly agaric is the psychoactive component: you’ve got to work for your fun. Cheap thrills, huh? When Centrelink can’t afford you real drugs… “She focuses only on the next footstep.” I’m breathing hard. Why did I do this? Don’t look back.
My head hangs and my eyes droop down my face like a Dali painting. I yawn. A yawn! Praise the Lord! My body is processing. Another yawn: I march on in victory and gulp down a retch, knowing it will subside soon. The aftertaste of fungi still clings to my tongue. “She staggers like a public drunk, leaning on scribbly gums for support.” I chuckle at what I must look like. The landscape is coated in an ugly winter grey and it swamps me with its uniformity. The path shivers and shakes into a blur, then disappears into my huge yawn. Voices crackle ahead of me and my eyelids fly open. People. “She was wholly unprepared to come across her own species,” I whisper. Two young mothers appear through the trees sporting puffer jackets and leggings. They look disproportionately gigantic on the path, but that’s probably the pelopsia. One woman has a proud baby bump swelling through her lycra. I wipe at my ruffled hair and clutch the jumper trailing off my limbs, my mouth ajar in panicked paranoia. “Hi.” The expecting woman nods at me on approach. She narrows her eyes. What are you on? She glances at her friend and purses her lips: Is she alright? I blush. Pity is infinitely worse than disapproval. My facial muscles push into a smile. “You doing ok?” the other woman says. I gape and flap my hands. They’re doubting me; I need a reply. Good. Or, good, how about you? Maybe a I’m fine, thanks. How are you going? Enjoy your walk! The possibilities are insurmountable. “Goo–” I gurgle and look up to face nobody. I whip around and see their ponytails bobbing down the path.
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