I was bored big time. Even chugging back half a bottle of Coke hadn't picked up my spirits.
That's when I remembered it.
I had purchased it two weeks ago from a guy with less desirable connections in the über-classy 4C bar here in Ohtawara-shi, Tochigi-ken, Japan. Undesirable, that is, unless you needed it.
When I had bought it, it was a hell of a lot of money for such a little amount of pleasure. Or so I thought. Then again, Thailand is quite a fun place if you truly look beyond its exterior... into its pleasure center. The heart of the yin.
It had been sitting and chilling in my refrigerator since I had acquired it. I opened up the door and stared at it and thought "What the Hell... I may as well use it. It's why I bought it...."
I pulled the small tinfoil package out and gingerly unwrapped it on my living room kotatsu table. Then I remembered I would need something to help me burn it. I went and got some more tinfoil from the shelf above my kitchen sink. I snapped off a sheet about eight-inches long and wrapped it tightly around a pencil. I then cut the foil at the top of the pencil and pulled the pencil out. I evenly sliced the other end of the foil and folded it up to make a holder.
My pipe was complete.
I sat down on the edge of my couch and picked up a few crumpled dried leaves and placed them in the holder. I picked up my lighter and rolled my thumb along the starter. A small jet of orange and blue flame was spat out and licked the foliage. I placed the pipe to my lips and inhaled deeply.
____
I guess in my rush for nirvana, I suck back too much smoke into my lungs. It burns the inside of my throat. I spit out the smoke and try to cough the raw feeling away. I reach for my bottle of Coke and try to put out the fire. Cool.
Undaunted, though, I pick up the lighter again and flick it to fiery life. This time I take in a little less smoke, swallow it, suck back some more, swallow it, and then grab a third gulp. I hold it in and sing along briefly with Geddy Lee on Lakeside Park. I slowly exhale and watch the blue-grey sworls of international debate rise up and become one with my stucco ceiling. I light up again.
I have done four pipe-fulls of the stuff, and I don't feel any different. I begin to wonder if this was really what I had paid for, or if I am doing it right.
The telephone rings.
My head snaps lightning fast to the left. I should have hurt myself, but I don't. My arms are moving as fast as I can carry them to reach the phone a scant two-feet away. I touch the receiver by the fourth ring and drop it on the dull blue-grey carpet.
I pick up the phone. It's Matthew. I begin babbling and raving about stuff that seems important as I spew it out, but I am unable to recall the moment after I say it. Still. I don't think he notices anything strange, as I guess I usually act pretty weird.
After saying our 'C-ya's', I stand up and stagger over to the fridge for some milk. I can barely keep my feet under me. Everything is spinning. Ashes. Ashes. We all fall down.
I am stoned.
Immaculate.
Lurching back down onto the floor, I can feel my pulse beating throughout my entire body. My heart is racing wildly in my head... yet, as I am able to listen to my beating heart, my own thinking-process becomes further entangled in a warm whirlpool of molasses. It's hot, but it's cold. Dry. Wet. No! Wait! None of this is true! No! That's not true! I'm thinking super fast. Forgetting super fast. But time is traveling extremely slow!
I whip my head over to the right and glance at the liquid crystal display in my stereo. It's playing song seven of the Rush Chronicles CD. It glints: 0:42 seconds. I begin to think about the pounding in my head and how I am going to describe it all on paper. Would I ever be able to get the feeling correct? I compose six or seven paragraphs in my head while listening to my pulse and singing along with the CD. I glance back over at the time again with another powerful snap! This time it reads 0:47 seconds. Time slows down!
I close my eyes for a second and feel my head try to go cloudy and fluffy. I shake loose a few lightning bolts of pleasure and look back at the stereo. It's now reading 2:14 on song eight! Now time is flying!
I try to relax, but my head is now snapping back from side to side. I try to stop it by putting my head back on my sofa. Now I can feel two points on opposite sides of my head explode. It feels like a brain aneurysm. Is it my temporal nodes? Why didn't I buy any food or beer? I should state that I've never had a brain aneurysm before, but if I had, it would probably have felt like what I am feeling now. I actually check my ears for blood. It feels like there is something flowing down my cheeks. The iguana is loose. Find the plane.
My mouth is open. I can feel something dripping slowly down from my back molars. I flick my tongue over to catch each drop. It tastes coppery and wholly unpleasant, but I can't stop not tasting it. I'm a Pepper, too. Shoot it before it becomes alive in your clinic.
My limbs then go numb. My lips are tingling. I can't feel them though. I just know they are tingling. What? I can't feel anything. An image of Shinobu flashes into my head. She said she was going to call. Hungry... I wish she would hurry up. I want to pass out. I can't though. I'm too high. I can't see my feet. My head is still rolling around on the floor above my head. I crack the upper 'joints' in my neck for the first time ever, but I don't smoke them. There is no pain. Although my ears think there should be and scream for me.
Sudden;y my head snaps back over to the left. I can't feel it though. I wish it would stop. I think the Coca-cola I drank earlier to soothe the throat burns is having its caffeine affects amplified by the smoke. Play that funky music white boy.
Usually, people do beer and weed, don't they? Weed whackers. I t helps mellow them out further by dulling their senses even more. For me, the Coke and smoke gives me an adrenalin rush that dulls my reactions but heightens my senses. I think. Therefore I am Pavlov's dog. I do know that I feel a lot of paranoia. I wonder if I was supposed to have gone to teach in Kuroiso tonight. I know it's not the right day, and prove it by stumbling over to my wall calendar... but still the feeling persists.
I want to do even more smoke, but why? I am so high I can't even stand still. Everything is shaking, although I can't feel it.
I hang around until 11:30PM and then go to bed. Hmmmm. No call from Shinobu. I lie in bed and try to drift. I'm still reeling. I can't feel anything except for my lips, and I can't even feel those.
There is another loud explosion of synapses in my temporal lobs. Again, the feeling that my brain is leaking grey matter down the side of my face is over-powering. I have to check, but my arms are not responding to my commands. The coppery taste continues to drip like percolated onto my curled tongue.
I want to scream, but I have nothing to say.
I get that loss of feeling in the extremities again. It sticks around as the phone rings. I can hear it dimly. Still, it keeps ringing and ringing. So I rush out of bed, but it feels like I am in slow-motion. In my head it seems like a high-speed race. The phone stops ringing at seven as I throw open my bedroom door. The answering machine kicks in. I wish I had one. I squint down and look at the timer on my microwave. 12:45. Screw that, I say. If it was Shinobu, I'm too messed up to talk to her. 'sides... she should have called earlier.
I quickly (?) crawl back into bed and pass out.
____
I woke up with a headache. It wasn't the dull roar of a hang-over, rather it was the sharp piercing pain of sensory overload. I must have been thinking too much. I wondered if it is actually possible to explode one's synapses? I searched hopelessly for some edible food in my fridge. I don't really wonder how it can always be filled with food I don't like.
Somewhere trippin',
Andrew Joseph
Yes... this really happened. Yes... I really did attempt to write down exactly what I was feeling as I felt it. You'll notice that the actual trip was written in the present-tense, and everything else in the past-tense, because that's how I wrote it when I was stoned. I'm a writer. It's what I do.
PS: Thanks to Mike Rogers for pointing me to this:
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