quandary

You're sitting in a park alone, on a beautiful afternoon. Perhaps making a little music for the world.
Someone wanders along and sits. Their energy is light, airy, and thoroughly entranced. They listen to you, chattering and singing with joy.
You quickly realize that their ecstatic state was not facilitated by oxygen alone. They're tripping. You're no pharmacology expert, but you suspect either mushrooms or acid.
They ask for pot, which you give them. But you have no paper or fire. They ask for water, which you give them. This person makes your heart swell, freed as they are from the utter meanness of what we call "normal life". You feel instantly protective, especially as no one else comes along looking for them.
Then the moral quandary begins. They get up and wander away. Should you follow, to make sure they're shepherded and safe? That could take many hours. Surely others will care for her, as you're in the epicenter of the mind-expanding culture, in Golden Gate Park by Hippie Hill?
Well...not necessarily. There is a dark side to that reality, as we're all pretty much incapable of not acting like shit when we come down (and even when we're high, the violence this society teaches us may manifest). There's also a large homeless contingent that calls this green space home. Some of that can be lovely - interactions with people who have a broader, more free perspective. But the homeless are treated horrifically by society, and horrible input will always rebound. There's also mental imbalance. Acts of violence both subtle and gross, are all too common.
To make this quandary more acute, this person is the epitome of predatory vulnerability. A fifteenish female.
What would you do if it were your child?
But following her presents problems. If she's moved on from you in her trip state, your continued presence could become a dark thing to her. You've been meaning for a while to get a new jacket. Your current one, which you got for free, has a dour feel to it, as it's of military color and design. I need a colorful jacket with turtles all over it! I decide that should be the new benchmark for any clothing i wear - something that a tripping person would find happy fun.
If you follow her, you could also invite the ire of those who might react unfavorably to a lone man following a female teenager around. There's so much paranoia in this world...justifiably so, sadly.
You decide that she's in a safe place, in the bright light of day with happy folk around. You continue playing your songs.
A few minutes later, you realize she left a purse and phone. There seems to be a wallet inside. Maybe she'll wander back...
An hour later, she hasn't returned. The shadows are lengthening, and you're feeling ill at ease over what's happened. You shoulder her purse, and set off in the direction she went. You spend the next twenty minutes biking every trail in a half-mile radius, talking to strangers. No one's seen her. A couple of teenagers think i should leave her purse where we were, but that just feels like begging for it to be stolen.
She'd told you that her phone was dead. Should you take her purse home, to search for contact information or get the phone working? A little voice inside you whispers "DON'T GET INVOLVED". If something horrible has happened, and you show up saying "Here's her purse!", all sorts of life-shattering ugliness could befall you. Should you find the nearest police station, to drop off the purse and tell what you know? Being rounded up (or just sought) by the police could turn her trip into a nightmare...if not immediately, then in repercussions from her parents or guardians, who may react harshly. Parental hypocrisy can know no bounds.
Home is nearby, so you go there. You plug in her dead phone, but quickly realize a flaw there - you don't have her password. You open the wallet, but there's only cash and a lone credit card. In retrospect, i didn't even look at the card to see her name. I go back to the phone, and get a break - i find a way to make the most recent calls appear without the password. I see a number with which she had multiple contacts, and call. I'm soon talking to someone who seems to be a housemate. She says that the mother can't come to the phone, as her english is broken, but that someone is coming for the purse. A couple hours later, an uncle arrives. We have a warm chat for five minutes. She's in the hospital being treated for dehydration, but his energy tells me she's fine. I hold back from saying that i knew she was tripping, only saying that she seemed "out of it".
It's funny...the fact that she asked for water tells me that on some level maybe she knew exactly what was happening. And her happy attitude makes me think the trip wasn't accidental. If those things were true, WHY was she alone?
How would i act if it happened again? A friend says i should have called the police...which is probably the most pragmatic path toward insuring her safety and my own irreproachability. But that choice feels a bit inhumyn, to say nothing of the bureaucratic disruption it would bring upon everyone involved, plus the increased anger and blame that might fall upon this teen. Should i have tried to find some teenagers willing to adopt her?
Another day in this strange world of alienation and escapism. There are all sorts of darknesses i'll never be able to protect her from, but i hope her trip had a happy come-down...