The Marijuana/Mushroom Phenomenon

My most recent discovery of Mandagora led me to downtown Salt Lake City. It had rained the previous evening, and along the side of the streets was fine mud that had washed away from the road during the downpour. It was there I found the telltale footprints of root-feet, a path appearing as normal erosion marks to the untrained eye, but as unmistakable tracks of the Mandagora to a person as experienced as myself. I trailed the lines up a hillside to an old house that appeared to be abandoned, unfit to keep anything or anyone. As I circled around to the back, the pathway led to a cellar door. I opened it and climbed down the chipped cement stairs, turned on my flashlight, and found a bundle of mushrooms growing in the soil of rotting stuff between the ground and crawlspace of the old building.

I removed a metal spatula from my satchel to separate a mushroom from the rest, and as I moved the instrument nearer, a mushroom’s eyes opened, and the Mandagorum backed away timidly, scared of the apparent weapon I wielded. At the movement of the first, the others followed suit, squealing as they fled along the crawlspace.

Sacrificing my tidy demeanor to the slew, I leapt into the crawlspace, groping around to nab the critters. I caught three and placed them in a Tupperware I carried with me, but the remaining four were more difficult to seize. With the use of a butterfly net, I attained the remaining four and brought them into a lab to be scrutinized.

It required several hours for the Mandagora to calm down, their behavior uncharacteristic of what I had previously encountered with others. These seven kept yelling how I was a monster, maintaining the shape of mushrooms as they dashed aimlessly about the inside of the plastic box. After a few hours, the fit of hysteria subsided, and the Mandagora recomposed themselves to the complacent creatures I was familiar with. Many rubbed their heads as they resumed a more natural, leafy stage, blearily blinking as they peered up at the ceiling while lying on their backs, wondering what had happened. Others appeared to remember everything and exploded into giggles.

I immediately started asking questions, and I discovered the age of this collection to range from late teens to late twenties, all male. Each had a distracted mindset, losing focus and interest after two or three questions and making random remarks like, “But you’re not green anymore!” or, “You have skin again!” Each unwelcome outburst pushed cries of admiration and more childish giggles from the creatures, many showing their awe by giving others high-fives with their leafy hands.

Had they been hallucinating when I happened upon them? Had they somehow been drugged? So many questions ran through my head as I left the imbecile Mandagora in the box and approached my computer, logging on to Wikipedia. “That’s it!” I said as I followed a hunch and researched mushrooms. The shapes the Mandagora has assumed matched perfectly to psilocybin mushrooms, known more commonly as “magic mushrooms,” or simply, “’shrooms;” fungi that produce chemicals that act as a psychoactive drug in humans, causing them to hallucinate and experience other sensory abnormalities. Is it possible that upon assuming the shape of these fungi, the Mandagora were able to produce these toxins that in turn yielded similar ramifications on their own herbal nervous system?

My suspicions were confirmed when I returned to the Tupperware and saw one in the early stages of changing into a marijuana leaf. His eyes were already bloodshot and glossy due to the new THC in his fluid stream, and he kept trying to eat his vegetable-based friends. “What are you doing?” I demanded, picking up the marijuana Mandagorum to give him a proper scolding. “This is a laboratory owned by the University; I could lose my job if people found me with illegal substances here!” I gathered up the group of friends, released six back onto the grounds of the abandoned house in downtown Salt Lake City, and escorted the marijuana Mandagorum to his parents.

“We are so sorry!” said his mother, a plump Mandagorum shaped similarly to a brussel sprout. She had her hand clutched at her chest, her pained look showing this was not the first time. “We are so ashamed that he’s done it again!” She invited me in to the rock-pile home, and the boy staggered in with a groan as he made his way to the living room. “We’ve tried everything,” said the exasperated mother. “Just can’t seem to admit that he’s addicted to the marijuana shape.”

“I’m not… ad-ad-addicted!” the boy managed to say. “I can stop anytime! Plus… marijuana isn’t addictive!”

The mother proceeded to tell me that even when Mandagora change from marijuana to another plant, the THC stays in their fluid systems for months. “He’s failed two random drug screens at his job at Harmon’s as a dummy vegetable in the produce department, and they fired him for it!”

“I done my share o’ weed-shapin’ when I was young an’ foolish,” said the father. “Back in Woodstock, I changed to a marijuana leaf, and a dern hippy nearly smoked me up! I’ve still got the ash marks to prove it!”

“What did you do?” I asked, intrigued.

“I changed into a blade o’ grass, an’ that really messed the hippy up!”

The young Mandagorum is seen to this day, still claiming marijuana is not addictive, and saying he can stop any time, though he habitually changes to the marijuana shape once a week or more.