The red rocks of Sedona rose up like ancient sentinels under the late-afternoon sun, the kind of place that makes you feel small and watched at the same time. I’d come out here after a long day, the wife walking beside me on the dusty trail, both of us quiet for once, just breathing in the dry air that smelled of juniper and something older, something that had been waiting a long time.
I’d taken a hit of this stuff earlier, Snicklefritz, they called it—and it settled into me slow, the way a bad dream creeps up on you before you realize you’re still awake. It wasn’t the sharp, head-rush kind of high. No, this was deeper, smoother, almost like slipping into cool water that’s been sitting in the dark too long. It reminded me of Blue Dream, that old reliable from back when things felt simpler, but this one had an extra weight to it, a gentle pull toward sleep that I hadn’t felt in years.
We walked, and the world started to soften at the edges. The trail blurred a little, the rocks turning into shapes that almost moved if you stared too long. My eyelids got heavy. Heavy like they do when you’re a kid fighting sleep because the shadows in the room are starting to look wrong. I felt myself nodding, right there in the open, chin dipping toward my chest, the world tilting soft and slow.
And then she snapped at me.
“Hey. Hey! You’re not even looking where you’re going.”
Her voice cut through like a knife through canvas, sharp and real. I jerked upright, heart kicking once, hard. The drowsiness retreated, but it didn’t go far—it lurked, patient, the way things do when they know they’ll get another chance.
She was right, of course. I’d been drifting, letting the stuff pull me under while we were out here in the middle of all this red rock and sky. One wrong step and I could’ve gone over an edge, or worse, taken her with me. That’s the thing about Snicklefritz. It doesn’t scream at you. It whispers. It promises rest, the kind you haven’t had since you were small and the monsters were still under the bed instead of inside your own head.
We made it back to the car eventually. By then the sun was dropping, painting everything bloody and gold, and we both felt it—the pull to just collapse somewhere soft, dim the lights, pop in Pineapple Express, and let the world go away for a while. Veg out. Forget the rocks, the trail, the way the high almost swallowed me whole.
It’s good stuff, no question. Real good. But if you take it out here in the desert, where the quiet gets too quiet and the shadows stretch long, keep one eye open.
Because sometimes the nod isn’t just sleep coming for you.
Sometimes it’s something else, something that’s been waiting in the red dirt all along, patient as death, ready to pull you the rest of the way down.