Welcome to Home of the Brave. I'm Scott Carrier. So it's late August 2004 and I'm standing on a corner in Midtown Manhattan wondering what happened to the time in between when my friends were here with me and now when they're gone.

They seem to have vanished. None of the people on the street look

familiar. It's late afternoon, the sun is setting straight down the street, dropping perfectly

between two rows of tall buildings. Shadows

reached to the vanishing point. The light is rose or orange, maybe both, with blue

and green tracres. My friends were here with me, but now they are gone, and

I'm sweating profusely because it's hot and humid, and because I ate two hits of LSD, blotter acid, probably about an hour ago.

My shirt is soaking wet.

I'm going to have to find some water at some point, but right now I'm feeling pretty good. Directly across the street

there's a church built in Gothic style with high pointed roof and arches, and

outside the church there's a long line of young men in business suits, jackets

over their shoulders.

It's strange because they're no women and children with them.

You'd think if they're waiting to go into a church,

there'd be women and children and old people with them.

They look like return Mormon missionaries,

the priesthood.

But it's not a Mormon church and they are not Mormons.

I should get to the bottom of this.

I should cross the street.

Move my body over there somehow. I begin walking on two legs and no one appears suspicious.

The asphalt is spongy but manageable. The cars can stop. They got brakes. I hear their horns, but I do not become attached to their fear.

...