Post by jack on Dec 6, 2006 21:50:06 GMT -5
I took a final swig of ale. I could see the lights and the dancing through the foamy dregs and fly-eye lenses of the beer mug. At first I thought something was wrong with the sound system. Ministry’s thumping skronk seemed to be fading out, fogging up, drifting away. And now I was hearing Pan pipes. Ethereal, fluting sounds; otherworldly, unreal and yet quite obviously extremely real. More than real. Hyper-real. I turned to Al, grinning like a retard.
“You hear that? You hear that amazing… is that wild, or what?”
He stared at me, smiling.
“Kicking in at last, eh? Told you this was good shit. Although I’m not getting anything yet. I’ll give it half an hour and then drop another.”
I was surprised. Obviously I knew I was tripping, but this was unprecedented. I’d never had aural hallucinations before. It was so real. More real than the DJ’s noise, more real than my friend’s voice. It was beautiful. And then… my God, the harmonies! Impossibly beautiful harmonies! I don’t even like the Pan pipes. As far as I was concerned Manuel could take his stupid peasant music right back to the mountains and play it to the goats. But this… this was like a head full of choirboys on crack. I must have had the dopiest grin on my face. I vaguely remember my girlfriend looking anxiously at me and Al reassuring her in his best Danny the Dealer voice: “…just high”.
There was a taxi ride. The party, the Pan pipe music, Al’s smiling face, and then I was in the back of a taxi. In the back of a crap saloon and the Indian guy's giving me the hairy eyeball in the rearview mirror and I smile, smile, big crooked yellow happy amiable because I don't want any trouble, no. I felt good, with the drink, and the acid, and the music, and the knowledge that it was all running down; how much longer could I do this shit? And I slumped back with the big crooked yellow smile and looked out and to the left, and the big yellow streetlights ticked by overhead like cartoon shooting stars, like headlights to the little kid in the back of his uncle's car, wsht, wsht, wsht, in time with the wipers. And I didn’t feel old, but I was old. And what I felt was old. I felt touched by the divine.
I fell out of the car and stumbled, floated, glided towards my front door. It swung open without me even touching it (of course it didn’t). I took only two steps and I was inside my bedroom, naked, lying on the bed, my girlfriend fast asleep next to me. No, don’t tell me it’s impossible, that is really how it happened. That is what I experienced (but of course it didn't happen). There was no light. My room is protected from all external light sources. At three in the morning it is as black as a raven’s wing and yet I could plainly see my lampshade hanging in the middle of the room, glowing white and luminescent like some electric sea bed creature. I could see every strand of the fringe. The strands started to curl and flick like restless snakes or the skinny, stunted tentacles of some strange, airborne jellyfish. Green lightning sparked and crackled across the body, the bell, this suspended apparition I could not possibly be seeing, but was.
And then I was up, naked, in the bathroom, bright lights surrounding the mirror, staring at my reflection. My eyes were huge and black, my skin was the colour of strong tea, blotchy, swirling like the surface of Jupiter. I laughed. I grinned at my reflection. And then I saw my face elongate, impossibly. My jaw stretched down and touched my chest. Devil horns grew from my brow. Thick, spiralling horns. I saw them break the skin. I saw folds of skin peel away from the roots. I reached up and grasped one of the horns and I swear I felt it inside my head. I shook it. I shook my head, through the horn. I felt it. It was as real as the pain of a broken leg. I had devil horns. I could see them. I could feel them. They were real.
And here’s the thing: I knew I was tripping. I knew I’d taken a hallucinogenic substance that would mess with my perceptions, my sense of reality, even to the point where I could see devil horns growing out of my head as clearly and as convincingly as I see these letters appear on the screen in front of me. I knew what was going on. But then I thought… what if I didn’t know? What if I’d taken a hallucinogen and didn’t know? What if I didn’t even know what hallucinogens were? What if I had no idea that mere chemicals could cause such startling visions and revelations in my brain? I repeat: everything I saw looked as real as reality. No; in fact it looked more real than mundane, quotidian reality. It had a fine, sharp-edged, luminous, numinous, clarity that mere reality can never attain. It was better than reality. It was a revelation.
It’s very easy to see how someone who knew no better could be powerfully seduced by such a phenomenon. Could be shaken to their very soul. Could only make sense of it by thinking they had been touched by the divine.
And I thought of John the Divine, holed up in his bleak cave in Patmos, possibly enervated through fasting, living off wild plants and herbs and who knows what? Mushrooms? Spare and weak, emaciated, his mind wandering, suggestible and susceptible. And he saw such visions… such visions… Seven-headed, ten-horned monsters and…
Ignorance breeds delusion. Let us not be ignorant.
“You hear that? You hear that amazing… is that wild, or what?”
He stared at me, smiling.
“Kicking in at last, eh? Told you this was good shit. Although I’m not getting anything yet. I’ll give it half an hour and then drop another.”
I was surprised. Obviously I knew I was tripping, but this was unprecedented. I’d never had aural hallucinations before. It was so real. More real than the DJ’s noise, more real than my friend’s voice. It was beautiful. And then… my God, the harmonies! Impossibly beautiful harmonies! I don’t even like the Pan pipes. As far as I was concerned Manuel could take his stupid peasant music right back to the mountains and play it to the goats. But this… this was like a head full of choirboys on crack. I must have had the dopiest grin on my face. I vaguely remember my girlfriend looking anxiously at me and Al reassuring her in his best Danny the Dealer voice: “…just high”.
There was a taxi ride. The party, the Pan pipe music, Al’s smiling face, and then I was in the back of a taxi. In the back of a crap saloon and the Indian guy's giving me the hairy eyeball in the rearview mirror and I smile, smile, big crooked yellow happy amiable because I don't want any trouble, no. I felt good, with the drink, and the acid, and the music, and the knowledge that it was all running down; how much longer could I do this shit? And I slumped back with the big crooked yellow smile and looked out and to the left, and the big yellow streetlights ticked by overhead like cartoon shooting stars, like headlights to the little kid in the back of his uncle's car, wsht, wsht, wsht, in time with the wipers. And I didn’t feel old, but I was old. And what I felt was old. I felt touched by the divine.
I fell out of the car and stumbled, floated, glided towards my front door. It swung open without me even touching it (of course it didn’t). I took only two steps and I was inside my bedroom, naked, lying on the bed, my girlfriend fast asleep next to me. No, don’t tell me it’s impossible, that is really how it happened. That is what I experienced (but of course it didn't happen). There was no light. My room is protected from all external light sources. At three in the morning it is as black as a raven’s wing and yet I could plainly see my lampshade hanging in the middle of the room, glowing white and luminescent like some electric sea bed creature. I could see every strand of the fringe. The strands started to curl and flick like restless snakes or the skinny, stunted tentacles of some strange, airborne jellyfish. Green lightning sparked and crackled across the body, the bell, this suspended apparition I could not possibly be seeing, but was.
And then I was up, naked, in the bathroom, bright lights surrounding the mirror, staring at my reflection. My eyes were huge and black, my skin was the colour of strong tea, blotchy, swirling like the surface of Jupiter. I laughed. I grinned at my reflection. And then I saw my face elongate, impossibly. My jaw stretched down and touched my chest. Devil horns grew from my brow. Thick, spiralling horns. I saw them break the skin. I saw folds of skin peel away from the roots. I reached up and grasped one of the horns and I swear I felt it inside my head. I shook it. I shook my head, through the horn. I felt it. It was as real as the pain of a broken leg. I had devil horns. I could see them. I could feel them. They were real.
And here’s the thing: I knew I was tripping. I knew I’d taken a hallucinogenic substance that would mess with my perceptions, my sense of reality, even to the point where I could see devil horns growing out of my head as clearly and as convincingly as I see these letters appear on the screen in front of me. I knew what was going on. But then I thought… what if I didn’t know? What if I’d taken a hallucinogen and didn’t know? What if I didn’t even know what hallucinogens were? What if I had no idea that mere chemicals could cause such startling visions and revelations in my brain? I repeat: everything I saw looked as real as reality. No; in fact it looked more real than mundane, quotidian reality. It had a fine, sharp-edged, luminous, numinous, clarity that mere reality can never attain. It was better than reality. It was a revelation.
It’s very easy to see how someone who knew no better could be powerfully seduced by such a phenomenon. Could be shaken to their very soul. Could only make sense of it by thinking they had been touched by the divine.
And I thought of John the Divine, holed up in his bleak cave in Patmos, possibly enervated through fasting, living off wild plants and herbs and who knows what? Mushrooms? Spare and weak, emaciated, his mind wandering, suggestible and susceptible. And he saw such visions… such visions… Seven-headed, ten-horned monsters and…
Ignorance breeds delusion. Let us not be ignorant.