‘E-bomb?’
     ‘Yeah, right here, yo’
     The words drop out of my mouth in response, even though I promised just about everybody I know I would go straight for a while, and even though my serotonin levels are so dangerously low I’m too depressed to even bother to kill myself, and even though, and this strikes me as particularly fucked, the kid dealing looks a lot like the old bearded Christ, and smells of cold beef and paint thinner.
The stinky guy scopes over his shoulders, digs the scene. Digs on me, a very long, sly look. He’s not gay; he’s just clockin’ to make sure I’m not El Narco Federali. He checks out my gigantic denims, checks out the tattoos, the sunken eyes, sunken chest, sunken general demeanour, and makes his assessment.
      ‘What you need, dog?’
      Rolls out of his mouth, low and greasy sounding over his thin, chewed on lips.
      Damn!
      Breath like hot paint thinner on this guy. Flash second passes, I wonder if he’s dealing to support a hardcore paint huffer habit, but then I check myself and acknowledge that those types are so low rent they could never get up the capital to start dealing. Spend half their fucking time with ‘gold glitter’ Dacryl spray paint flecked on their mugs, vomit in their hair. You get near them and you can smell the burning brain cells and almost hear the sizzle in the cerebellum. The screams of the million vanquished bits of gray matter. Huffing is a fucking Personal Mental Genocide Program…
      Is that a band name?
      Probably.
      I bet…
      
      BUY THE PILLS AND TAKE THEM!

       I’ve got a vicious mental drift problem, so I have to force myself to focus and achieve things. Get the drug. The drug is what matters here. The e-bomb. MDMA. Ecstasy. Definitely more important. Get, acquire, consume, start the party, out the jumper-cables to the old kicker for one more stretch of beats and dancing. Dig on the lasers. Stinky Christ is getting impatient with my spacey behaviour, so I ask, ‘got any Mitsubishis of Applejacks?’
      Dependable old favourites.

      ‘Nah man, nah, you don’t want that shit. That shit is old, old, old, played out’
       He says it slow, with emphasis on the fact that my favourite drugs are now ‘old, old’ which I guess is about as old as shit can get these days.
      ‘Nah for twenty-five I can get you these double stack Karaoke e-bombs, or you can try the new shit’
      My first reflection is this- Do I want to play guinea pig for some backwards chemist?
       Second reflection- Is this bitch looking doper just trying to pass of his bunk goods to me so he can give his quality pills to his regular customers?
       Third- Is looking like Jesus a real aesthetic choice, or just something that happens to skinny white kids that don’t take care of themselves, hygiene-wise?
       Fourth- Why am I talking to this flipped out Christ cat when the party is really starting to go off? Especially when I could be right up by the main speakers catching some basswaves and putting some moves on that blonde doll with the pink hair and translucent angel wings?
       Final reflection- None. Thoughtless. Urgency and impulse kick in, thought replaced by the need for the pill. The pleasure. And now, now, now, NOW!
       ‘Yeah, lemme see the new stuff, yo’
       As stinky Christ pulls his little knit (from hemp, I’m positive) satchel out from under his natty jacket I wonder when I started talking this stupid. Ending sentences with ‘yo’ cannot sound good or reflect me positively, in any way. Not even in the smirking ironic, Dennis-Miller-type-asshole kind of way. I have to squat to get to my secret pocket hidden on the inner, upper-right leg of my big-ass pants.
      I pull out a little wad of cash; a couple of twenties and eight one-dollar bills, which I will spend later on bottles of water to be consumed almost perpetually throughout the night. I have ‘The Dehydration’ brand of drug fear; ecstasy and coke specific. The quantity and frantic quality of my e-bomb generated dance moves causes me to sweat in profusion, and I’m not sure of all the details, but I heard some shit once about liver necrosis and electrolyte washout that sounded crazy ill.
      Of course on the flip-side I heard about the roller who drank so much fucking water he got hydrotoxification and died from drinking too MUCH water. I only bring in eight bucks, so that I drink a lot, but don’t drink so much that my body bloats like a loofah.
       I unroll the twenties and make a final scope for John Law or those steroid pricks that run security for these parties, and make my purchase.
       In the unkempt dealer’s hand- forty bucks. In mine- two clear gel caps filled with an unknown yellow and black powder.
       Quick thought.
       ‘Yo, what’s in these, dog?’
       The skinny kid is all smile and teeth; more of an Aum Shinrikyo smile than a Loving Saviour smile.
       ‘You’re gonna dig it. Some pure MDMA, some DMT, and a little bit of mutant type-A streptococcus.  I call ‘em Roman Candles. They light you up and blow you the fuck out, yo. Peace. If you like ‘em, tell your friends. I’m the ice cream man.’

        Funny guy, stepping up to me with the copped ‘yo’ shit, and he has the nerve to tell me he put bacteria in my drugs. HAHA, that’s one class act sense of humour you’ve got there you fucking jerk. Laugh it up.
        Back in the day I would have rolled him, but now I have to kick all this peace, love, unity and respect shit, so I walk away, towards the beats and girls. I’m thinking, for some reason, I’m a bigger dumb-ass than that guy.
       Backlash for the violent thoughts. I’ve done too many drugs to play tough anymore. Spell it, B-U-R-N-O-U-T. No one constant emotion, no steady thoughts.
       Kicking out the rave style stroll now; part dance/part walk. Big bounce in my step, head nodding with the four on the floor basswaves being dropped by DJ Northern Light. The music is percussive, tight and jazzy. Standard bass, snare and cymbal House arrangement, with some nice distorted bass arpeggios under it, and every third measure there’s a fat keyboard stab.
       I’m feeling it, locked into the beat and I’m not even rolling yet. Best to play cool early, bust out a couple of dance moves, but don’t get wicked. I have to save that for when everybody is high, because, ugly truth be told, I’m not the tightest dancer and I know my moves will better represent to those who are deeply and chemically fucked. If you get high enough you can watch a guy wearing a Winnie the Pooh backpack, slowly spinning some glow sticks on strings and actually think ‘WOW! I am genuinely amazed by that display of talent!’ Hooray for this!’… Which, I’m sober enough to recognize right now, is fucking ridiculous.

      I go up by the speakers and scope out the party. Buzzed. Majorly buzzed now, just off the music, and maybe the presence of so many girls who I know will never ask me for commitment. The right kinds of girls treat me like a party favour. They use me, then the party’s over, lights go up, drugs wear off, and I’m discarded along with the no longer glowing plastic tubes, unwanted flyers, empty water bottles and countless wads of bubblegum.
       Which is fine by me. I don’t really need them. I’ve got the drugs.
       JESUS H., MAN. YOU ARE A FUCKING BURNOUT, LISTEN TO YOURSELF!
       Yeah, I better reprioritise soon, but I have parties laid out for at least the next three months. I’ll get on the priority shit later, yo.
       No worries. No unnecessary judgement of self. Every once in awhile my conscience likes to kick thoughts up without asking me to think them first. Like Jiminy Cricket with no fucking tact.
       ‘I fucking hate myself’ I’m thinking. And suddenly. Too suddenly. If I’m not bi-polar, I’m working on it. I try to ignore the thought, feel the music, close my eyes and move. The place is too hot, the venue sucks, and although I like DJ Northern Light I’m not vibing off the House anymore. I want some Speed Garage, some Jungle, even some Happy Hardcore, anything that will push me harder, push out the thought, make me just feel.
       Time to hit up the Roman Candles.
       I’m hating this party so bad I decide to give myself a good, brutal brain-fuck, and I slip both of the pills into my hand. They sit there in the soft, lazy flesh of my hand and they feel warm. The lasers smile and I’m thinking (or maybe just feeling) ‘yeah here we go!’
       As I lift the pills to my mouth I hesitate for one tiny moment as I feel both e-bombs shift unexpectedly in my hand, like Mexican jumping beans.
       ‘Come on, Dumb-fuck, there are no insects in you pills. Goddamn burnout! Eat ‘em!’
       Down the tubes and it feels like they shift inside my throat too. I shouldn’t have dry swallowed. Secondary gag reflex, then it passes.
      Downtime. I’m waiting for the pills to kick. I’ve had DMT before and am starting to hope there’s not too much in these Roman Candles, but done is done.
       I’m really starting to sketch, hoping I won’t see God, or cherubim or anything too otherworldly. People that see that type of shit have a tendency to forget to breathe. I’m a lifetime respirator. Breathing is my lifelong friend. Got to keep breathing. Breathing is life. I love to feel my lungs expand, sucking in the air.
Shit. Now I’m thinking on it too much. I’ve become too self aware of my breathing. I have to mentally contract my diaphragm. I have to will each breath. In and out, in and out, try and circular breath, in through the nose, hold three seconds, out through the mouth. In three, hold three, out three, the magic three. Focused. Relaxing. Let the autonomic system take over, you dumb bastard.
        The percussive waves pushing through the room speed up, gaining the steady stomp of sixteenths. Nice. The DJ just segued into come Hardcore. Yeah. I’m feeling this. I start walking around, spying the mean-ass grimaces on the people’s collective faces, diggin’ it big time. Hands in the air, frantic limbs twisting, heads really bopping, sweat dripping, some people’s eyes closing, just really feeling it.
         My nervousness assuages a little, mellows out, although I briefly get the ‘What If This Hallucinogen Makes Me Claw My Fucking Eyes Out Because I Think I Can Never Come Down’ fear.
         It’s a valid fear; I’ve seen the fallout of a bad trip before.  
         Two years ago, at a house party in Modesto, I saw a girl trip so hard on her own mug in the mirror that she flipped permanent style. She’d been staring at her face for too long, maybe five minutes. She started brushing her teeth with someone’s old, blue toothbrush, the kind with the little red rubber thing at the end that looks like a perfect chocolate chip. She murmured something about never being clean again, none of us ever being clean, and then she started scrubbing her teeth. No water involved in this, just a big glob of Aquafresh Whitening and that old plastic hygiene utensil. The look on her face was so intense I had to bail, even though the bathroom was the one quiet place in the party where a kid could really just bug out on shit.
         Anyway a few minutes later I’m out on the back porch, seeing purple eyeballs in the sky and all that, and I hear the girl inside screaming these awful, wet screams. Typically good blotter renders me mad coward but I charged into that house anyway.
        Mistake.
        In the living room, backed into the corner, was my toothbrush girl. The front of her white tank top was covered in red and white; blood and toothpaste foam. Her right hand was wrapped like a claw around the brush and it looked like the plastic bristles had been flattened. Her fingers, the utensil and her face were all soaking crimson. Her mouth looked like a big black hole; oozing blood over her lower lip and down her neck, where some of it had already coagulated, thick like jelly, in the hollow of her throat. She looked like a trapped animal, deeply dad, deeply scared and most of all confused.
         She looked around the room, and then she dropped the toothbrush. Backed against the corner she sunk to the floor, slow, face oozing bubbly red paste. My brain and my stomach flipped and I darted outside, knowing that nothing good was going to happen in that room. Out on the deck I heard her start to sob and scream at the same time;
         ‘Mommy, mommy, uaaagh, I, I, I’m cleeeeeaaaaan now! Clean!’
         I vomited on the way to my car, smelled Chicken Noodle Soup, spilled beer, copper pennies and bile. I was too high to drive, but way too high to be anywhere near that nightmare. Too much ill shit. Too much reality. Too much fucking After School Special ‘Tragic Moment of the Week’. I hope I never bug like that, but they don’t call DMT ‘the rocketship’ due to its lack of effectiveness, so I have to focus, remember that nobody trips forever, except for schizos and Italian film directors.
         
         So, I think to myself; what’s on the agenda, old sport, old chum, pally of mine?
         I can’t answer myself, figuring that it’s kind of too late to do any planning, knowing that I just have to go along with the ride, check the vibe, maybe dance a little later, when the bomb really hits. Maybe a couple of hours after that, find a girl, whatever, just talk, maybe a little more. Maybe find some ‘buddies’ doing coke. It’s amazing how fast I can become close friends with somebody I spy chopping out some fat, white rails. The duration of the friendship usually lasts from the moment I find out they have coke to the moment I start tasting that nasty, acetone-type drip. Then I run away.
          I actually run sometimes. Fucking tweeker. I simply cannot be trusted.
          I decide to just kick around the party some more, purchase some water, enough to keep me hydrated for at least an hour. I hang on for an extra second at the bar, hoping to catch a little lingering eye contact with a girl in a silk looking halter-top with a Japanese/Chinese/Pekinese/etc symbol on it. She’s too busy, no go. Fuck it. I just keep moving. Pondering the current club kid fetish with all things Eastern, wondering how many kids out there are tattooed and variously adorned with Asian symbols that don’t mean what the kids think they mean. Like my friend Perry, the dumb-fuck gets a huge black and green tattoo of a Japanese kanji symbol between his shoulder blades. Guy at the shop told him it means ‘courage’. Two weeks later an exchange student from Daihatsu or wherever spies Perry by the Olympic size pool at the university, asks him why he has the word ‘eggplant’ tattooed on his back. Perry was crazy pissed. Too ashamed to do anything about it though. He trusted the lousy biker fuck at the shop, and now, barring any highly expensive laser surgery, he will spend the rest of his life proudly festooned with the word EGGPLANT, in bold ink, on flesh.
         I decide it’s time to dig some Jungle, and at thinking this I suddenly get this deep, blood level urge to hear some hard, dark, rapid beats. I really need it. The power of self-suggestion renders me frantic.
          I see kids headed down a narrow staircase towards, I hope and pray, some sort of Jungle DJ room. Shit, I didn’t even check the flyer. I never do anymore. What if there’s no fucking Jungle, just a bunch of goddamn sissy ass disco-fuck booty fucking House? Fucking useless, prancy, worthless disco redux bullshit.

         Whoa! Whoa there boy!

         Just feeling the speed of my drugs kicking in. check pulse, verify its above average. Need some beats to match it. Jungle definitely, maybe even some breakbeat. Need some audio saturation, waves upon waves, the old Phil Spector Wall of Sound.
         I push my old Vans down the staircase, stepping around two fucking e-tards who clearly took their pills way too early and will probably be lying dazed and sedate in each others arms by three in the morning. The two of them are making out crazy fierce; sweat pouring down both of them, hips smashed together, tongues playing. Just for a moment I start to jones, then I remember, ‘I’m here for the music, for the party’. Still, it looks like a real thrill ride. I probably wouldn’t have the easiest time playing pick-up with all this DMT that’s supposedly in my system anyway. Waiting for it to hit, tick… tock… I want to be interstellar high in the next twenty minutes. I’m ready.
          I hit the bottom floor.
        ‘This DJ is really punishing, man!’
        Or so says the candy kid at the base of the stairs. I can’t focus. The room is too hot, way too dank, and I’m sure that with each breath I’m sucking down a couple of litres of other people’s vaporized sweat. These beats are so distorted, I can’t even figure out what’s spinning. Shit, the walls are tight, no room to dance. I’ll probably pass out if I spend one more moment in here.
         Fuck it, I’m heading back up topside. Out of this moist little cavity, this bacterial barn filled with kids too fucked to notice just how nasty it is in here.
I pass the e-tard couple on the way back up. Christ, it looks like a conjugal visit. As I roll by I say
         ‘Yo, the Olympic Dry-humping Team try-outs are next week, damn!’
       …It sounded kind of clever in the split second where I generated the thought and decided to speak it, but as it’s coming out of my mouth I can’t help feeling oafish, gawky and weird. I guess I get kind of bitchy when I’m waiting for pills to kick.
         I head back into the main room, which is now definitely where it’s at. The kid up top is still spinning Hardcore, some real rough ‘You Are All Going To Be Killed By Giant Robots Owned By Multinational Corporations’ kind of Hardcore, with distortion that is just ripping my face off. I scope around, see kids sitting down already. Probably whacked some Ket, forgot how to move.
        Dumb.
        I’m trying to dance, starting to hop a little bit, getting the arms into it, putting on a big smile. Problem is, the Hardcore, combined with the rising sensation of being vaguely high is just making me mean. I feel like throwing up a fist or something, some kind of Slayer concert aggression. Knowing that any particular type of testosterone induced behaviour would be frowned upon amidst this neutered ‘New Disco’ set, I chill and head up towards the front to watch the DJ. Maybe he’s really cutting it up.
            Here at the front of the room the DJ is oblivious to his audience. He seems to be concentrating on one knob on the mixer on particular, although with each of his manipulations I hear no actual change in track. Wanker DJ style, making dramatic motions for the crowd while in actuality afraid to really mess with the mix and make the song his own. Timid DJ’s deserve no credit. The records are spinning fast, the BPM on the mixer looks outrageous, and it looks like one of the records is by an artist called Darkstep, which for some reason puts a feeling of terror in my belly. I realise I have about five seconds before my Rocketship takes off; the vibe is rising like electric waves. My nerves are acid tight and I can feel a strange burn under my skin, like you get from eating too much niacin before a tox screen.
         Finally, here we are.
         Highsville, USA. Population; me.
        Mad pressure behind my eyes, like my systolic and diastolic just found out they were going to have an unwanted baby. I hope my blood pressure isn’t swelling the veins in my neck and forehead because it makes me look like the fucking devil, and I’m still thinking of getting my mack on, or at least finding a girl to get a backrub from, if I get too bugged out.
        For one moment everything in my peripheral stops moving, like painted walls close on either side of me, and then, a moment later everything moves into top speed, playing catch-up. Big grin from me, face spread tight, too happy, almost like a rictus, a grimace. Unnaturally happy, like I can’t shake it. Fuck it, even an overbearingly dumb grin is better than the typical hallucinogen addled expression, a.k.a. the zoned out space case look. The empty ‘I just whacked a brick of dusted cat tranquiliser and now I don’t know where I am, who I am, or how to move’ type look.
         I don’t want to rock that style, and shit, now I’m thinking about zombies, ashen faces, bloody toothbrushes… Which is bad under normal circumstances and tragic on DMT so I rush over to a speaker bank and try to clean my brain out.
The good old Sonic Chimney sweep.
         Concentrate on the beats, focus, hear the layers, don’t think in circles. I grab the speaker grill right in front of one of the bass reflex areas, feel the waves, the warm air expelled across my forehead feels perfect, like a light breeze on a sunny day. I close my eyes and there’s swirling sunshine trapped beneath the lids; shifting, bright, with little purple and green bubbles in it. YES. The breeze from the speaker is giving me full body tingles, every inch is pulled tight, every tiny little hair on my head, my arms, the back of my neck is feeling the bassliness, and I want to throe my head back in some sort of exaltation, but I fear that any tiny movement will alter the body high.
         How long can I stand here like this; mated to the goddamn speaker?
         How long before some coked out little candy raver tries to give me some Vicks? How long before I get bumped into? How long before some concerned little rave citizen asks me if I’m ok, do I need some water or some gum or something?
Which, of course, I don’t need. And yes I’m perfectly ok, unbelievingly ok right here in my little e-tard womb as long as nobody messes with me.
         I am content, and I imagine this is what people who achieve Zen feel like, and then realise that if it is I’ve really cheated my way into it. Forty dollars for perfect Zen, what a great fucking deal!
        Wait. I can feel eyes on me now. Bad eyes. Watching. What?
        Oh don’t let me get the Fear, I’m praying to whoever is up there and presides over tripped out little guys who get in too deep. Re-focus. Catch the music again, trap it inside my head. New agenda: MOVE!
         I can’t.
         Which is bad.
        Which is so very fucking deeply bad.
        Um. Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit. Move, move move move move move!
        This feels wrong. My eyes won’t open. I know my heart is beating, I can feel it in my neck, along the carotid and jugular. I know I must be breathing, although I can’t feel much shift in my chest.
        MOVE!
        My body is not receiving commands. Fucking synapses aren’t connected or something.
        A new body high hits me. Right up my spine, sharp. Strychnine? No, not and option. Don’t overthink, don’t panic. MOVE! A new skin tingle, like tacks being shot into me, then melting away. Not definitely painful, but bad. Maybe. PLEASE MOVE! Shit this is hazy. My thoughts keep fading out. Just as I almost have one, really grasp it and think it, it blasts away with my pulse. PLEASE JUST MOVE! ANYTHING! DON’T FREEZE LIKE THIS!
         Across my arms I feel these alien tickles, like insect motion, and I can’t brush it away. Then it whips through my arms, up in front of my chest (am I breathing?) and surges up behind my eyelids; pregnant with unwanted visions.
In front of my eyes there is some kind of tapestry, real seventies style; lots of pastels, paisley, some ornate horse drawings. Yes. Definitely horses. With dark scales. Fucking… what?.. lizard horses? MOVE! This is not good. I don’t like this. I can’t control this. The lizard horses start to run, black scales dropping off their ribcages, exposing dark blue liquid innards. They are charging away from me, hooves kicking up purple spots that rotate and smash into each other as they speed by my head, wherever THAT is.
         JUST FUCKING MOVE NOW!
Just a toe, or an eyelid, or my feet or something. Maybe I’m ok. No. can’t remain inactive. Why can’t I hear anything? Where did the music go?
        Then…. BAM…. And the music screams back into my head. My eyes pop open.
        Ohthankgod!
        Eyes under control, move something else. I shift my head up slowly, it feels dense, there’s more pressure behind my eyes, like weights stitched to the optic nerve, seeking the ground. I want to get to the restroom, throw some water in my face. Maybe sit down further away from the music.
        Oh shit. My hands burn. I must have been smashing them into the speaker grates. I peep at them, and I know I must be out of my mind fried, because it looks like they are bleeding, like the speaker grates sunk right into them, the criss-cross pattern pushed into my skin. I recall the sage old Geto Boys, realise my mind must be playing tricks on me. It really looks like I’m bleeding though. Fuck it, even if it is real I’ll just suffer the wound and remember not to press against the grate so hard next time.
       I head towards the restroom.
       Everyone I walk past seems to be made of plastic, even though they are moving. Like little machines, each engineered for one specific task. Look, there’s the machine that hops up and down, and over there is the little thing that just nods its head, and there’s the good old ‘passed out in a puddle of its own vomit; machine, and to my left is the ‘chewing holes in her own cheeks because she forgot the fucking bubblegum and is clearly remiss about it and doesn’t quite know what to do’ machine.
         My little world, everyone else is plastic.
         Shove my hands into my pockets and they really do hurt. Damn. I’m probably bleeding all over my sixty dollar denims. As I walk away the DJ looks sinister, hunched over the decks like he has some kind of weapon inside and is just waiting for the perfect time to unleash it.
        Diabolical DJ and his Sinister Set.
        I have taken some very bad pills and I would now like some help, some comfort, some anything but this. I’ve got it bad now, The Fear, but I’ve had it before and I can ride it out.
        How?
        I’m surrounded by machines. Bits of plastic. Minds of silicon/carbon composite. The floor feels like its yielding too much. Quicksand? Mind explosion. Picturing: slow death, no one reaching to help me out, water and sand down my gullet, in my eyes.
         Out think this damn it! Get to the bathroom!
         I finally get to the restroom door, or rather it rushes up to meet me after a few confused and nauseous moments of staggering, and as I head in I remember one of my rules: never go near mirrors while tripping.
         Monsters in there. Monsters in me.
         I flush water into my face, turn away from the mirror and dig on two shirtless guys, absolutely glitter-soaked, licking each others hands. I grin toothily, but there seems something desperate about there passion, empty. And besides I’ve suddenly realised I need to piss.
          I push past the licking buddies and into the bowels of the restroom, which is, of course, already flooding and reeks of vomit.
         Focus. Unbutton my pants. Say howdy to the unit, give it the ol’ wink like ‘Ello there chap’.
          I can feel pressure in my bladder, but the urine wont flow. Staring at the wall in front of me, I spy a fucking old, green booger somebody was clever enough to smear there. There is a thick black nostril hair caked into it with a crusty white follicle hanging pendulously from its end. My eyes can feel the weight at the base of the follicle, the slight urgings of gravity versus the co-efficient of friction that holds the follicle and hair firmly to the snot. I’m seeing in too much detail. More bad. More bad from these fucking pills.
         ‘If I fucking find that dealer…’
         But the pain at the head of my unit stops me from even thinking. I look down and see that the tail end of my stream of urine is rose coloured. Shit. Blood from my hands? No. more and more bad and now my dick feels like it’s on fire, like somebody opened up my urethra and jammed in a habanera pepper. My hands are bloody waffles and now I might have an STD or some shit. I’ve got to sit down and just drown out the world until this trip ends.
         I’m wondering if the e-bomb is going to accentuate my current pain as much as it used to accentuate the pleasure. I shiver, shove my hands into my pockets and head back out, body on fire from the inside.
         People are looking at me.
         All of them.
        Even the people with their eyes closed. I can feel it, waves of paranoia, sticking to me like molasses. The room smells like fried meat now, and aftershave. Mixed signals everywhere have me scared, twitching, tweeking.
        A kid with a blue goatee and a Rainbow Brite visor on sees me and says something but I can’t understand what he says through my panic. It doesn’t matter. Nothing else matters in the light of what my eyes just focused on.
         I’m staring at a light blue flyer taped to the fake wood surfacing, and my heart is about to explode. Its right there, and I touch it, real as day. I can feel the paper fibres, see the black ink lightly reflecting the pulse of the far off strobe. Too real.

WARNING- DO NOT PURCHASE DRUGS FROM THIS MAN. HE IS A KNOWN FELON, AND HAS SOLD HIGHLY DANGEROUS AND POTENTIALLY LETHAL DRUGS DURING AT LEAST THREE PARTIES IN THE LAST YEAR. HE IS A MEMBER OF THE NEO-NAZI GROUP KNOWN AS THE LIGHTNING REICH WHICH HAS BEEN SPECIFICALLY TARGETING THE RAVE COMMUNITY FOR HATE CRIMES. IF YOU SEE THIS INDIVIDUAL PLEASE IMMEDIATELY ALERT LOCAL AUTHORITIES!

         Underneath the text, ugly as when I met him, is the one and only Stinky Christ; my chosen-at-random dealer for tonight’s little get together. Less facial hair, but still definitely him. And I think I can smell him, even through the picture. I need to throw up, and the goatee guy can tell something is wrong with me. I’m probably five shades of white right now, but I can’t talk. I have to run away. To anywhere else. This is too real.
         On the way into the main area I run into a door and my left hand leaves a smear of red, still oozing blood. I can feel the head of my dick, one hundred percent on fire now, like how I imagine a steam burn would feel. And I might be crying. Things are blurry and the music is too loud, too relentless. I’m confused, fumbling, trying to think about the Stinky Christ, trying to convince myself that I’m having a deeply bad trip and that in reality I’m probably just curled up in a corner somewhere, shaking. But the pain is too sharp, too real.
          How could that guy be a Nazi? He had so much hair! Nazis can’t have hair! Shit, everything I’m trying to dig on is so blurry. Not a dream, my guts are fucking burning, really, incontrovertibly burning. I’ve eaten poison. My heart is going so fast now I cant even differentiate the beats.
          Then I look around, and see hell, only this hell come equipped with lasers and strobes and disco balls and beats, which is all somehow much worse than the traditional fire and brimstone brand of hell.
          Kids everywhere are doubled over; the one closest to me has a string of bloody vomit hanging from his lip. It looks like his little plastic necklace is sinking into his neck, scraping into his trachea. What did Stinky Christ feed us?
          Flashback; his joke… ‘Mutant streptococci
           NOT A JOKE! FUCKING SHIT!
          My ankles roll out from under me. The floor is carpeted but I feel the concrete slap right into my skull. My skull gives too much, and crusted red hands reach up and bring back new, wet blood. I can barely do it, but I shift my head across the ground, crane my neck, and see HIM behind the DJ booth.
            It has to be him. Fucking Drug Jesus, wearing an old World War II gas mask now, grabbing the live P.A. microphone. It’s clear he wants to speak but he seems to be having trouble finding the right switch with that mask on. I don’t want to hear his voice.
          I just want a fucking ambulance, some help. Anything.
         Oh shit, our Saviour has found the switch
         ‘THE PROUD ARYAN BROTHERS OF THE LIGHTNING REICH HAVE A MESSAGE TO DELIVER TO THOSE OF OUR RACE WHO SEEK TO ESCAPE THEIR DUTY…’
          What duty?! Fucking vapid Nazi bullshit, man! My head is throbbing and feels thick, heavy and loose on my neck, like if I move it any more my head will separate from my neck, accompanied by the sound of tearing paper.
          Oh god, please let me come out of this! I’m done tripping, give me back control, fuck all these drugs, fuck Nazis and turntables and giant pants and stillborn relationships based on mutual drug abuse
         ‘…TO THE GREAT WHITE CRUSADE, TO THE CAUSE. THOSE OF YOU BEFORE ME THIS EVENING ARE SUFFERING BECAUSE YOU SEEK ESCAPE FROM THE RESPONSIBILITY OF OUR GREAT BROTHERHOOD. YOU WILL DIE TONIGHT BECAUSE YOU CHOSE TO.
          YOU WILL DIE TONIGHT…’
          Fuck the candy kids with fake angel wings and candy jewellery and even all the beats. Fuck all this bullshit and give me back my life and take away this pain.
         Let me wake up!
        Nobody is listening. ‘come on’ I’m thinking as I see security rushing around as freaked out kids step over my body and rush to the door, ‘I repent man! Let me come out of this!’ my head feels like it’s burning now too and I can’t see anymore. I try to open my eyes. I have to see, have to crawl to help. I reach up gingerly to open my eyelids with my fingers and the tissue has too much give. Too much pain everywhere in my body, I didn’t even feel my eyes rupture. They are soft in the sockets, like warm, wet rotten little peaches. In my right eye socket my finger pushes up against the lens itself, hard yet yielding like a Superball, and now I feel the pain there…
         ‘…BECAUSE YOU AND YOUR REGRESSIVE BEHAVIOUR ARE CONTRIBUTING TO THE WEAKENING OF OUR RACE. THE MEMBERS OF THE LIGHTNING REICH HAVE DECIDED THAT YOU RACE TRAITORS HAVE CONTRIBUTED TO OUR DECLINE LONG ENOUGH. NOW WE ARE CLEANING UP THE MESS, BEFORE THE NEXT GENERATION IS AFFECTED BY YOUR WEAKNESS, YOUR IGNORANCE, AND YOUR LACK OF DESIRE FOR TRUE SOCIETAL ADVANCEMENT ACCORDING TO THE RULES LAID OUT BY THE TURNER DIARIES.
          ENJOY YOUR LAST TRIP.’
        …and the top of my head is burning white hot, the whole head feeling rotten and close to caving with each throb, and Jesus seems to have stopped talking, and now I can hear screams, too many screams, too many of them pitched ridiculously high, like the squeals and bleats of the slaughterhouse Joanie took me by when I was eight.
          And it feels like my guts just spilled out.
          But I’m too afraid to reach down and feel, I just want to wake up and think God’s a real bastard for allowing me to trip this hard, oh please let this all be a trip, and someone is screaming for their daddy across the room and I want to cry but my eyes exploded so I just scream and scream and scream and realise that the DJ probably ran from the building but he left the albums spinning and I can feel the beats through the floor, vibrating my flesh and rendering it to something less and less substantive and I am starting to hope that if this is real I will die and soon.
         And I am also thinking somewhere further off ‘welcome to my After School Special’ and I want to laugh, but my throat just dripped to the floor,
          And
                        I
                                Cannot
                                                         Breathe…