“A fraction of an hour later, and all out of breath, I was knocking on the door. Then a strange thing happened. A grey little mouselike girl that I’d never seen before came to the door. It was all dark inside even though it should have been light, and she blinked for a few seconds before she could say anything. The dismal creature was a stranger and I started to say something, but she looked up at me with her unbeautiful eyes and said, ‘Shhhh! They’re all asleep, and I’m going too.’ Exhaling I said yeah and went to sit on the stairs between the top floor and the roof. I was no more than four feet away before the lock clicked to behind me. I’ve always hated the idea of locks in general, and especially the sound they make as the people I just left lock me out. I always wait for my visitor to get well away before snapping the lock back, and I feel weak and mean if I forget.

So I sat on those seldom used stairs with my legs stretched out flat and stared at the steps between them. A leak in the roof was sending a steady drip drip onto the spot I was watching, and it had taken green. A little trickle ran from the pool down onto the next step, then the one after. I got caught up in the sound it made because the sound of running rippling water is one of the most timeless imaginable to me. It was no different there on the stairs than it would be in caverns much too deep to ever be found except by spiritual proxy like I was doing. I could hear it just so, just the way it was, and I ran my fingers through my hair, one . . . drip, two . . . drip, three . . . thinking how I’d like to give up my human consciousness and be found here the next day as a green carpet of moss, but not recognized. People seldom climbed over those steps and when it rained, I could drink cold water.”

—William S. Burroughs, Jr, a runaway on psilocybin mushrooms in Manhattan. The ellipsis are his. From the autobiographical Speed, 1973.