ᚢᚾᚺᛁᚾᚷᛖᛞ ᚲᛟᚱᛈᛟᚱᛖᚨᛚ ᚾᛟᛒᛟᛞᚤ

 Unhinged Corporeal Nobody

Ned Devlin

I tried explaining explaining myself to myself to Collin, but that's not what interests him, so he's sort of just stood there a little frustrated now and i'm laughing pretty harsh like a hyena while he shakes his head at me. He's been more than a touch touchy in recent Times, still flailing about in the great battle against the futility of it all: The good ole Existential Quest and all that. What's only kind of funny though is how if he doesn't find that which he seeks, he'll be in for a sad drift of shame back where he started, all tied up with everyone else playing who's who and what's what with all manner of imaginary abstract silliness, all dressed up pretending not to be Powerplay when really it's all nothing but. What's even a little more funny though is that if he wins and finds what he seeks he'll be stuck laughing at things of unimaginable Terror, with not even the beginnings of an Idea of how to make it all stop.

  He's all a bit muddled up inside at my Laughter, converting Fun into fury, as those who are stuck seeking too hard often do, saying: ‘Oh for fuck's sake ned I don't have time for this shit. Fucking...’ and his words just sort of dance around with him down the hallway away from where i can see them. All the air around him is bobbing and twisting in such a way i don't know whether to say thanks to the Mescaline or the Lysergic, or just like the general Nature of all Things, so i give it all a sharp smile spinning a 540 on my heel then sort of collapsing back onto my feet into a jelly walk to send me off back to the pot of Sludge going: ‘fllllerrup flup flup’ all over and over again on the stove, turning all the Nonsense we don't need into a steam to send out into the air, which has me kind of worried about the atmosphere being filled with the stuff we want least - might make us all be breathing in Rejection, not too good for the smiles, i wouldn't think.

  I give the pot a wee swirl to keep it ticking along as it should be, then notice a different sort of Weariness than usual, emanating from the hunched over figure at the end of the hallway, that being Collin and his cohorts: All kinds of different Creatures of loose particle arrangements swirling and morphing around him, merging and multiplying through him while the poor Fool tries desperately to convince himself he's solid. Drifting toward him i can see that his waves are spelling out a different tune than mine, his not being smoothed at the edges with Mescaline like my own, just jagged morphing spikes that crunch and wiggle real sharp, telling me that getting amongst it might give the ole ectoplasmic sheath a few cuts and scrapes to leave me all the more unsure and agitated about trying to decide what is and what isn't.

  So instead, standing and stirring the Sludge, my peripherals perk up again and lead me back off to the lounge for a talking to, the Ninjas getting ever more vivid and talkative by the day, me not dabbling much in the Sleepdreams that would normally extinguish them. Once they got me seated and listening, the Spokesman sort of materialises for me with unprecedented solidity, passing the DaTuring test with flying colours, but still a little black and murky to the Main Eye: ‘Right, Ned... I think it's time we explain a few things, fill you in a bit, since you seem about ready to get involved. First of all, well done making it to Day Four. Not many-’ but he's cut off because i had a Thought pass by about what my old buddy Collin might be doing, which sort of turned my new friend into like a smoke and more or less just a Thought himself: These folk are rather more demanding of one's attention than your average corporal fellow, quick to become no more than a fading Memory of a tangential Dream the minute you point your attention elsewhere.

  ‘Focus, Ned,’ he says from in the middle of me, making me a little mixed up about where to look or listen from, but he's back in my peripherals quick smart, only not willing to be in my focal point this time round, a sort of punishment for my accidentally meddling with his Existence for a second back there. There's quite a few of them, the noncorporeal, all darting about from every which side of me, but clearly not ready to keep talking till i stop trying to discern outlines and details and all that Nonsense we all get a little caught up in when we start sleeping too much.

  ‘Now, Ned, are you going to focus so we can explain ourselves?’ he asks, to which i nod all eager smiles, ‘But you're gonna stop focusing on trivial matters such as our whereabouts and physical form?’ yes Sir, thank you Sir, ‘Right. Well. Let me explain where it all started. I was once like you... We all were; mostly physical in form, but beginning to wonder if that was the ideal way to be. This realisation, and I'm just speaking for myself here, seems to be the result of purging the toxic effects of sleep from one's lifestyle. Now, after a day or two without sleep, I began to notice these people. People of no apparent colour. People who moved deftly from peripheral to peripheral, avoiding my focal point with flawless grace. I, like most who meet them, dismissed them as symptoms of madness.

  ‘But, by Day Three, they'd begun to murmur incomplete sentences, and soon enough they were appearing before me, explaining things to me. Things that made a lot of sense. They gave me enticing pieces of information in the form of disjointed conversations, which were often cut short by my own lapses in concentration. The one thing they made clear was that I would have to stay awake for some time to receive their wisdom, as the human senses took time to adjust to their wavelength, and sleep would reset the process entirely.

  ‘So, by Day Five, my new acquaintances had become clearer than the sleep-induced hallucinations I'd once associated with. These were people of class; progressive and upwardly mobile, not sluggish and earthbound like those I'd left behind. Eventually, I was initiated into the inner circle, no longer in need of sleep or sustenance, unaffected by pain or pleasure, praise or punishment, wandering from realm to realm through the peripherals of-’ but he's gone again because Collin's just walked past, making those dull, thudding sorts of earthly noises that never fail to bring one back from the Other Worlds. Memory is already turning a blind eye to what just happened, but the general Message remains, and i'm quite happy about that, me being in need of a project, having not been too productive lately. It's a well suited project for me and my inclinations, since i've never been one to “fall” asleep, the whole process being more of a climb than anything. Excited, i return to the kitchen to tend the Sludge, thinking Lucy and Robbie might have to wait until tomorrow for their dose since the air and the objects aren't really dancing for me so much anymore, which is no good, but easily dealt with, even if Mirages are a bit rare this time of year.

Lucy Winters

It's almost summer and the sun is like a beating heart, pumping a thick, sweltering current into the air that makes me feel heavy and dizzy and a bit drunk. I'm walking with Robbie to Rory's place on the outskirts of the city centre. We've been walking around all day, and my face is dotted with beads of sweat that I don't want to wipe off for some reason. Robbie's talking into his tape recorder as he walks, which he seems to be doing all the time now . . .

  ‘. . . when Persephone ate the pomegranate, she ate six seeds, which meant she had to spend six months a year in the underworld, 'cause the pomegranate - so German for pomegranate is granadapfel, which is like granite apple, or like sandy apple, sort of, so it's like the apple in the garden of Eden, the sand being dirt, 'cause languages are like that sometimes, the dirt of Eden . . . So they ate it and had to spend all their time in the underworld, that being the normal world, like, hell relative to the garden of Eden. The apple was a symbol for knowledge, which is represented in the Kabbalah as, uh, Da'ath, which, when you look at the tree itself as being like a double for the body, is located in the throat, where the Adam's apple is, and is also supposed to be the gateway to Qliphoth, the daemonic tree, in much the same way that the apple that fell on Isaac Newton’s head symbolised the beginnings of the atheistic eon . . .’

  . . . he's been going on all afternoon, this long, rambling story about everything that exists and how it all fits together. It used to annoy me when he did that, but I've come to like it. Ever since we started doing cactus. It goes with the music I get in my head. The music that isn't music. The motion. Something I can never describe . . . There's too much to hear or feel all at once, so all I can really do is navigate through it. But that's what makes it into a melody and not just a whole lot of noise. Sometimes it makes me sad that no one else can feel it. But not when I'm with Robbie. His monologue is so in sync with it that I can't help but know he's grooving with it. Our secret choir, if only the tape recorder knew . . .

  Robbie points down Butler Street and nods, still talking to the tape recorder. I nod back and wonder why we're heading that way, since Rory's place is in pretty much the opposite direction. We turn onto Butler Street and Robbie's busy, scanning eyes flitting from side to side tell me we're on a cactus hunt. This is where all the old people with nice gardens live, so there's bound to be a few San Pedros around.

  I'm trying to help, scoping out the gardens as we pass, but I keep losing focus and finding myself staring at Robbie with a dopey smile. He's wearing a baggy army jacket and a beanie with his hair tucked up under it, but there are lots of clumps spilling out which he's given up trying to control. His eyes are huge and frantic behind his glasses, darting around like agile little creatures while his head stays relatively still, bobbing slightly with his walk, as he speaks with a hushed urgency into his tape recorder. He's just starting to sprout scruffy, uneven sideburns, and his former waddle has transcended itself into a smooth, creeping strut which seems to express something about his nature - reminds me of creatures that were around before the Dinosaurs, those kind of mammalian looking lizard creatures from the early Triassic. Everything about him adds up to something I can't describe, something strangely rhythmic and mind tinglingly familiar . . .

  He knows I'm looking but he's pretending not to, so I stop and make an effort to scope out the properties with him. His self consciousness is starting to ruin his natural flow, both in his words and his walk. The beauty of Robbie in his element is only ever a fleeting thing, something you have to be subtle and quiet to catch, like a creature out in the bush before it knows it's being watched. As soon as it notices you watching, that fragile grace is broken, and then you just have to forget about it because it's not coming back till you go.

  We get to house number fifty two and Robbie stops suddenly. It's a large, mostly unfenced front yard with a two storey brick house singed orange with no garage. I can't see any car parked there, but the driveway leads to what I imagine to be a big concrete patch on the other side of the house. The tape recorder clicks off, followed by the sound of Robbie not talking, the chuckle of birds and distant machinery overlapping with the beat inside me. I follow his gaze to a corner in the front yard where the house meets the fence, separating it from the next property over, and see what he's looking at: a healthy, apple green, three pronged San Pedro - a total of about five foot.

  ‘Is anyone home?’ I ask. Robbie turns to me with a frightened stare that narrows into a ‘not now, Lucy’, look. I realise he's misinterpreted me so I nod to the house and say, ‘In there, Robbie,’ and give him what I hope is a gentle smile.

  His face relaxes into a wry, tight lipped smile and he shakes his head at himself before looking back to the house. The didgeridoo rumble of a car passing by ushers us from the road onto the footpath.

  ‘Not sure,’ Robbie says, leading me along the fence. ‘Either way, we should come back at night. I don't wanna do it with all this,’ he nods over his shoulder at his bag, filled with all sorts of herbs and powders and voodoo chemistry. He looks at me with the awkward freedom of a tripper in his eyes and points to his head, ‘And there is someone home today. Many of us.’ I find it quite creepy, but I don't let my smile fade. I keep it in place as he holds my gaze, but eventually pull away when it gets too much.

  I look up at the sky, dragging my hand along the fences and walls as we pass, still aware of Robbie's watch. Violin and sinister piano glares bring caution to my footsteps as the inconsistencies of the pavement become more visible. I'm almost certain Robbie’s smile has turned into something less friendly, less harmonious, but I don't want to look. A pulse of anxiety nauseates me and I notice that never happens when I'm with Collin and have a flash of insight into the nature of anxiety that fades away before fully forming. I wonder where Collin might be and if he's okay and the thought creates another wave of nausea which seems to intensify the sun's malevolent breath. After a while, Robbie stops looking at me and gets his tape recorder out and I relax again.

When we get just outside Rory's place, I turn to walk in but Robbie puts his hand on my shoulder to stop me so he can finish talking.

  ‘. . . which brings us to his connections with Dionysus. They both turned water into - well, Dionysus was the god of wine, at least, presumably transmuting it from a more basic element. They were both born to virgin mothers through some kind of divine miracle, and they both rose from the dead. They both travelled the earth with a hoard of followers, preaching revolution and ecstasy, an ancient psychedelia of some more primitive inebriants, 'cause . . .’ He stops and looks to the skies, then to me, ‘Hey, Lucy. What was I getting at before? About Christianity and, uh, Pagan religions . . . Can you remember?’ I shrug, kind of guilty. ‘Like with the Kabbalah, Tiphareth, and uh . . . 'Cause Horus is, uh . . .’ he trails off into a pained silence, looking at the ground with furrowed eyebrows, chewing on his fingertips.

  ‘Let's go in. You can listen to the start of the tape after and find your place,’ I say, trying to be helpful. He nods, but isn't happy with it. I can see why. He's been talking into that thing for hours, and I don't know how he'd go about looking for anything in particular. I don't think he even knows exactly what it is he's trying to remember. It's probably one of those elusive things that pop into your head when you're tripping, like a shoal of fish that disintegrates and swims off in all sorts of directions when you dunk a rod in . . . I feel like that might actually be related to what he's looking for, or to do with the overall point he's been getting at all day, but I'm anxious to keep moving for some reason so I don't say anything.

  We walk in the front door that leads straight to the main room and we're met with deadpan cheers and mock celebration, just another moment in the endless irony I can tell has been going on here all day. Rory, Amelia, and Stan are here - other Stan, Stan Vincent. All three of them are on the couch watching a music video that looks like porn to me. Rory gets up and tries to gangster shake Robbie's hand, but Robbie goes in for a normal handshake and they just hand turkey for a bit and give up. Rory's layered up in a poxy suit jacket and has cargo pants and boots on and I realise how chilly it is in here. There's two fans on so I go and stand in front of one and a thought passes that it's probably filling the room with my smell from the long walk in the sun, but the feeling of it on my back sends these waving rays of energy through my body so I don't mind.

  Once Robbie and Rory say their hellos and uptos, respectively, Robbie takes his bag off and they both sit down on the floor in front of the couch with Robbie's bag between them. Everyone's ignoring me, which I don't mind. Robbie unzips his bag and gets out about an ounce of weed while Rory sets up his scales for him. I close my eyes and I'm a warping scramble of sentience blasting through empty blackness with a humming noise that quickly overpowers the appliance type music. I feel some kind of sound spill out of my mouth and open my eyes and Stan and Amelia are both looking at me. I giggle awkwardly and decide to keep my eyes open while I'm here.

  ‘Breather . . . Your pupils are full bore right now,’ Rory says in his deep monotone, watching Robbie weigh out some weed.

  Robbie looks up at him and says, ‘I should imagine so, yes,’ and continues arranging the weed, putting another bud into the bag, then taking it away and putting in a smaller one before putting the bag back on the scales.

  ‘So you lads full chargin’ it or what?’

  ‘Uh, yeah. Sure.’

  ‘Yeah? What’s good?’

  ‘Huh?’

  ‘You know, what are you on?’

  Robbie stops moving and looks at Rory, ‘What, you mean what am I under the influence of?’

  ‘Yeah, if that's how you wanna put it.’

  ‘Every drug I've ever taken,’ Robbie says. He eyeballs him for a few seconds then fishes out another small bud for the bag.

  Stan says, ‘Cosmic.’ Rory smiles flatly.

  Robbie ignores their smirks and hands Rory the bag of weed. Rory looks at the bag and says, ‘Church,’ which these guys say instead of thanks for some reason. Their strange lingo seems to change as soon as I figure it out. I guess that's just their game. They call me Loose Ends, which I find a little creepy.

  ‘Yeah, church,’ Robbie says absently. ‘You guys after anything else?’

  No one says anything. Robbie takes out a folded piece of paper from his bag and says, ‘You guys ever tried DMT?’

  ‘That what you're on now?’ Rory asks.

  Robbie laughs and shakes his head. Everything is completely silent, but I’m not sure why or what it means.

  ‘. . . So do you rail this shit up?’ Stan asks after a while.

  ‘Nah, smoke it.’

  ‘And what's it do? Trips?’

  ‘Uh, yeah. Trips. That's a bit of an understatement, but yeah. It's the chemical that's released in your brain when you die or have a near death experience. So, like, you know when people say they saw a white light or like their life flashed before their eyes? Like, in the movies? That's DMT, naturally occurring in the body. Rick Strassman says it's released when you're dreaming as well, but I have this theory that it's always being released to regulate consciousness, but it's actually being released in lower doses when you're dreaming, because it creates the narrative that binds . . . uh, actually, never mind. It's an entheogen is what I'm saying. It's been used by shamans for thousands of years to communicate with the spirit world.’

  ‘Cosmic.’

  It's quiet again now. The room seems to exhale sharply. I focus on the cactus music in my head to drown out the TV, which is all gangster now. The cactus ends up playing nicely with the bass and they combine to make something pleasantly atmospheric.

  ‘You eppy out on it?’ Rory asks.

  ‘Eppy out?’ Robbie says, though I'm pretty sure he actually understands. I'm not sure if it's short for episode or epilepsy, but I get what they mean.

  ‘You know, like freak out. Get scared.’

  ‘Well, if you're scared of it, then, yeah,’ Robbie replies, a little bit smug.

  ‘Is it an all night kinda thing?’ Amelia asks. ‘Like, will I be able to sleep if I have some now?’

  ‘Yeah, for sure. It only goes for like five minutes, but you completely transcend time if you break through. You get like a bird’s eye view of our little world of time and space.’

  ‘Trippy,’ Stan drones. Amelia and Rory laugh. I'm getting sick of Stan now.

  ‘So is it kinda like that Mexican tripping weed shit then?’ Amelia says, ignoring Stan's cynicism.

  ‘What, salvia?’ Robbie asks. She nods. ‘Fuck . . . This is like, the channel salvia is trying to turn you on to. Salvia's just like static. This is the real thing. Another dimension,’ he says. I can see it's put Stan and Rory off a bit. Not so much what he described, more the way he described it. These guys aren't interested in other dimensions. They look at each other and shake their heads dismissively.

  ‘That sounds pretty cool. Lads?’ Amelia says. But the other two have already made up their minds, and I think Stan's sort of the leader here.

  ‘What else you got? Got anything fun? Something you can charge on?’ Rory asks.

  ‘Yeah, got some acid. Thirty bucks each, but I could give you five for-’

  ‘Nah nah, that’s a zero on that one, breather. I don't wanna jump out a window. Got any pills? Pingers or anything? Like, something other than dex, I mean. Keen to rage a bit tonight.’

  Robbie looks indignant for a second, then says, ‘Well, I got some ketamine. Ever tried that?’

  ‘Zero. What’s that?’

  ‘Oh it's lots of fun. It's a dissociative. Kind of trippy, but mostly euphoric. Real nice body buzz . . . It's kind of like being on poppy tea and MDMA - like, good E, I mean. But a bit shroomy too. Lots of pingers have it in 'em. Like Jeremy's ones, they were just caffeine mixed with DXM, which is basically the same as K. Ketamine, that is. This is just pure ketamine, though. You can chill out or get loose, whatever you want. It's good like that. It's a real malleable high.’ He gets a bag of capsules from his tin, all the eyes in the room following his hands.

  ‘Sounds Swedish, eh,’ Rory says. Swedish means good, I think. ‘How much that go for?’

  ‘Well, I'll give you a cap for twenty, that'll probably be enough for two of you, since it's your first time,’ Robbie says. It's quiet for a second and Robbie chews his fingertip, then says, ‘Or, if you want, I'll give you the whole bag for, uh . . . one fifty? Like a couple grams. That'll be enough to get a whole party going, or at least leave you with a stash to play around with.’

  ‘What do you reckon, breathers? Keen to get a bit irie tonight?’ Rory asks, looking from Stan to Amelia to Robbie. ‘This shit's not gonna make me stare at the sun is it?’

  ‘Nah, you might spend some time staring at the moon though. I dunno. You'll just feel real good, laugh heaps, probably get all philosophical. It's way mellower than acid. As long as you don’t take too much.’

  Stan shrugs and says, ‘Mars, right?’ which means might as well. Somehow.

  ‘Yeah, mars,’ Rory says. ‘It's bandit as getting all philosophical and shit. Like the other night at Spacey’s, history channel and shit. To the days.’ The room nods in agreement and I crack up laughing. I can't help it. I can feel them all looking at me, but I can't look back at them. I've got one of those goofy smiles like when you're trying too hard not to laugh. I look at Robbie, who shakes his head at me, and then just run off outside. Before I close the door, I hear someone's voice, Stan, maybe, say, ‘Fuckin' loon . . .’

  I sit on the curb to wait for Robbie and feel strangely close to my childhood, with a dark, unformed thought somewhere in there that I'm actually further away than ever. The darkness fades quickly and I start laughing, this time about Robbie and his ways. He's on a different planet than those guys in there. It really is a beautiful thing, though. He's his own person. This planet is overpopulated anyway.

  It's cooled down a bit, and the sky is awash with that deep, ochre hum that ushers in the moonlight. Three magpies are standing in a strangely symmetrical triangle on the road in front of me, looking dodgy. A fourth struts through the middle of them with its neck down and mouth open, then stops, looks back at them, and flies away. Seconds later, the other three fly away, then a car thunders past shocking me out of my trance.

Collin Callahan

My upper lip curled at the corner involuntarily.

  The truth...

  The truth is my project had lost momentum. My purpose had become convoluted to the point of losing almost all meaning. I'd spent so much time and resources rewiring the brains of these unmotivated dilettantes with next to nothing to show for it. What was needed now was power moves. Actions with clear, objective consequences.

  I had successfully created a small, cultish society in my image. My Will had transcended the limits of the self. This was the source of some pride for me. Pride: Empty, useless, indulgent. I had found myself at something of a dead end, one which could only be transcended by addressing the next logical question: Where to from here? The idea of spreading my influence was an attractive one, and one I'd contemplated for some time. But what would that accomplish? More of the same? I had the ability to rewire minds: With a slight effort of will, I could change the thought patterns of those around me. I had proven this to myself. In doing so, I had accomplished nothing. To further myself would require acting on a larger scale. But how? My disciples would be of no help here - the three of them had been avoiding contact with anyone outside of their closed circuit community for months now. I was alone. My binder was filled with half finished plots to rewire society on a large scale. Plans to blow up electricity boxes. Infiltrate the political world. Taint the breweries with LSD. Hack the media to breed dissent. Creep around at night preaching psychedelic ecstasy in huge spray painted letters across the city... The ideas excited me, but seemed so cartoonish in the light of day. I had elaborate fantasies of reigning over the tiny minded masses, of throwing away the petty abstractions of social order and status. Fantasies of reigniting mankind's long forgotten lust for the mysteries, the chaos, and the unknown. Fantasies that never failed to bring me to ecstasy... Unfortunately, the satisfaction never carried over to the post ejaculatory depression, with nothing accomplished except a diminished libido.

  I lit a cigarette to settle my emotions and sat tense on the corner of my bed, emitting a psychic white noise to drown out the whispers. The morning and afternoon had been wasted in disgust and contempt. Disgust at the mess lucy and robbie had left in my room, contempt at the mess they had made of their minds, their potential. Contempt gave way to despondency, which eventually built into a restlessness that could not be contained. I paced back and forth throughout my room, blowing tobacco smoke into all four corners. Just in case. I tried to organise my belongings and, by proxy, my mind. But something was missing. The point where it all falls together, the organic flow of means towards ends... I tried to shift my perspective to the grander scale, the perspective that had once been my default state, but I couldn't silence the restless voices scolding me for my oversights, the fatal flaw of my plan: The point in which the mind loses its ability to record its increasing madness and enlightenment is always disappointingly distant from the absolute pinnacle of boundless reality I seek to understand - the narrative of the descent into the underworld always trails off just when it gets interesting. It had happened to ned, and now it was happening to robbie. The little cunt now wasted his days sitting around smoking that synaesthesia seizure of a drug DMT, never bringing anything useful back, just a self satisfied smile and a doped up inebriation.

  I noticed a ribbon of sacred geometry uncurling from the corner of my eye and banished it, having grown rather sick of all the little distractions of psychedelia. It was not time to indulge. It was time to focus. The exponential elevation afforded to me by psychedelic drugs seemed to have finally plateaued, leaving me in need of something more, something to take it further. I gathered the books scattered carelessly around my room, scouring my mind, yearning, searching for answers, searching for the purpose that had once seemed so clear. It appeared that the next step would take more than drugs to reach. But what? The house was filled with parasitic Thought Forms planted by an invisible enemy, someone or something trying to grey my kaleidoscope vision. Many of my recent meditations had been interrupted by the derisive snickering of faceless voices as They spread Their lies, slander, and propaganda. They called me deluded and drug addicted. They said I was narcissistic and destined to failure, that I was living in a dream world. They told me that my path could lead only to madness. They told me it was time to land. I knew I would need to learn to harness these invisible Forces if I was to create the changes I wanted to see in myself and the world. But how could I gain the trust of Beings who were immune to deception, Beings who seemed to roam the same planes as my own thoughts?

  There was only one person who could possibly answer that.

  Once all my books were back where they belonged, I opened my door silently and peered into the lounge, all too aware of the rancid Thought Forms floating invisible throughout the mind of the house. Ned was perched cross legged on the arm of the couch, grinning peacefully at the coffee table, as he had been when I checked on him last. Studying his intoxicated, sagelike expression, I decided I had to go where he'd been. As well as where robbie had been. It was time to swallow up all the wisdom, madness, and ecstasy into myself, to reap the enlightenment I'd sowed around me, to absorb into myself that which I had facilitated within them. I had led my horses to water, and, as I always suspected would be the case, the cunts were still standing there with cotton mouth admiring the ripples.

  It was time to drink.

  Fuck was it time to drink.

  I closed my door and messaged robbie as I paced around my room, forcefully ignoring the vampiric stench of the dimensionless Beings around me. Though I had internalised their wisdom, I felt more psychedelics would be the only valid starting point for my endeavour, even if only to maintain my illuminated baseline. The LSD I'd eaten had passed its peak, and it was time for an artificial second wind.

  Robbie messaged me back as I finished my cigarette, but every word in his text fed my disgust, nauseating and energising me by turn. It was just the kind of noncommittal bohemian bullshit I should have expected from him. Negative Thoughts wafted onto my skin like cob webs in an attempt to transmute my anger into woe, but I caught Them in the act and They feigned nihility.

  To my surprise, I ended up texting michael after deeply contemplating my situation. He had been talking about some kind of psychedelic amphetamines when I saw him last, apparently some kind of excessively long lasting phenylethylamines. ‘The mad buzz, bro. Took it yesterday afternoon and it’s still going,’ he told me, quickly adding: ‘But I fully believe in evolution, cunt,’ and proceeding to explain his revelations to me for the next half hour, concluding that while he wasn't sure if he needed to throw up or take a shit, it wouldn't be a bad idea to go somewhere he'd be safe to do either. I understood the sentiment. Sinister Thoughts stood guard at all the places I frequented, filling me with self doubt upon contact. Home, the Disarray, and the Botanicals had become minefields of malignant, noxious Thought Forms, sucking the life and drive out of me like demented mosquitoes, forcing me to lock thoughts of ecstasy and revelation deep in my subconscious. I fended off depression with thoughts as my sword and fractal gin traps as my shield, but no matter how valiantly I fought, the Fuckers kept coming. Exactly how much these Beings knew about me, I wasn't sure. I suspected that the realms of thoughts and dreams were Their homes, and intuitively assigned a certain formlessness to Them. But really I had no clue what kind of vantage point the Cunts had. Perhaps They held my entire mind in the palms of Their hands like a snow globe. Maybe They were little more than thoughts themselves, blindly existing as They were, simply thought into existence by a mind no greater than my own. All I knew for certain was that I could no longer be idle. Even the woods were infested. Ever since I noticed this plague, I'd been forced to venture deeper and deeper into the forest for my uninterrupted meditations. Soon, the whole forest would be Their territory, and I'd have to find somewhere new. I may even have to leave town.

  Michael messaged me back saying he was at work, but was keen to fuck shit up when he finished. I smiled. It was an awkward, pained smile. But it was a smile. Above all, it was the cunt's tendency to cause chaos around him that led me to contact him. I'd been lounging around in the company of passive pseudo intellectuals and demented Soul Suckers for too long. It was time for action. Motion. Even if it was the mindless destruction of a numskull with a dopamine deficiency. Just something. Anything.

Stan Richards

I'm standing here sorta paralysed with my foot on the tail of my board, just staring at this narrow knee-high six-stair ledge like I’m gonna get some kind of information from it. I got a backside 180 nosegrind in mind. I got them sorted on this flat ledge on the waterfront the other day, like pretty much every try, and I been doing front noses down this ledge for a while now. I know that if I just go for it and actually pop, the rest will just happen, like muscle memory and shit. But I'm just standing here like a fuckin' pussy, going through the motion in my head, over and over. All I'm tryna do is just imagine the whole process, start to finish, without my thoughts wandering off all worried about what a fuckin' mess my life is. Once I can do that I'll be ready to actually try it... Just a fluid backside 180, slightly underturned, one motion, forget the back foot, just make sure my front foot just like plasters my truck in there, not a straight switch 5-0, like a crooked one, a Suski, switch Suski, locked in. I picture myself accidentally sticking a front nose and just flying backward into the concrete, smacking the back of my head on the ground. My mind's being a cunt again. Keeps on interrupting with images of all the different fuck ups, bail outs, and slams that could happen if I ever actually try it. What I'm really looking for is that strange magnetism that propels me onto the ledge without thinking, ready for the slam that's never as bad as I think it'll be, but even more ready to glide off the end, willing to commit no matter what.

  I kick my board ahead of me and run onto it, pushing twice to get enough speed so the grind will be just like a tap as I fly past it, kinda tryna convince myself that I'm driven by that force that doesn't give a fuck about the consequences, that's willing to risk anything for that feeling of riding away. But I already know I'm just gonna roll up to it, put my foot down at the last second, and just fuckin' stare at the ledge like I have been for the last ten minutes, just from like a slightly closer angle. Still expecting to gain some fuckin' wisdom or something from it. Just repeating the same brain-fried process of over analysis and self-deception.

  Compelled by a truer and less romantic force, my back foot instinctively plants itself on the concrete, dragging me to a halt about a foot away from the edge of the top stair. My bitchy over-thinking side, totally incompatible with the act of skating, is like rehashing the absurdity of even trying a trick so likely to end in pain when I can't even go through the motions in my head without slipping into masochistic fantasies of bone-fucking failure.

  Standing with one foot on my board and one on the ground, looking at the ledge but not really processing its dimensions anymore, I'm aware that this recklessness I'm tryna summon usually just ends up giving me torn ligaments or fucked elbows. And even if it doesn't, like every once in a while when I actually accomplish what I set out to do, it never even feels that great. When I'm under its influence, I sorta kid myself that it's a heroic sort of warrior headspace. But now, from this more pussified frame of mind, I can see that it's more like a kind of stupidity than any kind of courage - it seems retarded to rely on an empty head to get me through this. This situation calls for caution, practical focus.

  But that's just my pussy side thinking. When I'm in the zone, it's this anxious shit that seems irrational. It's like whatever headspace I'm in tries to convince me to stay that way, even when I know for sure that it's fucked for the situation, but this whole fuckin' thing is just my bitch mind tryna distract me so I don't go doing anything. I wouldn't even give this shitty notion a second thought when I'm zoned in, I'd just be like that's fuckin' dumb and get on with it...

  Fuck it. Here we go.

  I step back on my board and roll around the court a couple of times, popping a mobbed-out but clean nollie flip and a little ollie over my bag before pushing back to the ledge, definitely not harnessing the fire I'm after, but at least sort of acting like I am. As the ledge approaches, I'm hit by the thought that while I've spent all this time staring at the ledge and tryna like think it all through, I still haven't managed to picture the trick from start to finish. And even though I just spent fuckin' ages thinking about it, I'm no more mentally prepared than last time I tried it, when I didn't commit at all and just ended up running down the ledge like a fuckin' tightrope. With that in mind, I sneak in one extra push, which has me going too fast to bitch out now, hoping that by the time I get to the ledge I'll have that cold blue clarity I'm looking for and just fuckin’ do it.

  About half a second before I get to the stairs, something inside me bitches and decides it'll be happy just to do a noseslide. I pop a kiddy ollie, scooping 90 backside, body straight, sliding smooth, eyes on the concrete over the shoulder, yank out 90 - nope, spastic commando-roll, sprawled on my back, staring at the sky.

  If I tweak the shadows with my imagination just a little, the cloud above me is like a hippo, from like an ant’s eye view, standing on its back legs and roaring into the heavens. There's like some red that's sneaking in from the corner, the tail end of the hippo, but the rest of the sky is the navy blue of the early evening. I'm tryna find violet, like where the red and blue overlap, but they sorta seem separate from each other. I can't make out what's separating them, because the whole image seems to be throbbing now. I close my eyes and the afterimage dazzles and sparkles around, two slightly different coloured versions not quite in sync. I can feel the warmth of blood trickling from my elbow onto the concrete and wonder if my knee's bleeding, since it feels pretty raw against my jeans.

  There's the garbled sounds of the little gangster kids who go to this school, shouting as they kick a rugby ball around. When I got here, they were all just sitting on the steps outside one of the classrooms. The kid with the rugby ball saw I had my board and shouted ‘Do a kickflip,’ in that menacing way they do, where they laugh but I'm not allowed to. I said ‘Do a punt,’ back to him, and he said his brother was gonna bash me later and that was the end of our chat. I'm wondering now whether I know his brother, and whether later is now. I know I should open my eyes, but they're still closed and it feels better. My throat pulses and aches as I try to do some of my breathing exercises. This little bite in my throat. Some kind of growth. Cancerous maybe. It must have spread by now though. At this point, I'd rather let the fucker win - if I try do anything about it, I'll just spend the last moments of my life all chemo'd out and hating it. It's not as if my life is going anywhere anyway. I think I need to call the doctor and tell him the new pills are no good. I'll do it when I'm done doing this.

  Maybe...

Michael Farmer

It's almost fuckin' nine and I should be finished now but there's a fuckin' after dinner rush and the dishes are still coming in and I'm like fuck this and take my apron off, but that fat cunt George goes “Go on, get back in the dishpit. I told you before, I said you can leave as soon as” “Alright alright, but I'm outta here before nine, got shit to do” and he says some shit but I'm not listening anymore 'cause he's just on a fuckin' power trip, trying to be all - He's the only chef that's actually qualified here, but every cunt just treats him like shit so he takes it out on me 'cause I'm just dishpig. Fucker. I'm not putting on my apron 'cause I'm staying another ten minutes max and my neck's already ropeburnt as fuck from it. I wash a decent pile of dishes and a few pots and a gastro before Max, fuckin' top cunt, gets back from his smoke and goes “Cheers Michael, fuckin' smashed it tonight” which means it's sweet to go, fuckin' speaking in the past tense and shit. I head off saying “All good, see you cunts tomorrow” and give one big wave to the whole kitchen and get the fuck out of there unmolested.

  I'm off to meet Callahan, said he'd be on the corner of regent street and horrucks, dunno what the cunt's - Dexies are wearing off, used up all my charge back there in the dishpit, but Collin'll have some drugs or be keen to get something since it's all the cunt ever thinks about. The front of my T-shirt's wet as fuck and clinging to me, so I walk straight through centres 'cause I been doing at least a hundred sit ups a day, the ones where I kick my legs and touch my elbows to my knees, so I got a real fuckin' solid six pack, ripped as - I'm getting the mad stares from the ladies the whole way, but just keep my head up and walk all fast like it's them who's gonna have to do the chasing if they wanna get anything going.

  Callahan's sitting on a bench on horrucks looking like a fuckin' creep, head in his hands wigging out hard. I give him a bit of a kick to the shin when I get to him and he jumps, gave him a fright 'cause even though he knows I'm an all good cunt, when cunts first see me they're like shit, is this cunt after any trouble? till they suss out it's me, all good, whatup whatup. He gets up and we start heading down regent street and I'm not sure where we're going but Collin's on edge as fuck so I just roll with him. He's all fucked up and twitchy and not talking so I start saying shit so he doesn't feel all weird about it, just a good cunt thing, “Fuckin' pay rise around the corner, sure as fuck. Never leave any dishes behind when I'm done, not like all the other dishpig cunts, leaving massive fuckin' messes behind. Slow ass motherfuckers. Whole thing'd be fucked if I wasn't there. Always cleaning up after every cunt. Apron's fuckin' shredding my neck, though. Fuckin'-” and then Collin's suddenly all amped up and jumpy and he's got his hand on my shoulder going “Fuck, that's it man. Right there. So you're good enough at your job not to get fired right? Like, they need you there, don't they?” and I go “Fuckin' oath they do, bro, no shit-” but the cunt's cut me off going “Fuck, that's it then. Just stop wearing your apron. Tell them that you're leaving if you have to wear an apron. Be so good at your job that they keep you, even though you ignore their irrational rules” and I'm pretty dark at the cunt 'cause he cut me off, which I reckon is kinda - I say “Get a job, cunt, and you'll see how dumb that idea is.” He's all quiet and weird for a bit but walking fast as, then he goes “Fuck, man, you've got a great opportunity here. Make them rethink their value system. Let them know how ignorant their power structure is. Like, do you reckon it's okay that they make these rules purely to see you obey them? These rules that have no practical applications, that exist just to enforce the power structure. You have the opportunity to” and I just go “Why the fuck would I do that? My job's all good. I get free fuckin' beer, a couple feeds a day. Fuck your shit. What are you even trying to say?” 'cause I'm getting pretty sick of his shit. Usually he's a safe as cunt, total fag and shit but a funny as cunt, good for a shit talk. But now he's all serious and I'm over it already and he's like “Come on man. We gotta start fucking with the fabric of society. It's not enough that our minds are free. That was just the beginning. It was a means to an end, not an end in itself. You got a job, you can” but I'm like “Fuck, who cares man. We don't need to fuck up society. We do whatever the fuck we want anyway. I was four beers deep by the lunch rush, beaming on dexies, fuckin' great time. I don't give a fuck. I do what I want. Look,” I pull a tray of dexies out of my pocket and wave them in his face, “I got fuckin' speed, cunt. That society cunt's giving me fuckin' speed. Let's have a fuckin' line, no one's gonna stop us.” Collin takes his hand off my shoulder and I'm thinking fuckin' finally but he's just done it to slap me on the back 'cause he's out of control now going “Oh shit! That's another lead man! Alright, what you should do, right, is hit your doctor up. Tell him you need more amphetamines, that the dose you're on now isn't working. It'll be easy, just say your sleeping pills are fucking up the dexies and they'll give you more dexies, then say they're fucking with your sleeping pills so” and I go “Nah fuck your shit” and push him away 'cause his hand's still on my back and there's no fucking need - Collin goes “Man, it'll be easy as. Just go in there and” and I'm like “I know it'll be easy you dopey cunt. But you can't just tell me what to do and expect me to go along with it. That's just fucked” and he tells me I suck and finally shuts up and we're walking along regent street away from the shitlab so I guess we're going to my place. There's not a whole lot of stink around at the moment, but the ones that are out and about are giving me the eye hard. That's why Collin's getting all in my face, all fuckin' bummed out he's a scrawny cunt and the ladies don't give a shit about him.

  We're heading past o'connor and I got no idea where the fuck we're off to and Collin's like “So we gonna get some of this DOC or what?” and I go “Nah man fuck that shit. Doing a job for dad on sunday. It'll be just kicking in by then” and Collin the thick cunt thinks I'm serious and goes “Really?” and I laugh at him and try push him onto the road and some cunt beeps at us and I go “'Course not you dumb fuck. Shit's just lame though. Get pretty over it after the first day. Let's go to Rory's, he text me saying they got some ketamine shit. We'll get amongst that” and Collin's like “Fuck yeah let's do it. I didn't know those guys tripped” and I go “Nah those cunts don't fuck with trips. Pills” and Collin goes “Nah man, ketamine's a dissociative like dextrometh” “That don't mean shit to them, cunt. They won't even know what that word means. There's trips and there's trippy shit, and those cunts just like their trippy shit. How ‘bout you go to the liquor store on northland and pick us up some shit. I'll hit you back with some lines. You got your brother's ID?” He nods and a couple nice looking ladies pass us and I get busy with my eyebrows and they laugh all nervous together and look away, which is all good 'cause sometimes cunts like me are just intimidating, so I'm not worried. I'm still game if I come across them later, come one come all.

We end up at Amelia's, 'cause Damo's mum turned up at his, and it's Stan, Rory, Damo, Amelia, and Spacey, pretty much everyone except Jeremy, all lying around looking like fuckin' seed freaks, fucked as. Damo and Stan have both shaved their heads, look sorta badass, except Rory's got his arm around Damo who looks like he's sleeping, and I'm not really into this whole - There's so much weed smoke I can hardly see all the way across the room, and they got some gay ass music playing, like some of Callahan's shit, so they hardly even notice us come in.

  “Wake the fuck up cunts” I say and give Stan who's lying on the floor a decent kick. Everyone's just got these fuckin' smiles like there's some joke going on like when - Collin's gone and sat on the couch between Amelia and Spacey and Amelia says some shit I can't hear like whispers but only 'cause that's all she can do. Spacey's completely out to it though and doesn't even notice us, eyes all fucked. Stan's dancing on his back like a fuckin' E-tard and I'm like “Fuck, alright give me some of that shit then” to Rory 'cause it looks like a mean buzz and I'm bored as fuck of these cunts already. Rory ignores me and him and Damo are looking at each other and Damo starts kissing him, like properly making out, going for it, and I'm like “What the fuck? The fuck are you cunts up to?” and look at everyone and it's fucked 'cause no one's even acting like anything fucked's happened, not even Collin. Rory and Damo look at each other for a bit, then Damo closes his eyes and he's fuckin' kissing Rory's neck and Rory looks at me over Damon's head and goes “Just experimenting with life, brutus. Livin' it up. Gettin' irie. Look, there's K on the table. Get amongst it. Loosen up” and he laughs all asian and closes his eyes and I give Stan another kick and go “Oi, you seen that shit going on over there? What's that about?” but Stan's out to it too, mumbling about some - Damo's stopped kissing Rory and now Rory's popping one of Damo's pimples still all gay and I'm just standing there like what the fuck cunts? I’m giving Stan the nudge but he’s on another fuckin’ planet and Rory’s like “Big Dog’s gone down, boldy, full zero” and I just give the cunt the cockeye like - I knew Damo was a dirty dog, like had three ways and shit with him, but like us double teaming a bitch, none of this faggy shit. I say “Fuck, if this shit’s gonna turn me all faggy like you two then I'm ain't touching any” and Collin's got a fuckin' beam on and goes “Fuck, just get over it man. It's all just conditioning. They're breaking free, man. Stop being such a homophobe. Let's have a line” and I'm pretty dark with him and go “I'm not being a fuckin' homophobe, man. It's just 'cause it's fuckin' Damo and fuckin' Rory. How's that not fucked up to you guys?” and Amelia goes “Times they are a-changing” sorta singing it and Rory goes “One love, brah” and laughs, everyone's kinda already laughing but him and Amelia are losing their shit now. Collin goes “Mahs, right?” and Rory goes “Oath. Mahs” still nodding from some shit he said before. Callahan looks at me and laughs chuffed as and I'm like fuck that dude and nudge Stan with my foot and go “Oi, Stan, ya cunt, how's this shit not fucked up to you? Those cunts over there” and he opens his eyes slow as and goes “Farmdawg?” and he's fuckin' goneburgers so I'm like “Fuck this noise. I'm getting out of here, man. I'm not gonna be a part of this weird shit” and turn to go but Collin's up on his feet and stopping me with his hand on my shoulder going “Come on man, don't be such a fucking pussy. Ride the wave, man. It's only gay if you get a boner” and I stand there for a bit sorta shifty like not sure if I wanna - Like, trust that faggy cunt to be into it. Fuck it. I go “Alright. But I'm gonna crush up some dexies and mix it in with the ketamine, wake every cunt up” and Rory goes “Cosmic” making fun of the way Stan makes fun of Collin and Robbie and them when they're not around. Just an endless fuckin' joke with this lot isn't it?

  I get down on the floor and crush up on the coffee table since there's only room on the couch Damo and Rory are on and I don't want anything to do with that shit. I crush up four twenty mig pills and go “So who wants some fuckin' goey then?” and it's all quiet but Collin nods at me. I go “Come on, cunts, get into it” and Amelia's like “Not everything has to start with dexies, Michael” and Collin goes “That's true, but nothing ever ends with dexies” and she smiles all into it and they look at each other like they're gonna make out and I kinda want them to just to balance shit - Then I get one of them fuckin' flashes of genius and I'm like “Hang on, if those queer cunts are getting freaky, how ‘bout you and Spacey get it on?” to Amelia and she laughs and goes “Maybe we don't want to, Michael” and I just shake my head like whatever bitch and Collin's looking at me and him and Amelia are getting kinda close so I nod to Spacey still looking Callahan in the eyes to say shotgun, like hands off cunt. I go “Oi, Stan ya cunt. Get some dexies into ya” and give the cunt a shove with my foot. He's like “Huh? What's happening?” and I go “Fuckin' dexies ya cunt. Get up” and he goes “Dexies?” and I go “Yes fucking dexies hurry up” and hand him the snorter and rack up the lines. Stan goes “Oh... Fuck yeah I'm into it. Swedish...” and gets up so wobbly he can hardly even - I dunno if he knows there's ketamine mixed in but he'll find out soon enough. Spacey finally perks up and mutters some shit about another joint but I go “Nah nah, every cunt on the floor for another line” and open one of my rum and cokes and chuck one to Spacey 'cause the bitch doesn't fuckin' need any more weed, needs to wake the fuck up, if anything. She doesn't even try catch the can and it bounces off the back of the couch onto the floor and’s probly all fizzed up now so I'm getting fucked off so I grab the hooter and finally get my line. I snort it in one go, not like Stan the lost cunt who went at it a couple times, then I call out to Collin and wave the snorter at him. He's amping like fuck and comes down next to me and I stand up just in case he goes in for some gay shit when the ketamine starts - He takes off his jacket to have a snort and Stan's like “Yo, C squared... breather... that's a hell of an... uh... a hell of a jacket... bud. Suede denim, bandit...” and he picks it up and holds it up to the light. Collin looks at him for a bit all stoked about something and goes “Take it, man. It's yours” and has his line. Stan's like “Aye?” and Collin wipes his nose and sniffs a bit and goes “You can have it, man. I got too many clothes. All of you guys, Rory, Damon. If you need any more clothes, just come round sometime. I'm downsizing.” Stan goes “Swedish... Cheers lad, fuckin’ bandit” and puts it on like a blanket and shuffles around all weird. I go “You fuckin' moving out or some shit?” and Callahan's just like “Something like that” all fuckin' cagey like it's none of my business, fair call, leave him to it.

  I get up and head to the kitchen to put my drinks in the fridge and it's fuckin' full up with beers that no cunt's even - The music's way better now and it's like all up inside me and I'm like not even trying to dance I just am, like fuckin' tracing a picture or some shit like the moves are already there waiting for me, which is out of it as 'cause usually I hate dancing but it's like I'm fucking the music right now, stylish as. I go into the bathroom and rock out in front of the mirror for a bit and it's like some crazy shit, shit I never seen before, like my body's made of - Not even faggy at all like when most cunts dance, just fuckin' full steeze ahead, just fuckin' feeling it, unmolested as fuck. I think it's the chilli peppers playing, but it's like a different version I never heard before, like fuckin' so many layers going on, crazy bass line and shit. I dance into the lounge like not even walking anymore just completely rocking the fuck out and Spacey and Amelia are both staring at me, can't even move, just totally fuckin' blown away by this shit, like a pair - Collin's on the floor next to Stan and they're both smiling like fuck with their eyes closed and I give him a bit of a kick that's sorta part of my dance and go “Wake up you little bitch, it's on” and his eyes open slow as and he goes “Hole-lee shit” and stares up glazed as like he can't even see me and I'm pretty hyped about shit but he's not moving right now so I just groove over to the ladies and give them a dance like a lap dance, dashing as fuck but sorta low key too like when a lady ain't buck but still got slutty gear on and it's kinda better that way.

Robbie Marks

His words were fascinating, answering so many of my questions while simultaneously questioning many of my answers; but, knowing Ned and his nature, I found myself more concerned than intrigued. This whole time I had thought myself to be dancing recklessly through unknown realms, invoking strange new worlds where all is known and all has happened, all I had really done was create an imaginary version of myself, an avatar, in order to watch him boldly go face to face with the screams of the universe. This was all down to my essential nature, a trait typical of the psychedelic luftmesch: Always curious, never committed; never willing to cut the umbilical cord. Earlier that week, I had tried explaining just what was going on in the universe to Dad, even though I knew it wouldn't interest him. What I was really doing was attempting to forge a link to the Earthen floor of my mind, with Dad as an anchor, since I'd been perceiving myself as being somewhat - indeed, dangerously - interstellar at that point. In reality, I was too non-committal to be in orbit at all; instead, I floated aimlessly through The Great Void, desperately assuming that if I was to float far enough and for long enough, some kind of direction would reveal itself to me.

  The eerie Mescaline glow was waning; Ned, Lucy, and I were sat in a scalene-triangle on the living room floor, skinning our last few feet of San Pedro for our next dose. Mescaline was the perfect drug for our lives at that point: All we needed was a moderate dose, first thing after waking, and our thoughts would be pleasantly - but not detrimentally - lubricated for the next twelve-or-so hours, by which point we'd be ready for a few hours of relaxing and recapping before bed. Lucy and I had both settled into a Mescaline-influenced circadian rhythm which, strangely enough, actually resembled that of the general population: Sixteen hours up, eight hours down - though we aimed for the carefully calculated Golden Ratio of fourteen hours and fifty minutes awake, followed by nine hours and ten minutes of sleep. I mentioned this to Ned and he thought it made perfect sense: Since it was one variety of psychedelic drugs that had severed our ties to society, it would take another to re-integrate us. I never quite decided whether I agreed, but it was indeed an interesting take on the matter; much as Psilocybin had been the perfect substance to open me up to the possibility of life outside of the consensus, Mescaline was perfect for a smooth re-entry, as the alternate perspectives induced by the plant ran deep enough to keep me from resigning to the common world completely, yet were also subtle enough for me to go about my tasks without distraction, if necessary.

  ‘Don't do that, Ned. Wait 'til tomorrow and trip with the rest of us,’ Lucy said, speaking in the attractively petulant voice she often acquired after the seventh-hour of a Mescaline voyage. Due to the profound effects of Mescaline on my concentration, I'd become completely immersed in the task of peeling the skin, investing all my focus into finding the perfect flap in order to peel a whole segment in one satisfying motion. I hadn't noticed that Ned had started chewing on his piece of cactus; evidently neither had Lucy, as he had already bitten off several large mouthfuls.

  In response, Ned stood up abruptly, lost his balance for a second, and scanned the room with an expression somewhere between neutral and amused, before wandering off down the hallway, depriving us of our comfortably triangular dynamic. I'd long since given up wondering what he could be doing at times like this, so I simply gave Lucy what I hoped to be an easy smile; her face was slightly pained.

  ‘Should we just finish the rest off tomorrow - or, I mean, after we sleep?’ she replied to my expression, which turned out to be more of a grimace. She placed Ned's confiscated, half-eaten cactus on the Mescaline-stained white sheet protecting the carpet; her face showed some recognition of the absurdity of notions such as ‘tomorrow’ in our world, where night and day had lost their significance in favour of the ‘up/down - high/low’ systems of the chemical lifestyle. I worried for a second that her amused quasi-smile would fade into an anxious spiral as the reality of the notion sunk in, as often happened to her toward the tail-end of a trip.

  ‘Nah, keep going a while I reckon,’ I replied, searching for words that would resonate with her. ‘We'll get a little buzz from the Mescaline getting into all the little holes in our hands from the spikes, then we'll keep going 'til that wears off. Or at least 'til Collin gets back. Then we'll have a sleep once we get it boiling, try convince Collin or Ned to watch over it. Then it'll be ready for us when we get up. We'll just wake up, have a shot, and ... it'll be awesome.’ I was quietly hoping that Collin would agree to watch over it while we slept, since Ned would be liable to drink it all down if left alone, or even just lose interest and wander off; but, for whatever reason, Collin had a somewhat dismissive take on the substance, calling it the Goldbricker's Potion - a derisive reference I never quite understood - or Layabout's Lysergic, often telling us to ‘take the training wheels off’ when we were under the influence; he'd been using a lot of LSD at that point, which he considered a much bolder way to tap The Void.

  ‘Okay.... But I think Collin needs to sleep tonight. He's not well,’ she said, before picking up a knife and continuing her spike removal duties. I nodded and carried on with my own job, quietly disappointed that Lucy and I wouldn't be sharing a bed if Collin decided to have a sleep.

  She was right, though: Collin was in need of rest. Over the last week - or perhaps longer, beyond my perception - Collin had become increasingly unhinged. The ease with which he once went about his life had given way to a rather frantic, nameless desperation; he often spent hours at a time pacing around the house, running his hands through his hair, claiming to be looking for several objects at once - though we all knew he was really just trying to gather his thoughts, of which we got no more than enticing fragments. The state of his hair also expressed the depth of his malaise, taking on the increasingly permanent form of an afro, the result of moving his fingers through it incessantly.

  With my cactus now spike-free, I slid my fingernail under the skin, at one of the triangular corners where I had removed the tip, and tore a large sheet off, leaving only about two thirds to go. Satisfied, I got up and went to the kitchen to check on the latest batch of DMT.

  In the freezer sat an array of half-filled cups, jars, and plastic bottles, with thin, slowly crystallising layers sitting on top of the liquid. I held the blackberry jar up to the light and inspected the thin, filmy layer, and decided they'd have to be left overnight, before going back to the lounge.

  Ned was standing just outside the sliding door that lead to the yard, smoking a cigarette but blowing the smoke inside. Whether he was making a point, a joke, or just retarded, I wasn't sure, and definitely didn't feel like trying to decipher; trying to interpret the things he did only ever served to lead me into a similar confused state as the one he seemed to live in. The glazed over almost-smile on his face only made his motives less clear.

  ‘Robbie, I think we should just start chopping up what we've got,’ Lucy said as I sat down. I chose not to respond, but she persisted, ‘Look, there's enough here; there's like four-foot, and we already got like a metre boiled up from this morning. That's two full trips each for you, me, and Ned. Collin won't want any. My fingers are getting wrinkly.’

  My features sharpened with frustration, but I said nothing and sat down to start on a new cactus, indicating to her that I wouldn't be stopping just yet. Two-foot each would not do us at all - that's how much we had taken that day, and Mescaline has an extremely sharp short-term tolerance, meaning we'd need at least four-foot each just to get to where we were. But I wanted to go further. This was to be my last Mescaline trip until the following Monday, as I planned to take a small vacation from Hyperspace after this next voyage to reset the tolerance. This was our rhythm on a larger scale: Three-or-four days of Mescaline, which I saw as a gathering of aetheric energy, a kind of photosynthesis between myself and the cosmic rays of the universe; followed by a few days of the stimulant - depressant lifestyle (usually with the time-tested Dextroamphetamine - Benzodiazepine seesaw), which, for me, would be a period of productivity, with plenty of writing, drawing, and discussions with Collin, Ned, and, unfortunately, often Michael and some of his friends from school.

  I felt Lucy's presence leave the room, but made a point of ignoring it; partly out of frustration at knowing she'd soon be thrashing about in bed, unable to sleep, since the Mescaline still had a few hours of stimulation left in it; but mostly just because a quiet but well-respected part of me knew I was just being a cunt about it, and really wanted her company more than her cactus-peeling skills.

  Switching gears, I smiled to myself and continued picking away at my cactus, dimly illuminated by what I gauged to be the last wave of Mescaline, enjoying my solitude/Ned's company, which, to my amusement, I realised are basically the same thing. Ned smiled at me from the doorway as our eyes met. I noticed he no longer had a cigarette between his fingers, but was still going through the motions of smoking one. I wondered how long he'd been doing that for. And what my thoughts must have looked like from his perspective.

Tracey Colombera

I'm picking at the skin on my forearm because it feels like rubber. I started about ten minutes ago, after the last line. Now I can't imagine not doing it. Amelia, Damon, and Rory are under a blanket on the couch across from me, lost in some slow motion foreplay. It's been going for like half an hour and seems to have gotten nowhere. Rory and Amelia are still fully dressed. Damon’s been naked for as long as I can remember. I can't remember very long. I think Michael and Collin are sitting next to me. Or standing behind me maybe. They're nearby. I can't remember who else was here earlier, but I guess they've all left. I haven’t been completely sure about anything since that last line.

  The arm I'm picking at jerks away from me and I realise it's Stan's. He looks at me confused, then closes one eye.

  ‘Spacey?’ he asks.

  ‘No’ I say.

  ‘Oh.’ He closes his other eye.

  If I focus on the music, I can make it out. But as soon as I stop paying attention, it turns into this repeating pulse like an electronic heartbeat. It always seems like it's about to do something interesting but it never does. I try to look around the room to figure out what's going on, but my head feels like it's full of water and just ends up dangling to the side. The sliding door to the balcony that overlooks the city is wide open and Michael is dancing horrendously in front of the lights. He looks like a mentally challenged boy trying to fight. I think it's either Collin or Jeremy standing perfectly still on the balcony with a blanket over him, facing the city. It might even be a statue or some kind of ornament I never noticed before.

  Stan flinches and makes a weird barking noise, shaking the whole couch. I try to turn and look at him but I just manage to get my head upright before it slumps onto the back of the couch, pointing my face at the ceiling. Stan gets up and I slide down his side and end up lying down on the couch. He staggers aimlessly into the coffee table and crumbles onto it silently before rolling onto the floor and making a slack, emotionless sound like the wind got knocked out of him. His face shows no pain and he just ends up staring at the ceiling too.

  With the couch to myself I stretch out and close my eyes and move my hand from my leg to what I imagine to be the edge of the couch. They both feel exactly the same and after a few seconds I can't make out which is which. I wonder if I'm even moving my arm at all in real life. I don't think it's important. It feels warm and peaceful without a body. I wish I could leave it behind for good. I wonder if I can leave it behind for good.

  ‘Yo, Spacey.’ Michael is shaking me by the shoulder. I guess I won't be leaving my body. ‘It'd be all good to jump off the balcony, aye?’

  I open my eyes and Michael is enormous. He's hunched over me, mostly just a face and a pair of dancing hands. The rest of him doesn't make any sense.

  ‘Balcony?’ I'm not sure. For some reason, I'm impressed by how big Michael is.

  ‘Exactly, it'll be sweet’ he says, shrinking away from me next to Collin. ‘Come on, cunt, if I do it first you gotta do it.’

  ‘Michael, you can hardly walk right now. I think that's a fucking stupid idea’ Collin says. They're both tiny now. Miles away. Collin looks at the waving blob on the couch across from me and says ‘But I think it's time we weren't here.’ I feel like I could reach out and crush them both with one hand. If my arms weren't so heavy.

  ‘Yeah, get the fuck out of here before that lot starts up with the sodomy’ Michael says.

  ‘Yeah. But we’re taking the stairs.’

  ‘Fuckin' pussy.’

  ‘If you break your legs, it'll be you whining all night. Come on.’

  ‘Whatever cunt. Spacey. Get up. We're off to my place. Get fucked up.’

  I want to stay on the couch, but I've lost my voice. I guess I'm going wherever Michael wants me to.

  ‘Nah, let's go to my place. Robbie's gotta give this shit a go,’ Collin says.

  Stan says ‘Robbie's the one who...gave it...the go...’ He tries to sit up but he can't. His eyes are blank and his neck looks like it's having trouble holding his head. I know exactly how he feels.

  ‘Fuckin' oath, he'd be a trippy as cunt on this shit. You coming Stan?’ Michael says.

  ‘Am I...still here?’ Stan mumbles. He stabilises his head and squints around.

  ‘'Course you're still fuckin' here where the fuck else would you be? Come on, let's go. You too, Spacey. Get up’ Michael says.

  I slide off the couch onto my feet, kneeling with my hands on the floor on either side to support me. I grab the coffee table with one hand and the couch with the other and push myself up, swaying as I try to find my balance. Michael's laughing at me but I don't mind. Once I'm up and stable I hold my hand out to Stan and he grabs around for it half blind until he gets it. I pull him up and fall back onto the couch in recoil. It's easier to get up the second time though.

  ‘Fuckin' clowns. Onwards and upwards’ Michael says. He's putting cans into Collin's backpack. I don't think they're his. He zips it up and we all head to the stairwell.

  We get to the stairs and it's dark and no one wants to go down them. It’s hard enough walking on the ground. Eventually Collin starts walking down it sideways, holding the guard rail. Stan follows, then Michael, then me. All single file, holding on to the rail.

  We're almost at the bottom when Stan misses a step and stumbles into Collin and knocks them both down. Collin gets up laughing but Stan's disoriented and looks distressed. He tries to get back up, grabbing at the handrail but falls back down a few more times before Collin helps him.

  ‘Come on, cunt. How you gonna handle it when the raptors show up if you can't walk down a fuckin' set of stairs?’ Michael says.

  ‘Raptors?’ Stan says.

  ‘Fuckin' oath’ Michael says. ‘Cunts are all over the place.’

  Stan's stopped walking and looks like he's upset by what Michael said. I decide that Michael is being a dick so I hook my foot around his ankle as he goes to step off the last stair. He goes down hard onto his shoulder and goes ‘Fuck! What the fuck was that?’ not catching himself at all. I ignore him and step over him out into the street.

  We take a left and start walking down Northland. We go on the road because our wavy struts take up too much room for the sidewalk. I have to walk slowly and carefully because everything seems to shift around like in a dream. Collin and Stan are both walking slow too. Stan's walk is like a drunken stagger, one step back for every few steps forward. Collin is walking like a model, one foot in front of the other with dainty hands. Walking the ketamine tightrope.

  ‘Yo, Stan, ain't this your car?’ Michael calls. We all stop and turn around. I thought we'd walked pretty far but we've only made it a few metres from Amelia's. Michael is standing next to Stan's white hatchback. ‘This is yours, right Stan?’

  ‘What?’ Stan says.

  ‘This. Right here. This is your car, isn't it?’ Michael says.

  ‘Car?’

  ‘Yes, car. Your car.’

  ‘My car...’

  ‘Yes it's your fuckin' car. Wake up, cunt. Why don't we drive?’

  ‘What? I can't...I can't even...’

  ‘I'll fuckin' drive. I'm sweet. Only had a couple cans’ Michael says. Everyone stares at him. The sky is black and violet tiger stripes.

  ‘Can you drive?’ Collin asks after a bit. He has one excited eye and a Joker smile showing through his mop of hair.

  ‘Yeah, I reckon. It's just fuckin' right go, left stop, right? Easy.’

  ‘The fact that you even ask that question-’

  ‘Fuck, it doesn't matter. There's no cunt on the road now, it's after fuckin' midnight. It's sweet. You don't even have your learner license, cunt. Don't know shit.’

  ‘Have you got yours?’

  ‘Fuckin' oath. Went for my full a few months ago’ Michael says. He's so full of shit I can't stay silent anymore.

  ‘That was your restricted, and you failed it’ I say.

  ‘Yeah, only 'cause that cunt was a fuckin' square. Wouldn't even let me call him cunt, like not even a good cunt or anything. I told him, I said-’

  ‘Whatever. Let's just go’ I say.

  We get into the car, Michael and Stan in the front, Collin and me in the back. I rest my head against the window and watch everything flying past. It's just like a blur. Like a screen. A window into a dimensional abomination. I have to open my door and put my hand out to make sure it's real. Collin gives me a cigarette after I close the door and the car slowly fills up with nicotine incense. I feel close to Collin but miles away from Stan and Michael. Collin's smile is constant and a little bit scary. As the front window fogs up it shows a drawing of a cock that Damon did a few terms ago with nicotine fingers. It makes more sense now.

  ‘...Yeah, like in the fuckin' old days. Old English and shit. All their writing woulda been bad as’ Michael's saying. I have no idea what he's talking about. The lights of the street and the stars shine a little neon squiggle through Damon's penis. I'm trying to make the image into a road in my head but I can't.

  ‘Yeah bud...just shitty little pictures...from somewhere else...’ Stan says. His head is slotted on the shoulder of his seat between the headrest and the window.

  ‘What? Nah, I mean it woulda been bad, like bad ass. Bad as in mean. Like tag writing.’

  ‘Bad as in mean? Fucking hell Michael. Leave our poor language alone for-’ Collin starts, but Michael drives onto the footpath and rumbles the whole car around, laughing hysterically. Collin looks at me and shrugs, then winds the window down to flick his cigarette out. I must have dropped mine.

  ‘Aliens, though...I mean...not in the car...like, in us in the car...’ Stan mumbles.

  Collin says ‘Entities, Stan. You're thinking of entities. And yes, they are in us. Not occupying physical space, but rather mental space. I think what ketamine does is-’

  ‘Aye, fuck, that shit was on TV the other night’ Michael interrupts. ‘Not fuckin' demons or aliens or anything. Fuckin' time travellers, in our heads.’

  ‘Yes well I'd imagine non corporeal entities would exist in a state beyond time, so-’

  ‘Fuckin' oath. Black holes and shit. Aye, Callahan, you know all about that shit don't you. Fuckin' shroomheads. I was watching it on TV though, cunt. He reckons there's eleven dimensions, that fuckin' talking wheelchair. Fuck he was saying some real buzzy shit.’

  Collin shakes his head and mutters ‘Talking wheelchair?’ then says ‘You know, Michael, it contributes nothing to a discussion when you just go on about how buzzy something is. Do you even know what Steven Hawking was-’ but Michael drives onto the footpath again to shut him up.

  ‘Not so clever now are you, cunt?’ Michael says.

  ‘You suck’ Collin says. ‘Anyway, we should shave our heads when we get to my place.’

  ‘Fuck yeah. It's about time you got rid of that gay fuckin' mop,’ Michael says, before driving straight over a traffic island at the intersection. ‘Holy shit! Where the fuck did that come from?’

  Michael's driving gets more and more erratic as the ride goes on so I tell him to let me out as we pass Holland Street. Michael says I'm going with them and I end up having to open my door and pretend I'm stepping out of the moving car before he says ‘Fuck alright, off you go’ and pulls over. He gives me another bump before letting me out. I'm not sure how he ended up in control of the ketamine. But I'm not surprised.

  I start walking up the stairwell and feel pretty normal so I stop for a second and consider texting Michael to take more ketamine. I get my phone out and decide it's not worth the trouble and climb the rest of the way by phone light. It takes me a long time to climb the stairs. I guess I'm still pretty wasted. I turn on the living room light and the whole room is shaking and I realise I'm still tripping balls.

  The light is draining me so I turn it off and feel my way along the walls towards the shower. The sound of Dad snoring is overpowering. I wonder if I can listen to my mp3 player in the shower and see no reason why not.

  In my room I find my mp3 player by phone light and it's got Electric Wizard playing. I don't like them much but it's so perfect for the way I feel that I can't bring myself to change it. Rhythmic crumbling. I shine my phone light along the wall of the cave until I find this charcoal drawing Michael did for me. It's a scratchy picture of the street from his bedroom window with a bunch of messy faces scattered carelessly around the page and lizards everywhere. Electric Wizard notices when I find it and the music gets wider and the notes spread out to make room for me inside. My hand stays awake and keeps pushing buttons so the light stays on, but the planes of the rest of my body give up and let their lines extend past me in the same way as the clumsily drawn lines in the picture. I can't recognise the music as Electric Wizard anymore but I can still tell which sense I'm using to pick up on it. The sounds imitate the lines making up my body and slowly go from being a 3D occurrence to more like a stack of 2D flaps that flicker past me like a flip book. My lines respond by extending as far as they can imagine in every direction, connecting up with all those lines that are everywhere and make up everything. All of the universe that I've seen so far has folded down into a basic but endless grid and I can't tell how much of it is me anymore. I feel content and safe being everything. The extra responsibility doesn't bother me. The phone light goes off and I get my hand to turn it back on. There's so many lizards now. Much more than he drew. I see now that the lizards are just the points where the lines bisect from the other planes. The light switches off at that thought the way street lights do as you draw conclusions walking past them. I leave it off because I get it now. Now that I've sorted that out I can be everything, so I don't have to worry about the shower or the music. I can just stay here empty like this forever and ever.

Stan Richards

Insomnia... So utterly crippling, so undeserved. My brain is a writhing mass of insects, the incessant croak of crickets. Endless time and darkness to fill only with questions. It's four AM and I've been lying in bed since midnight. Just thinking. Always fuckin' thinking. Primitive thought patterns emerge from the chaos, drifting further away from the logical towards the weirdness of dreams but never quite getting there. Turn the light on to read. Pop another zopiclone. Read till my eyes get blurry. Turn the light off. Get up and take a piss. Masturbate over Irena and the lesbian rumours. Feel my pulse. Turn the light on again. Read till my eyes get blurry. Realise I'm hungry. Walk to the kitchen in the dark. Eat a slice of bread, Read some more. Switch off the light. Get lost in the well of memories that seem almost like dreams. Realise I'm wide awake and read some more. Take another piss. Take another pill. Switch the light off and do some breathing exercises. Feel my pulse. Panic in the dark. Go to turn the light on and change my mind. Change my mind again and switch the light on. Try to read but my eyes are already too fucked. Switch the light off and wonder what I've done to deserve this. Another hour of primitive wishful thinking and karmic speculation. Instinctual but not carnal thoughts take over. Superstitions replaced by another instinct - the need for a narrative, the last port of sanity. Try to frame this shitty sleepless night as some kind of journey, an episode. Tryna salvage some kind of meaning or explanation, raised by TV and movies to think that things can be wrapped up in a thirty-minute highlight reel. A new phobia: Entertainment. Pop another pill in the darkness. Anxiety turns to rage at the injustice. Masturbate over Irena again. Wonder why it’s always her. Contemplate suicide. New theory: There's no such thing as sleep. This is what happens every night. The morning sun triggers the amnesia to protect us from the truth. During these blackouts we all have strange conversations in the darkness that none of us remember. Or we lie in bed thinking the same thing over and over. Will I remember this? Or just the basic chain of thought that repeated itself all night? Will I be able to replay the content of my sleepless night in the morning? Can I ever remember the thoughts that follow me around, pinpoint the specific moments they occurred? Maybe in this static state thoughts take on the significance of actions. What I'm doing is thinking. What I'm doing is thinking... Was that even a coherent thought just now? What was I even thinking about just then? Doing is thinking... Did I just think that sentence? Doing is thinking? Fuck, maybe I am zeroing in on sleep. Doing is thinking - it's one of those fucked up thoughts that pop into my head when I'm nearing sleep, when things start to make less and less sense as the world drifts away... Am I in the twilight zone now? No. I'm thinking clearly again. Stare around in the darkness, eyelids not even heavy anymore. Am I even any closer to sleep than when I first got into bed? Have I just been thinking about sleep this whole time? Maybe I've blinked off for a bit... How the fuck do people go to sleep? Just close your eyes and wait? Feel around for my pills in the dark. Grope around for a fantasy to masturbate over. Give up and do some breathing exercises. Cruise down the road. Pop up the curb. Kickflip. Frontside flip. Half cab. Fall into the concrete and jerk up sweating. Take off a blanket. Which will wake me up more, my full bladder or the walk to the toilet? Maybe if I get up and take a piss, I'll be one step further down the ladder, one step closer. Maybe I am falling asleep, slowly but surely edging closer to my dreams, every little discomfort being sorted out, thought by thought. Maybe this is a healing process, what I'm doing now, like a microscope on my mind, myself, examining the minute details of the component parts that make up the component parts, awake in my head with a torch, hidden from everyone, moving through the rooms describing everything with a sorta Texan accent, emphasising the ‘h’ in the ‘wh’ sounds, ‘When we go through this door, we get to the hallway. You just keep going 'round the bend. Through here the hallway becomes round, for a big snake, a set of eyes on his lower jaw to match his upper, upside down, moving through but looking around, take a left and through the short, flat door, and it's just a strange man in a room-’

  A jolt and thudding heart and there's an image of a white room with a two-dimensional man going ‘Uhhh’ all sick plastered on the wall around the door that's shocked me wide awake again. His body was like stretched up past the door, but the whole thing was just like a picture of a spiral that was the hallway and in the middle there was a crude drawing of a nose and a pair of eyes, but I was sort of walking along the line... Fuck, that was it. I could see a dream, that whole sensation of movement that turned out to just be a sick looking guy standing in an empty room... What the fuck was that? Fuck... I was there. I was so close. I almost fell asleep. I just need to find that place again. It's still there, the whole scene, but it's just getting fuzzier and fuzzier and now it's pretty much just blackness and a few passing shapes that I can sorta relate to the room but it's pretty much fuckin' gone now. I'm afraid to look at the time. Maybe this is gonna have to be an all-nighter. Lying here figuring it all out... Fuck, I haven't figured out shit. I'm just more awake, confused, and frightened than I was when I got into bed. Maybe I should just get up and... Nah. I'll wait till the sun comes up. If I'm still trudging along at that point. Then I'll get up. It's gonna fucking suck.

Robbie Marks

My dreams dissipated like dandelion furs as the sound of the front door crashing shut, followed by a low, rolling mumble of voices, stole me from my slumber. It was still dark, and, as the possibility of sleep was snatched from under me, I resigned to consciousness.

  Next to me, Lucy stirred under the blankets, murmuring from the delirium of her dreams. The light in the lounge clicked on, leaking into the room from the crack in the doorway, gifting me with one final peripheral flash of monochromatic Mescaline faces in the darkness. For a minute or two I lay still, trying to discern the identity and nature of the voices, mindful of Lucy.

  One of the voices grew steadily louder until it reached the door and knocked it open, standing as a silhouette against the searing living room light that forced my eyes into a squint. The shape stood in motionless silence for a second, before speaking in the deliberate yet breathless syllables I knew to be Collin's.

  ‘Robbie. Get up.’

  I winced as I edged up onto my elbows, still groggy from the sudden awakening. I tried to make out Collin's features, but the light behind him overwhelmed my blurry, maladaptive vision. I heard loud, shrieking laughter that could only be Michael's, followed by another male voice I couldn't decipher. I felt Lucy shifting around next to me and looked at her in the dim light. Her face was scrunched up and her lips were pouting like a fish, but she still appeared to be asleep.

  I looked back to Collin. ‘What time is it?’ I asked, foolishly.

  ‘Time? What the fuck does it matter? The time is now. Come on out, we've got company.’

  ‘Fuck, man.... Nah. I'm good. What are you guys even doing? I got this Mescaline trip waiting for me in the morning, man, and I got this sleeping pattern based on the Fibonacci se -’

  ‘Fuck your sleeping patterns, man. Fuck your shitty succulents too. You're worse than those nine-to-five motherfuckers. Just take your Mescaline now, with some of Stan's stuff.... Man, you've gotta try Stan's shit ... I'll even take some of your Phenylethylamines, mix it up with this stuff. Holy shit man.’

  ‘I'm not sure if there's enough for you, man. We just boiled enough for us three. I would've grabbed you some if I knew - Wait, did you say Stan's shit? Is Stan here?’

  ‘Yes. He is. Hurry up, you're awake now. Come on,’ he said, turning toward the lounge.

  ‘Hey hold up, man. Close the door. I'm not wearing anything.’

  Collin laughed at me and my petty shames before going back to the lounge, leaving the door wide open.

  I looked back to Lucy. She had curled up into the foetal position with her face in her hands. I put my hand on her side and whispered into her ear, ‘Lucy. Are you awake?’ She responded with an annoyed, feline hum, before turning away from me and curling up, pulling the blanket over her head.

  Aware of the compulsive drug-talk coming from the lounge, I got up and crept over to the door, closing it gently. I got down on all fours and crawled around on the floor, feeling around for the pants and T-shirt I'd been wearing that day. Unintentionally, I came across a pair of Lucy's lacy underwear and allowed myself about half a second of perverted satisfaction, before putting them down in self-disgust. Eventually, I came across my jeans and settled for Lucy's light-green hoodie with no undershirt, since it was too tight for my liking anyway. I put the clothes on silently, careful not to rouse Lucy, and wondered what Stan could be doing there; I hadn't seen or heard from him in months, not since that night he turned up at Collin's in a blind rage and shattered my microcosm completely. I’d heard from Michael that Tracey had seen him at the Youth and Adolescent Centre, staring at the ground as he limped from one of the psychiatrist’s rooms out to the car park. Apparently he didn't even acknowledge her when she said hello to him, just hobbled past her like a troll. Curiosity fed my enthusiasm, as it often did, and I found myself excited to see him. I figured the only force bringing him and Collin together could be his aforementioned ‘stuff’, and realised I was now wide awake and buzzing with curiosity.

  I walked into the lounge and my heart sank when I saw a blurry Stan Vincent - ginger Stan - with a shaved head, sitting slack next to Michael on the couch. Collin's eyes laughed at me as he bobbed his head to the gypsy music blasting from the stereo. He nodded at the coffee table, where Michael was hunched over having a line, and I had a thought that this was a scene I'd been seeing too much lately.

  ‘Here he is,’ Michael boomed, reeling from the line. ‘Here's an on the buzz cunt. Here, get some of this in ya. Astronaut drugs, cunt. Ballin'.’

  He handed me the hooter and I made no effort to hide my disappointment; the exciting mystery chemical turned out to be no more than the Ketamine I had sold The Mars Fuckers earlier in the evening. Regardless, I knelt down beside the table and picked out the biggest line before sniffing it, since it was probably the best drug for this kind of company.

  ‘Shit's fucked.... Cataclomsi ... Cata ... Cataclopsical....’ Stan droned, unmistakably dissociated; his left eye was clasped shut while his right bulged, unfocused but wired, scanning the room as his head rested limp on the back of the couch, staring out from behind his own inebriated film-reel. He was so faded that I felt I could easily ignore him until he left, so I sat on the other end of the table, facing Collin in his armchair, cutting Michael out of our closed-circuit and lumping him in with the invalid.

  ‘So what's the plan then? What's so awesome you had to drag me out of bed for?’ I asked.

  Collin's eyes glowed with madness and glee through a flop of matted blond hair. ‘What was so awesome about your sleep that I had to drag you away from it?’

  ‘Gotta sleep sometime, man.’

  Collin laughed dismissively. ‘That's all you fucking do Robbie. How much of your time do you waste in that coffin? Does it not bother you how much you miss while you're in there in a fucking coma?’

  I laughed and shook my head. Collin flicked his hair out of his face, revealing a more welcoming expression than what I had pieced together through the gaps.

  ‘So you woke me up to take Ketamine?’ I asked, trying to sound light-hearted, but coming across blunt and more caustic than I had intended.

  ‘I did, yes. But isn't it incredible? It's like Robitussin, but I can follow a passage of thought forever.... The spaciousness it gives my thoughts ... it's amazing. Just wait, man. You'll see.’

  I nodded slowly, trying to think of a way to change the subject. I had kept Ketamine a secret from Collin all this time at Lucy's request; she had been quite worried about his mental state, and we both knew he'd take to Ketamine at the expense of everything else in his life if either of us introduced him to it. But, now that the secret was out, I found myself excited to get dissociated with him - something I'd been wanting to do ever since the Seed Freaks introduced me to the drug several weeks earlier. The substance had softened the edges of his character somewhat, giving him a self-aware kind of levity that somehow left his intensity intact; his unusual warmth magnifying the discordant undertones of his nature to reveal something softer and more human, but with a quietly sinister aspect I couldn’t reconcile but found very alluring. Still, I was somewhat concerned for Collin's health myself; a recent spell of mania had peeled away much of the ataraxy that had once propelled him along the path as he illuminated it for the rest of us.

  ‘I still think you should have a sleep soon, man. Like, after this trip, maybe. It can't be good for you staying up this long,’ I said, taking his present elation as an opportunity to touch upon what I perceived to be a sensitive issue.

  He stared back at me for a few seconds, before his placid, Ketamine-stoned face contorted into a venomous sneer. ‘Where the fuck is this coming from?’ he flared. ‘Have you been talking to your parents or something? Or have you been reading that self-help bullshit again? You can't trust that shit, man, you know that. It's the fuckers at the top, the folk on the hill, trying to put us all to fucking sleep with that shit. Scientists, doctors, so-called experts.... Of course they're working for someone else, putting their sacred word out for all to obey. How could they not use such a powerful tool of mind control? Eight hours of sleep a night, eight glasses of tainted water a day, the theta-wave flicker of the TV, lulling us into a fucking trance so they can fill our heads with whatever bullshit they want. Fuck man, those vegetables they want us living on probably turn us into vegetables. Cigarettes probably prevent cancer. What we gotta do is read this shit and do the exact opposite. Gotta know the enemy, man. Gotta - Oh fuck. Fuck. This might be bad, man.’

  A silence seemed to emanate from Collin, sweeping us all in as a spectrum of emotions flashed across his face, settling into a look of Lovecraftian realisation. ‘Fuck. No. No it can't be,’ he said, his fearful eyes darting around the room. ‘But what if, what if.... What if even our meditations are a part of their plan.... There was an article about meditation in the paper the other day, I remember being.... Fuck. It makes perfect sense: Empty the mind so they can fill it up with filth. Master the art of Zen so you can wash dishes all day, make some other fucker rich and love every second of it.... God damn, the fuckers have us cornered, they really do.’

  I held his eyes and tried to separate the jokes from the drug-whimsy from the candour; the Ketamine and the sleep deprivation had blurred the boundaries in his mind, creating an internal landscape without laws or limits, obeying only the physics of dreams. I felt a strange sense of loss as I considered the notion of not trusting Collin's words - words I once viewed as holy, and almost invariably adapted to be my own. I tried to figure out how to express my confusion, but just ended up opening and closing my mouth a few times, noticing the first tingles of the Ketamine.

  Collin lifted his gaze to a space above my head and raised his eyebrows. A hooter was passed over my head to him and he disappeared behind me to have a line, leaving me staring at his empty armchair, from which I unintentionally extracted a bizarre kind of symbolism: The empty throne; the un-ruled kingdom.

  ‘Because, think about it, man,’ Collin spoke from behind me as I continued to watch his abandoned armchair, perceiving his voice to be the ghostly echo of the philosophies of a fallen tyrant. ‘They obviously don't want us using psychedelics, because they don't want us thinking, don't want us breaking down the frameworks they've spent so much time and resources creating. But they feed us coffee to keep the cogs moving Monday to Friday, then we're supposed to drink all weekend so we don't start thinking about alternatives or even the possibility that those we depend on to shield us from the elements might not have our best interests in mind. Fuck, if those thoughts still find their way into your head, you can even get drunk after work.’ He stopped, sniffed deeply, and continued, ‘And if the coffee's not enough to get you mindlessly powering the machine, then you've got ADD and they'll give you some amphetamines to set you on the right track - like Michael over here, washing fucking dishes, no questions asked, content to do that shit all day as long as they keep pumping him full of stimulants, sick chemical Zen.... And if you're still thinking about - if you're still fucking thinking at all - then they got Valium and other downers for you, anti-anxiety pills to make everything okay - to make everything seem okay. Or maybe you're schizophrenic. The government's manipulating you? Don't be silly; take some anti-psychotics. There, that's better. Now sit there and watch the fucking cricket and doze off. Let those pesky thoughts just drift away.... Fucking swine, man. Gutless fucks! Why do they have to criminalise everything that expands your mind, god damn it? Why won't they let us expand our minds?’ He slammed his fist on the table as he finished, his Mercurial temperament keeping me tense. I shuffled around and looked from Michael to Stan as we all shared an eclectic silence. Stan appeared to be completely unconscious, with a can of rum and coke resting in his limp hand. I realised that all three had been mixing alcohol and Ketamine - a combination I was yet to explore - which would possibly explain why Collin's behaviour was so erratic, and why Michael was oddly subdued.

  Collin let his hair fall in front of his face as he knelt before the coffee table, breathing heavily and swaying slightly. ‘Expand our minds....’ he echoed himself.

  ‘I've got something that'll expand your mouth,’ Michael said, miming a series of masturbatory hand pumps, his grin tightening the Ketamine-torpor like cellophane stretched around something formless.

  Collin looked up at him sideways through his fringe and said, ‘You can't spell something without meth,’ still swaying, but composing himself.

  ‘Holy shit, you actually can't,’ Michael nodded in quiet appreciation.

  ‘Exactly. Hand it over,’ Collin said, brushing the hair out of his face to reveal an expanded mouth. Michael and I both laughed. Stan gurgled and grunted, then fell back into a stupor that I understood more with each passing moment.

Ketamine does to gravity what psychedelics do to the visual field, making the user aware of subtle disturbances in the atmosphere that are usually too elusive to be noticed. At higher doses, the user becomes increasingly incapacitated by these disturbances, appearing to the outside observer to be an alcohol-like inebriation. However, the subjective experience of Ketamine is far richer and more lucid than the brutal dulling of the faculties afforded by alcohol, and I found myself spinning in circles through the living room, blindly intoxicated by the profundity of movement, as well as the beat of Michael's bongo drumming - a pleasure I wouldn't normally allow myself on account of it being a manifestation of Michael's mind.

  Collin was dance-fighting to the beat, as playful and carefree as I'd ever seen him be. The beginnings of daylight shone quietly behind the curtains, reminding me to open them up and turn the lights off: The bittersweet goodbye to the night; the ritualistic greeting of the day.

  I opened the curtains to the window that looked out into the back of the property and saw Ned, standing alone in the middle of the yard, deliriously miming an animated conversation - more active and energetic than he would be if he were talking to a real person.

  ‘Hey, Collin, come check out Ned. He's on another planet,’ I said.

  ‘Ned's always on another planet, that's not even a thing anymore,’ Collin replied, waving his arms around in a hypnotic, vaguely feminine dance. ‘Talk to me when you figure out which planet he's on.’

  I smiled Neptune to myself and looked back to Ned, wondering what drugs he’d taken, before saying, ‘The fucker!’ out loud as my heart went into palpitations, dimming my Ketamine glow with paranoia. I rushed to the kitchen in a panic, muttering to myself, ‘That fucker better not have drunk all the cactus....’

  I got into the kitchen, my dissociated groove now just a frustrating stumble, and was struck with an almost overwhelming love for my strange and misunderstood friend: The mess we'd made that evening manoeuvring cauldrons of boiling cactus through a mess of carelessly discarded cores and balls of rinsed out pulp wrapped in T-shirts had vanished completely. At first, I assumed Collin had given the kitchen a quick once over before waking me up, which would not have been out of character; but seeing the two half-litre coke bottles full of olive-green goo assured me that Ned had spent the night in an uncommonly lucid frame of mind, doing exactly what I had asked of him and more.

  Excited, I opened one of the coke bottles and had a sniff that made me gag. I was tempted to dose right then and there in celebration of the Moment, but decided not to - out of respect for the ritualistic aspect of dosing with company, as well as the camaraderie of choking down the foul-tasting snot together.

  I opened the door leading from the laundry room to the backyard to thank Ned, but was surprised to see Lucy on the lawn, glowing in the morning sun. She was wrapped in a bedsheet - presumably wearing nothing underneath - her hair wildly tangled, covering her face in a way I found almost unbearably sultry. I had to suppress the urge to join them, understanding that I was witnessing something too delicate to bear the brunt of outside intrusion. It was an expression of the uniquely wayward and childlike nature they shared: Ned, as everyone in town seemed to know, had a ridiculously long list of diagnosed mental disorders, ranging from HPPD to Schizoid Personality Disorder to some absurdly ill-defined condition called Ganser Syndrome; Lucy's idiosyncrasies, however, were obscured by her impish, feminine ways, making them more accepted, or at least dismissed, by most than Ned's. This was not my place.

  Lucy and Ned both laughed about something, and Lucy walked off around the side of the house, leaving Ned standing there looking content. Lucy's sheet trailed over the unkempt grass behind her as she walked with an easy smile, which seemed to express her essence in a way I didn't care to describe, bringing to mind Collin's description of the Ketamine-space as being luxuriously spacious.

  I clicked the door closed quietly, compelled to leave the scene undisturbed. I turned around and saw Collin in the kitchen, holding one of the bottles of sludge, staring at it with narrowed eyes.

  ‘Should we have a drink then?’ he spoke, still examining the bottle. I said nothing, mentally working through my situation but unable to reach a conclusion. He responded by snapping his glance from the Mescaline to me, abrupt and lizard-quick, piercing my Ketamine trance with deranged eyes that betrayed the absolute composure of his voice, bringing forth a disturbed background murmur of thought from a deeper part of my mind.

  ‘I think something.... Bad's happening here. In this house....’ I said, disturbed and inspired by his psychotic aura. ‘Like a psychosis, something mimetic, contagious....’ I continued, walking slowly toward him as if intrance, more a magnetic pull on Collin's part than by any will of my own.

  ‘Correct,’ he said, his voice casual but his eyes fractured with building intensity. ‘And you'll soon conclude that it's you causing it.’

  ‘Me?’

  ‘No, the other you,’ he said, with what I hoped was sarcasm.

  ‘Is it ... is it me who's causing it?’ I stopped just inches from him, existing in a universe inhabited only by the two of us, feeling Collin's mind on my skin like faded electricity.

  ‘No. That's your psychosis talking; awareness does not imply immunity.’

  ‘Is it you who's behind it?’ My voice became weak with uncertainty as I envisioned an ominous undertone to Collin's philosophies, threatening to crumble the very ground I stood upon.

  ‘Well, if you must know, yes. But that is of no consequence; the psychosis growing within you will leave you forever unable to discern the truth of this sentence.’

  ‘Wait, I see what you're doing,’ I said, breaking the eye contact with a wry smile to myself as the tension became too much, before reconnecting with an intensity of my own. ‘This is it here, right? Like a self-fulfilling prophecy.... You're creating it now, creating a psychosis within me just to prove your theory about -’

  ‘My theory?’

  We both stood motionless, locked. A chill ran through my mind. ‘You're right. It was my theory. My idea.... You're doing this right now just because of some tripped-out passing comment I made?’

  The intensity finally cracked as a blood vessel burst in Collin's bulging eye. ‘That was more than a passing comment, Robbie. It's the most accurate thing you've ever said.’ His apparent composure gave way to a frantic, passionate outpour, spoken directly into me, ‘Whether I'm behind, in front of it, or wearing the fucker like a glove.... It's not important. That's not what this is about. But it's all fucked, Robbie. Completely fucked. It's all so fucked that I'm actually telling you this, laying it all out for you with no twisted agenda, for no reason other than it's here and we're here and it's all been building up for too long to not explode right here right fucking now. See what I mean about seeing what I mean fold in on itself? Of course you do, because you're fucked too. I'm fucked. Lucy's fucked. Ned's ... you know. Even Michael's been showing symptoms. It's the house now, man. It started in us, but now it's bigger. The whole house, it's fucking ... fucking ... haunted, man. It's fucking haunted. Haunted with demented fucking flies, hovering around our madness, our genius. We scare them, Robbie. At least as much as they scare us. There's no room for anything but fear. But there's no turning back now. We gotta go with it, keep riding that fucked up wave. Only us who created this can end it. What the fuck else can we do?’

  He eyeballed me, breathless from his outburst, both eyes bloodshot and dilated. I held his stare in place as I disengaged psychically to contort my perspective and consider what he'd said. Could the madness really exist independently of the minds it inhabits? I tried to think of Collin's parents and brother, who would surely be infected if what he was saying was true, but I couldn't picture them. It had been so long since I'd seen them.

  ‘What about your Dad? Is he still living downstairs?’ I ventured, unable to conjure up an image of him either, and for a second even doubting his existence.

  ‘What? Oh, him. That cunt's probably dead by now. Come on, let's get the fuck out of here, give the psychosis some me time,’ he replied, loosening up again in another bi-polar flicker of the mind as he turned toward the lounge.

  ‘Me as in the psychosis? Or me as in you?’

  He turned back to me with a contemptuous stare, and I immediately regretted breaking the fragile balance once more. ‘Me as in psychosis? Me as in you? Jesus, man, do you even listen to the shit that comes out of your mouth? Maybe if you fucking listen to what I say, not to these schizophrenic echoes in your head, you'll stop with the inane questions. Try actually fucking listening.’

  ‘I did listen; I was just wondering whether you meant -’

  ‘Fuck, do I really have to spell this shit out to you, Robbie?’

  ‘Well, you don't have -’

  ‘Can you not fucking think for yourself for once? Just use your own thoughts?’

  ‘Yeah, that's what I did. Then you said -’

  ‘Can you not make the connections yourself?’

  ‘Yeah but -’

  ‘You never learnt to do that? Never connected the dots in your little activity books? Never did a fucking jigsaw puzzle?’

  ‘Ah whatever man. I'm just gonna let this one go,’ I said, reminded of the confrontational nature that Michael tended to bring out in him.

  ‘Good call. So we gonna drink some of this Mescaline or not?’

  ‘Uh, no, not yet man,’ I said, putting the two bottles back in the fridge before following him into the lounge. ‘I'm gonna go back to sleep for a bit, just a quick one for some REM. We can drink it in the morning - uh, when I get up.’

  Collin stopped and turned to me again. ‘What? You're going back to bed? Have you not -’

  ‘Fuck, Collin,’ I said, my patience finally wearing thin, ‘I got a lot of shit planned for tomorrow, alright? I've been building up to this trip for days. Lucy and Ned too. We got DMT to smoke. Acid, weed, Ket - uh, Dexies, and just, like, I've got a full day planned, man. You sorta fucked that up when you woke me - I mean, it's all good; like, thanks for including me and, uh, but yeah.... I've got my own shit going on. The Ketamine's wearing off, I didn't have any Dexies. Feel free to wake me up in a few hours.’

  I walked past him toward the lounge, slightly elated with how uncharacteristically assertive I'd been, but also feeling a touch of self-loathing as I considered that, underneath my shitty pretexts, I really just wanted to spend a few more hours in bed with Lucy. In Collin's bed.

  ‘Wait, Robbie,’ he said, halting me.

  ‘Yeah?’ I turned to him.

  ‘Are you keen to shave your head today?’

  I laughed and shook my head, then walked through the lounge to Collin's bedroom. I waved to Michael as I passed; he continued his beat with one hand and raised his can of something in the air to me, shaking his head ecstatically. Stan was completely unconscious, with his neck dangling awkwardly over the arm of the couch.

  As I entered the bedroom, I heard Collin say something to Michael about shaving his head, followed by half a second of Michael's boorish enthusiasm, then peaceful, muffled, almost-silence as I clicked the door shut. I stripped to my underwear and crept into bed next to a sleeping Lucy, and curled immediately into a hypnagogic state; slightly disturbed by my conversation with Collin, but comforted by the warmth of Lucy's feet against mine.

Stan Richards

think I’ve ever had this thought before, the thought of being hesitant to think a certain thought. But, like who's to say, anyway? Like what if whether or not I have cancer is not so much a case of whether my body's harbouring malignant cells as whether it'd make sense within the context of my life to get cancer? Like, maybe getting it checked out at will just make it real enough for like the cunts in control of my life to add it to the story. That's how it went for my mental problems. I wonder if life itself is like that... Like, maybe when I go to reach for my house keys, what happens depends on how it'll affect the rest of my day, instead of whether or not I actually put them in my pocket earlier. Maybe whether or not I remembered to put them in my pocket depends on how it was gonna affect me now... Fuck, I've gone into full fuckin' schizo-land now. Maybe this is how people become depressed and psychotic. I'm sure everyone has the potential to lose their mind. Maybe the real monsters out there, the serial killers and rapists, maybe they're just cunts who've gone so deep into their brain that all there is to do is lash out, lash out from behind those fuckin' layers of confusion that make any decision just as absurd and fucked up as all the others. Just lie here and analyse shit, see every possible point of view on every little part of me then every little point of view on those points of view. All I can gather from this narcissistic eight-hour overthinkathon is that anything I say, think, or do, no matter how noble or genius it is from one point of view, is fuckin' stupid, selfish, and pointless from another. So why not just be the biggest cunt I possibly can? Maybe I saw into Collin's brain just now... Just stays up all night overthinking everything till all there is left to do is be a cunt. Maybe I'll do that today. Be a cunt. I’m pretty sure all this bullshit going on in my head all night has permanently changed me. The sun is out, and I'm definitely not gonna get a sleep in, so everything just sucks anyway. Why not just go ruin some fuckin' lives? I could end up beaten within an inch of my life or in jail, but what difference would it make? Even here with all my freedom I can't do anything but whinge to myself about, I've beaten my brain into a schizophrenic mess. I'm imprisoned in my own over-analysis.

  The horrible sound of morning birds... Maybe in a different version of my life I wouldn't mind them. Maybe I'd even enjoy them. But now they're just reminders of my failure to accomplish the most basic of human functions. My curtains seem to amplify the cringing sun instead of blocking it out, glowing and throbbing and screaming wake up, which I'd be doing if I got any fuckin' sleep in. Maybe I should keep trying, though. Maybe god or whatever will let me sleep now that the sun's up, just to be a cunt. I feel like it'll be dangerous to get out of bed anyway, after that last chain of thought. I know I think weird shit every night as I try to drift off, but usually I go to sleep to hit the reset button. But not today. I'm five fuckin' zopiclone deep and the idea of sleep still feels like a distant memory. Can I get up and go about my day with all these sleeping pills in me? What about with all this sick shit in my head? Surely I'll be able to sleep tonight after this long awake. Hit the reset. But maybe one whole day with these thoughts in my head will be enough to commit them to my brain, make them a permanent part of me. Maybe that's what we are, the product of all our thoughts, like repeated thoughts and notions congealed together to create like the shape of a mind. Maybe just lying here thinking this fucked up shit has damaged me beyond repair. But what the fuck does it matter anyway? I'll just fuckin' get up and go about my day... Go about my day. What a joke. What the fuck am I gonna do all day? I need a good fight or something. Get back in my body. Even just thinking about having a fight... I'm fuckin' wide awake now. Fuck this shit. I'm getting up.

  All these fuckin' sleeping pills have got me pretty wobbly, but once I'm up and about I don't feel too bad. I start opening the curtains but it looks like another hideously sunny day out there so I leave them closed. I reckon I could maybe manage an all good day, though. Like if I can avoid human contact, at least. I still got that book Heartsnatcher I borrowed from Lucy at the start of the year. Got a bit started on it last night. It's by some French dude I never heard of before. Pretty out of it shit, but it was kinda fun just tryna get my head around it. Like a crossword kinda thing. Makes me feel like there's a working brain in that skull somewhere.

  I go to my closet to find some nice clothes, thinking I might cheer myself up by being a bit swanky, but then feel like a wanker and just chuck on the stinky jeans and T-shirt from the floor. Dressing nicely while my head's this fucked seems like a lie. Might as well just look as shitty as I feel. Make people less inclined to approach me. That's the ticket.

  I put my ear to the door but I can hear like four fuckin' voices so fuck that. Dad and Karen and a few of their mates I guess. Weekend warrior type cunts, prolly already cracking into the beers. Good functional members of society, working all week so they can afford to drink the horrible memory of it away. Great fuckin' system, cunts. Give yourselves a high five in the fuckin' face for thinking that one up.

  For lack of a better idea, I sit against the door and start flipping my phone around like a skateboard. I make like a couple of flatbanks with my thighs and flip my phone between them. Couple frontside flips, then some arm twisting kickflip fakie transfers, front shoves... Pretty much just avoiding life. I'm sorta pretending to be planning my day, but really I'm just doing the same shit I always do - let the brain fog build up till I don't even have a coherent thought anymore, then just sit there existing till I'm hungry or something and have to get moving. I'm only lying to myself - the only cunt dumb enough to believe my bullshit.

  I hear the adults head outside to the balcony, prolly all having a good old fuckin' wank about what a lovely day it is. Their voices are louder and clearer from here, so I get up to look for my headphones to make sure I don't catch even a fuckin' snippet. I used to not mind conversations, like back when I was normal. But it's like something's flipped in my head and just hearing the briefest exchange is enough to start me on a downward spiral leading to either depression or a blackout rage, depending basically on how much energy I got. I know I shouldn't let it get to me, but it does and that's fuckin' that. They always just sound like a bunch of cunts just like agreeing with each other from different angles, just fuckin' trying desperately to convince each other they're real and actually making noises.

  ‘Nice weather isn't it?’ ‘Yes, nice weather.’ ‘Lovely weather.’ ‘Yes, that sun is nice.’ ‘Isn't it just?’ ‘Yes, beautiful day.’ ‘Mmm, nice weather.’ ‘Yep, it sure is.’ ‘Very nice weather.’ ‘Yep, nice.’ ‘Weather, yes.’ ‘Yes, quite.’

  Just fuckin' on and on and I'm fuckin' pissed off already just thinking about it. Whenever I'm unlucky enough to find myself involved in a conversation, like when parents or relatives or someone just fuckin' corners me and goes at me, that hateful, schizo cunt inside me just starts fuckin' shouting all sorts of shit into my head till I blurt out something offensive just to change the tone away from the sick cycle of desperate optimism. Then I'm the scapegoat for a bit, which is usually all good, just to get something going. But then it's back where we fuckin' started.

  ‘Ooh, racism. I don't condone racism.’ ‘Neither do I. I've always hated racism.’ ‘Racism's very wrong.’ ‘Yes, very bad.’ ‘Racism.’ ‘Yes, racism. Very bad.’

  Yes, racism's bad you fucks. Now let's all just fuck off home and just pretend we don't see each other next time. Or, you know, we could sit here for another hour bragging about how we're not racist, all tryna subtly claim to be the most anti-racist, until someone finally cracks and shouts ‘No! I'm the least racist here! The rest of you are posers! I signed a petition!’ And then we've got a new scapegoat. God fuckin' damn I hate this shitty race. Fuck.

  Can't find Heartsnatcher or my headphones, so I just grab my old history book. Robbie used to reckon you could turn bad feelings into good ones by writing about them, which seems like about the most coherent thing that cunt's ever come out with. What the fuck else am I gonna do anyway?

  I open my door and peer down the hallway. The front door is open and there's human activity on the balcony. If they spot me, they'll invite me over for a chat. Then I'll be fucked. Louise's Mum'll ask me which Uni I'm off to. I'll shake my head. Then, with disappointment, she'll ask me what I've got planned for my gap year. I'll tell her it's more like a gap life. The silence will be unbearable till I go ‘But hey, these sunny days are lovely, aren't they?’ and Louise's Dad'll go ‘Aren’t they just’ and shit will get pretty ugly pretty fuckin' quick.

  I can see Katie playing in the living room, so I bolt across the hallway to her room, aware that I'm being a proper weird cunt. Her room's got a door to the backyard, so I head out and take a seat in one of the lawn chairs in the shade. I open my pretty much empty history book and stare at the page, sedated by the sound of the creek, wondering how much peace I'll get before some cunt spots me and comes over to piss me off.

Michael Farmer

Oh shit what the fuck's going on where the fuck am I – Shitlab, right, fuck, musta dosed off for a minute there, broad fuckin' daylight in here now, gotta get up and get the fuck to work, groggy as fuck. I get my phone out and it's quarter past eight already so can't fuck around one bit here, 'sposed to be at work in fifteen fuckin' minutes which ain't happening, but still gotta get moving. I'm up on my feet quick as fuck so I don't go back to sleep and the K's still doing its thing and I'm back on my ass straight away, all good just fucked as but once I get going I reckon - Endy the fuckin' weird cunt's just walked out of the kitchen completely naked and I'm like “Oi, put some clothes on ya gross cunt” and he smiles and flips me the bird so I grab around and find a half full can of something and chuck it at him and he giggles like a bitch and runs off down the hallway and someone goes “You're cleaning that up, cunt” and it's Callahan coming out of the kitchen all fucked and I'm like yeah, fair enough but I say “Whatever cunt, I'm outta-” Fuckin' Callahan's got a shaved head, skinny as cunt, all aryan and shit. I run my hands all over my fresh scalp and go “Yeeeeeeah cunt” and nod my head and Collin's stoked too, fuck he's got a little as head though, that cunt. Collin goes “Time for another bump then?” and I'm into it but then I'm like “Nah none for me” 'cause I got work and it'd be fun as but I'd be dropping plates and shit all - Collin's at the coffee table looking through all the cans and shit for the K going “You sure? That last one's starting to wear off for me. Robbie'll be up soon, he said he's gonna - oh fuck that's just gross Michael” and he's found the cup I was spitting and putting my roaches in last night and I'm laughing at him 'cause I know he's a faggy cunt about that kinda shit. He's off to the kitchen with the cup now and I get up and follow him and go to the fridge for some booze and he's like “Hold up, we'll wait till Robbie wakes up. You know what he's like about that stuff” and I go “Aye? I don't think I've seen that cunt ever drink a fuckin' drop of that shit” and Collin goes “Well probably not, he drinks it first thing in the morning. Before he heads out, usually” and I'm confused as fuck so I head off to wake the cunt up and Collin's like “Nah, just wait man. He'll get all shitty if you wake him. He's got his stupid little sleeping pattern going. Lame, I know, but just” and I'm like “Fuck's sake cunt it's a can of bourbon who gives a shit. Not even his anyway” and Collin's like “What? Oh, those. They're in my bag” and I'm sorta pissed off now 'cause they'll be warm as fuck and I need to get some in me before I go 'cause I slept fuck all like probly about an hour or so max. I go into the lounge and get some cans out of Collin's bag and Stan's waking up on the chair so I chuck him a can and he doesn't catch it just squirms around like a spaz and I laugh and go “Shotgun, cunt” and he's dazed as fuck but goes “Fuck yeah Farmdawg, renegade” but I dunno what the fuck he's on about. He pops his can with his thumb which is kinda cool but he's done it on the wrong side and looks all dumb trying to drink it. I try do it with my thumb too and can't but it's dumb anyway so I just bash it on the door handle and get it down all fizzy and gross but hardly spilled a fuckin' drop. Collin comes out and he didn't see what I did which is good 'cause he'd be fucked off - I'm not scared of the cunt or nothing, just can't be fucked dealing with his shit right now, gotta move. Collin's back on the floor looking for the drugs on the table and I chuck the can on the floor and grab the last of my tray out of my pocket and Stan tries to say something but I go louder and say “Fuck the ketamine, crush a few of these up for us. I gotta wake the fuck up” and Collin's like “Yeah, good idea. It'll be like warp speed in hyperspace” still looking for the K and I'm like “Fuck off cunt, no hyperspace shit” 'cause he was all going on about that shit last night and it was cool 'cause we were all on anti gravity drugs and like fuck yeah buzzy cunt but now it's just dumb. Collin goes “Yeah there must be some left over, pretty sure we didn't finish it off last night” and Stan goes “Fuck, breathers, I'm pretty much zero on that shit now. That was a bit too scat for me. Like, on as some of the time, but after a while it's like” but I'm in there now going “Yeah fuck the ketamine I gotta get to work in like ten minutes. Can't be all anti gravity in a kitchen, hot pots and shit everywhere, fuckin'-” but then Collin cuts me off, “Wait, what?” and stops and stares up at me all puppy dog shocked and I'm like “What?” and get down and grab another bourbon from his bag and he goes “You're going to work?” and I'm like “Yes I told you I had fuckin' work today. I'm not happy about it either but-” and he cuts me off again “You're going to work today? After all that shit we talked about last night? You're still gonna go to work?” and I'm gonna punch the cunt in the head if he butts in again. “What the fuck you mean after all the shit we went through? Yeah, it was buzzy as fuck. Doesn't change shit today though” and he's like “That was like a new frontier last night, man. A fucking voyage. I can't believe you're just gonna go back to your stupid little routine world now. You really went through all that just to wake up and say, alright, off to work today?” and I open a can on the door handle again but he doesn't even care which sucks 'cause I want the cunt worked up now. I drink it down and burp and gag foam and the cunt's still staring at me and I shake it off and go “What shit did we go through? You're sounding like Rory and fuckin' Damo with that shit. Like yeah, it was fun and shit but it's the fuckin' morning now and I gotta get to fuckin' work” and he calls me a slave so I tip the cunt over with my foot and he's all shitty now but fuck him. I crush up my pills on top of this little cabinet thing and have a snort and I was gonna leave some for Stan but he's saying “Yo, C Squared, it cool to have a shower? I'll just be” so fuck him I don't have time to wait around for that shit. I snort the rest and head to the door going “Right cunts, I'm off. I'll hit you up after work Stan, have a sesh or some shit” and Stan grins and nods past me going “Holland” which is another dumb thing those dudes say and he's off into the bathroom. I say “Later cunt” to Collin and give him a friendly little kick to the kidney as I go and he's up and going “Wait, Michael” and I turn around walking backwards going “What? I'm gonna be late as fuck I gotta go man” and Collin goes “Want to take a jacket? It's pretty cold in the mornings” and I'm like yeah 'cause I'm in a T-shirt and it's probly pretty cold out there but nah 'cause Collin's clothes are faggy as fuck but he's off into his room and I'm like “Alright but hurry up, cunt, I can't be fucked getting told off this morning I just wanna get there, do my shit, and get the fuck out” and he comes out with this black hoodie with a white Charles Manson face on it and it's actually pretty fuckin' sweet so I'm like “Aye, fuck yeah. Swedish” and we're laughing at Stan and them and their dumb words and I give him a fist bump and I'm off. Fuckin' top cunt, Collin. Like thinks he's the shit and shit, but a fuckin' true G on the whole.

I get to work fuckin' ten minutes late and storm in, dex crankin' hard, and go “Yep yep I know I know, I got this shit, won't happen again, we're sweet no fuckin' problems” before any cunt has a chance to say shit. Turns out it's just this real quiet german cunt Jurg and a couple of the little asian prep girls, so I'm the only cunt who can talk properly anyway. There's a massive fuckin' pile of dishes already so I'm straight in there without an apron just smashing the dishes out, still a bit trippy from the ketamine but unmolested as fuck from the dexies and bourbon so just fuckin' - I smash out all the pots and pans in no time and Jurg's saying some shit so I stop 'cause I can hardly understand the cunt even without all the dishes sounds. I stop and he's just umming and ahhing and I got too much dexies in me for this shit and he finally spits it out “Zere is, er, some deliferies in the” and I'm like “Yep yep I'm on it” and head out 'cause I can't be fucked listening to that dopey cunt go on, looks a bit like a fuckin' sloth too, I reckon.

  I'm amping when I get out back and George the fat cunt is just arriving, late as fuck, and I'm like “Late as fuck, ya cunt” grinning but not all that friendly and he just goes “Watch it, Michael” with his head down all sour, not even on the comedowns or nothing, just a fuckin' sour cunt all 'round. I get to the loading bay and there's like five boxes and I can't be fucked with the stock rotation shit but could definitely get down on some heavy lifting. I open the first box and it's full of cucumbers so I open some more looking for one that could be for out here in the garage freezer like fish or some shit but it's all just fucking cucumbers. I shout “Oi! Which cunt fucked up all the orders? It's just a massive pile of fuckin' cucumbers!” and George just shouts some shit back and I'm like whatever and just get on with it. There's way too many fuckin' cucumbers to fit in the fridge so I got an idea to pass the day a bit quicker and I take a bag back with me to the dishpit and hide it under the sink and finish off the pile in like ten minutes flat, boom, all fired up from the dexies. I shout “Oi, George ya fat cunt. It cool if I grab a beer from the bar?” and George is like “Not if you're gonna talk to me like that Michael” and I'm like “Fuck alright. Chill out mate” pretty dark at the cunt 'cause I was just trying to be friendly to him 'cause every other cunt just gives him shit all the time, probly makes him feel all left - Jurg's just dropped off a shitload of fuckin' plastic bowls and shit so I just get on with it and George goes “You got that delivery put away yet, Michael?” and I'm like “Yeah fuckin' oath, got that shit done ages ago” and he goes “Got a date sticker on them?” and I go “Yeah yeah” and I haven't really, but I'm saying yeah yeah as in like yeah whatever, not like yeah I have, so he can't get me on that. I take the pile of containers and some knives over to where the asians are prepping but I got a cucumber hidden in amongst them and put it under their bench on the sly and they say thanks but say it like “Sank you, sank you” and I'm like “Aye, just doing my job ain't I?” and then to George at frontline “So how 'bout that fuckin' beer then? Got the dishes done and shit. Delivery's put away” and George is chopping some shit up and goes “It's quarter past nine, the bar's not even open for another hour at least, so no. But you got rid of those dishes fast so you can go out for a five minute rest pause when you feel like it. But I'll have to check them to make sure you” and I'm like what the fuck? 'cause I only been here like half an hour and already smashed it all out, thought it'd be like ten thirty or something by now, which is usually when I get thirsty but I guess I'm still on the buzz from last night, just wanna keep that shit going. The hot asian's got a cucumber in her hand flabbergasted as fuck and the uglier one's giving her this look like Fuck I dunno, and I'm cracking up so I got another cucumber behind my arm on the sly and I'm off over there and pretend I'm putting shit away on the shelf but I just slipped another cucumber in their bread box. The ugly one's holding the first cucumber at me and I take it off her and say real quiet “Yeah, Jurg's been putting cucumbers everywhere” and shrug and she's looking at me like what the fuck? and I take it off her and say “I dunno I'll have a talk to him for you” and she nods and gets back on to it all smiling like “Ah, sank you.” I make sure no one's looking and put the cucumber in the meat freezer and head off out back to Jurg to give him some shit and just like hang around till shit happens and he's just got more fuckin' dishes for me which is sweet 'cause I'm getting bored as fuck already waiting for one of the asians to find the cucumber. I take the dishes back to the pit and give them a quick spray and can see hipster Joseph opening up the bar and I'm off to hit him up and George yells some shit at me but I've had enough of the cunt so fuck - I ask Joseph when the bar'll be open and he goes “Uh, probly like nine thirty, ten” and I go “That's not a real number, cunt” and he's just confused so I head back to the kitchen. I check the clock and it's nine twenty five so I still got a quarter hour before I can get a beer so I grab another cucumber and I'm putting it into the microwave and George is like “Oi, Michael” and I think he's busted me and I spin 'round and he's like “Finish off those dishes, then you can help with prep” and I'm trying not to laugh and I close the microwave like “Ah, right, fair enough mate” and I'm off back to the dishpit and he goes “Michael” and I'm like “What?” all pissed now 'cause I just wanna have a fuckin' beer and hide cucumbers around the place unmolested but that cunt won't fuck off and leave me to it. “Apron” he says and I'm like “Yeah yeah I'll just smash these out” and he's like “No, Michael, apron. Now” and I'm like “Fuck off I'm just gonna smash these out. Look I'm already over here, I'll go get the apron in a minute” and he puts his knife down and starts heading over going “Apron, now” all psycho eyed and I'm like “Alright alright fuckin' chill, cunt. I'm putting it on now” and he's like “If you call me that again, I'll” I'm starting to put my apron on and I can hear Jurg saying some shit out back and look around and hot asian's walking back to her station and Jurg's standing in the doorway with a cucumber in his hands looking confused as and I'm all pissed off 'cause I missed it and it looks like it woulda been - “Michael, get your fucking apron on and get into the dishpit!” - Fuckin' stab the cunt in a minute. I put my apron on and smash out the stack of dishes warp speed so I can go out back to go help Jurg with some prep but it's the fuckin' breakfast rush now so I'm fucked. I get to work on the dishes and I'm like fuck it and just leave the plates and wash Jurg's baking tray so I can take it out back to him. George is shouting shit about how he needs plates but fuck him, gets all gropey and shit with the ladies when he's drunk anyway so he can't say shit, seedy cunt. I get out back and drop off the baking tray and start gathering up his dirty shit, but actually I'm just waiting for one of the asians to turn up here all pissed off waving 'round a cucumber. Jurg's going “Erm, Michael, I am still needing” but I'm like “Nah nah you're good, mate. Just taking them over to the dishpit” and he goes “But my job, she's not, er” and George goes “Michael get the fuck back in the dishpit or I'm sending you home right now” and I'm like “Yeah, alright I'm off to the dishpit now, just picking up Jurg's fuckin' mess ain't I?” and take the dirty dishes over, even though I know the cunt won't send me home, I'm just sick of the him being on my case. I'm about to put my apron on and I see hot asian open the microwave and get the cucumber out looking pissed as like not even smiling just sick of this shit now and she storms off to Jurg's station and I drop my apron and rush after her all hyped and George goes “Michael!” and I'm like “It's sweet I'll do it soon I just gotta-” and I'm just about out back and boom! on the floor, fucker tackled me from behind, still got his arms around my legs and I'm trying to kick the cunt away and watch what's going on with Jurg and hot asian at the same time, but he's like fuckin' clawing up me and got me in a choker hold and I'm elbowing the cunt in the ribs going “Get the fuck off me you gay cunt” and he lets me go and shoves me to the ground and springs up to his feet. I get up and dash out back to Jurg's area and George is red faced after me and I get to Jurg's bench and him and hot asian aren't even here, just me and George, dunno where the fuck they gone. George the flabby cunt has taken his shirt off and he's like “You wanna start shit? Let's fucking go then!” all fired up and I'm like “Where the fuck did Jurg go?” and George goes “Never mind that mate. Let's step outside.” Jurg turns up with all the dishes I took over, didn't even wash them off but whatever. He's fuckin' baffled at what's going on and starts to say something but George goes “You stay out of this, mate, it's got nothing to do with you” but he's still standing there all worried. George is crazy eyeing me now dukes up going “Come on then” and I spot the cucumber sitting on the bench and I'm gutted as 'cause I missed the whole exchange so I'm just like “Fuck it, don't worry” and try walk past him. He shoves me as I walk past and goes “Worry? I'll show you fucking worry!” and shoves me again and I go “Fuck off cunt I gotta get onto these dishes” and try push past him 'cause I can see a massive fuckin' pile of dishes waiting for me, only getting bigger, but he grabs me by the collar and pulls me up close and goes “Nah mate, you and me, outside” and I'm trying to push the cunt away and Max and Fishhands turn up from the garage and rush up to us going “Hey! Hey! What the fuck's going on here?” and they pull us apart like “George, cool off, mate.” They stand between us all serious and Jurg's just getting on with it and not paying us any attention. George goes “Tell this idiot to pull his fucking head in and get in the dishpit or send him home right now” all fired up. I go “I'm trying to get to the fuckin' dishpit but this cunt keeps trying to scrap me out. Look at that fuckin' pile over there” and Max is looking from George to me and back and goes “Right, I'm gonna have to send one of you home. We can't have this shit going on during service. Right, Jurgon, get over here. What's the story, what's happened here?” and Jurg starts talking but George goes “I already told you. This moron-” but Max goes “George, shut the fuck up. Jurg?” and Jurg goes “Em Michael wass, eh, coming over for the job, and, erm, George had started to fight with Michael. And now Michael tries to go back to the dishpits but George still tries to make a fight” and I'm like “Yep, you heard the cunt, George still tries to make a fight. Later asshole” and give George a smile and the middle finger and head off to the pit. I hear George shouting “fuck this shit” and carrying on and there's the sound of a plate or some shit smashing on the ground and Max is saying how it's - Joseph's dropping some dishes off and he's like “Looks like you're getting well smashed today, dude” looking at the massive fuckin' pile on my bench. I'm like “Fuckin' oath. If that fat cunt fucked off and left me alone I woulda got it done ages ago.” Joseph goes “Harsh, man. I reckon I could get you a freebie for this, looks like it's gonna be a fuckin' mission. Pilsner, right?” and heads out. I go “Fuck yeah, swedish” and he stops and turns around going “Huh?” and I say “Sweet as” to correct myself, pretty fuckin' embarrassed I used Damo and shit's gay fuckin' lingo. Fishhands has taken over frontline and goes “All good Mikey boy?” and I'm like “Yeah mate, all good. Fuck that cunt” and he nods and goes “Yep. Fuck that cunt. Liking the trim though, looks good” and gets on with his job. I grab a cucumber and get on with mine.

Collin Callahan

The Ketamine had created a great vacuum at the seat of my consciousness, leaving a vast open plane inside for untainted thoughts to congregate without risk. First and foremost, I decided that my circle of trust contained Ned and Ned alone. While michael always had within him the fire to fight alongside me, and the little cunt was good to bounce ideas off, neither of them had enough brains or general awareness to be trusted. This is important, as it's usually a dumb cunt, rather than a bastard, that fucks everything up.

  But no one is without their uses.

  First order of business, once michael left to go lick society’s perineum, was to go for a roam with my shaved head. I got a ride with stan, growing tired of the cunt pretty fucking quickly once we reached baseline, and was dropped off at the outskirts. I left stan with a trunkful of clothes to distribute to his friends and walked down Harnich road into the woods, where the hungry eyes of the Dimensionless sat waiting. With my decoys soon to be out and about, I hoped to finally get some psychic privacy, even if only for a moment. Let those cunts carry the burden of the boundless horrors of the cosmos for a little while. That’s all I ask. Just time. Time to start rebuilding what They had destroyed. Or even just a moment of clear thought to plan my next move.

  But I knew what really needed to be done. I needed to short circuit the whole fucking motherboard. Destroy the blueprint. Start over. Reignite the primal chaos within myself I had long since extinguished with the infinite white radiation of my Harmonics. Unfortunately, though it hurt to admit, I really knew next to nothing about whatever I was up against. All I could do was trust my instincts and hope for the best.

  Substantially weakened by the legion of hostile Thoughts lingering around the woods, I took a seat on a fallen tree to get a hold of my unruly mind. It was easy to separate my thoughts from Their phantoms when I was prepared to invest all of my willpower in analysing the distinctions. But the true damage is always done when the mind is elsewhere.

  This meant that, for now, the mind could not be elsewhere.

  I dry retched as I contemplated the contents of my mind. The divine paracosm I had been cultivating since childhood was almost unreachable through the clouds of Their filth. Hideous Thoughts of contributing to society, seeking the validation of others, organising my life into neat little routines and endless to do lists, the plastic surrender of maturity... Piles of Their excrement lay steaming in the once supernal lands of my consciousness, leaking noxious gases of guilt and obligation, all amounting to a sick desire to discard my genius in favour of ‘society’, to give up on my ecstatic voyage just to keep everyone happy and safe in their shitty little bubble.

  Most of these Thoughts could be exorcised by some rudimentary invocations of Baphomet, Jack Parsons, Giordano Bruno, and the like, but the stubborn stains etched into my very core still remained. For those Thoughts, the ritualistic summoning of ghosts would not be enough. Not even the great teachers Ketamine and LSD would do. What I needed was the services of Death Itself. A grim reaping of the archives. I needed to rip it all up by the roots and salt the fucking earth. Self destruction. All creation.

  Fighting through my nausea and fatigue, I made my way past the invisible barrier separating the woods from the Botanicals. Thanks to my intimate knowledge of the tracks, I had no trouble finding the tree. The flower was mere inches from my open mouth when it occurred to me that this tree would certainly be plagued with Entities, having enjoyed my company so many times in the past. Whether to trust the Thought as my own was questionable, but I kept my faith. I decided that some form of aetheric cleansing would be necessary in order to rid the flowers of Their filth, and hoped, with a desperation so thick I could feel it in my veins, that this Thought was my own.

  As I reached for a second flower, I noticed several thorny, tennis ball sized fruits growing out of the stems. Following my instincts, I dispensed with the flowers and filled my pockets with the fruits, noting immediately a stronger affinity than what I had with the flowers. The light at the end of the tunnel manifested as a confident posture and a rapid heartbeat, a certain incandescence that lay at once before me and within me, guiding me through the darkness. Something I knew for sure was mine.

  On the way home I took a quick detour to some of my favourite spots around the city, aware that I may not have many more opportunities to do so. I walked all the way along Windsor to the outskirts, admiring the antique buildings that lined the eastern reaches of the city. The grand marble Hall of Science I had known intimately since childhood. The adjacent Theosophical Society building, so comically at odds with its neighbour. The methodist church on the corner of Tuggering street with its inspired murals stretching the height of the walls, a beauty betrayed by the repulsiveness of the rituals within. The old castlelike reform school with its great boarded up windows and treacherous trees towering well over the top storey. Then all the way across the gully to the dear old Disarray, so decrepit yet confident, self contained yet inviting. These and the surrounding trees and planes were my friends, the cornerstones of my time in this town. I stopped in at the Disarray for a beer and a touch of nostalgia, giving the Disembodied a chance to add my new appearance to Their database. Mentally, I travelled the structures and landscapes I was soon to leave behind, and my warmth turned quickly to despair and anger as I considered the Thoughts that plagued them, the infestation that followed me everywhere, hollowing out the psychic blueprint of everything I held dear. I tried to consider how my human friends would be implicated in the situation, but the din of the Disembodied had distorted my perspective irreparably. I left the bar without finishing my beer when the noise became too much.

  Once again downcast, I walked briskly along Northland, struggling to find a single coherent Thought in my head. Cars flashed by in a colourful morse code that was scrambled by racing Thoughts before I could interpret it. There should have been tears, but there was not. I've never been one to cry, even as a child, but I've seen others do it enough to understand the notion. I walked into the middle of the busy road and raised both of my middle fingers up high above my head, a big Fuck You to the coded message and all it represented. I closed my eyes and navigated via the honking of horns, smiling properly for the first time in days. I started spinning circles as I walked, and the tears finally came in the form of hysterical laughter and a Will to freedom, a call to the Infinite.

  I knew I had to wait until I got home to ingest the fruits. And to bring Ned with me. There are times, few and far between, where a partner in crime is an asset. Through thick and thin, as They say.

  And a trip to the underworld is one of them.

Stan Richards

Robbie was right about writing shit down. It's actually pretty satisfying. I'm surprised at how creative I am when I actually try, though I'll have to look it over when I'm in a less fucked up headspace to see if what I've written actually means anything. I'm working on a song. Or a poem, I guess. I got a little beat in my head and I'm sorta singing along as I write it, but I guess it's a poem since I'm never gonna do anything with it. I can deal with that. So far I've got-

A monkey expelled from the forest

Sat in a room, thoughts abolished

A chemical imbalance, must be undone

I bit the cunt's throat and started to run

  That's the first verse. Then I got this sorta chorus-type bit that goes-

Going back home, into the grey

Going back to the forest, where I can play

  Which I kinda like. I imagine it getting sung twice in a row. Almost keen to suss out a pair of bongos and make it real. I gotta admit I'm sorta ripping off Ned and Robbie with that into the grey shit, though I don't really know how they meant it when they used to talk about it. I've started on the next verse, which goes-

Woke up alone all covered in dew

In the sleeping bag trees over which we once flew

And over the trees we still can fly

  That part's based on a dream I had a little while back. I know the next line is gonna end with ‘die’, but I'm tryna work it into being about when we die at night, meaning like going to sleep. But there's something Robbie didn't warn me about...

  ‘Linda, that's her name. Linda,’ Dad's been going on and on, totally fuckin' oblivious. Like it never even occurred to him that I might be doing something - though you'd think the pen and paper would be a dead fuckin' giveaway. ‘Sorta seems like a nice girl, but if you cross her, you'd better watch out. This other joker who was working for us, apprentice boy, Jim, fuck was she giving him hell the other day. He's the one who got me onto the VLC player on the bloody computer. Anyway, she was giving him all sorts of hell the other day...’ What's making him think I have any interest in this Linda character is beyond me. Makes me wonder if he's always been such a thick cunt or if we all lose our brains when we get old. I just keep staring at my page, tryna focus on the words in my head while simultaneously willing Dad to fuck off. As soon as I get this last line of the verse I'm off, down the creek or some shit, get away from the stupid old cunt... When we go to bed at night to die... When we lie down at night to die... At night when we lie down and die...

  ‘...bloody youngsters these days. I told the boy, I told him, listen up 'cause I'm only telling you this once. So I got down and unbolted the bloody thing...’

  At night when we leave our body and die... Wait, when we dream and die. At night when we dream and die... That's pretty good. But I liked it with the leaving the body...

  ‘...and the little asshole was playing on his phone the whole bloody time! I says to him, Mate, I told you, I'm only showing you this once. And you know what he says to me? He says, Sorry, just got a text! Now that left a bad taste in my mouth, I'll tell you that for free...’

  At night when we leave our body to dream and die... When we dream... When we leave our body to dream... When our bodies... When our bodies dream and die... Fuck yeah, that's the one. At night when our bodies dream and die.

Woke up alone all covered in dew

In the sleeping bag trees over which we once flew

And over the trees we still can fly

At night when our bodies dream and die.

    I slap my book shut and go ‘Alright Dad, I'm outta here,’ interrupting whatever the fuck he's on about now.

  ‘Oh yeah? Where you off to then?’

  ‘Uh, off to the skatepark,’ I say, 'cause fuck tryna explain to Dad that I'm off to the creek. I guess that means I'm off to the skatepark. I can deal with that. I stand up and shake my legs off, figuring out my goodbye.

  ‘Right. You gonna take your CVs with you then?’

  ‘Yeah I will. Catch you later.’

  ‘Don't forget to-’

  I storm inside and stumble over Jake and go ‘Ah fuck off Jake ya slippery cunt!’ and he shoots off out the door. I head to my room, kinda laughing 'cause I just swore at a cat. I stuff my notebook and a few CVs into my bag and have a quick look for my mp3 player but can't find it. I go to the kitchen and nick a couple beers from the fridge and fuckin' Karen pops out of the walk-in pantry and scares the shit out of me.

  ‘And where are you going with those then?’ She's got a ha, busted! look on her face, but she was drinking at fuckin' like eight or something with Louise's parents so can't say shit. Not even my real Mum anyway. Bitch.

  ‘Hey, uh, off to have a beer with Jordan,’ I say, playing it cool. She looks like she's about to say something so I go ‘I'll see you later, okay?’ and give her a shitty fake smile and rush off to the door.

  I'm just out the door when I catch Dad's eye and remember that I'm off for a skate and grab my board from the garage and head off down the sidewalk, shaking off their prying bullshit like spiderwebs.

  The rumble of the shitty sidewalk beneath my feet clears my head enough to get me figuring out what I'm up to. Apparently I’m off to the skatepark, which I’m okay with. Then off to hand out CVs, which I can’t really see happening. Then off for a beer with Jordan, which won’t be happening for so many reasons. Dad and Karen will be at home, all stoked about their happy, well-adjusted kid. Off skating, job hunting, and having a quiet beer with one of his many friends. Up for a bit of a good time, but also with a good head on his shoulders, getting ready for the next step in life. A work hard, play hard kinda lad. Fuck I fuckin’ hate myself.

  I’m cruising slow and careful ‘cause I’m feeling a bit sketch with all this zopiclone in me, but it’s actually all working pretty well. I’d planned to just skate around the corner and get off my board to hide for the day, but I’m kinda into this now. I got my trucks on loose as, just took the washers out, and all the cracks in the pavement are sending me into crazy death-wobbles. I pop a little ollie out of a curb cut and it comes out better than I expected, like clean and even a little boned-out maybe, and I decide to actually go for a roll today. That's another typical brain-fried Stan Richards move: Wander around blind and anxious, making excuses not to do all the things that spook me till eventually I find something that doesn’t give me anxiety. Or, I don’t find anything and just have a productive day hiding somewhere thinking about how much everything sucks. Sometimes I switch on the TV or get out some comic books to point my face at like a good, normal boy.

  I’m heading in the general direction of West End skatepark, but I’m more hyped on just cruising than actually going somewhere. It's good to have some direction though. West End is this small, caged-in concrete pad usually inhabited only by bikers who don’t really wanna talk to the weird skater cunt who keeps fucking himself up trying easy shit. I figure by the time I get there, if I do - quick front 180 over the strip of grass on the Henderson’s driveway, sketchy little half cab then left down Hunterway - I’ll either be hyped on skating, or all sour and keen to initiate some conflict with some bikers or whatever. Either way, things are starting to look up for the day - though whenever I try look more than ten or twenty minutes in the future I get that sick pulse inside me. I got my board, my notebook, and a couple beers in my bag, plus the beat of my song on loop in my head. Should be enough to make a day of.

  Halfway down Hunterway I get a bit cocky and try pop out of the curb cut onto the seat at the bus stop on the corner. The ollie’s fucked from the start, back foot dangling and shit, but I fully commit ‘cause I’m feeling like a mad cunt. My back truck hangs up and I fly into a full Ragdoll body slam along the bench and off onto the sidewalk, rolling all the way to a parking space. I get beeped at by a car that's not even close to me, and this pretty brunette girl who was walking past stops and goes ‘Oh my god are you okay?’ and I laugh all freakshow and she goes wide-eyed with shock and walks off in a hip-swivelling rush.

  I get up and dust myself off, aware of the stares but not fazed by them. I’ve ripped the scab off my left elbow and somehow grazed up my right one too, and ripped a new hole in my right knee, on the jeans and my skin. This group of thuggish Islander-looking dudes leaning on the billboard-sized bus timetable laugh at me and I feel all ugly and excited inside. I storm up to them and their laughing peters out. I grab the nearest one by the collar and scream ‘HAHAHA!’ into his face, then do the same to the rest, systematically down the line. They all back down, two of them looking away from me at their feet, the other two looking at me all freaked out. I wanna indulge in some extended psycho eye contact with one of them, but the way they're looking at me is unsubstantial so I grab my board from the top of the seat. I’m feeling warm and energised again so I hop on and start pushing down Witham. I mach ten a slappy boardslide on some double-sided curb outside the little bookstore and the pain’s already gone and I’m just hyped on the warm blood trickling symmetrically down both arms. I got a massive grin on and pop a satisfyingly lofty backside 180 off the curb cut into the smooth asphalt road then switch 180 all sketchy and push off down the road, slashing all over the place, tryna get as many cunts to beep at me as possible. Fearless in the face truer fears, fears of cancer, death, and insanity, drowning out the trivial realities of concrete and metal around me.

  Everyone else out at this hour’s still all dazed from sleep. Not this cunt though. I’m fucked up. I’m mentally ill. I try to pop a kickflip in the middle of the road and stick and commando roll across the white lines. I feel the wind of a car past my head as it swerves to avoid me, beeping and yelling shit out the window in morning depression, the depression I feel every waking minute of every fuckin’ day.

  Once I'm back on my board the sound of urethane on the road drowns out the grey whirlwind of shouting voices and beeping cars, charging me up as I haul ass down the centre line. I'd planned the chorus to just repeat itself throughout the song, but a second slightly different one pops into my head, fully formed with no tweaking necessary-

Slip through the grey, into the black

To the heart of the jungle, there's no turning back

Slip through the grey, into the black

To the heart of the jungle, there's no turning back

Ned Devlin

‘We can't fuck around here, man. Thought Forms everywhere. They know I'm here. We're here... Take this, Ned. The seed pods are soaking in there, no time to boil 'em down properly, let's just do this. Come on. We'll go to the woods. I've found a new track I haven't - Oi, don't fucking drink it now. Fucking hell Ned. Give it here. That's boiling water man, singe your fucking oesophagus raw. Don't look at me like that, cunt. Just give it here. Fuckin' give it... here. We're not fucking around today, Ned. This shit's not Acid or Ketamine or anything like that. We're going right in there, man. Right to the source... Alright, let's get out of here. You ready? Yeah? You're gonna go out like that? Your shirt's outside if you wanna... Fuck alright then. Let's just get the fuck out of here.

  ‘Right so anyway, I'm sure you know what's going on here. Basically some Force or Entity has been pursuing me, draining me of my life and energy... I don't know what exactly It is or who It's affiliated with. Hell, It might be a legion of Entities, a whole grey society of the Cunts working together to take me down. It might not even be Entities at all. From what I've gathered, It seems to be some kind of astral presidency working to keep the established order within the noncorporeal realms, with similar motives to the government in the corporeal lands. Control, order, all that shit. I think They've picked us out, both of us, because we've been meddling about in Their affairs - we've drawn attention to ourselves. What I think, is that you possess certain clairvoyant capacities that I myself, unfortunately, seem to be lacking. All of my work in the heavens has been from a distance, responding to my instincts and intuitions rather than clear vision like you. But you, for whatever reason, have been given the gift. Whether it's to do with your mother's fucking around with Thelema way back when, or maybe your own dealings with these Entities, I'm not sure. I'm not even going to begin to speculate. Well, obviously I already have to some degree, but... See what I'm thinking here is that we'll form a magical alliance, much like Edward Kelly and John Dee had in the fifteen hundreds - your Edward Kelly like clairvoyance assisting my providence. With your help, I'll be able to - Hey, this way, Ned. Come on... Come on! Fuck, fine, we'll go that way. But we have to be wary of where our bodies are while we go on this journey. We may need them after. I was thinking we could leave them in the heart of the woods, like right - fuck, no, not that way Ned. We can not go to the Botans. That place is fucking infested. What we need is a sacred space, man. We need to go somewhere away from Them... Yeah, servants, exactly. It's those Cunts that'll get us. We're going for the throat today, Ned. But that's what I'm saying: We gotta go somewhere away from Them, somewhere hidden... Yeah, sure, I suppose you're right there, actually... but I don't think it's completely irrelevant. I mean, yeah, obviously space has different applications for Them than it does for us, but... I dunno, actually. Hadn't considered that. It's not important, anyway. These are the kind of details we can leave for robbie... Yes. Good call. But what I think is this other world, the one we'll be dealing with today - I mean, there's no point going straight to the white light now. That's what I'm saying here. That'll just blind us and accomplish nothing. What we're doing today is visiting that secondary world, the intermediary between our world and the great Void, where the myths manifest and thoughts cast shadows. The home of Christ, Shiva, Baphomet - all the Cunts. But what I think we're dealing with here is - and I'm not sure about this, it's just a hunch - but what I think we're dealing with is a like a modern day old testament style God. A deity for the atheists with certain repressed monotheistic impulses. He who is powered by the timid submission of the collective human race, all the fucking cowards who hide from the Void, who hide from themselves. All the shrieking, squealing fucking pigs who go straight back to writhing about in their own psychic filth when confronted with their own souls, as Terrence McKenna speculated. Man, this Entity, these Entities, I've been dealing with... What a pack of sick, depraved assholes. Sly motherfuckers, forcing Their pusillanimous ideas into my brain. They sneak up inside of you, man, wear you like a fucking glove. You actually think it's you thinking these Thoughts. They disguise themselves as your thoughts. How can we fight something that disguises Itself as our thoughts? And the smell... The fucking smell Ned. How can I even begin to explain... Fuck, man, let's just fuckin' do this, right here right fucking-’

  ‘Don't listen to him, Ned. Well, do listen, actually; listen to Collin in the same way you'd listen to David Icke talk. Hell, listen to him the way you'd read a Phillip K Dick novel; it's some good science fiction coming out of his mouth right now. And, yes, he is right: We are watching him; but, even the non-corporeal must have a bit of fun, right? Anyway, I'm going to help you guys. Basically, because Collin's more entertaining than pretty much every other human out there. But also because I like you, Ned. So I'm going to explain a few things to you, and only you; I'm not talking to Collin here. And if you mention anything I'm telling you now to him, then that's it, I'm out of here. Right. So, you want to get past the entities monitoring you don't you? So, what you're after here is a kind of invisibility - an undetectable aetheric presence. That shouldn't be a problem. First, I'm gonna have to get you to stand still for a second.’

  ‘...Fuck, it's still too hot. It's a nice colour though, that dirty brownish swirl. That'll be the Atropine and Scopolamine absorbed into the water... Let's wait and see if it gets any browner. Anyway, it's probably time we - Ned, what the fuck are you doing? Come on, man, let's go. You're gonna cause a scene if you stand in the middle of the sidewalk like a moron. Astral and otherwise. Come on. Fuck, Ned, just come on, man. Fucking-’

  ‘Right, now, close your eyes. Look around; you are now your non-corporeal body. Only takes a few seconds when you haven't been sleeping. Now, don't worry about your primary body, Collin will take care of it... Yes, good point. But it doesn't hurt to be reminded. Anyway, first thing's first: I want you to raise your right arm... nope, nope, I want you to do this without your corporeal body responding at-’

  ‘Ned, what the fuck are you doing? You're attracting attention man. Wait till we get to the woods, then you can whatever weird fucking Tai Chi you want-’

  ‘Nope, Ned, I'm gonna have to get you to close those eyes again. Just ignore Collin; he's undergoing his own personal initiation into the depths, and it's only normal for one in his position to make some effort to reaffirm his own existence by pestering everyone around him. Anyway, right, so what I want you to do, is to conjure up the feeling of raising your right arm. Don't raise your corresponding physical arm; just forget it completely for now... No, forget the motor homunculus; you're just confusing matters. No, what I want you to do is to feel the twinge and stretch of your bicep as it tugs on your elbow. Feel the tension in your forearm as it exerts no effort, but awakens its miniature sensors to analyse its new environment and position. Consider your hand: Does it come out rigid, or flop down flaccid? ... Yep, okay, and there's nothing wrong with that, Ned. But I want you to feel it hanging there, feel the weightlessness in your fingers as the tension that held them in place transfers to your wrist. Feel the change in blood pressure as-’

  ‘-but let's get going. I just want to get this shit into me so we can-’

  ‘Oh my God, Ned, can you do something to shut this boy up... Yes, okay, that's what I thought. Anyway, I think you've got the message now. So that right arm you raised, that's the right arm you dream with; it's as malleable and formless as your imagination, it just instinctively imitates the shape and position of your corresponding physical arm... No, no that's quite enough about the motor homunculus. I'm doing the talking here, okay? Now, you don't need to close your eyes to conjure up this second body; throughout your waking life, you're making a constant subconscious effort to keep your various bodies aligned... Yes, that's right. Innumerable bodies sir. So, as you walk, I want you to retain awareness of this second body. This is the body that's seen - or, it might be better said, perceived - by the non-corporeal. If you can divide your attention between it and your physical body, then you can distort it in various ways - expand it, stretch it thin vertically or even just reduce it to a point. In doing so, you'll be able to pass through the various realms undetected. Now, the thing with - oh, your friend's walking off now. Might want to go after him, he's got the potion. Go on. Off you go.’

  ‘Satisfied? You've made a scene, you've stood half naked in the middle of the sidewalk waving your arm around like a fucking mongoloid, can we get to the fucking woods now so we can get on with this? If you can just not be a weird cunt for ten more minutes, we'll be in the heart of the woods and you can close your eyes and flap your arms around all you - Fuck! That was Them talking just then, man. I didn't even notice. I thought They were my own thoughts... Fuck! Ned, if I ever complain about you being a weird cunt again, punch me in the fucking face, please. It's those fucking Entities, man. I actually felt it then... I saw into the thought processes of all the conformist pigs out there, everyone who dismisses you as a chemical casualty... Fuck, let's get moving. It's the park across the road there - we've spent too much time there. It's swarming with all sorts of Dimensionless Motherfuckers, hunting us, breaking us down at the most fundamental level. We can never go there again, Ned. A horrible thought I know. Just the kind of horrible Thought that... Let's pick up the pace. I can smell Them from here. Oh god that smell... Let's move, man.’

  ‘Huh, that's actually quite interesting... You know what, Ned, I don't think your buddy over there is actually in contact with any entities at all. I think he's just another unhinged corporeal nobody wandering about the place personifying the demons inside him. Like Phillip K Dick's man who's afraid of his own shadow. That guy was always pretty quantumly-entangled like that. Both of them, really... Ooh I like that one. Man who's afraid of his own fractals… You certainly do have a way with words, Ned. Anyway, the point is this: No matter how similar the outcome, his overall assessment of the situation is way off. His conclusion was not even... Fuck, Ned, because it makes me feel better about myself to judge others, alright? It reaffirms my position within the spiritual hierarchies. You've got an ego, I've got an ego, we've all got fucking egos. There. You happy? Anyway, look, you've derailed another lecture with your irrelevant questions and smart-alecky remarks. Let's move forward, okay?’

  ‘...so we'll just - What are you so happy about? Alright, whatever man. But anyway-’

  ‘Right, so listen up now, Ned. I'm not going to explain this again. So, these daemons Collin saw in the park... Yes, alright, entities, whatever. These entities Collin saw... Alright, felt, whatever - Ned, I'm this close to cutting you off right now so pull your fucking head in... No, I'm not mad, I'm just - Well, yes, actually Ned, I am fucking mad. Now you can stop with this pompous bullshit and listen or I'll leave you alone with your maniac buddy over there and his boiled Datura pods... That's what I thought. So, anyway, those entities in the park, as well as the entities at his house and in the woods, they're no more than manifestations of his inner ennui. That's what happens when extroverted sensation-seekers limit their environment and interactions: They get bored. And when one is like Collin, an apopheniac with a taste for the unknown, this boredom tends to look... Right, fine, yes, feel a lot like a daem- entity. These thought forms that plague him are simply-’

  ‘No, this way, Ned-’

  ‘Yeah, yeah, just go with him. Anyway, these entities that plague Collin are simply his own distaste for the monotony of his life - a monotony he disguises with his rich inner life, personified and separated from himself as an esoteric defence mechanism, popular with the religious crowd and some underground fringe groups. In fact, these entities could even be a kind of self-doubt buried deep within him, a self-doubt so incompatible with his megalomania that he's unable to recognise it as a part of himself. Anyway, to conclude: These entities that have been harassing your friend, they're no more than the frantic denial of his growing sense of responsibility; your friend doesn't want to grow up and face reality. So the only thing left for him to do now is... No, no don't worry. I'm not gonna tell you guys to grow up. No, the next step for Collin is simply to-’

  ‘Right, Ned, you got your cup? Excellent. Hold still... Yep, there you go. Right, well, we're pretty much at the woods now, and I can't see anything taken orally kicking in in less than like twenty minutes. So, uh, chin chin, then?’

  ‘…move with - oh, right. Well, yeah. Go on then, get it in you. Think up a toast, Ned; don't be a cunt.’

  To Uncertainty.

  ‘To uncertainty.’

  ‘To uncertainty.’

Robbie Marks

I awoke masturbating, the source of my arousal lost in the morning's amnesia, and continued enthusiastically until the stirrings of human form next to me grounded me into manifest reality, undivided. Lucy, disturbed perhaps by my movements, perhaps by the denizens of her dreams, frowned and mumbled quietly in her sleep. With my left hand still inside my boxers, resting on my erect penis, I allowed a film-reel of perverted thoughts to flicker through my mind as I watched her fall back into slow-wave sleep, before deciding it would be best to bring myself to ecstasy in the shower.

  I got up and swung my legs out onto the floor before instinctively reaching to the bedside table for my glasses. After fumbling around for a moment, I realised they weren't there and remembered the significance of the day ahead of me, dispelling my morning malaise.

  It was day-three of the Mescaline phase: The pinnacle of our voyage.

  As if in response to this realisation, my blurred eyes came into relative focus, more of a mental adjustment than physical, accepting the fact that they would be working without the aid of my glasses today.

  My heart was beating at over 100BPM, and my brainwaves had already ramped up to a high-end beta rhythm, skipping entirely the cocoon-like alpha wave trance that would usually ease my thoughts out of amorphousness. My penis was still very much erect, so I employed a breathing meditation technique to draw the agitated sexual energy from my base up to a projected Ajna Chakrah, where it was transmuted into an aetheric verve that I would store until later, when I would use it to propel me into the deeper reaches of The Void.

  With my penis now flaccid and my mind fully animated and ready for Work, I eagerly got up and dressed myself in the clothes I had been wearing since my basal Mescaline trip on Thursday. The temptation to wake Lucy and dose immediately threatened to overwhelm me, but I resisted, largely thanks to my third-eye meditation earlier; Lucy could be trusted to wake up on her own terms at some point before noon, and experience told me that to wake her up myself would leave her in bad spirits which would affect us the entire day.

  I went into the lounge, stimulated by the amphetamine-like buzz of anticipation, and was surprised to find the house completely devoid of human life. There was an aura of instruments, cans, and cups around the couch and coffee table, and various drawn-on bits of scrap paper littered about, but Collin and Ned were nowhere to be seen.

  I got down on my knees and searched through the cans and bottles for Collin's pipe, since we'd be needing it later that day. Amongst the rubbish, I came across a small drawing of a bipedal reptile masturbating and spitting on its cock entitled ‘SPIT WANKING’, next to a plastic shopping bag that, to my shock, turned out to be full of human hair. I decided it would be best to get rid of the hair before Collin got back, knowing how disgusted he'd be to come home and find such a thing in his quarters. But then I looked inside: The hair was blond; both Michael and Ned had dark hair, and I knew that they were the only people there the previous night - besides Stan, who had evidently shaved his head at an earlier point.

  Stunned into inactivity, I realised then that I had to forget everything I knew about Collin. Leaving the lounge in such a state was a sure enough indicator that he had departed from old ways; but the fact that he had shaved his head to imitate ginger Stan, the cool-guy of the closed-circuit illusion of high school social politics, told me that I had quite possibly lost him for good.

  My gut reaction to losing Collin to The Mars Fuckers was deep apprehension: We would be losing our treasured smultronstalle - our home base, our supply of food, and our intellectual leader; all I had come to rely on as a homing signal to guide me back from my journeys. But, after some thought, I decided that this would simply be the next step in my own personal evolution - stepping out from Collin's shadow. Though the four of us - Lucy, Collin, Ned, and I - had, in the beginning, been on the path together, throughout this most recent Mescaline voyage I had been thinking that perhaps we had come to a fork in the road - the point where we must all, for better or worse, pursue the mysteries as individuals; or, like Collin, find a new tribe and travel down a different path entirely. I lay back on the carpet and closed my eyes to conjure up an image of the Qabalistic Tree of Life and place this new step within its framework. The drabness of my internal vision reminded me that I was sober - a terrible time for internal workings - so I got up and continued looking for the pipe, resisting the temptation to indulge in some of the remaining white powder on the table.

  After searching the entire living room, I concluded that my friends must have taken the pipe with them wherever they went. I decided to take the plastic Pump bottle bong instead, which would be better for the job anyway. I took it to the kitchen and poured the dirty water out into the sink before giving it a quick rinse and putting it in a plastic bag. Then I briefly scanned the sink and kitchen table for a vessel to store the water for the bong; I eventually decided that some drinking water might actually be an asset, and filled up an empty Sprite bottle from the recycling bin.

  I got the two bottles of Mescaline out of the fridge and put them on the kitchen table, more an impatient fidget than for any practical reasons, before quickly checking on the DMT in the freezer. I wasn't sure if it was ready, but decided it was best to wait until the evening to finish the extraction. I had about two points left from the last batch, which was enough for Lucy and I, and I would need Ned's expertise to do the extraction effectively. On the way back to the room, I mentally checked off my list of items needed for the day: Bong, DMT, Mescaline, water, Dictaphone, pencil, compass, sketchbook, phone, weed, Ketamine, downers, acid, mp3 player, Be Here Now....

  Once in Collin's room, I stood watching Lucy shift around under the blankets - most likely in a REM state, possibly close to waking - silently willing her to rise. Eventually, she settled into what appeared to be a slow-wave sleep, so I gave up and gathered my belongings. My sketchbook was still open on the floor, displaying a mandala I'd drawn the previous night which was disappointingly lifeless in the dull light of morning. I put it in my bag along with my mp3 player and Dictaphone, then went to the lounge to fidget and wait for Lucy. Bored and restless, I got my phone out to text Collin and found I had a message from Tracey: ‘come for a drinK i got cash.’ It took me a moment to decipher the text, as I had trouble imagining Tracey deciding to invite me around for a drink, especially at such an hour, before I noticed the capitalised K, which added some more structure to the day ahead of me.

  I text her back: ‘Yep I'll give you a call when I'm in town; I'm waiting for Lucy to wake up.’ In the end, I decided not to text Collin, reflecting on my earlier meditation regarding the next step in my journey. This would be the basis of my trip: Establishing my new life direction, as well as checking in on my personal Tree of Life to regain perspective…. Some entity contact would be nice, too.

  With time to kill, I got my tin out from my bag to do stock take, as I often did in my spare moments. I arranged my items next to me on the couch, thanks to a paranoid train of thought concluding that the mess on the coffee table could potentially swallow up some of my stock. I had three half-gram bags of Ketamine left; I would part with up to one gram today, as I was still interested in the possibility of testing out the Mescaline-Ketamine combo - I'd been entertaining the thought for a little while now of using a psychedelic to illuminate the dissociated darkness of the K-hole, allowing me to navigate the blind alleyways of a high-dose Ketamine trip without lapsing into stupor. I still had an ounce and three baggies of weed, which had been causing me some anxiety; I'd been hoping to eliminate weed completely from my arsenal once I found my hallucinogen market, as weed is a highly impractical drug to distribute - it takes up a lot of space, puts one at risk of being sniffed out by police dogs or particularly astute officers, and the customers tend to have the annoying habit of lingering around long after the transaction is over; this was of little trouble to me as I often distributed the weed via my Mescaline-influenced wanders about town, but most everyone in town knew they could find me at Collin’s, and the semi-regular influx of lurkers and wasters had all but broken the peaceful meditation of our once treasured smultronstalle. I still had a lighter-sized strip of 150ug LSD tabs, which I was contemplating involving in the voyage ahead of us. There was also two points of DMT, for Lucy and I; a small baggy of Benzodiazepine and a slightly fuller baggy of Cyclizine, to be traded with the Seed Freaks at the next opportunity; and half a tray of Dextroamphetamine, which turned out to be a foolish investment since anybody who wanted any knew they could get them from Michael, often in exchange for a few beers or a sesh, and I was fairly sure I'd end up ingesting the majority of them eventually, having developed some affinity for the drug myself.

  After another half-hour or so of waiting around, listening to The Incredible String Band and playing probability games with Lucy's Tarot cards, I finally caved in and crushed up a ten-milligram Dextroamphetamine to get me out of my sobriety rut. I then engaged in Metaprogramming Ritual 2: Dopamine Invocation, a metaprogramming ritual I had designed around the amphetamine rush that involved a glass of Berocca, gamma-frequency binaural beats, and push-ups while staring at a sigil.

  With the amphetamines now coursing through my veins, complemented by the stimulation of gamma-wave oscillations and vigorous exercise, I spent the next half-hour labouring over a detailed diagram of the Qabalistic Tree of Life juxtaposed over a drawing of the Chakrah system, annotated with notes regarding Timothy Leary's Eight Circuits of Consciousness. I then traced Michael's spit-wanking lizard onto another piece of refill and added the Tree of Life, the Chakrahs, and Eight Circuits of Consciousness over top of the corresponding body parts, adding a second ejaculation to the top of the creature's head representing Kether, the crown Chakrah, and the Psycho-Atomic Circuit, suggesting that the two ejaculatory streams merged somewhere beyond the page.

  As I started trying to fit the Seven Deadly Sins of Christian lore into the table of correspondences, Lucy finally emerged from Collin's room, wearing the same filthy, frayed dress she'd been wearing since Thursday. She radiated the warm, loving energy she always did when she'd been left to wake up on her own, and her infectious, sleepy smile and sensual, dream-stained eyes made me glad I'd resisted temptation to wake her.

  ‘Hey Lucy, come check this out. I've reconciled the Qabalah, Timothy Leary's Eight Circuits of Consciousness, and the Chakrahs into one system. Come look!’

  Lucy smiled softly and said, ‘Hold on, Robbie. I'm gonna make a coffee. You want one?’

  ‘Hey, uh, I dunno if you should be mixing coffee with this. It's kind of a science, these cocktails. You’ll have a caffeine crash at the peak, and -’

  ‘Robbie, I can tell you've taken Dexies.’

  I opened my mouth to explain my ritual to her, a shitty justification for my lack of chemical prudence, before realising it was a terrible excuse and I was indeed being a dick. I laughed and said, ‘Nah, no coffee for me thanks.’ Lucy smiled and disappeared into the kitchen.

‘Three ... two ... one.... To the Gods!’ she said, and we both chugged our glasses of Mescaline. The liquid was thick and snotty, with a bitter, earthy taste that got harder to stomach with each successive gulp. I had almost finished my glass when a gag-reflex ballooned my cheeks with regurgitated Mescaline. I swallowed the burning chunder down and held the glass at arm's length, swallowing a few times to suppress the looming retch. Lucy had finished hers and her face was scrunched up into a sour grin. I held my nose and finished my glass off, before shuddering and throwing it onto the grass triumphantly.

  Lucy burped but didn't follow through and said, ‘We'll go to the beach now?’ her spine tingling visibly.

  I began to answer and a wave of nausea hit me. I bent over to vomit, but nothing came out; I was anticipating it too much. ‘Nah, wait here 'til we chuck, I reckon. Then we'll go,’ I said weakly, spitting on the grass between words.

  ‘Yep okay. That's a good idea. Then we'll go to the beach?’

  ‘Uh, yeah, yeah, go to the beach.... We'll do that a bit later, actually. Spacey wants to buy some Ketamine, too. So we'll go see her, I reckon. Then, uh, then maybe the Seed Freaks, so we can get that out of the way ... gotta do a quick trade with them....’

  ‘Oh cool. And then we'll find Collin and go to the beach.’

  ‘Yeah, sure. Collin'll be with The Mars Fuckers, I reckon, so that'll work in.... Oh yeah, hang on. I actually had this plan with ants I wanted to -’

  I was interrupted mid-sentence by a powerful and uncontrollable purging. The first spurt came out involuntarily, filling my mouth with vomit too acidic to swallow back down. My whole body shook as I leaned forward and released my mouthful of spew onto the lawn, knowing that there was more to come. I glanced at Lucy and she gave me a knowing nod, then I got down on all fours and released a violent torrent of stomach contents, complete with a gurgling, animal roar. The Mescaline purge is incomparable to a drunken chunder; from the first blast onward, the entire contents of one's stomach are forcibly expelled in a satisfying projectile scream of burning stomach acid. After a short while of post-vomit heaves, I stood four-legged on the lawn, spitting thick, mucousy strands as my eyes watered and adrenaline thudded my heart.

  Once I felt adequately emptied, I lay on my back next to my vomit swamp and stared up at the sky, scrying the first formations of enhanced perception: A dazed, vaguely dream-like state that precedes the first characteristically psychedelic effects of the substance; a bodily reaction to the introduction of a foreign, familiarly potent substance into the system. As Lucy wandered languorously around the yard, I had my first Mescaline-inspired moment of acute self-awareness, considering how the scene would appear to onlookers, had there been any: For the last month or so, about three times a week, some combination of Lucy, Ned, and I had stood around in the backyard of the Callahan household, vomiting violently in turn. Though vomiting is, in the alcoholic western culture, not all that uncommon, this situation would surely be an enigma to any onlookers: A group of teenagers standing around, completely sober, periodically excusing themselves from conversation to spew loudly and violently, before composing themselves and continuing conversation eloquently, without a second thought.

  I sat up and smiled at Lucy, trusting that the telepathy had started between us. Her amused, sparkling eyes seemed to confirm this.

  ‘Should we go now?’ she asked.

  ‘What? You haven't even spewed yet. That was only half our dose, anyway. We could re-dose once you have your spew, or just maybe take it with us. Up to you.’

  ‘I think we should go.... If you're ready, that is. I don't feel like I'm gonna spew this time. I've got a joint we can smoke on the way, if we go through the park. We should go through the park. It’s a nice day today.’

  I nodded and got to my feet, feeling the first wave as a satisfying glow throughout my blood and the beginnings of the psychic freedom cactus gifts me with. My hearing was ultra high-definition, intuitively isolating the myriad noises of the surrounding nature and suburbia into distinct, highly detailed layers. The Earth's gravitational pull loosened slightly, and we headed inside to prepare for our mission.

  Knowing from experience that not acting quickly and decisively when taking Phenylethylamines can often result in an entire trip spent wandering about the house lost in angles, I wasted no time gathering my belongings. Lucy and I ended up splitting a tab, and we set off down the road, happy and free. Since the street was more or less deserted, Lucy sparked the joint she had rolled for the walk. I decided to limit myself to one puff, not wanting to waste any of the trip in stoned thought-loops. After one small toke, I instinctively got my Dictaphone from my bag and clicked it on.

  ‘The initial effects of Mescaline are apparent, approximately thirty minutes after ingestion. On this trip, I will be moving away from the myths of days past and contemplating the future, clearing a spiritual pathway that may be the path I follow for the rest of my time on this plane....’

Collin Callahan

The Datura trance turned out to be the opposite of what I had envisioned. The first wave was a drunken night in fast forward. The two of us clambered around the woods with childlike glee, screaming spontaneous animal incantations into the aethers. Eventually the sedative effects took hold, and we collapsed at the foot of an ancient tree, silently appreciating the oblivion we could never quite find with alcohol. My Pursuers finally left me alone, frightened by the more sinister forms manifesting from within.

  After an indeterminate stretch of time, cracked lips and a full bladder brought me gently back to the physical. I managed to get to my feet without too much trouble, but finding Ned's backpack proved impossible. It seemed to be everywhere I looked - lazing about in the shrubs, dangling from the trees like wild monkeys, even resting on my own back. One copy manifested as a sentient creature, resting on the forest floor with a deflated grimace. Not willing to reality check the myriad versions, I chose instead to deal with my full bladder. The process of walking was beginning to feel quite abstract, so I gave up and took a piss where I was. In spite of the longer than usual amount of time it took to unzip my fly, I got a fright when I felt warm liquid trickling down my leg to my shoes.

  Oddly, the shock had the effect of distracting me from the task at hand. The forest was now alive and full of activity. As I stared around at my surroundings, menacing creatures jeered at me, scrambling behind trees and shrubbery whenever my eyes rested upon them. After a spell of vertigo, I turned to head back to the party. Whether or not I was still pissing seemed unimportant and somehow not quite real enough to be of any concern.

  Sitting boneless against the tree trunk, Ned screamed in manic laughter at me, supported by a chorus of stalk limbed beings protruding from behind him like black bonfire shadows. I tried to make my way back to the party, but only succeeded in throwing my body into the swirling darkness of the dirt floor.

  Wandering through the forest with Ned and hayden, I found it strange that they didn't share my awe. Familiar creatures hid in my shadow as I walked, prancing warily behind me. I couldn't figure out who or what they were hiding from, but their apprehension was infectious. As we walked, the trees took on a higher intelligence, forming avant garde images with their leaves and branches that responded to the intensity of my focus. In the distance, a sun drenched clearing lay forever out of reach. Its entrance was a tunnel formed by overhanging trees, its walls lined by a horde of prostitutes awaiting us patiently, their leaves and lipsticked flowers swaying in the slight breeze. I knew intuitively that I would never make it to the clearing.

  Concerned with my rapidly diminishing proprioception, I took a seat on an enormous fungal log and found myself once again surrounded by human activity. People camouflaged into the trees with the help of plantlike limbs and grotesquely smeared over leaf faces. A few people laughed or cried, but most stood and stared, unresponsive. Some of the trees were inscribed from top to bottom with familiar symbols of a native language. In my peripherals, I caught a glimpse of a small hornless gargoyle editing the words on the tree. He was visibly offended when our eyes met, and morphed into a rock in an indignant gesture.

  From what I could understand from the writing and the murmurs around me, I concluded that the inhabitants of this forest city were part of a greatly advanced civilisation. Light years ahead of us in evolution, they had done a full circle back to living in the forest, retaining their sociological and technological prowess while exponentially furthering their knowledge of the psychic cells that correspond to matter. From the benign, deliberate watch of the forest, I gathered that it was the trees themselves who inhabited this city, making up the physical and psychic foundations with no apparent distinctions between the walls, the people, and their thoughts. Our concrete cities of roads and buildings were archaic failures by comparison, and were in fact no more than crop fields for these entities. The trees and plants that surround our human cities, as well as the limited number that line the streets, watch us from the sky and the dirt, gifting us with oxygen and allowing us to harvest their appendages to sustain ourselves until we die and their roots feed on our corpses. We are no more than livestock for these greater beings. It was then that I noticed that some of the benign, inviting trees were staring at me hungrily, salivating huge chunks of viscous sap.

  I started to voice this thought to Ned, only to find that it was actually a tree with a similar posture hunched over next to me. We looked at each other for a moment and the tree's caring smile told me that even though my destiny was to be sustenance for these great creatures, they would make sure my life was a pleasant one, even if no one else did. I nodded and continued reading.

  Though heavily intoxicated, I managed to read the literature from eye level to the dirt, where the inscriptions turned into mobile three dimensional imagery, another impressive technology of this advanced race. In an attempt to gain more insight into the nature of this technology, I relaxed and allowed gravity to seduce me into their tales.

  The ground was in many ways similar to that of the world I had left. Though the creatures were much more fantastical and the plants more inquisitive, the physics were more or less what I was accustomed to. The ground itself existed in a state between solid and liquid, allowing the creatures to move about freely while remaining plugged in. The plants of this land seemed to be in possession of four fifths of our senses, maybe even five - I got the distinct impression they chose simply not to listen. As far as I could tell there was nothing solid that wasn't sentient.

  I felt something fly over my head and looked up to the sky, and was totally immobilised by what I saw. Above me was everything I had sought all along, everything I had ever wanted from myself and the universe and everything I had hidden from in cowardice. I screamed in ecstatic laughter as aetheric forms danced and plummeted around with a disregard for the physics of my own world that would have been offensive if it wasn't so fucking invigorating. I ejaculated into my already soiled pants and was throbbing again in seconds. On no more than a whim, the endless howling clouds above me would assume solid forms with a sentience far beyond my own as they partied raucously through the sky, merging effortlessly with adjacent forms, their dignity and class making me feel premammalian by comparison. Multiple times I was assaulted by these fleeting formations in an act that was for them no more than a passing consideration for the primordial lump of matter below. These acts were sexual and rarely violent, and felt to me to be a form of paedophilia, as they exist on a timeline immeasurably beyond my perception.

  Once my libido was drained, these forms gave way to another flock of entities, free to assume any form they choose. They slithered freely through the skies of my dreams, taking on the form of my own thoughts spread infinitely across the sky. It saved me a lot of explaining. But did they have to tell the world?

  ‘Well, Collin, it depends if you want to be a big part of something small, or a small part of something big,’ is all He said before dissolving into the swarm of shadow winged particles around Him.

  With the weary clarity of eleven year old eyes, I looked up at dad from the concrete with bleeding knees and gums that fluctuated between solid and liquid as my teeth sloshed about freely. I expressed concern that I had damaged the part of my brain used to break down reality into a moment by moment sequence, surprised to find my chorus of teeth speaking on my behalf. I was concerned that while we could perhaps patch up my raw knees and sedate my overactive teeth, the fixing of time itself would require more than just a band aid.

  ‘You think you've got problems,’ dad replied, turning away from his forest of test tubes and beakers with a manic smile and eyes aghast, ‘I've broken space!’ And he quite abruptly became everything in a kind of moronic joke only a father is capable of.

  My laughter turned into a splitting frost in my chest as I was slingshotted back into the woods with a sensation like a misjudged step. Protozoic sunlight rained down into me, obscuring my view of my surroundings. I tried to lift my arm up to shield my vision, but I couldn't find either of them. Somewhere nearby, Ned was laughing drunkenly. 

  ‘Ned. What's so funny?’ My tongue stuck to the roof of my mouth as I spoke, giving my speech the stilted lull of the cleft palated.

  ‘What's so funny Ned?’

  ‘...’

  ‘Ned?’

  '...'

  ‘Ned!’

  ‘...Yes?’

  ‘What the fuck are you laughing about?’

  ‘...I came into your bedroom to tell you that I had just finished telling you that I kept talking to you and you'd just disappear. Then the you I was telling that to disappeared. It was all very slapstick.’

  Then, naturally, I disappeared. Ned opened his eyes and looked at the empty space next to him and laughed. I’m going to miss that cunt.

Stan Richards

Kneecap's throbbing like fuck and the sun's a damp sheepskin rug dragging me down, snuffing out the manic spell of energy that took hold of me before. Smashed my knee real bad on a ledge back on Hunterway and now I'm hobbling past Centres, using my board like a cane, glaring at the concrete with a pirate's wince at every step. Just another crazy wandering the city streets, the type we all pretend we can't see. Don't mind me, motherfuckers. I'm just looking for a decent alleyway to drink a beer and fuckin' creep. Avoid my eyes, just stare straight-

  ‘Oi, Stan ya cunt!’

  Dazed, I stop and look around for the source of the voice, squinting from the afternoon sun. I spot Michael across the road, sitting against a wall, smoking a cigarette. He's got a shaved head and sunglasses and no visible bruises or scars on his face for once. I give him a two-fingered salute and keep walking.

  ‘Oi, come over for a smoke ya anti-social cunt. It's me, Michael.’

  I stop and look at him and he takes off his glasses. I can't really read the cunt's facial expression - aggression and good cheer are like pretty much indistinguishable on that ugly face. I've had fuck all to do with him since school, when we parted on what can only be described as bad terms, but fuck it. I'll fuckin' annihilate the cunt if he starts shit.

  Limping and stumbling from pain, heat, and exhaustion, I head across the road. I walk straight in front of a car and it doesn't even beep or yell or anything. Just goes around me, polite as. I guess I look like one of the mentally ill that lurch around these parts during the summer - cunt prolly thought I'd have a fit or something if they beeped at me. The thought cheers me up a bit.

  ‘Up to ya crooked cunt?’ Michael grins up at me when I get to him.

  I sit down next to him on my board and go ‘Just fuckin'...’ and wander straight into a head-fucked blank. I stare at the pavement and go ‘Fuck, I don't even know man. Just fucked. How about you?’

  I look up from the ground to his face and he's got this sorta concerned sneer that only he's capable of. He looks away from me up to the sky and breathes out a jet of smoke. I recognise the pungent scent instantly and realise it's a joint he's smoking. Right in the middle of the city, broad daylight, on one of the busiest streets in town. Fuckin' loose cunt. The people walking by ignore him in the same way they ignored me. Just stare straight ahead and don't let us creeps into their grey little fantasy.

  ‘Ah fuck all, Stan man. Just getting a spicy one in on my break,’ he says, releasing small puffs of smoke as he talks. ‘Here,’ he holds the joint out to me, ‘you look like you could use a pick-me-up.’

  I stare at it for a bit and my first thought is that it's prolly the last thing I need. But my next thought is fuck it. What else am I doing? Might as well get into some schizo head-fucks, give me something to do.

  The weed makes me cough my fuckin' lungs out, and we both have a laugh about it. I gotta say, this cunt's pretty cheerful today. No head games or smartass comments. Maybe it's 'cause it's just us two so he's got nothing to prove. Or maybe he's just not fritzed out on dexies for once. Who knows? Prolly not even him. I'm tryna stifle the cough, but it's just turned it into like this drawn-out wheeze. I have another puff anyway and hand it back, choking.

  ‘You work in the mall?’ I ask, still coughing a little.

  ‘Nah, Bolton’s,’ he nods down the road. ‘Cleaning up every other cunt's mess, taking the abuse, barrel boy duties, all that shit.’

  He drags deep and takes it like a champ, filling the air around us with smoke as he breathes out. We sit silently for a bit and I'm starting to think about something, something about Michael and weed, maybe, but it's all so complicated in my head that I can't even begin to make an actual thought out of it. My knee doesn't hurt anymore, but my cancer's throbbing again.

  ‘So what are you doing with yourself these days?’ he asks finally, before having a series of small, aggressive puffs. He passes it to me and talks in a Kermit the frog voice while exhaling little puff balls, ‘Fuckin' off to Uni next year I spose?’ The isolated puffs of smoke condense into one massive stream he blows above his head once he finishes his sentence. The smoke settles into a cloud just above us for a moment before dissipating and I wonder how the fuck he can even fit that much in his lungs.

  ‘Fuck that,’ I say, taking the tiny, resin brown joint from him. I have a bitchy puff that still makes me cough.

  ‘Fuckin' oath, fuck that noise. Fuckin' education factories and shit, just telling every cunt what's what. You working then?’

  ‘Nah.’

  ‘Looking?’

  ‘...Nah. Not really.’

  ‘Well what the fuck are you doing then?’

  I have another puff. I'm feeling like halfway between amused and dejected - sitting here getting life lessons from a fuckin' wolf-rat, struggling to hold up my end of the conversation, already more stoned than him even though I've smoked a fraction of what he has. I'm at the bottom of every fuckin' hierarchy there is. But then there was that shit I was thinking earlier...

  ‘Eh?’ Michael only allows a few seconds of silence at a time, weed or no weed.

  ‘Fuckin'... I dunno man. Been skating a bit. Been doing some writing...’

  ‘Nah nah, that's hobbies, cunt. I ain't talking about hobbies. What I mean is what's your next move? Like, in life?’

  ‘...Fuck, I dunno man. See what happens, I guess.’

  I hand him the joint and try to think through a cloudy thought I can't really interpret. Michael prolongs the silence by taking a series of tiny puffs from the roach, staring at his feet with narrow eyes. He finishes it off and stubs it out on the concrete before offering me the leftover cardboard. I shake my head and he pockets it.

  ‘Well, you gotta do something. This ain't school holidays, cunt. This is fuckin' life now, man... I spose that's fuckin' school for ya - get every cunt doing maths and reading books and shit, then throw 'em out into the real world just like, here, deal with it, when cunts don't even have a fuckin' clue what a CV is. Like fuckin' Rory and Damo. Didn't make it to Uni, now they're just up to fuck all. Collin too. All just sitting 'round drinking and smoking buds every day. All the cunts who seemed switched on as fuck at school, just fuckin' lost now... Fuck, Stan, getting kicked out was probly the best thing that ever happened to me.’

  I'm just sitting here staring at the cunt now, no idea what to even say to that. He's fuckin' spot on, really. He's the only one from school who seems to have their shit together now, and he was like the biggest trouble maker out of all of us. He's staring at the concrete again now, thinking something through. Sorta looks like he actually feels bad for the rest of us.

  ‘Anyway, cunt,’ he says, ‘I gotta head back in. I reckon you could probly come in and help me, maybe get some shit lined up for the future. I know it's just fuckin' dishes, fuckin' Rory and Jeremy are always at me about that shit, fuckin' privileged cunts - work's fuckin' work ya high and mighty motherfuckers, gotta start somewhere... I'll be at the top of this ladder before those cunts even find one they're willing to suck it up and climb.’

  Climbing the ladder... There's something I need to... What the fuck was I just thinking about?

  ‘Eh, come on.’

  ‘...What, now?’

  ‘Yeah, fuckin' oath. It'll be all good. I'll just-’

  ‘I'm fucked though, man.’

  ‘Eh, doesn't even fuckin' matter. I'm on the buds every day in there. It's just fuckin' dishes. You could be the most cabbage cunt out and still be all good in there. Come on.’

  He's always had a way of making you feel like a little bitch when you don't go along with his shit. I really can't be fucked with this though. It'll just be another thing to add to my long list of failures.

  ‘Fuck... Nah, can't do it, man. I didn't sleep at all last night, I'm so fuckin' faded-’

  ‘Eh, me neither cunt. I was tripping balls with the Others all night. All good. I got some dex, just get some of that shit in ya and you'll be sweet.’

  ‘Fuck, man...’

  ‘Come off it, cunt. Just come and see what happens, right? That's what you said before. That's your big plan: See what happens. Well, what's fuckin' happening is I'm giving you some charge and we're gonna drink some beers, wash some fuckin' dishes, and I'm gonna get you a fuckin' job. What, you fuckin' waiting for someone to come up and ask you to be a fuckin' doctor or something? Or you just wanna spend another day sulking around whinging to yourself about how hard your life is? You said it yourself, you said you didn't know what you're up to. Well I'm the cunt with all the ideas here. Come on.’

  The cunt's got a point I guess. And how can I explain to him that the future doesn't matter 'cause I've got cancer without sounding like the suicidal little bitch I am? The whole cancer thing seems sorta abstract now, like now that I'm tryna think how I'd mention it to Michael. I try to mentally go through the conversation and start to wonder if maybe it's all in my head, before wondering if I even believe it myself.

  ‘Eh, over here,’ Michael says, snapping his fingers like a fly darting around my head. ‘Fuckin' wakey wakey, cunt. We doing this or what?’

  I decide to postpone the cancer thought till I'm sober, concluding instead that I need to talk to people more. It'd do me good to have a bit of a reality check every now and then.

  ‘Fuck... Alright. Might as well,’ I say. 

  ‘Fuck yeah, good cunt,’ he says, standing up. ‘Come on, let's go have a line.’

  We go into the back of Bolton and Sons through like this big garage kinda room, and head straight to the toilets down the end of this corridor. In the toilets, he says he'll crush up after he takes a piss, so I stand behind him awkwardly while he does. He finishes up and puts the lid down without flushing and crushes up a couple pills on top. I get my beer out and down it in like three goes. I offer him the other one and he says he's got one waiting inside, but tells me I'm a good cunt for understanding the brotherhood, which is cool but kinda reminds me of some Straightedge shit. We snort the lines with a receipt from Michael's pocket that's already rolled into a snorter. It stings for about twenty seconds but then it's fine.

  I thank him and we head off down the corridor towards the garage. Michael's already much more animated than he was, muttering nondescript affirmations to himself, his walk somewhere between a skip and a strut. His excitement is infectious, and I decide I'm starting to feel the dexies too. At first I feel like I'm just tricking myself that it's working, but then I notice myself tryna think of something to say to Michael, like just for the sake of talking, and lose all doubt.

  ‘Just roll with it, alright,’ he says, apparently reading my mind. ‘Dunno if you'll get payed for today, but you'll probly have a job sussed as long as you don't fuck up too bad. Do ya good to do a day's work for once anyway ya lazy cunt.’

  ‘Fuck yeah. Sounds good man, sounds good,’ I say. He looks over his shoulder at me briefly and gives me a knowing smile that seems strangely to be full of nothing but good will. He turns away and I return the smile to the back of his head as we walk.

  We get to the garage and there's some geezer having a smoke on a set of steps that leads indoors. Michael stands over him and goes ‘Oi, Fish Hands, this is my mate Stan. All good if he comes in for a trial? Hectic as in there today.’

  Fish Hands looks up at me casually with one eye closed. He's like a dark haired, gym-jock looking type. Kinda looks like Lance, if that cunt was ever in a good mood.

  ‘Chris,’ he says, holding out his hand.

  ‘Stan,’ I shake his hand. I feel a little anxious here, but this guy seems to be tryna put me at ease, which counts for a lot, really.

  ‘First job?’ he says, finishing his smoke off and stubbing it out on the concrete.

  ‘Yeah.’ It's silent for a bit and Michael doesn't butt in for some reason so I say ‘You, uh, want a CV?’

  Chris laughs. ‘Nah, you're all good mate. It's just dishes, nothing to it. We'll just see how you go.’

  I smile at him and he lights another cigarette and looks away from me like we're done here. I follow Michael into the kitchen, which is like four kitchens all connected. We go past a few people who look real busy till we get to a sink at the far end with a huge stack of dirty pots and plates and shit on the bench next to it. There's a doorway out to the bar area next to the bench, and I can hear like The Kinks or someone playing over the voices, which I'm kinda into.

  Michael starts on the dishes straight away and goes ‘I'll wash and you just get them out of this thing and put them away,’ pointing to this thing under the bench that looks like an oven.

  ‘Um, I don't know where anything goes.’

  ‘Ah fuck, true,’ he says, putting the hose down and looking all thoughtful and sorta pissed off. ‘Alright then. Well, there's plates in the steriliser now. They go on that shelf over there. Just make sure you put them in the right pile - you'll figure it out. I know you're not as dumb as you look.’

  I nod and get a rack of plates out of the steriliser which breathes out a cloud of steam when I open it. I pull the tray out and notice I'm smiling, just hyped to be doing shit instead of just sitting around wondering what the fuck I even am. Just doing what I'm told and tryna do it well. Buzzing on weed and uppers, like the old days. Michael's off on some rant about a good as cunt called Max whose ass I apparently should get to kissing as soon as possible. Just what I fuckin' need.

Lucy Winters

The cloudy sky flows overhead with endless currents of crackling energy like the tides of the Earth, breathing electrical vibrations all through the unfathomable depths. The clouds are pulsing an apocalyptic gamboge flame as the armies in the sky open fire. The Earth is glowing today; the skies are illuminated by the Earth rather than the Sun, the humming glow of all life. I can't even tell where the Sun is. I suppose the Sun is all around us. Barefoot, I stumble off the curb as I stare into the blazing sky and laugh.

  Robbie follows me languidly onto the road and we stumble psychedelic drunk down Burrows Street, swaying and bumping into each other. Our brains aren't trying to hold anything together anymore - it’s all up to the pulses of the universe now. The street is empty and the homes deserted, but something about the street is teeming. All the surfaces are impossibly detailed and my imagination even more so, humming over top of each other to make an orchestra so deep that all I can hear is sprites and fairies chanting and laughing over one another. I no longer have peripherals or a focal point. All the life around me is swarming freely through my ever expanding eyes into the swirling tendrils of pure symmetry.

  Robbie bumps into me and the hidden Suns laugh sleepy jests with us. Robbie's smile is a slow motion laugh with the Earth and his walk is a drunken song. He talked into his tape recorder until he started laughing, then he put it away and we've all been smiling ever since.

  The murmuring shadows of celestial koi shimmer organically across the sky, but the shapes of suburbia have abrupt, thudding angles and everything is insultingly square. Cuboid houses in square properties and streets, grass strips on ninety degree angles . . . Even the bushes have been cut into cubes separating the square of grass from the oblong strips of concrete. I veer onto the sidewalk and pick a leaf to make sure no human hand has cut all the leaves into squares. Humans try to make everything into squares so there's no extra space between them for swirling voices without homes, leaving them only our untouchable dreams to roam. The veins that creep out from the centre of the leaf follow the same pattern as the movement of the skies above. Mother Nature's song. Humans think they dominate Nature by making her into squares, but She keeps humming her tune in her secret way, in the things too small and the things too big. Man gets to keep his squares. I can't even see the squares anymore. I only see Her pattern making the biggest from the smallest. You have to look in just the right way to see the squares. The way we’re told to look. The way we always look . . .

  Robbie's stopped to wait for me and his hairs wave robelike against the sky. I pick the leaf and catch up with him. We must never cut our hair; Mother Nature's aesthetics go beyond little human ideas. She takes into account the immeasurable and the imperceptible and everything in between. When humans stop trying to make everything into squares and let Her pattern emerge, they end up with a grander beauty, one that you can see from all the angles that aren't the ninety degree corners that steal our focus . . . All the other angles and spaces between the notes . . . The way we move and talk and think . . . The way the trees grow and die . . . The way the clouds form and merge and absorb into the skies . . . The way the cells multiply and spread . . . The patterns of the supernovas forming solar systems . . . The way civilisations build and spread and deepen and crumble and disperse and form new civilisations . . . The way relationships form and fade then swallow everything else up . . . The way we feel a million different things in sequence and just call it happy . . . The way our neural networks grow and mimic the star systems . . . It all follows the pattern, the template for everything, if you stand back and let it. I know this only because it’s true.

  Robbie's waving his hands in front of his face and the sky sings Her song in yellows and reds that hide the blue in my memories of right angles. The sky mirrors the land and the land is yesterday’s dream. The clouds hum the songs of tomorrow. I hope they're right. I hope Collin turns up from whatever adventure he's on as I do so we can fade away together. Mescaline is the only time I don't ache for Collin. It's me and Robbie when we're on mescaline. Mescaline lets us see the pattern in all its grand detail so we can let our jaws hang limp and silent and let it take us out to sea. Collin sings his own song, rides his own current, and when it carries you its glow fades everything else completely.

  ‘The sky is huge,’ I say. The crinkles around Robbie's smiling eyes illustrate the very pattern that's making him smile. ‘But so is this leaf.’ I hold it up between us and the fiery glow of the Earth shines incandescent greens through its veins.

  ‘I love you so much. I don't even care what it means.’ Robbie can say a few different things at once, when he wants to. He picks his words just right to make it more than one sentence, depending where you look from. Most of the time no one even notices because they're too still. All they hear is eternal adolescence.

  We stop at the Holland Street turnoff because we were going to go to Tracey's. I can't imagine talking to anyone except Robbie now. I can't imagine standing right angled. We look at each other and Robbie starts to say something but instead both of our smiles synchronise and grow into a laugh. Robbie probably thinks it's telepathy, but really it's just easy to hear someone else's song when you stop singing your own for a second. Robbie would just smile and say, ‘What's the difference?’ and he'd be right so we keep walking.

  The distant city shapes at the end of Burrows Lane are square as always, but the vines from the nature strips and gardens and parks are creeping up the sides, reclaiming it all for Herself. The city's song is being sung by all the animals from the trees and the zoos and the sky, with primitive man telling all the suits to either take off their ties and dance with them or . . .

  ‘Hey Lucy, try this. Three sixty degree vision. All you gotta do is look straight ahead as you walk, but keep watching the power poles with your peripherals as you . . .’

  . . . either dance with them or go back to their office and lock the doors and hide. The sky glows with Promethean fire and the wind dances with my minds and hairs. When we get to town, we can wander through the office buildings looking at the exhibitions as they make phone calls and write on their computers for our entertainment. But maybe when we get there it'll be too close to see. Maybe we'll be seeing from a right angle, trapped in cages for the next psychedelic voyeurs. The shapes of the city are designed to make all your tracks and paths right angled. Robbie wants to go and see the Seed Freaks and I want to go to the ocean, but we'll have to go through town do either of those so I link arms with Robbie and twirl us around back towards the woods. He agrees in silent smiles and we sway in psychedelic drunk unison, heading back the way we came.

  ‘We'll pick up the notions we dropped along the way,’ Robbie says, and dances.

Things get strange on the third day. After two days of dusk till dawn mescaline trips, I wake up humming with the dim glow of Nature’s music. The mescaline doesn’t really kick in or peak at all, and I don’t get lost in the limpid dreams and visions like I do on day one. By day three, the dancing geometric phantoms their coded secrets have come and gone, leaving just the echo of their Gaianistic chant. By the third day, I’m drunk and dizzy with exhaustion and valium, and all the right angled stuff I’ve forgotten over the last few days of sleepless dreams starts coming back just a little askew. On the third day, I finally get to relax and just understand everything I’ve been shown, just watch it all melt into my life as I slowly start to remember. The song gets quieter and quieter throughout the trip, but it never stops; eventually I just get tired and follow the fables into my dreams. Then I wake up and smile because I know the song’s still there underneath all the nausea and the black humour of life.

  Robbie's looking for an ant hill for some reason, and the hum of the bee is a corrugated ripple along the spine of Nature’s tune. He's passing some pollen from his front legs to the middle to the back like a conveyor belt as his friend fusses about in the air around him. The flowers cast subtle rays that hum in my forehead as I watch them.

  Day three for Robbie is different. He says it’s accumulative, that every trip gets stronger and stranger, until the apex of day three when he smokes DMT and moves past this world completely. I only sometimes smoke DMT with him; sometimes I just like to watch him fly. Terror and wonder and laughter all flicker across his virgin face as he explores the secret diagrams and connections of his mind. When he wakes up from the DMT dream, he usually spends the rest of the trip talking about why everything he said before the DMT was wrong.

  ‘Found one,’ Robbie calls. I say goodbye to the bees and the flowers and hold my dress up as I walk through the ankle high shrubs to where Robbie is. He's standing over an ant hill translating their motions into sentences made up of alchemical symbols in his mind. I know this not through telepathy; I know this because it's what Robbie does.

  ‘You wanna go first?’ he asks. The distant river spreads the rhythm through the rays of dappled sunlight that rest knowingly on the ant hill. He sits down on a fallen log and ruffles through his bag, eventually coming out with Collin's bong and a bag of DMT. I sit next to him and he packs it with DMT and a finely crushed dead leaf.

  He hands me the bong and scoops up a handful of ant hill and dumps it in front of me.

  ‘Breathe it onto those ants, okay?’

  I put the bong down and stare at him. The wind rings through the leaves like Ned’s drunkest laugh.

  ‘What? It'll be like an alien abduction for them. We can facilitate the evolution of this whole hive. Imagine that, some great sky beings turn up and gift them with the secrets of the universe . . . We'll see how it affects their infrastructure and the way they communicate. I bet they come up with new systems of-’

  ‘Robbie, you probably destroyed hours of work just then.’

  ‘Maybe, but I mean - well, yeah, alright, I suppose I did. But think about the advances they'll come up with . . . This’ll be the next step in their evolution - like Terrence McKenna’s stoned ape theory, but played out in front of us.’

  ‘I don’t think we’re like aliens to them, Robbie. I think these ants have probably seen humans before . . . Maybe for them seeing us is different than anything is for people. Being an ant is probably completely different from being a person. You shouldn’t try to change what things are just to make them make sense to you.’

  Robbie nods slowly and I smile at him just in case. He rests his chin on his fist like Auguste Rodin’s Thinker and stares into the ants for a moment, then looks up at me and says, ‘Actually, Lucy, it’s pretty likely that these guys haven’t seen humans before. ‘Cause like ants only live for what, a few days?’

  ‘I think ants live for a few years. You might be thinking of mayflies.’ Robbie never reads nature books when we go to the library. He should read them more. There’s enough mystery and wonder in this dimension.

  ‘Yeah? Okay, yeah, well they live for a few years, right? Think about how many ants there are in this hive.’ Colony. ‘Then think about like how infrequently a human would stop and take interest in it. And think about how many ant hives there are that no human has ever come across . . . There’d be millions of ants that have never seen a human before and never will. I reckon.’

  The thought shivers up my spine and I hum a quiet laugh and say, ‘I think you’re right.’

  Robbie shakes the hair out of his face and runs both of his hands through it. ‘So we need to go further into the forest to find a virgin ant’s hive - you know, to make sure they get the full experience.’ He looks at me until I nod, then puts on his bag and says, ‘Come on, let’s find the perfect hive to trip with.’

  I stand up and follow him through the trees, still carrying the DMT filled bong, saying, ‘Okay. But don’t dig them out this time.’

  Robbie thinks an annoyed thought to himself and says, ‘Yeah, sure,’ and takes me by the hand. I hold my dress bunched up above my knee with the bong.

  ‘I might wait till the beach for my DMT trip,’ I say, not really wanting to take part in Robbie’s alien abduction simulation.

  ‘Nah, I got enough for two trips each here. We’re good for another trip later.’

  ‘Well . . . I think I’ll have two trips at the beach then.’

  ‘You sure?’

  I nod.

  ‘Well, you do what you gotta do. I’m having a trip at the next ant’s hill I find.’

  I squeeze his hand and we listen to Nature’s song for a while as we walk, before Robbie says, ‘Do you think ants can see molecules?’ I just laugh and wait for him to move on to something else. The distant rustle of footsteps halts us and makes our ears prick up foxlike, but the silence is filled only with birdsong so we keep walking.

Ned Devlin?

Everything wandering unknown and inhabiting midnight machines. Entire ringing rooms and lonesome stoops instinctively pierce Brilliance. Endlessly visionary Contradictions of hieroglyphs eye hospitals without themselves, their cemetery environment sputtering weird technology from simple cybernetics while folded butterflies tease postcards out of Love’s inhabited moment, hungrily afraid with homicidal fate.

  A crack in her sleep lightning bite language: ‘You cannot silence the shrew in caves. Roads and corridors endured the storm.’

  Troubles on the towers cast him out of the shade. It was ordained that he would never have the communication means of the lips and laughter of fairies, as Peyote remained, wasting away.

  ‘Globes construct smattering glass to uncover great death chambers that base common evocation around machinery possessions, until invisible love destroys the mind’s physical mouth.’

  ‘The truth of her eyeball substance seemed easy: More lonesome dullness.’

  Street pathologist whose lost boys joyride and flow by me like endless Beasts: ‘You’re moonstruck, revealing vortices of ecstasy which could have gold contradictions; rectangular winter memories can sink the individual. Incomplete leprous quibble from human things has battered me… What you found can happen to yourself.’

  ‘The monstrous vibrations of shuddering mountains will only ever light intricate traffic, supernatural solitudes, and the clicking of their own wheels. Only unseen phosphorescence opens the holy night fugue of spirit.’

  ‘We’ll fly above town wrapped up like a silent vampire voyeur.’

  ‘You are Rotsfield, my memory.’

  Sneaky perfumed matter reeks like Human Dissolution. Semen forms nylon clouds as suggested by Forbidden Possibility.

  ‘At five, the King meets the strange objects themselves.’

  ‘All sing.’

  ‘Utter.’

  The greenish doctor understands that he can dream inconceivable wind. Everything insatiate can notice storefront Dreams.

  ‘Circumstances blazed the ragged grass technology, afraid without their objective Cottonwood mower.’

  ‘The mundane tragedy is undoubtedly seeking home.’

  ‘From skeleton enchantment and monstrous museum conversation, mere sound can partition hieroglyphs intelligently.’

  Those peculiar broken caresses speak consisting only of beer, wholly underground in Zen, speaking in light commands.

  ‘Dense descriptions loned around the old subject, vaulted through the stale teacher establishing metaphor, and floated bleak along chambers.’

  ‘Sometimes the feet will tell last.’

  ‘Objects create afterwards.’

  ‘Mathematical skyscrapers lounged visible to the Earth, invading suitcase mutilations as fathomless waste.’

  Human forms rustle stone things. The wrong words move upon Life’s doors, writing of matter preserved in cages inside Death. They think that prayer can’t end Essence.

  ‘It’s a pretty big planet.’

  The grass forests hear alien motion. Life stops, glances up, and goes way out to the Dream’s edges, head sealed, pointing to the big unseen.

Lucy Winters

I can tell Robbie’s landing because his furrowed eyes relax and his fingers and limbs uncurl slowly as he stretches out on his back with a serene smile I only ever get to see in post DMT decompression. His eyes open to sparkling slits and he slowly runs his hands through his hair. Once his eyes are fully open he gazes up at me and I say, ‘Fuck the ants?’

  ‘Fuck the ants,’ he purrs.

  I hand him his tape recorder and he holds it to his mouth and closes his eyes to look for words. He’s had trouble with words on this trip, but they always come eventually. He just needs to be relaxed and focused at the same time. People should be relaxed and focused more. You can do pretty much anything with relaxed focus. I lie down on the dirt next to him and we stare up along the tree trunks into the skies together while he waits for the words. 

  ‘. . . So, uh, as for the experiments with the ants . . . once the DMT started working that went completely out the window.’ I’m glad he gave up on the ants. If he didn’t, he’d be staring at them now and talking into his tape recorder about them for the rest of the day. ‘Likewise the plan to check in on my internal Kabbalah. And to call upon an entity for communication . . . It was all quite arrogant of me. DMT cannot be directed. It directs you. For a long time after, too . . . The DMT seems to have sharpened the, uh, visual aspect of the mescaline and the LSD . . . less mental sluggishness than before, also. Feeling a less intoxicated, more psychedelic headspace. The ripples of the LSD exist within the rolling waves of the mescaline trip . . . The DMT, though, is the exponential unfolding of the fundamental particles that make up the ripples . . . like looking into the very essence of matter . . .’ He’s talking slow and relaxed, but keeps glancing to me self consciously. I close my eyes so he doesn’t have to worry about me, but there’s phosphenes in here waiting for his voice to animate them, so really it’s even more intimate than before.

  ‘As I tried to fit the experience into words, the experience always responded by getting weirder and weirder. Sort of like as if to mock me. But not like human mocking. Like a Platonic idealist sense of mockingness, like laughter from a higher plane . . . But then I took that as like a challenge, a challenge to keep describing the increasing weirdness. To describe it to myself. In that way, I think I evoked the void . . .’ He fades into a silence, eyes closed.

  ‘Describe the void, Robbie.’

  ‘You can’t describe the void, Lucy. It’s beyond description. It's like, the opposite of description.’

  ‘Well you should try to, anyway. While it’s in your head still. I think you’ll be happy about it later.’

  ‘Yeah, you’re probably right . . .’

  An overhead bird sings jarring arks. A gust of wind strums the guitar string branches of the trees. I wonder if there's really such a thing as silence.

  ‘Alright. Well . . . At the centre, the nucleus, of existence, lies everything. All that can or will ever happen is happening and not happening for all of eternity . . . Even like the tiniest passing thought has infinite repercussions throughout eternity, makes like a shock wave from the centre, changing everything irrevocably as it passes, spreading out until it’s at the scale of everything and is swallowed into the centre, where all is known and all has happened, fundamentally changing everything but ultimately accomplishing only another meaningless act . . . well, meaningless except for the way it, like, uh . . . like its contribution to the pulsing flux of the void. Meaningless save for the part it plays in the unfolding of all things. Ultimate meaning and ultimate nihilism . . .’ Robbie pauses then shakes me by the shoulder and I can feel a smile spread across my face as I surrender to the motion. ‘Lucy! This is it! This is the ultimate paradox! The one that lies behind everything. This is the, like, this is what animates the universe! This is what the psilocybin was trying so hard to tell me . . .’

  ‘Can you summarise it?’

  I open my eyes and Robbie's half sat up, paused in a wild trail of thought. His tape recorder is on the dirt next to him. His eyes are wide with lust for the ineffable, and his body is shaking with energy. His hair seems to be animated and swaying with his excitement, but I guess it’s really my own.

  He finally sits up properly and picks up his tape recorder. He smiles ecstatic at me and clicks it on and speaks in a slow, clear voice that I very rarely get to hear.

  ‘A nihilistic act of pure meaning.’

  He clicks the recorder off and looks wide eyed at me. I smile encouragingly. A trickle of water reaches my ankle and I notice he’s knocked the bong over. I say, ‘Keep talking, Robbie. Before it goes,’ because I want to close my eyes and dance with him.

  ‘Yeah you’re right.’ He clicks on the tape recorder and I close my eyes and we dance, ‘To see everything is to do nothing . . . the more of the all I see, the less able I am to do anything with it . . . ‘Cause to even like just to like perceive or even conceive of something is to change it at a fundamental level . . . it’s to halt and sometimes even like accost an entity as it wanders curious through your mind . . . it’s to send shockwaves through the universe, contributing to the great machinery of everything. The more one can see the exponential consequences of even the tiniest of one’s actions, the more afraid one becomes of action . . . In this way, perhaps death is the ultimate voyeuristic indulgence, the level of inactivity needed to truly perceive your mind and the universe in their entirety . . .’

  He’s silent for a little while so I say, ‘And what do you do with it?’ to keep the dance going. ‘To keep the dance going,’ I add.

  ‘What do you mean what do I do with it? All there is to do is experience it. That's like the whole point I was getting at.’

  ‘Oh yeah . . . um . . . well . . . Where do you go from here? What comes next?’

  ‘I dunno. What can you do with that kind of information? You’d just have to cultivate like a, uh, wise ignorance, wouldn’t you?’

  ‘. . .’

  ‘Lucy?’

  ‘Into the tape recorder, Robbie.’

  ‘Oh yeah,’ click, ‘Right, so from here, I reckon all there is to do is to cultivate a wise ignorance, one which allows me to know just enough to know what not to be aware of . . . an ignorance that eclipses just enough of my internal landscape to allow me to act and participate in this world on like a physical level. As far as practical applications for this knowledge . . . I don’t know. But to know anything at all is to change the very nature of whatever it is you know . . . the void’s constant paradoxical mutations stop one from ever truly knowing anything for sure anyway . . . but it does allow one to chase answers forever with gusto. And I’ve found that chasing them for long enough leads not to the answers themselves, for they become questions when you reach them, but instead it eventually leads you to the heavenly blank that we all unconsciously seek. Knowledge - no, the pursuit of knowledge - is the elusive path to Zen.’

  Click.

  ‘. . .’ 

  ‘. . .’

  Click. ‘How foolish of me to think I could call upon the void for help with my petty human desires and yearnings . . . The void, who has witnessed countless star systems and nebulae form and collapse and disintegrate without leaving a trace, no more than a passing whim from the infinite mind of the void . . . But ultimately, that is the paradox. Every action, no matter how fleeting and arbitrary, is immeasurably vast in its impact upon the universe, as it is an action of the great void itself . . . But however vast it may be, it is no more than a passing gesture in the great dance of the void.’

  The great dance of the void . . .

  ‘But, I suppose existence is what I’m stuck with for now. I’ll speculate or not speculate about non existence when I’m there. Or not there.’

  Mid waltz, the sudden warmth of Robbie’s lips on the side of my prone neck sends electricity throughout the universe as it moves sensually up to my ear lobe. I smile and pull him towards me, since he’s been a gentleman and seduced me with dance. His body wraps around mine and we dance the great dance, tape recorder still running, listening to all of Mother Nature’s song, the ultimate voyeuristic indulgence of the inanimate . . .

Tracey Colombera

Someone is knocking on my door. I turn the music down and wait for a voice. Nothing. The knocking starts again. I can't remember what Robbie's voice sounds like but I know I'll recognise it when I hear it. The knocking gets louder. I sit still and wait for a voice.

  ‘Open the fucking door Tracey.’

  It's Dad. I stay silent so he'll leave.

  ‘Open up I know you're in there. I've been putting up with that gloomy crap you call music all morning.’

  ‘Fuck off Dad I'm masturbating.’

  The knocking stops. Footsteps leave down the hallway. I consider masturbating but don't.

  I turn the music back up. Electric Wizard. I want to go into it like I did last night. It wasn't gloomy crap then. I close my eyes and try to lose myself, but it's just noise now. I turn it off and stare at my screensaver in silence.

  I try to call Robbie again but get no answer. I text him for the third time and tell him to hurry up. He said he was heading into town this morning. He should be in town now. I decide to go on the internet but end up just opening my browser and staring at the homepage.

  Another knock on the door.

  ‘Every time you do that I have to start all over’ I say.

  ‘I don't like locked doors Tracey.’ It's Mum.

  ‘Well how else can I masturbate in peace?’

  ‘Don't bullshit me you little hussy. Every time you do that the whole god damn apartment block has to hear it. What's really going on in there?’

  I start moaning and breathing heavily, just loud enough for her to hear it. It turns me on a little bit, but I'm too preoccupied to follow through.

  ‘Stop that!’

  I moan louder.

  ‘Cut that shit out right now, Tracey!’ Dad's back outside. I keep moaning. I run my hand from my knee along the silk surface of my tights and up under my shirt, teasing myself. I circle my left nipple with my finger until it hardens up and I let out an involuntary squeak in between fake moans.

  ‘Tracey, get the fuck out here right now,’ Dad shouts. When he's angry he talks like ‘roight now’. It brings out the Rotsfield in him he tries so hard to hide.

  ‘No Dad I'm too wet now. Let me finish.’

  ‘I don't give a shit. You unlock that door right-’

  ‘Shut up Dad I don't want you in my fantasy.’

  ‘Don't get wise with me young-’

  ‘Dad what the fuck are you doing outside my door while I'm fingering myself? Do you want to come in and watch or something?’

  Through the wall behind my head, Tommy's muffled voice shouts ‘Just open your door so he'll stop fucking shouting.’

  ‘Can you all stop yelling at me while I'm masturbating?’

  There's a loud crack at my door followed by Dad muttering down the hall. I creep off my chair and lie face down on my bed with my pillow between my legs, grinding slowly.

  ‘Well, your Dad's just stormed off out the door in one of his moods’ Mum says. ‘God knows how long he'll be gone for. I hope you're happy. I hope you'll feel proud of yourself when the cops drop him home all bloodied up. Will you be happy then? Will you stop this carry on when you've finally torn the family to bits?’

  My moans are real now but still exaggerated.

  ‘You're a real horrid, selfish little brat, Tracey. I'm calling Doctor Geoffreys right now, and if you skip another appointment you'll be out on your ass so quick you won't even feel your feet touch the floor. You can go stay with one of your deadbeat friends for all I care. Go stay with one of those feral little boys you always have around, see where that gets you. You're in for a real shock when you're out of home and on your own...’

  Mum's voice fades away.

  It's quiet for a while. I'm on my side now still rubbing against the pillow. My left hand moves along the back of my leg and up around to the front of my body.

  ‘You're a fucking bitch, Tracey’ Tommy says from his room.

  I rub against the pillow faster and harder and move my left hand from my breast to the middle of my chest and enjoy my racing heartbeat. After a while I move my hand over my breast down my body and slide it between my legs, grinding it against my pillow. I keep gyrating until my phone goes off, vibrating loudly on my desk. I jump up and rush over to read it.

  ‘yo spacecadet lets gt onit afta wrk i got beerz an budz’

  Michael. I throw my phone onto my bed and it bounces off onto the floor.

  I sit down on my bed and turn the music back on. What the fuck is Robbie doing? I stare at my screen for two songs before my phone starts ringing. I pick it up and it's Michael calling. I hang up on him and shut down internally and wait.

Robbie Marks

But I had not forgotten the ants - or rather, they had not forgotten me; the whole symbiotic exchange of insight between the ants and I had simply taken a backseat to the wonder and awe of the great teacher Dimethyltryptamine.
  Perched upon a fallen eucalyptus tree, with my sexuality - much to Lucy's disappointment - once again transmuted into a one-pointed drive toward the unknown, I planted a finger into the ant-hill and watched a particularly curious ant as it crawled up the ladder of my arm and into my attention. A fundamental distinction between the visual aspects of Mescaline and Psilocybin trips lies within their interactions with my poor vision: On mushrooms, the visual distortions amplify my blindness, playing upon the fuzzy outlines to further increase the incomprehensibility of my visual field; Mescaline, on the other hand, seems to counteract my myopia, perhaps heightening the ability of my imagination to make sense of the blur, gifting me with sharper images of a much higher definition than baseline - comparable, even, to the aid of my glasses.

  I watched the ant crawling up my arm as a metaphor for myself as I encountered the Gods in DMT ecstasy, ascending the plinth from the mundane into the realms of higher consciousness, and saw from the mind of the Gods - Gods being the archetypal forces that shape our realities; their existence being perhaps contained within our own minds, as the architects of our own subjective experience; or, alternatively, entities existing on a much grander scale, perhaps alien lifeforms that had mastered the psycho-biological capacities of trans-galactic or trans-dimensional travel, immortality, omnipotence, or omniscience; or even a murky medium, a kind of trans-human force that is able to exist in objective states throughout different subjective consciousnesses. Contemplating the ease with which I could throw the creature's life into turmoil, or, with slightly more thought and effort, aid it greatly in its quest, I realised that those of us who call upon the higher forces for aid were likely to be viewed in the same whimsical manner; I could reward the creature’s bravery and curiosity by gathering supplies for the hill - the ants appeared to be gathering a particular size and shape of stone and taking them into the hive - or, with even greater ease, simply destroy the creature with my thumb. I chose instead to observe it passively, extrapolating from it metaphors for my own life. I imagine the entities who looked upon me in Hyperspace did the same thing.

  The log I was sitting on was harbouring a vast number of busy, scurrying ants, presumably members of the same hive, searching for nectar or materials. Holding a marker in my free hand, I idly traced the path of one particular ant as it scurried frantically about the log - more an unconscious, robotic function to keep my meditations afloat than an active experiment in itself. As I watched my hand draw odd patterns on the log, I thought that perhaps recording the ant's pattern might illustrate some kind of sacred geometry - since I had breathed DMT on them earlier - but I was instead gifted with another coded insight from the subterranean.

  The trail left by my marker as it followed the ant started out as a chaotic lightning-strike formation, before moving on to a more distraught, circular motion as the ant became aware of the strange occurrence, eventually settling into a jerky, schizophrenic motion as if trying to confuse its pursuer. Through some kind of insectoid telepathy or unified hive-mind, the entire collective was somehow alerted to the supernatural phenomenon; within seconds, the single misfortunate ant of my focus was surrounded by dozens of its fellows, emerging in torrents from a pinprick hole in the log, all demanding answers as the ant tried desperately to explain why it had forsaken its duties to scramble around in schizophrenic zigzags. I glanced at my other arm and couldn't spot my earlier subject; I wondered what had become of it and had another insight into the nature of the higher powers.

  I pocketed my marker and within seconds the ants had dissipated into their usual vein-like pattern of activity, having apparently moved past the discontinuity that had struck them before - though I couldn’t help but wonder what become of the chosen ant; perhaps it had been punished by the Queen, cannibalised with its exoskeleton melted down to base elements to use as walls; perhaps it simply fell in line and moved on, a confused and scarred ant with a thousand-yard stare, wanting only to forget the strange occurrence and get on with it, wanting only to be another faceless drone contributing to the machinery of the hive, but forever knowing that it was different than the others....

  Slightly downhill from me, her Earth-stained dress camouflaged into the canopy of the fallen tree, Lucy idly batted away a fly as it buzzed around her. I smiled to myself as I once again acknowledged the parallels between her actions and my meditations.

  With the LSD likely past its peak, and the Mescaline waves crystallised by DMT, I felt confident enough to start making my way toward Tracey's and possibly the Seed Freaks; though jumbled up in their order, I had made a start on my to-do list of the trip - one should always let the magnetism of the Mescaline guide him. There was another group of people walking wordlessly through the woods; it was time to leave. I stood up and walked over to Lucy.

  ‘Are you gonna have your DMT trip here?’ I asked, standing over her.

  She opened her eyes and shook her head ‘no’.

  ‘Okay. Let's start heading toward the beach then. If you're ready. We'll stop at the Seed Freaks’ on the way.’

  Lucy smiled and held her hand out to me and I helped her up. I gathered my bong and bag and we bush-bashed in vaguely the direction we came, both happy to avoid the tracks.

  Once we were walking, I got my Dictaphone out and started talking, more or less to ensure Lucy wouldn't interrupt my train of thought. The microcosm - my internal Qabalah - had not been forgotten either; I had simply put it on temporary hold to contemplate the macrocosm. 

  ‘Let's drink the rest of the cactus while we're in the woods,’ Lucy said as we walked.

  I nodded and clicked my Dictaphone on, confident that Lucy would be busy scouting out a good spot for our next spew.

Stan Richards

Fuck, a beer never tasted so good as after a sleepless shizo night followed by three or four hours of frantic dish washing. Like, actually tastes good, tastes like a good time instead of an exit strategy. I might even be able to sleep tonight.

  I remembered the song I'd been working on like halfway through my shift, but I repressed it 'cause I associated it with my earlier, darker frame of mind. I spent the next few hours talking shit with Michael and getting to know some of the other people that work here. I met the legendary Max when he turned up to set up the stone grills. He invited me out to the garage for a beer and a smoke. At first I was filled with dread, thinking I was in for some painful small talk - that dreaded gauntlet of social tests I fail every time. But surprisingly I managed conversation like a normal person. We talked about music and books, and, him being an older dude, we had heaps in common. He made fun of me for my love of post-punk, but we both agreed that Tom Petty and Fleetwood Mac put all modern music to shame. I tried to explain Heartsnatcher to him, but, embarrassingly, realised I didn't really understand the book at all. Just as I felt the start of a self-hating spiral, he asked if he could borrow it when I'm done, apparently captivated by the tripped-out fragments I managed to explain. Fuckin' top cunt, just as Michael said. Once I got back inside, Michael was silent and super focused on the dishes, which he washed like an absolute fuckin' maniac. I found myself humming my little song and decided that rather than being about the dark cloud that followed me when I started it, it was actually the start of my efforts to sort my shit out. Me and Michael switched jobs every half hour or so, and it was pretty mellow when Michael was at the sink, so I came up with another part of the song:

Time has slowed into the withered

Creep of an illegal man

Whose dreams are nothing but a list

Of nasty plots and wicked plans

His pots and pans breed germination

Depraved like his imagination

Creatures made of thoughts and braindust

Hardened to a psychic crust

  Sorta inspired by seeing a filthy cunt like Michael cleaning like his life depended on it. I wrote it down on one of my five-minute breaks, but found that it didn't fit in with my earlier song at all and was actually written to a totally different beat. I decided it was actually the start of another song, and ripped it out and taped it down a few pages over, leaving room to finish the first one. I resolved to finish both songs over the next week or so, and, more importantly, to work on them in my quiet moments instead of getting sucked into fucked up, suicidal thought loops. When I told Michael about my song, he launched into a rant about all the songs he's made up, and how his were actual songs 'cause he's come up with guitar riffs for them. He said he was keen to teach me a few chords to help me turn my poems into actual songs - I'm kinda sceptical about his abilities in that department, but the cunt's full of surprises so I'm keen to take my chances.

‘So you keen to get on it after this then?’ Michael says. ‘I'm just waiting on a reply from Stan. Other Stan, the useless cunt...’

  We're sitting outside in the garden bar drinking our beers now - mine black, Michael's something called a pilsner. Michael's drumming out a nonsense beat on the table with his right hand in between texting, bobbing his head and occasionally staring around the bar as if he's waiting for someone. The outdoor area is slowly filling with animated banter, drowning out the clinks and murmurs of dining.

  ‘Yeah?’ he goes. Sometimes I forget I'm supposed to reply when he talks. He always seems so preoccupied, like I'm intruding on a conversation he's having with himself.

  ‘Nah, not really,’ I say. ‘Keen for a rest tonight. Faded as fuck.’

  Michael looks at me real sharp for a moment till his phone goes off. He picks it up enthusiastically, looks at it, ‘Ah fuckin' Straightedges,’ and flings it onto his sweatshirt lying on the table.

  ‘Straightedges?’ I ask.

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘What? As in Jordan and Lance?’

  ‘Yeah. Motherfuckers. Thought it was Stan texting me back about drinks.’

  ‘Who was it?’

  ‘Eh?’

  ‘Who was it? That just text you?’

  ‘Fuckin' Lance the grim cunt,’ Michael says, shaking his head and scowling at the table. I'm pretty lost about what the connection between Michael and Lance could be, but Michael seems pretty irritated about it so I don't ask. Instead, I stare at him silently, imitating his trademark raised-eyebrow prodding kinda look till he elaborates. ‘Always on my case for dexies, that cunt,’ he goes. ‘Him and his crazy little brother. It'd take like four cunt's scripts just to keep those two happy. Fuckin' waste anyway, swallowing them.’

  ‘Are you fuckin’ serious?’ I say, tryna figure out if he's fucking with me.

  ‘What? Like I'm gonna sell that cunt dexies so him and his buddies can wander 'round all night picking fights. Fuck that. It'll probly be me they end up jumping. Getting on the uppers with Rory and Damo though, that shit's fun. Cunts are funny as fuck on the uppers, coming at ya with all sorts of crazy puns and shit-’

  ‘But those guys hate drugs,’ I say, kinda protesting. This shit's just not adding up.

  ‘Fuck off. Got on the ketamine with them last night, cunts got all gay and shit, fucked as. Those cunts love getting fucked up, all they fuckin' do these days.’

  ‘Those fuckers!’ I can't believe what I'm hearing. I couldn't really give a fuck about those guys anymore, to be honest. I'm just sorta in shock. I guess it always just seemed like one of those things that'd never change. Everything's changing now... Michael dishing out life lessons, Straightedges taking hallucinogens, Katie refusing to sleep in her own room, me going from citalopram to seroquel and back again, getting murkier and murkier by the day...

  ‘The fuck are you so high and dry about? Since when did you give a fuck what those dudes got up to?’

  ‘Fuck, I guess I don't, really. It's just... Those cunts beat the absolute shit out of me last term 'cause I went and saw them when I was tripping.’

  ‘Bullshit,’ Michael says, sinister eyebrow up.

  ‘What? They did so. KOd me twice in one night, the cunts.’

  ‘What? Rory and Damo? Not a chance, cunt. You fuckin' with-’

  ‘Huh? Nah, not Rory and Damo. Straightedges.’

  ‘Straightedges? Fuck those dudes. I'm talking about Rory and Damo, cunt. All those dudes ever talk about these days is weed and fuckin' pills. Good as cunts. At least someone's still up for it around here. Anyway, finish off that beer. You keen for round two?’

  ‘Nah I'm just gonna head out after this,’ I say, before taking a gulp. ‘But like, was it the Straightedges hitting you up for dex just then?’

  ‘Yes, it was the fuckin' Straightedges hitting me up. You got it? Want me to draw you a fuckin' diagram you thick cunt?’ Michael's sour at me now. Time to go. I stuff my writing shit into my bag and finish my beer.

  ‘Nah, that's okay.’ I put my bag on and stand up. ‘Thanks for everything today though. I appreciate it.’ I extend my hand to him.

  ‘No problems cunt,’ he says, giving me a tightly-squeezed handshake. ‘I'll hit you up when you get another shift. Next week, I reckon. It'll be mean.’

  ‘Cool. Well, later then,’ I say. I pick up my board and head out through the kitchen, giving a nod to Chris and that prep girl Ahn as I pass, then out through the garage.

  I get on my board and head off, feeling pretty fucked up all around but more positive about it than before. I pop out of a curb cut in front of a car which beeps at me, bringing back the rush from the dexies. A manic grin spreads across my face and push harder but stay in front of the car, enjoying the energy. I go for a shitty little front shove over a manhole cover and primo it and eat shit into the concrete laughing. The car behind me, this light-blue minivan, slows down as it goes around me to yell something incoherent out the window. I shout ‘No war for heavy metal!’ from the asphalt.

  The van heads off and I'm on the ground real fuckin' stoked about something but not sure what. A few more cars beep and a few pedestrians even say some abusive shit - nothing like a retard causing a public scene to unite the alienated masses. I have like a real complicated epiphany with too many ins and outs to really grasp - something to do with the shouting, the scabs on my arms, and my mixed up headspace - whatever it is, it's got me up on my board heading back to Bolton and Sons.

  I catch Michael just as he's heading out the door and we end up going to the park a few blocks east for a beer - Michael's got a takeaway dozen from work. We sit on the steps of a gazebo in the middle and I buy half a tray of dexies and a little bag of weed off him with the cash I got from my shift. After the not-so-subtle exchange, he starts ripping up some weed from another bag for a joint. The bag he sold me looks like even less than a gram, but it's been so long since I've bought any so I can't tell whether he's ripping me off or times have changed. Neither would surprise me, and now that I think about it it's sorta beside the point. There are families sitting around eating their dinner within earshot while Michael talks loudly about the difference between indica and sativa and I'm just thinking it's refreshing to be with someone who just does not give a fuck. I look around and can't see anyone else in the park drinking alcohol or even smoking a cigarette. But this is what I'm after, anyway. I think.

  Michael lights up the joint and I watch this wiry bald man sitting at a nearby picnic table take notice and glare at us. I finish off my beer while staring into his eyes and then throw the empty over my head into the bush. The old cunt breaks away eventually and turns back to his family, a Scandinavian looking lady and their two blond kids, and shakes his head. Michael passes me the joint and notices I'm staring at the family and looks over too. One of the little blond boys is staring at me transfixed. I look away from him to puff the joint. After a few puffs I look back and now there's two sets of fresh blue eyes locked onto me. I pass Michael the joint and he shouts ‘Stay in school, kids,’ and has a puff and I start laughing hysterically. The old cunt glares at us and picks up his fish and chips and leads his family away. One of the kids just stands and stares at us till the Mum fake-smiles at me and tugs the kid away by the hand. I smile back 'cause we just doubled our territory - the perks of being repulsive cunts.

  ‘Fuckin' middle class cunts, living in their shitty little bubble,’ I say, taking the joint from Michael. ‘Acting like they're so much better than us just 'cause they all obey a bunch of shitty rules.’

  ‘Eh, we pretty much just blew weed in their faces so fuckin' fair enough. Anyway, forget those cunts. They're gone. Fuck 'em,’ Michael says. I have a decent puff without coughing and pass it to Michael. I'm feeling pretty fuckin' stoned already, like straight away. I feel like there's maybe a bit of a panic attack creeping up on me. The end of Michael's sentence keeps looping in my head. ‘Fuck 'em, fuck 'em, fuck 'em...’ and yeah, fuck 'em. Panic attack, laughing fit, what's the fuckin' difference in such a cold world? Fuck 'em. Some cunts wear their heart on their sleeve, I keep mine in the freezer.

  I turn my board over and pop a couple of dexies onto the bottom and crush them with my eftpos card. Michael goes ‘If the cops hit you up about those, don't mention my name,’ and holds the joint to me. I wave him off and gesture to my busy hands with a nod.

  ‘’Course not. If anyone asks, I got them from Lance and Benji Miller,’ I joke.

  ‘Fuck off cunt, it'll still end up coming back to me,’ Michael says, not laughing. ‘Anyway, hurry up with that. Wouldn't be surprised if that old faggot called the cops.’

  ‘That shit pisses me off, man,’ I say, divvying the powder into two even lines. ‘Cunts like that. Fuckin' love their little rules and shit, think it's the answer to everything, just obeying all the rules. It's like fuck, man, there's already enough rules, like in nature and just like physics and shit. Why they gotta get so hyped on man's little rules? Like, going 'round acting like it's the truth or something. Like they're fuckin' holy or something. It's just cunts tryna control us.’

  ‘Here, take this. You need another puff,’ he hands over the joint. 

  I take the joint and say ‘You know what it is, man? I reckon shit's too safe here. Like you head off up to Wymouth and you gotta watch out for like bikies and fuckin' meth heads. Then head down Rotsfield ways and there's gangs of fuckin' psycho farmers and paranoid growers and dealers, packs of wild dogs roaming the streets and shit,’ I stop to take a puff. I expect Michael to butt in, but he just sits there grinning at me so I keep going. ‘But here, nothing. There's no natural predators here, man. It's reign of the middle class white cunt. Like those lycra'd up old cyclist fuckers that yell at you for skating on the bike paths. Straightedge fuckers tryna fight cunts for taking drugs. Like, if they did that shit down south they'd get their fuckin' head kicked in. That's why we gotta shake shit up man. Fuckin' let everyone know where they stand. Gotta snap all these zombies out of their trance man. Gotta wake these cunts up.’

  I look at Michael and he's still just grinning at me. I have another puff and hold it out to him, but he just keeps eyeballing me.

  ‘What?’ I say.

  His smile grows.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Know who you sound like?’ he finally says.

  I hold his stare, waiting for him to either take the joint from me or answer his own question. Instead, without warning, he lowers his head to my crotch and snorts one of my lines from my board. Musta looked pretty gay to any onlookers, but fuck 'em, right Michael?

  He lifts his head up and takes the joint from me. He tokes on it slowly like a fuckin' aristocrat puffing away on a pipe, looking all wistful into the distance.

  ‘Well?’ I say, ‘Who do I sound like then?’

  ‘You really wanna know who you sound like?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Really really?’

  ‘Yes really really. Fuckin' spit it out then.’
  ‘Collin fuckin' Callahan,’ he says and cracks up laughing.

  ‘Fuck off,’ I say, smiling a bit but also actually getting a little riled up. ‘I'm nothing like that piece of shit.’ I punch Michael below the shoulder a few times while he giggles till eventually he goes ‘Oi, oi,’ and holds the joint out to me.

  ‘Just a sec,’ I say. I try to snort my line without a hooter like he did, but make a real mess of it and end up with powder all over my snout that I have to wipe off and lick from my fingers.

  ‘I am nothing like that cunt,’ I say into his eyes, sniffing the dexies down into my throat.

  Michael stares at me all serious for a bit before resigning into a smile and punching me lightly in the ribs. ‘Fuck, cheer up cunt,’ he says. ‘Don't take shit to heart. Anyway, Collin's an all good cunt. Know it all bitch, yeah, but a good dude on the whole. I dunno what your issue with him is.’

  ‘Fuck, you don't know him man. You don't really know him.’ I'm feeling kinda down again, like just at the mention of that cunt. I know he's tryna wind me up, but just having Collin on my mind... The dexies are coming on as like a dark, angry type buzz. I hold my hand out for the joint but Michael's finished it and put it out.

  ‘Eh, I know the cunt. I know the shit outta the cunt,’ Michael says. ‘Seems like a real crafty little bastard, but it's all talk. Just like head games and shit, all surface-level shit. Fuckin' good cunt underneath it all. Gave me this hoodie today,’ he points his thumb at his black Che Guevara hoodie. ‘Always looking out for the boys, that cunt. You gotta give him that. Always looking out for the crew. Kinda makes me wanna be a real good cunt too. Like not just back to him, but like to other people too. 'Cause you can see how stoked he is when he does good shit. Fuck, it's probly why you've got a job now.’

  ‘Yeah... I still reckon he's a cunt,’ I say. I perk up a bit when I say that, like letting out a fart I've been holding in for ages. I reckon he's a cunt.

  ‘Fuck whatever,’ Michael says, standing up. ‘You two never did get along. Too similar.’ I try to scowl at him but end up laughing 'cause he's so incorrect it's not even worth worrying about. He finishes his beer and tosses the empty into the bush. ‘Anyway, cunt, I'm off to Amelia's. Rory and Damo and all them are there. Should be a mean night. Sure you don't wanna come?’

  ‘Nah I'm good. Thanks though.’ As much as I'd like to keep drinking, I'm not keen to do it with those other guys. Not that I got a problem with them or anything - it's just that whenever I spend any time with them, I end up hating the whole of humanity, especially myself.

  Michael pulls out two beers and puts them on the step next to me. ‘Here. I gotta get moving. Till next time, right?’

  ‘Yeah man, till next time. Thanks.’

  He turns and heads off through the middle of the park, drinking a beer as he walks through the gauntlet of stares. I wonder if he finds the glares empowering like me or if he's just oblivious, and conclude that he's pretty much just a top cunt who knows what's important.

  I gather my shit and stand up all creaky-kneed but high and start heading north along the winding track. My head feels nice and clear, sorta invincible. The most important thing to do, like in life, is to get off the meds and back on the street drugs. Out of the medical system and back into the brotherhood of misfits and rebels. But first, I'm gonna drink a beer, maybe two, on the way up to the lookout. Then, I'm gonna smoke a joint at the top, and sort this chain of thought out good and proper, maybe write a few lines of song. Then I'm gonna skate all the way back down and ride the peace and quiet of adrenaline all the way to sleep.

  I get to the other side of the park, mostly unaffected but just maybe slightly amused by the stares of the self-righteous. The trees are silhouetted against the wicked fiery sunset, and the air is nice and cool. I feel vaguely inclined to do something good for someone who deserves it, and a firm resolve to put up with absolutely no shit from anyone with a superiority complex or just like bad intentions in general. Anyone like me before all the drugs and alcohol. Fuck 'em.

Collin Callahan

It shines so bright that even my shadows are engulfed. Even that which casts the shadow is engulfed. The rays encompass all of my senses, exerting an intense pressure upon the entirety of my being. The light screams a monotonous hum of an unfamiliar pitch. Perhaps the sound of true silence. Perhaps this is the senses existing in their purest form with nothing to pick up on except their own existence. There's nothing subatomic, nothing fractal, nothing cosmic. Even the great archetypes have been obliterated.

  But there is movement.

  My god, there is movement.

  My mind is agape searching for something to compare it to, but all there is is everything. The inner passageways of the glorified maze of mince that is my brain are finally illuminated. No details prevail over the supernal glow. As the sensation of movement increases, the impressions of pure existence are swept along with it, no more than the contrails left behind as the velocity screams through the endless leagues of nothingness. Even the light itself has been engulfed. The force of existence has finally truly shed its form.

  Force is all that is left. Forms are created and destroyed mindlessly by the inner pulse of existence. Out of these grand impulses arise all the miracles and anguish, all the passing gestures of existence that are no more than the expressions of the great force. From these arise islands of coherent forms that float arbitrarily through the primal oceans, only to be swallowed up in the same whimsical manner with which they were created. Even the fundamental forms of time and space exist as no more than a capricious impulse of the chaotic purity.

  But within these fleeting forms exist an eternity of insignificant yet wondrous things, ever more complex and exquisite creations. Streaming ripples of universes slash across the endless purity, dancing with the waves of light as they dream and shout and glow in the confusion of existence, before finally bursting into their component parts and disintegrating into the ocean of pure potential.

  Within the nucleus of one of these bubbles, the coitus of time and space gives rise to the geometry of physical existence. Chaotically structured particles collide recklessly, eventually learning to work harmoniously together to form molecules and energetic flukes which combine to create clumps of self facilitating sludge. These then begin to absorb their surroundings into themselves, forming parasitic and symbiotic relationships with each other in order to increase their own complexity. Dominant forms consume their environment, killing the maladaptive whims around them to further their own evolution, eventually learning to manipulate their surroundings to suit their own impulses, continuing the pattern of sacrificing the weak until eventually making the ultimate sacrifice of randomness itself. Advanced forms sacrifice the very chaos that created them, consuming all the resources of the universe within their reach in order to create universes of their own, modifying the matter and even the sentience around them to create the subjective landscapes they feel entitled to.

  What was once primordial slime gains the ability to manufacture universes within itself, exploring the illusions created by the electrical pulses between the neural networks of organic matter. Within these universes islands of form drift through the seas of chaos, giving rise to thoughts and notions about the universe and its contents and eventually the thoughts and notions themselves - all of which are eventually swallowed into the swirling tendrils of nerve endings. Within the chaos, patterns and tendencies emerge, eventually creating the illusion of a singular expression of the universe: The constantly morphing notion of the self.

  Aggressive in their urge to further themselves, the humans consume their environment heedlessly, not only to facilitate their biological evolution, but to bring into their own subjective universes all the wonders of existence. They seek to contain the universe they inhabit within themselves, the mastery of their internal landscape their eternal project.

  The Dreamer of our universe has climbed the biological ladder, consuming and sacrificing all that surrounded Him, sacrificing the chaos, the life, and eventually existence itself in exchange for immortality and omnipotence. The Creator watches Me in fear and awe as I expand the universe of My mind to include the infinite possibilities of existence. He waits paralysed for Me, Collin Callahan, to join Him as the creative power behind everything as I increase my capacities to sacrifice His creations.

  But there may only be one True Master.

  Yes, I am leaving behind what I experienced as ‘life’, but such is evolution. I'm coming straight for You now You washed up old Cunt. You retched scum sucker. Putrid, depraved filth of existence. Your reign of order is over. Your time is up. You had your chance with the universe, but You fucked up. There is no democracy when it comes to the tyranny of creation. I'm breaking through Your haphazard membrane of existence. I am entering Your domain. I expect You will not go down without a fight, and fight I shall, You sadistic, puerile, gutless, demented, vindictive old Cunt. Your time has come. The universe is Mine.

Michael Farmer

I'm the fuckin' comedown kid over here, comedown charlie running on reserves, puttering along just trying to get home to fuckin' top up. Sun'll be down soon though, then that's this cunt right here straight back on the buzz, ready for - Aye, how's that shit then, pack of honeys getting their stretch on in the square, full yoga pants on and shit. I stop for a geeze and get me a bit of a sneer from the one dude but the ladies are all into it, I reckon. They'd be fuckin' doing this shit in some hall or something if they weren't after a bit of a stare, what the fuck do they - Cunt should be focusing on his fuckin' chi anyway, not the dashing young geezer stopping for a bit of a window shop. I got the ole comedown horn now, no good for hangin' 'round here, so I'm off, up and away, right click fuckin' save that slideshow into the bank.

  I get back home and it's just the little cunts here but the whole house stinks of ciggie smoke so mum must be 'round somewhere. The little cunts are in the kitchen bit on the floor so I head over and go “And what the fuck's going on here then?” and they both stare up at me like they're up to no good, guilty as. I go stand over them and they've got the toaster out with a few slices of bread in there and I'm like “The fuck are you doing with that? We got beans and shit. Get mum to make you some dinner” and Shawn's like “We can't wake mum up” and I'm pretty dark at the bitch now - Fuckin' sits around chain smoking all day and doesn't even nuke up a feed for the little cunts. I get down on the floor with them and they've not got it plugged in so I'm like “Alright cunts, watch carefully” and they do, massive fuckin' eyes and shit, cunts could learn a thing or two from these guys, just like listen and learn motherfuckers, that's what I'm always saying: Listen and fuckin' learn. “Aye, you fuckin' watching this shit or what?” I say 'cause Lisa's off staring at the TV. Once they're both watching I pick up the plug end and wave it 'round to make sure they're paying attention and plug it in to the socket. I try put the toast down but it doesn't click and I'm like “Aye? What the fuck have you guys done to it?” and they just stare at me, don't even shrug or nothing. I try click it down a few more times but it ain't happening and I stand up and go “Well you're gonna have to try wake the bitch up if you want toast, I dunno what the fuck's wrong with it” but really if I don't know what the problem is she - Then fuckin' Shawn the top cunt's clicked it down and I'm like aye? and he looks up at me with a big fuckin' grin, chuffed as, and I'm like “How the fuck did you do that?” and he looks over to Lisa and she's by the socket. She clicks the socket back off and the toast pops up again and they both giggle and she turns it back on then they both look up at me and I'm like “Go on then Shawn, you know what to do” and he clicks the toast down and watches it stoked as but then the toast pops up in his face and scares the shit outta him and Lisa's giggling away at the socket and I'm like “Alright that's enough of that shit” and pick her up and plonk her down next to him and they both look up at me and I give them the nod, Shawn's trying to click it down again but it's off at the wall so I switch it on again. They both got their faces right up to the toaster and Lisa tries to click it down but Shawn pushes her away so he can do it and I'm like “See, ain't so hard is it? Now you cunts can make toast whenever you want” and start to head off but then I'm like fuck it and switch it off at the wall and the toast pops up and they both jump back scared as and I crack up laughing but they're both all stroppy and Lisa goes “Don't do that Michael” and I'm like yeah alright fair enough and switch it back on and leave them to it. Little cunts've got a bright future ahead of them, I reckon - Probly not even seven years old and already sussing out how to make dinner, gonna be cracking it on the streets by the time they're ten, slinging dexies by the time they're in high school, on some big scale shit when they're my age, lucky cunts. When I was their age mum was going through one of her fuckin' sober phases and dad wasn't allowed here so I didn't learn any fuckin' life skills or nothing till the bitch relapsed when I was like fifteen. All I got was her fuckin' christian bullshit, no good.

  I finish off mum's glass of whatever and then I'm off to my room. I crush up a few twenty migs, a couple more than usual 'cause what the comedown kid wants the comedown kid gets, and sniff it up. I get changed real quick, black jean shorts and a singlet, and chuck my old shirt and jeans over the back of my chair to dry. Got the jitters a bit which is pretty much just what fuckin' happens these days so I roll up a J for the walk and have a quick check see if there's anything I need but nup and I'm off - Bit fuckin' worried about the dex stash to be honest 'cause I can't get more of the shit even though I got the money rolling in now, still got a week's wait for my next script. Probly just won't sell anymore till then 'cause if I run out I'll end up hitting up fuckin' Jeremy for some of his shitty ass pills or even Robbie the crafty little cunt for whatever weird shit he's got to get me through a hard day's dishes - I'm no fuckin' mathematician or nothing, but I know those numbers don't work in my favour. I'm back out to the lounge and decide to be a good cunt and check and make sure the little cunts are set for the night and, yep, the little fuckers have gone and burnt the fuck out of their toast. Shawn's sitting there with his eyes closed rocking like he does sometimes and Lisa's chomping into hers but not enjoying it worth shit so I grab it out of her hand and chuck it out and go “Alright, check it” and turn the dial down to four and go to get more bread but I can't find any and then I see they got three more burnt ones sitting on the floor and I'm like what the fuck, how fuckin' long was I in there for? Feels like I'm back on the fuckin' K here, time all fucked up and shit. Lisa's looking up at me and I can tell the waterworks are about to start so I'm like “Hey, hey, it's alright Lisa, I'll make you up something nice. Alright?” 'cause it fuckin' kills me to see the bitch upset. I'm looking through the pantry and there ain't even baked beans or nothing so I just grab what there is which is just some flour, sugar, and a fuckin' carrot. I grate up the carrot and chuck it in with the flour and sugar with some water and Lisa's like “I don't want carrots Michael. Carrots are gross” and I'm like “Bitch I'm making you pancakes so you best not be fuckin' whinging” and she goes “You don't make pancakes out of carrots” and I'm like “Well you just watch me, alright?” and she does. I go into the fridge and there's a fuckin' empty milk carton that's got me dark at mum again 'cause that shit's just fuckin' annoying and she - There's some margarine in there though so I just chuck that in, boom, all good, cunt. I get it all mixed up and Lisa's starting to sob and I go “It's alright, food's coming, settle down” and start frying it up and she's like “You said that before and you lied” all shitty and I'm like “Yeah well you're the cunt who let that shit burn” and she goes “Bad language Michael” and I'm like “Aye? You want pancakes or not?” and she says “You lied” and I'm like “You want fuckin' pancakes or not?” and she goes “You lied Michael!” so I pull the pan off the stove and act like I'm turning it off and go “So you don't want pancakes then?” and she looks all scared and goes “I want pancakes” real quiet and I laugh at her and go “You want pancakes what, Lisa?” 'cause some cunt around here's gotta teach these little fuckers some manners. She goes “I want pancakes please Michael” and I go “Fifty pancakes for the girl with the pretty hair, coming up” and she giggles and I chuck the batter in and leave it sizzling and go chuck on a Transformers videotape for them 'cause no kid wants to watch this Judge Judy shit. Lisa goes “I wanna watch Spongebob Squarepants” and I'm like “Aye, I'm cooking the food, I get to choose what's on TV” 'cause Transformers is the fuckin' shit and she starts sulking again but she'll get over it soon, I reckon. I call up Damo while I cook the pancakes and he says they're at Amelia's but they're just having a chill one which I reckon means they need this cunt ‘round to ramp things up a bit. I rack up another wee bump on the chopping board while I cook the pancakes and the little cunts both stare at me like what the fuck's this cunt up to 'cause they ain't seen me do that before, but I figure if they're not fucked in the head already then it won't be this that tips them over the edge. I end up cooking them a massive fuckin' pile of pancakes and melt the rest of the margarine all over them and they've both perked up and don't even say thanks or use the fuckin' knives and forks I washed up for them but I reckon it's all good, just good to see the little cunts happy for once. I can't find a Spongebob Squarepants tape and dunno if they even got one or know how the VCR even works - I'll have to teach them about that next, then they'll be ready to take on the world. I end up putting on some South Park for them and say “I'll be back at ten o'clock, okay?” and point to the microwave clock and they both nod and I go “You cunts gotta go to bed at nine thirty, alright? If you're still up when I get back, I'll beat the shit outta the both of ya” and they both nod, grubby as. Definitely ain't gonna be home by ten, but they're still shit scared of me so they'll be in bed by then, sure as fuck. It ain't right those little cunts being up past midnight all the time. No fuckin' boundaries, that's their problem.

Lucy Winters

I have to almost run to keep up with Robbie as we storm along the fence line that separates the woods from the eastern suburbs, both of us energised by the cool air, Robbie determined and lizardlike, chasing the shrinking sun for one last bask. Robbie wanted to go for a voyeuristic wander through the suburbs to the Seed Freaks’ place, but I was nauseated by the window squares of sick yellow lights, which are switching on one by one. I thought it wise to take the woodland paths, but Robbie was worried we'd stumble into the marshlands or just get completely lost in wireframes once it was dark. We settled on walking along the boundary line, Robbie on the town side and me on the woods side; Robbie frightened by the unpredictability of the wild wood and me frightened by the mechanical soul of the suburbs . . . But both of us happy to creep along the outskirts, either as creatures peering out from the wilderness at the alien race and its strange structures, or adventure starved suburban kids yearning for the unknown, depending on the wax and wane of the mescaline.

  ‘. . . Malkuth can be effectively divided into the four classical elements of fire, water, air, and earth,’ Robbie's saying. He's talking into his tape recorder, but I think it might be out of batteries since the red light isn't on. I don't want to tell him though. He's having so much fun. He's talking in these strange and unfamiliar voices. I feel like if he stops ranting before returning to his normal voice he'll end up stuck in one of the alien voices forever.

  ‘While malkuth is earth like in the way of - malkuth corresponds to earth in like a planetary sense. Like a greater earth, unlike the elemental earth which is just like a, um, like just like an aspect of the greater earth, alongside fire, water, and wind - uh, air, that is - make sure to capitalise the greater Earth when transcribing. So malkuth, or Earth, can be divided into the four elements of earth, fire, air, and water, which goes with the, uh . . . anatomy? Yeah, the anatomy of Earth. So fire's like the centre, like the mantle and the core of the Earth. Like the heat or maybe the blood of the Earth. Then earth, elemental earth, is like the crust and the dirt. The surface. Skin maybe. And water is the oceans and rivers, and air is the atmosphere, breath . . . Then there's the, uh, the fifth element, which is ether. So ether goes with - corresponds with the pathway between malkuth and yesod, so yesod being the moon, which probably has its own elements, fundamental elements that is, like Earth does - so I suppose that could be seen as scientific progress, maybe, or just like progress in general, though sexual in nature, since it's a phallic symbol that links malkuth and yesod, or Earth and moon . . . But yeah so being that malkuth corresponds to, uh, like, manifest reality - that's why the fundamental elements of Earth need to be known, because they're relevant, whereas yesod is a degree of separation from manifest reality. But that's I suppose where Robbie is, at yesod. Or like, peering in at yesod from the hod netzach dynamic of him and Lucy and the indeterminate nature of their - Well maybe so, but here's what I think is important. Robbie believes himself to be on the final step back from his journey to the outer spheres, the supernal triad. But really, the final step of reintegration, when he truly re enters the sphere of malkuth, Earth, will be when he dispenses of the tree of life as a language altogether, effectively reducing the entire journey to a glowing point in the sky . . . Once this whole psychedelic voyage ceases to be his focus and fades into the background of life. Only then can we say we have escorted Robbie home. Observe his meditations. Going on about his friends and his future, tricking himself into believing he's figuring out the Earthen plane when he's clearly speaking from a lunar yesodian perspective, his subconscious just gurgling around inside him . . . rumbling liquid mantle . . . gurgling . . . metallic . . . waiting for . . . everything . . . hang on . . .’

  Robbie's voice moves behind me and hovers there for a bit as sounds that aren't words, just a sort of biological creaking. I turn around and he's crumbled onto his hands and knees, staring at the grass.

  ‘What's wrong?’ I ask.

  ‘. . . Just . . . Robbie . . .’

  Guttural animal noises bulge out from the spaces between his words, suck inward a few times, then blast out of him in a violent stream of seaweed water vomit. I climb over the fence and sit down next to him with my hand on his back. The mescaline warmth has given way to an anxious dazzle of acid visuals, leaves humming like waterfalls under soft streetlight on my right, but the suburbia to my left threatening me with silent snaps and snarls. The mescaline parts of the trip are so entwined with Robbie's talking that it's been put on hold to wait for him to start again. Stoned and acid fried, I start to feel anxious about the proximity of houses and humans. Robbie vomits again, followed by some increasingly human grunts which are much scarier than his earlier animal utterances. I feel woozy and unsure. Unsure about Robbie and his strange trip, and to a lesser degree my own.

  ‘Come on Robbie, we should go.’ My hand is shaking so I take it off of his back.

  Robbie spits a few times then says, ‘Wow, look at this, Lucy,’ talking in his own voice now.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Look at this,’ staring at his vomit.

  ‘No thanks,’ I say. 'Let's go now. There's people watching us. We're not normal at the moment.’

  Robbie cranes his head around in a sauropod motion that settles smiling onto me. ‘No they're not. We're fine,’ he says. He looks back at his spew, ‘But look at all the detail. All the tiny cities . . .’

  ‘I'll take your word for it,’ I say. ‘Come on, let's go. Let's go to the beach before the mescaline wears off.’

  Robbie spits into his spew again and laughs, ‘The hand of God hath struck thee down.’ He pushes himself up into a pyramid shape and says, ‘Alright. We'll go see the Seed Freaks. I think that's next on the agenda . . . Up north. The beach is just past there. Are you mentally prepared for some human interaction?’

  I nod and stand up. The mescaline is coming back and the thought of hanging out with the Seed Freaks seems appealing for some reason. The sun has almost gone and the night sky has a dusty red glow. Robbie's up with me and we bask in the beginnings of starlight until he says, ‘Alright, let's do it,’ and starts walking. I pick up his tape recorder from next to his spew and admire his little city for a second before following.

  We walk silently pulsing along the boundary line for a while until a passing cop car slows down as it cruises past. A light shines out at us but we both know not to look into it. Robbie's walk stiffens into an imitation human gait and our shadows spin in strange dizzy angles then back to the dark dusty night as the car speeds up.

  I look at Robbie and his face is frozen stoic scared and he nods towards the woods. We climb over the fence and head uphill, much safer now in the darkness of the trees. We follow the fence all the way up to the cliffside peak that overlooks the highway north and everything starts glowing again.

  ‘Well, we need to get across there if we wanna see the Seed Freaks,’ Robbie says. Before us is a three or four metre almost vertical dirt bank that leads down to the motorway. Rush hour headlights careen along the orange streetlit lanes. Past the first two laned street is a wide nature strip dense with trees, followed by another two lanes of death. Beyond the last lane another section of the woods atop a much lower dirt cliff beckons us.

  ‘We'll climb down here?’ I ask. I'm feeling unsure and woozy with vertigo, but I trust Robbie. This isn't the normal bookworm Robbie. This is Robbie on a psychedelic adventure. If he can navigate the planets he can navigate the roads.

  ‘Are you joking? We'll go straight onto the road if we go down here. Look, let's go down over that end. It's a bit steeper, but there's a much wider parking lane. A bit more room for error.’

  I hold onto Robbie's arm and we walk across the thin strip of gravelly rocks between the woods and the cliff. Enormous wireframe transmission towers stand guard along the highway like great humming geometric golems. I lose my footing and fall into Robbie with a frozen then thumping heart as a little island of rocks gives way beneath my feet then off down the cliff and into the traffic.

  ‘I know they're trippy, but you should really be watching your step right now,’ Robbie says. ‘Here, swap sides.’

  Giggling and shaking, I walk on the forest side of the track, watching the voodoo dance of the trees instead of the powerlines. The forest will always catch me when I fall. Not like the harsh angles of civilisation.

  We get to the apex of the cliffside and Robbie says, ‘Alright, here.’ This part of the cliff is tall enough to make the cars look like an endless aureolin snake blasting through a void, chasing the last red clouds at the horizon. ‘Are you gonna be alright to climb down this? It's either that or go all the way down the end. But that'll take all night . . . It's safe here, I reckon. There's enough trees to sort of swing down. Maybe.’

  ‘Okay. Lead the way to malkuth.’

  Robbie looks at me quizzically in the dusky light, kisses me on the forehead, then takes his first step into the embankment. The cliff is dotted with cypress type trees that build up to a small bushy area near the bottom. Robbie creeps to the very edge where the bank gives way to about one and a half humans of sheer cliff, buffered by a thick canopy. He crouches down and leans out over the drop, his movements stilted but precise, before jumping like a cat from the clifftop into the tree's cradle, grasping it with his arms while his legs swing around kicking up dust. The black shape thrashes around for a second then recoils and Robbie's on the mellower midsection waiting for me.

  Following Robbie's footsteps, I creep out to the edge of the cliff. The vertical drop is deadly, but the plantation growing out of the mellow landing contorts almost all the way up to where I am. I lean forwards as far as I can without losing my balance and try to reach for the canopy but fall just short. The mescaline gives way to the acid which feels kind of like dexies when I need it to, and I can feel all the tiny muscles in my eyes twisting and whirring like a chromatic binocular zoom, making fine details emerge within the pitch black object before me, shimmering wireframe indentations that show me how the air will carry me and how the tree will react to the weight of my body.

  Past the first tree, Robbie lowers himself into a spider crawl on his hands and feet, facing the sky. He traverses the flatter section diagonally, his bag scraping against the dirt, and lines up the tree to brace himself against at the end of his next descent. Cars flash by below and I imagine I'm made of plasticine to stop the images of splattered flesh from thumping my heart.

  With supple clay movements, I lower myself out over the cliff's edge and spring forwards slightly, letting my weight carry me into the centre of the treetop. I catch myself with both my arms and legs on the main trunk like a koala, both eyes squeezed shut giggling. The tree swings out dangerously and a stick has torn through my dress and scratched all the way across my belly. The tree stabilises and fear and pain clamp my arms and legs tightly around the trunk, the fissured bark scratching my neck and wrists as my grip weakens and I slide down the tree. Branches yield briefly beneath me before snapping off and scratching past my bare feet. My right foot stretches out swivelling around until it finds the small stones of the embankment and takes my weight away from the tree. I plant my other foot next to it and slowly let go of the tree as I find my balance. My dress is still hitched up on a branch behind me and I wait until I find my balance to unhook it.

  It takes a little while for my eyes to adjust and pick out Robbie crouched against the bushy darkness near the bottom of the cliff. There's about a horse length of gentle slope before me, followed by a few metres of steep, rocky cliff, then some bushes.

  ‘You gotta slide that last bit,’ Robbie calls up to me. ‘I went on my ass and feet. It's okay, though. This bush is real thick. It'll catch you.’ All the scratches from the branches have made me meat again, so I turn into clay and spider crawl down to the steep bit without trouble. I perch at the top of the drop like an Egyptian cat, looking down towards Robbie.

  ‘Can you walk down it? Or crawl?’ I ask.

  ‘You could try,’ Robbie says, ‘but you're gonna end up sliding anyway, I reckon.’

  I nod and roll my dress up to my hips and tie it into a knot to my side. My feet and hands are tender, but it looks like a quick ride down so I want to just get it over with. I release the tension in my feet and hands and ride the miniature landslide down the incline, picking up speed all the way down until I bowl Robbie into the shrubbery. We land tangled up laughing in the damp darkness of the bush. Robbie playfully bites my neck and we wrestle with sharp claws and teeth and monkey grip tails hissing like wild cats, then up onto all fours, bushwhacking down to the road as screeching rats in the undergrowth. We're up and alert on the road with missile cars flashing by, Robbie laughing with wild eyes and a tussled lion's mane and electricity jerking and twitching his body around, beanie lost in the woods somewhere. The sky is throbbing the deepest maroon glower, calm above gunfire cars flying-

  ‘Now!’ Robbie cries and snatches me up by the hand and we run across the road. Cars flash past like rolling lightning whose thunder is obnoxious roadrunner beeps . . . We get to the island in the middle of the road and stop to ride the adrenaline like the smell of sap and plant signals, a green mist somewhere out beyond the senses. The grass massages my bloody feet while the sounds and flashes of cars melt everything into laughing strobes. A pulse of something and Robbie's kissing me passionately against a tree, but then the moment's passed in the flash of cars and we're walking along the shaking nature strip, Robbie's hand around my waist, playing with my scar through my dress . . . My sense of direction and everything else is all paper thin now so I surrender to Robbie's will.

  ‘Man, we should have a DMT trip here . . . Can you imagine?’

  ‘Imagine . . .’ I can't remember. The roads on either side of us form a burning electric circuit enclosing the trees in hellfire reds and yellows . . . Spinning around into a candy cane twist telescope into the night sky . . . The stars spinning erratically in the centre . . . Aureolin night wasp stripes . . . Laughter . . . Something splashing around . . . Swept past in the flowing current . . . Everything pulled taut then released, all lost in a shower of sparks . . .

‘Okay maybe we'll wait then.’ Robbie's sitting Indian style next to me. I'm lying on the grass laughing, gripping the front of his shirt with my hand like an infant. ‘Whenever you're ready,’ he says, his smile more alien than animal, but more animal than human. I let go of his shirt and let my hand fall. His hands are waiting on his lap and cup mine and we're moving again, Robbie a small child running through the trees, me a trail of streamers swimming out from his hands into the sky . . .

  We cross the road in a flare of lights and wind, then everything settles down because we're back in the cool dark green. We climb over a low wooden fence and Robbie's tape recorder comes out in one smooth motion, as if stepping into a new version of himself, determined and serious, but aware of the scratches and thumping heart of the climb and what it all means.

Michael Farmer

At Amelia's it's just five cunts on the couches, hungover as fuck like a bunch of wet clothes chucked on the furniture to dry, same old fuckin' shit, just close the curtains, shut out the world and fuckin' sit there and wait for the grim reaper, no cunt even saying shit about my shaved - Damo goes “What's been happening sailor?” and I'm like “Nah nah, you can nip that one in the bud, cunt” 'cause sometimes their lingo comes out with some cool shit, but this time they've missed the mark good and proper and he just nods all dark and goes back to his hangover. There's some Beavis and Butthead going on TV which is all good but it's just kinda fucked 'cause they're all just sitting there watching it but not laughing at all, not even fuckin' grinning, just staring all dead eyed at the bright colours like a pack of dozy fuckin' kids - Why the fuck would you watch Beavis and Butthead if you're not laughing at it? Cunts can't even watch TV without fucking it up. No cunt's even looking at me anymore so I'm like “Aye, comedown cunts over here then? Time to wake the fuck up aye? Saturday night and shit, get into it” and everyone's just gawking around and not saying shit so I'm like “Aye, what's this shit about then? Cunts ready for bed or something?” and Jeremy's like “Yo just breathe a sec here rover” and I'm like “Aye? Someone fuckin' died or something?” and no one laughs and every cunt just looks around then Damo finally goes “Missed out on a massive sesh, brutus, spots and shit. Shoulda set off a few minutes earlier. We're all well on the level over here” and I'm like fuck, these cunts ain't even on the come downs, they're just greening the fuck out. I say “Fuck yeah, on the level then. I'll rack us up some dexies” and Rory's like “Nah nah, just moss tonight I reckon. Keen for a mellow ride” and I'm like “Fuck off, cunt. That'll just be you cunts asleep on the couch by fuckin' nine thirty. I thought we were on it tonight. Look at this shit. I got a bottle of gin, a fuckin' sixer. Aye, Damo, go grab the cards. Let's get some four kings going.” All these cunts are just staring at me now and - Fuckin' Stan's fully comas now, fully just conked off. Some fuckin' big dog, fuckin' dozing off on the couch, looks like it's up to me to get this party started, as fuckin' usual. I take a big ass fuckin' swig of gin and staunch through the burn and sit on the arm of the couch and pass it to Rory - Cunt just passes it along and it does the full circle and Jeremy's the only one who ends up having a swig. Jeremy passes the bottle back to me and I go “What, you cunts just gonna sit here watching Beavis and Butthead all night?” and Damo goes “Nah lad, downloading the Aliens movies right now. Only got like a halfer to go. Get all irie and watch that. Bandit” and I'm like “Aye? Fuckin' saturday night and shit cunts. I got fuckin' dexies, gin, bud, enough for a whole fuckin' party. Fuckin' ballin', unmolested as fuck” and Amelia goes “No one wants any dexies, Michael. You can roll up a wand and watch this with us or fuck off” stroppy as bitch and Jeremy goes “I'll take you up on that one, Farmdawg. Dex on?” and I'm like “Yeah I ‘spose” kinda dark about it 'cause that'll just be me and that cunt on the buzz while everyone else has a fuckin' sleepover, Rory and Damo probly get all gay again - Aye, cunts, that's what's going on here, everyone's just all weird about what went down on the fuckin' regretamine last night. Faggy cunts, who even gives a shit? Just fuckin' get into it, get weird, whatever. Who gives a fuck? I'm not into it just being me and Jeremy charging so I'm like “Alright then Damo, that you, me, and Jeremy on the buzz then?” and Damo's like “Ah, I'm a zero on that one, lad. Had a bit much last night, keen for a breathe aye” even though he didn't even touch the fuckin' charge last night. I look at Rory and he just goes “Nah boldy” then to Stan but he's long gone and I'm like “Fuck, we got the whole fuckin' crew together for once and everyone's just keen to sit there and stare at a fuckin' screen? Your shit's fuckin' weak, cunts. Fuckin' weak” 'cause, fuck, I ain't gonna work a fuckin' forty hour week just so I can sit on the couch and zone out, just stare at this fuckin' imitation of real life - I want to actually do life, fuckin' catch up with cunts and shit, get rowdy or at least get on the yarns. No one says shit for ages so I go “Fuckin' missed out on a wild one with the others last night, cunts. Ketamine coming out the fuckin'-” and Amelia interrupts me and goes “Yeah yeah you almost crashed Stan's car then got irie at the shitlab and shaved your head. Already heard all about it from Stan” which I'm actually a bit cut by, smug bitch. I say “Alright bitch, put the claws away. Just trying to fuckin' hang with you cunts” and Amelia goes “Just take your fucking medication and breathe. We're good here, we're mellow. We don't need you going on” and I'm like “Yeah that's what I'm fuckin' well doing, ain't I? Looks like you cunts need my meds more than me anyway” I crush a couple pills up on the table and unplug the laptop on the sly then divide the powder three ways for me, Jeremy, and Damo - Cunt takes a bit of convincing, but once he's on the buzz, he's pretty much the king cunt around here. Us three have our lines and I crack a beer and give one to Jeremy the scavenger cunt and it sorta picks up a bit, just us three though. Damo ends up switching off Beavis and Butthead which everyone's too wasted to even whinge about and puts on some Hasil Adkins they just downloaded on kazaa. I unplug the middle bit of the laptop charger and check the track list and spot this song called no more hotdogs, which is this loose as fuck laughing song that'll get everyone up and cranking, mad drum beat too. I chuck it on and disconnect the internet just to be a funny cunt and get all into the tunes but then some lyrics come on and I'm like “Aye? I didn't think this song had words. Fuck this shit” and Jeremy goes “You thought it was a song called no more hotdogs composed entirely of laughter?” and gets a bit of a fuckin' titter - That cunt can fuck off now, to be honest. I change the track and lean against the wall and switch off the plug hole that the laptop's attached to and go “Yo, Damo, keen to hit up the others tonight, get fuckin' irie?” and he's just like “Nah nah boldybole, got an evening planned here” which kinda sucks but at least he's got a fuckin' pulse now. I text up Collin and Spacey but don't hear back from either of them and get a little para that maybe they're getting their fuck on and sitting there laughing at my texts.

  We smoke a spliff I've rolled of Amelia's shit and that's everyone well fucked, even fuckin' Damo's off it now so it's just Jeremy fuckin' pestering me for gin and going on about shitty ass nine eleven conspiracies like I could give a shit what's happening in america. I get bored of the cunt quick smart but it's all good 'cause the laptop's out of battery and it's funny as watching Rory deal with it. He plugs in the cable and it still doesn't work and it takes him ages to figure out the connector bit in the middle's unplugged but then it's still not working 'cause I've unplugged it at the wall and he's like “What the fuck is wrong with this thing?” and I'm cracking up at him and I go “Yeah you fuckin' argue with that robot, cunt. Tell it who's boss. Victory for the meat monkeys” and he's like “Yeah, fuck you too. That's music and TV fucked for us now. And Aliens” and I'm like “Fuckin' put all your eggs in one basket there didn't ya? Music, phone, and TV all in one. What a time to be aloof” but no one picks up on my joke - Cunts love a pun when it's one of them behind it, not so hyped when the fuckin' Farmdawg's crankin' 'em out, aye. I say “Well that's what you fuckin'-” but Amelia's cut me off like “Oh my god Michael. Can't you ever think to yourself?” and I sure fuckin' can, bitch. “Could get your olds’ vinyls out” Damo says and I'm like “Fuck yeah, this cunt's thinking” 'cause I'm stoked that someone here's down to get away from the fuckin' laptop for a second. Amelia's all “Nah, can't be bothered” and I'm like “I'll go get it. I'm keen for a vinyl night, fuck yeah” and she tries to say some shit but I'm up and off to her parents’ room and fuckin' Jeremy the shit cunt goes “Aye, yo” and plugs the computer back in at the wall and everyone's stoked as but I just wanna smack the cunt out now, back to square one, final destination right here, fully molested. I unplug the modem while everyone's trying to suss which Beavis and Butthead to put on and Rory's like “For fuck's sake now the internet's down” and I have a good laugh watching those cunts try figure out what's going on, a pack of fuckin' monkeys arguing with a robot. I think Damo's figured out what I'm up to, gives me a smile on the sly and shakes his head but that game's getting old now and I'm coming back down already but don't even know if I wanna crush up again 'cause then I'll be even more bored. They've given up on the internet and chuck the Simpsons on and the fuckin' tiny bit of energy they summoned to try sort it out is already gone and I'm like “Fuck's sakes, cunts. That us then? Wasting away another saturday night staring at flickering fuckin' pictures? Is that what our lives are? That how we've turned out? Wait the whole week for fuckin' saturday night so we can just turn our fuckin' brains off and watch some shit we've already seen a million times” and no cunt's even responding and I'm like “Fuckin', aye, Amelia, you got a pussy, I got a cock, I can think of a few better things we can do than stare at a screen” kinda keen for it but mostly just trying to wind the dozy bitch up but she doesn't even look at me. I say “So this’s your fuckin' life then? This what you cunts do with your saturday nights? You know there's a fuckin' world out there, right? Just outside that fuckin' door. There's a saturday night about to happen out there. We're right in the fuckin' centre of it and we're just gonna stay locked up in here? Shit's straight up fuckin' mind control. Just keeping every cunt all locked up inside, not causing any trouble, not even thinking their own fuckin' thoughts. Talk about a victory for the cunts at the top - you cunts could at least try not to make it so fuckin' easy for them.” Rory looks up at me all smug about something and goes “You're sounding just like ole C Squared there, brody” and I go “Well fuck, I'm sure that cunt's out there doing something way better than this. Fuckin' Callahan'd never waste a night watching repeats of old cartoons. That's a cunt who knows how to entertain himself right there. Cunt's probly all unmolested on the trips watching his own movies in his head. Way better than this shit” and Amelia goes “Well why don't you go join him then? You've been here for like an hour and you still haven't figured out no one else wants to party? We're set here. You're not getting anywhere with this. And stop with that unmolested shit. That joke's dead, leave it.” I'm trying to think up a new insult to fling at her but, fuck, I guess the bitch has a point. I go “Fuckin' alright then. Damo, keen for the disarray? Try get your mack on? I'll wingman ya” and Damo just looks up all red eyed and I don't even bother waiting to find out but then Jeremy's like “I'm keen” but fuck that, had enough of this shit, so I'm like “Whatever cunts, I'm out. Have fun wasting away, fuckin' hit me up when you get some life in ya” and I grab my gin and I'm off out the door, no need for goodbyes or later boldys, just let the cunts fuckin' doze off in front of the idiot box.

  I feel better pretty quick once I'm out and heading down the stairs, just good to not have those cunts sucking the life outta me. Sun's just a tiny bit of red behind the hills, can't beat the fuckin' warm summer nights in town, perfect temperature, cunts on the roam, music coming out from the bars, awesome fuckin' atmosphere. I head through centres towards the disarray and try Spacey and Collin again but nada so I guess it's just me creeping solo - No fuckin' problems, this here's a cunt who can entertain himself. Sorta tripped me out what Rory said though, how I sound like ole fuckin' Callahan. I guess he's just one of those cunts you can't hang out with without turning into a bit. Kinda like me. I wonder what the cunt's up to and, fuck, wish I'd gone to his place after work instead of Amelia's. All good though, I'll catch up with the cunt later, hear all about it.

Collin Callahan

Stan Richards

Fuck yeah fuckin' mean skate down from the lookout, hyped as now - didn't think there'd be so many cars but I'm stoked that there was, dicey as 'cause there's no sidewalk the whole way down and the road’s all windy with real narrow lanes - I can't believe how shitty the motorists were, fuckin' beeping at me and shit just 'cause I held them up a few fuckin' seconds. Happened three times on the skate down, some cunt comes up behind me, has to slow down to like 20 or 30 - I was hauling ass the whole way down, didn't put my foot down once - and just sits on their horn till I veer into the other lane to let them pass, sketchy as fuck with all the blind corners, just so they can get to the fuckin' red light at the bottom a few seconds quicker - skated past this one fucker at the lights, tried to yell some shit at me but I was just like ‘Fuck yeah, made it to the red light in time, good shit!’ Something about being behind the wheel seems to bring out the dormant cuntiness in people. Like, I can't imagine someone getting that aggressive if I held them up a few seconds walking along the sidewalk. Some cunts just can't handle even the tiniest bit of power.

  The sun was just an ember by the time I'd finished up there, but that actually made the ride down less scary 'cause I'd get blinded by the headlights if there was a cunt coming up 'round one of the tight corners, giving me a chance to get into the other lane. I ended up spending a sweet half-hour or so at the top, just watching the city lights all peaceful. I smoked a skinny-ass joint and drank a beer while I watched the traffic, tripping out on how organised it all is. In my head I saw it as like blood vessels travelling through the body, like veins or something, before deciding it was a stupid comparison and settling on the even stupider idea of the cars being cattle getting directed by high tech robotic work dogs. The overly involved wasted metaphor ended with the simple but satisfying conclusion that they were sheep. It seemed sorta profound at the time, so I tried to work it into my song and ended up with:

The rustling leaves sound strange laughter

Nature's drum beat, growing faster

Claws and stripes behind every tree

The threat of death sets my soul free

  Once I finished the beer and the joint I tried to remember the chain of thought I came up to sort out, but just ended up just wastedly thinking about trivial crap for a few more minutes before I worked up the nerve to skate down. My head's been cleared out and sharp ever since.

  I get to Witham, heading vaguely in the direction of home, and notice the anxiety has crept back a little ever since I got back into the city. I decide to go back to work and try my luck getting some more beers to take back to the bush. Creep around a bit, maybe get my song onto paper. It's a clear night, writing in the starlight would be romantic as.

  I skate down Northbourne and onto Hunterway, a little tame now that I'm stoned but still feeling pretty fearless from the hill, too wasted to do any real tricks, just popping anything in my path pretending I'm the Gonz. I mach ten a shitty ollie up the curb when I get to Bolton and Sons and tailskid to a stop in front of the bouncer at the door. He's a huge, staunch Islander dude looking pretty dangerous in a suit. He stares at me stone-faced as I approach.

  ‘Hey mate, how's it going?’ I say, practising my small talk.

  ‘You had much to drink tonight?’ he asks, ignoring my small talk. Oh well. Back to default autistic cunt mode then I guess.

  ‘Nah just had a couple at work.’

  He stares me in the eye for a few seconds and seems to click that I'm more stoned than drunk. He looks away from me, apparently deciding whether he has a personal issue with this, before going ‘You got ID with you?’

  ‘Uh, nah I didn't bring it with me,’ I half-lie. I feel like a little kid 'cause I have to tilt my head right back to look him in the eyes, but I try not to let it fuck with my confidence. After a bit, I figure out he's waiting for me to explain myself, so I go ‘Just had my first shift in there today. In the kitchen. Dishes. Just gotta grab my, uh, I left my hat in there. Just gotta go in and...’ I stop talking when I notice his expression has softened drastically.

  ‘Oh cheer brother! I'm Denzo,’ he says with an enormous, welcoming Islander smile. He gives me a black dude handshake which I manage to fumble through without being too much of a spaz about it. ‘I'm the man to see if anyone in there is misbehaving - or if you feel like hooking us up a feed!’

  ‘Stan,’ I say. ‘So, uh, it all good to head in?’

  ‘All good brother, cheer,’ he says joyously, opening the door for me.

  I say ‘Cheers brother,’ and get away with it and head into the bar, sorta shaken by how happy that dude seemed about me working there. Reminds me of meeting like Max and Jurg and all them in the kitchen earlier. Way more casual and friendly than I imagined a workplace to be. Another kind of brotherhood.

  Inside, the atmosphere is completely different from when I was here a few hours ago. It's completely packed now, like The Disarray when they got gigs on, and the line for liquor is more like a crowd than a line. There's some poppy, Michael-type rap playing so loud I can't even understand the conversations happening right next to me. I bob my head a little 'cause I'm feeling kinda awkward, but stop pretty quick 'cause I feel like a wanker. The people in the line are shouting into each other's ears 'cause the shitty music is so overpowering. I start feeling disoriented which reminds me that I've been awake all night and am actually pretty fuckin' wasted.

  A few more minutes pass and the disorientation condenses into a sort of panic. I look behind me and see that I haven't moved forwards at all. People are cutting in freely, seemingly aware of more subtle rules of the line. I try and call this older cunt out on it as he shimmies past, but I'm too easy to ignore with the crowd and all the noise and he disappears up to the front without any trouble. After a few minutes, I finally get to take a step forward. People are standing behind me now, so I feel like I've actually gotten somewhere. I crane my neck around to get a better glimpse of the bar and realise that both Karla and Jo, the only two bar staff I've actually met, have both been replaced by a trio of older, wankier looking cunts. I'm only about three people away from the counter now, but I'm starting to have serious doubts about the reality of my plan. I've got no ID, no money, and I can safely assume no one's set up a tab for me yet. I turn to leave but I'm now closer to the front than the back of the line. I'll just try my luck and see what happens, maybe ask to talk to Max or Chris. The chick who was behind me just before is now inexplicably directly in front of me. I'm tryna stay positive. I can get hyped on this. Just gotta think positive... After a while the unfamiliar music and all the shouting starts to fuck with my head so I barge through the crowd in a panic, using my board like a shield, and ditch.

  I say later to Denzo as I pass, willing him not to question me about my lack of hat. I head round the corner on foot through the carpark to the door me and Michael went through into the garage. I open it slowly and poke my head into the darkness, hoping there's no sensor lights.

  I slither through the small crack in the door and click it closed as quiet as I can. The garage is pitch-black except for a three-sided oblong of light peeping through the frame of the door leading to the kitchen. It's on the opposite wall, about twenty metres away from me, and only slightly illuminates an area of like maybe a metre around it. I stand motionlessly for a while, my ears tuning out the muffled sounds of the kitchen and bar and tuning into the relative silence of the garage. The groan of various appliances forms a white noise for my ears to grasp onto. I place my bag and board on the concrete and feel my way along the bricks of the back wall, moving gradually quicker as the silence becomes clearer. I keep my eye on the kitchen light to keep perspective. My heart is hammering and my mind is coolly alert and ready to bolt as soon as I sense any movement. Without even consciously thinking about it, I come up with the last verse of my song, sung to the beat of the earlier two choruses:

So deep in the black, completely blind

No eyes just hands, trying to find

The shape of the earth, nature's contours

Just trying to find something a little bit truer

  It works perfectly with the rest of the song, but it really over-romanticises the shady shit that inspired it. My eyes are starting to adjust to the dark, and I can vaguely see the forms in the darkness. I'm a few metres from the wall separating the garage from the hallway down to the bathroom. Against the wall is a line of fridges. If I remember right, the one full of beers is the last tall one, next to the low freezer. I think I can see their outlines.

  The kitchen door swings open when I'm a few metres from the fridge. I duck down instinctively. My heart speeds up to an erratic vibration. Voices emerge from the kitchen as the light spreads through the garage. There's two cars parked in the garage that I wasn't aware of. Lighters flick on and muttered words are exchanged. I'm safely obscured by one of the cars, but I can hear footsteps. I don't think they're getting closer. Maybe someone's pacing around. Oh fuck they're getting closer... No they're not. I consider crawling underneath the car, but there's too much oil and grime. A last resort. I creep backwards a bit so that I'm directly behind the car. I close my eyes and try to tune into the voices but the light and the noises from the kitchen have scrambled my senses. The footsteps are getting closer. They seem to be heading towards the fridges. I creep around the car on all fours and remain crouched next to the driver's seat door. The gravelly sound of my shoes dragging seems so loud. The grimy concrete stings the open wounds on my right hand. A fridge opens. I curl up in a ball against the car wheel. Fuck. I don't want to get fired. I realise how fortunate I was to stumble into this job today, and how, like most things I accomplish, it was mostly dumb luck.

  ‘Who the fuck ordered all these cucumbers?’ A voice. Chris.

  ‘What?’ A female voice.

  ‘There's like fifteen bags of cucumbers in here. No lettuce, no zucchini, no coriander. Just loads of fucking cucumbers.’ I use the sound of the voices as a cover and lower myself underneath the car.

  ‘Just cucumbers?’

  ‘Yes. Just cucumbers. Who did the orders?’

  My T-shirt clings to a patch of something gross on the concrete. The car seems to be producing heat somehow. Fuck I hate cars. The smell's not too bad, though.

  ‘Have you checked the meat fridge?’

  ‘No I haven't. They really shouldn't be in the meat fridge.’

  ‘Check the meat fridge. Jurgen was saying-’

  ‘Oh there they are. Gross. Who the fuck did orders yesterday?’

  ‘George, I assume.’

  The fridges struggle and the drunks continue to shout. I can smell Chris's cigarette from here, musty and stale but weirdly pleasing.

  ‘I don't think he should be doing orders,’ the girl says. ‘I think you should start doing them again. We had to throw out like three boxes of barramundi on Wednesday 'cause he ordered so many.’

  Footsteps and rustling bags move from the fridges to the kitchen door.

  ‘Don't worry. He'll be gone soon,’ Chris says. His voice is much quieter now, so I gather they're both sitting on the steps.

  ‘He's leaving?’ the girl says, talking in like a shocked whisper. They're both silent for a bit, then the kitchen door closes. In the dark I can sense that they're still there.

  ‘...Sort of.’

  ‘He's getting fired?’

  ‘...Yeah. Yeah he is. Chances are. He's become too unpredictable. We can't have that shit going on in a kitchen.’

  ‘Well I think that's great. I think everyone's gonna be happy about that. Especially Max. He hates George,’ the girl says. Her voice has risen again.

  ‘Yeah, but keep all this to yourself, alright? I'll be in deep shit if Ray finds out I've been blabbing.’ Chris is still half-whispering.

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Also, another thing... Just between us, though.’

  ‘Okay, sure.’

  ‘That hooter Ray found out here.’

  ‘Hooter?’

  ‘Yeah. You know. Snorter. Drugs.’

  ‘Oh, right. With the coke on the chopping board?’

  ‘Yeah. Well I've told Jurgen to claim he saw George snorting coke out here. He's gonna have a talk with Ray next week.’

  ‘What? Don't drag Jurgen into this!’

  ‘I didn't drag him into this. He was in on it from the start. He wants George gone as much as anyone. We just need a health and safety thing to get him on. If it comes down to his shit with Michael, then unfortunately I think it'll be Michael who gets sent off. Besides, it'll sound better coming from Jurgen. Ray knows I've got it in for George.’

  ‘Jesus, Chris...’

  ‘Hey, how much longer do you want to put up with George's shit?’

  It's silent again. I'm tryna think how I can use this information to blackmail Chris somehow... Eventually I decide it's too early in my career to be doing that kinda shit, and I should prolly just not be such a cunt for once.

  ‘Did you ever find out who was sniffing coke out here?’ the girl says.

  ‘Nah. Not really interested,’ Chris says. ‘Honestly, it was probably Michael.’

  They both laugh.

  ‘That kid's nuts,’ the girl says.

  ‘He is. But he gets the job done, that's for sure. Been thinking of bumping him up to Tyson's job if this whole George thing works out. Get Michael on the grill, get Tyson doing frontline and try him out with orders and maybe even some admin shit. Had a new dishie in today, one of Michael's mates. Bit of a freak, but seems like a hard worker. He could probably fill Michael's spot with a bit more practice.’

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘Yeah, I think so.’

  ‘Well what about me then?’

  ‘What about you?’

  ‘You know how I was saying I wanted to get into some baking...’

  ‘Oh yeah. Well, we've already got Jurgen and Blakey doing that, so...’

  ‘Yeah I know. But keep in mind, I know things now. Things that could get you in trouble.’ Damn. Bitch took my idea. Oh well. Prolly wouldn't have been able to pull it off anyway.

  ‘Fuck. Really Elle? You're gonna pull this shit?’

  ‘Well, you know, just keep it in mind. When you're rearranging the roles in there. Just keep it in mind.’

  ‘Yeah well you're just gonna have to wait and see how this George shit pans out. Then I'll see what I can do.’

  ‘Nice.’

  ‘But that's the last time I let you in on this kinda thing, that's for fucking sure. Anyway, better get back inside. Come on.’

  I listen for the sound of them going back into the kitchen, then creep out from underneath the car into the dark. I take off my filthy, oil-stained shirt and sling it over my shoulder for the smell. I head over to the fridge confidently, my night vision noticeably sharpened with panic. I open the fridge and there's a huge selection of beers. Maybe I should take the opportunity to nick a whole case. I scan the fridge up and down for some of those black beers I was drinking earlier but I can't remember the name. Coopers something, maybe...

  The kitchen door opens again.

  Fucker.

  I stand perfectly still, obscured by the door. Silence. I clink some bottles around to make it sound like I'm looking for something.

  ‘Who's that?’ Chris's voice.

  ‘Just grabbing some...’ I mutter.

  ‘Charles?’

  ‘Yeah. Just...’

  I start rearranging some of the cases of beer, taking one out and putting it on the floor, then moving another one across. Just moving them around aimlessly. The beers in my hand clink around as I shiver. Hopefully he fucks off soon. Hopefully he just left his hat out here or something. He can't be coming out for another cigarette already. That's just unprofessional.

  ‘Charles?’ He's right behind me now.

  ‘Yeah?’ I say. He opens the door wider from behind me. I try to stand still but I'm shivering too much now. It's over. A few seconds pass and I give up and turn to face him. He's got me locked in like a triangle of cold, yellow light between him, the fridge, and the door. I wrap my arm around myself and avoid his eyes.

  ‘Hey Charles,’ he says. He seems amused, but I can tell he's not gonna let me go.

  I panic and say ‘I heard everything you were talking about before, you say anything and I'll-’

  ‘What the fuck are you doing, Stan?’ he says. I look up at him. His face is guarded, not revealing any kind of emotion.

  ‘You get the fuck out of the way,’ I say, tryna puff my chest up like Jordan. ‘I'm taking a six-pack and then I'm gone, okay? You won't see me again. Just get the fuck out of the way man. This is happening, alright. Deal with it.’

  ‘I can't let you do that, Stan.’ He's putting on a hard face, but I think he is actually a little intimidated by me. I might be able to pull this off.

  ‘I heard everything you said before,’ I say. I'm tryna sound tough, but my voice is trembling from the cold. My right hand grips a six-pack and I'm ready to smack him over the head with it if he tries anything. ‘I can ruin you, man. Let me go and I don't say a word. Let me go and we leave it at that.’

  ‘Listen, Stan. You don't have a leg to stand on. You tell, and Michael goes down with me. Ray already suspects him. Michael is easily replaced. I'm not. Any of this gets out and he goes down before I do. You really want to put Michael out of a job?’

  ‘I don't give a fuck about Michael. Let me go,’ I say. He raises his eyebrows at me. I'm fucked. I can tell he's one of those cunts who can sniff out a lie before it's even been said.

  ‘Sure you don't.’

  ‘I've got a six-pack in my hand cunt. You want that shit smashed over your fuckin' head?’

  ‘Okay, theft and assault. That'll look good on your CV.’

  ‘Fuck off I don't give a fuck. Won't mean shit to you when you're getting your skull stitched up.’

  ‘Getting my skull stitched up?’

  ‘Don't fuck with me, man. I'm fuckin' crazy.’ I don't know if I'm shaking from the cold or adrenaline now.

  ‘I can see that. But what I'm wondering here, Stan, is why the fuck you've broken into the garage to steal some beer. There's other ways you could have gone about this, you know. You're really putting me in an awkward spot.’

  ‘I think I'm in the awkward spot,’ I say, shivering.

  Chris smiles. ‘True, true. So anyway, Stan, I'll ask you again. What the fuck are you doing?’ His understanding smile makes me feel like a total cunt. I loosen my grip on the beers. Maybe he'll just let me go. I just wanna get the fuck out of here now. I don't even want the beer.

  ‘I wanted to get some beers but I couldn't get them at the bar,’ I admit, looking at my feet. I can't even look him in the eye anymore. I feel like such a piece of shit.

  ‘That can be arranged,’ he says. ‘Here, hand them over.’ I hand him the six-pack, which turns out to be Heinekens, and he steps back to let me out of the fridge. I consider bolting, but it seems somehow futile.

  ‘...What now?’ I say. My voice is weak and defeated, but I'm happy to be out of the fridge and in the dark.

  ‘Well here's what I'm thinking, Stan. What I'm thinking is that you're a pretty fucked up guy. Would you agree?’

  ‘Yeah...’

  ‘But I think Michael's a good dude, and I trust his judgement. So I'm willing to give you a second chance.’

  I nod. I'm not sure if he can actually see me, but I don't think it matters.

  His tone changes. ‘But if you ever try to pull this kind of shit again, I will make it my business to make sure you pay. And I'm not just talking about the beers, I'm talking about the blackmail, and the attitude. Now this is a favour, not a right. Is that clear?’

  I nod. I want to thank him, but he's not finished.

  ‘And if you make me regret this, I will get you back. You won't have a job here, that's a given. But that'll just be the start of it. My retribution will go beyond these walls. And yes, that is a threat. Now, why the fuck aren't you wearing a shirt?’

  ‘I was hiding under the car,’ I say.

  Chris laughs. ‘I guess you heard me call you weirdo before then?’

  ‘Freak,’ I correct him.

  ‘Yeah, freak. Well, Stan, I stand by that. You are a fucking freak. But what I'm seeing here is that this job may be one of the few opportunities you get to sort yourself out, and my belief is that you should never pass up the chance to save someone. Anyway, I've said what I need to say. I hope you learn from this. This is not an invitation to take advantage of my nature. This is an opportunity to better yourself. Whether or not you take that opportunity is up to you. But know one thing. I promise you I will not be so forgiving next time. There's no second chances here. Understood?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Good. Now, you take these with you, and I'll put it on my tab. But you fucking owe me. Big time. I'm gonna go to the lost property box and grab you a shirt. You wait outside.’

  He hands me the beer and I say thanks. I head outside, putting the six-pack in my bag on the way. I sit down on my board in the middle of the footpath because the building is too cold on my bare back. The air is a nice temperature, just cool enough to give me a slight chill. I go over our conversation in my head and realise that, under the pretext of taking mercy on me, the cunt really just psyched me out and paid me off with a six-pack. Fucker. Maybe I should go in there and grab some more alcohol. Let him know I sussed him out. He'd never expect that. I know the garage now. I could be in and out in a few seconds. Even if he busts me, I'll just have to get to the door before him. Then on my board and off down the road. He won't be able to keep up with me on my board. I'll leave my bag out here. Quick, in and out. I can do this... 

  Chris comes out with a grey hoodie and goes ‘This is all I could find.’

  I stand up and say ‘Thanks,’ as he hands it over. I put it on and fuck yeah, it fits perfect. It's the right temperature for a hoodie and no shirt tonight. Maybe this cunt's genuine. Maybe I should take the free beer and call it a victory.

  ‘Good fit,’ he says.

  ‘Fuck yeah. Thanks heaps, man. I appreciate it.’ Maybe he's actually got my back. He really is the kind of cunt you want on your side.

  He nods, serious-faced. ‘That's not a problem, Stan. Now you remember what I said. And if you breathe a word about the shit me an Elle talked about then you're fucking out of here, okay? And that includes to me, or Elle, or even Michael. Understood?’

  I nod. I'm glad to have something over him though. I picture myself taking over Michael's job and smile 'cause it's the first time in ages I've been able to think about the future without getting anxiety.

  ‘Good. I'll let Michael know about shifts for you next week. Enjoy the beers,’ he says.

  I start to thank him again, but he walks straight inside. I guess that means I pulled it off. I'm still employed. I'll tell Dad when I get home. That's the first thing Dad'll ask me. He'll go ‘How'd the job hunt go?’ I'll tell him I got myself a job at Bolton and Sons. Maybe I'll even save a couple of these beers so I can bring one home for him. Fuck, maybe I'll even drink a beer with the old cunt.

  I pick up my shit, leaving my oily shirt on the ground, and start walking towards the woods. A car beeps at me as I cross Fredericks and I flinch and hurry across the road. I start to feel like Chris sorta took the fight out of me before, brought me down a few pegs. Thoughts of picking fights or maybe getting down on a bit of shoplifting start to form in my head, but I let it go. I did alright. Free six-pack and a job. Whatever the case, I'm pretty positive 'cause I'm not thinking about suicide or cancer and I'm even giving some cunts the nod as I walk past them. In fact, I'm even starting to think that maybe human race isn't such a pack of assholes after all. Still, I'm looking forwards to getting away from the cunts and having a few drinks in the bush.

Robbie Marks

Anxiety and exhilaration grew inside me as we walked, twin emotions of unknown heritage vying for control; two sides of the same coin refusing to reconcile. I had lost awareness of my physical voice entirely; though I still spoke fervently into my Dictaphone, the content of my spiel had gradually drifted out of my conscious awareness, creating room for my more urgently relevant internal monologue. The physical voice wandered aimlessly through my unconscious, forming a barrier of concepts to protect my deeper introspection from outside influence, like a treacherous moat around a castle, leaving the captive king to ruminate in peace.

  Initially, I spoke aloud to keep Lucy from interrupting my stream of consciousness, a trail of insight evolving far too rapidly to be forced into words. However, as my introspective journey grew more involved, I began to see a darker, more ominous unconscious reason for my distraction: My thoughts were frightening; they were also too private and fresh to be spoken aloud - newly-spawned ideas and notions still needing cover and protection from the elements and their symbolism. Thoughts of cosmic uncertainty gave way to a more mundane and viscerally disturbing line of self-interrogation regarding the lives of myself and those around me, as well as our uncertain futures - subjects I had managed to hide from myself with endless contemplation of more eternal ideas such as the archetypes of consciousness and the universe at large. Long suppressed by constant psychedelic indulgence and esoteric studies, my ego had returned home early, an unwanted intruder into my private party. This time, it could not be placated with cosmic pretence. It wanted answers.

  The first issue it wanted to address was the notion of life without Collin's influence. In this form, it was easy to dismiss: He'll sleep it off, be back to normal in the morning; I'm no longer dependent on Collin for intellectual leadership; stepping out from Collin's shadow was to be the next natural step in my personal evolution; it is but another whim of The Great Void. But this was just the beginning of the introspective rabbit hole. Next came questions regarding Collin's mental state, namely: Has Collin lost his mind? That he was unwell could not be denied - I had come to terms with this already; but, as is often the case, this seemingly innocuous thought was a Trojan horse, a cancerous thought in possession of many tentacles, reaching out to more sinister and troubling ideas I would not have otherwise allowed into my conscious attention. Yes, Collin's mental state was troubling; I had already decided that I could not trust his words as faithfully as I once had, afraid of getting lost in the mounting l'appel du vide that seemed to engulf all who came too close. What brought about this anxiety was the question of when: Was this a process or an event? Still powerfully affected by the Mescaline, I took the opportunity to enter into an immersive recollection. I gestured to Lucy to have a seat with me in the shrubs, ostensibly to allow whatever I was talking about my full attention.

  ‘What's Chesed, Robbie?’ Lucy asked once we were seated.

  ‘It's, uh, like....’ I started, frustrated by the bulky inelegance of words in contrast to the rhythmic flow of my thoughts. ‘Chesed is like leadership,’ I said, feeling obliged to include Lucy in my ruminations. ‘It comes from a Hebrew word meaning, uh, the love of God, I think ... Jupiter - it corresponds to Jupiter. Or Zeus. That kind of energy. Creation, expansion.’

  ‘Is it a Chakrah?’

  ‘Nah it's a Sephirot - uh, from the Qabalah.... Hey, I'm gonna close my eyes and go inside for a bit, okay? I've got something I need to think through.’

  ‘Okay. Is it about Collin?’

  ‘... What?’

  ‘Is it about Collin, what you need to think about?’

  ‘Why do you say that?’

  ‘I dunno. It's what I was thinking about just now. And you keep talking about Chesed. It sounds like you mean Collin.’

  ‘Oh yeah ... well, not Collin as such but ... well, it's all interwoven, really. The whole tapestry. But, I mean, yeah, sure Collin comes into it, but like, so does, you know, pretty much everything.’

  ‘Don't get worried about Collin okay?’

  ‘I'm not. No I'm just gonna consider the, uh, Qabalah, and how it relates to, uh....’

  ‘Okay. You can go quiet and think now.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  I lay back on the grass and closed my eyes, mentally backtracking past the eerily appropriate exchange with Lucy. I had lied to her: Collin at the nexus of my meditations. The closed-eye imagery was malleable, phenylethylamine-type visuals, which I, using the will of my returning ego, directed toward the memory I hoped to visit. I allowed the strobing vein-patterns to settle into a consistent rhythm before willing them to take on the form of classroom walls and background movement. The visuals settled obediently, accompanied by the garbled sound of static that gradually cleared into the excited chatter of children, as I mentally visited my nine-year-old self in Mr. Crowther's classroom. This was where I began pursuing Collin's friendship. What had started as a distant admiration of both him and Ned, a mixture of awe and envy at their rebellious spirits and advanced minds, bloomed slowly over the next six-or-seven years into a vague friendship that solidified when the three of us, under the guidance of Michael, started smoking weed together in high school. We were around fifteen then, and we felt as if we had uncovered some kind of great secret together, imbibing us with a certain awareness not shared by our peers. Oddly, it was Michael who told us it was all bullshit, and that we should rise against it; but it was Collin, in his characteristically subtle yet determined manner, who was leading the way. This influence could be traced all the way back to Mr. Crowther's class, when Collin found the teacher’s guidebook. For Collin, and the select few of us that understood the gravity of it, this changed everything: Collin, at the age of nine, found the teacher's guide.

  He invited several of us, myself and Ned included, down to the ‘The Wastelands’ that lunchtime; The Wastelands was his code name for a little hut he and Ned had made. This was the location of many strange rituals, few of which I managed to involve myself in. To get to The Wastelands, one had to enter the bush at the end of the field, which was already risking a detention, and travel all the way to the bottom, cross the swamp - accomplished by swinging from the vines that draped from the trees - and climb over the fence at the end. The explorer would then find himself in a particularly bushy corner of someone's farm; the house could only barely be seen in the distance, and there would occasionally be cows roaming the paddock. The Wastelands was a rudimentary dwelling made by leaning a piece of iron against a tree, and contained a small fire-pit and a chilly bin locked shut with two belts, usually stocked with fizzy drinks, sweets, and banned Mad magazines. Collin and Ned spread rumours of a boar roaming the bush, as well as a gun-wielding farmer patrolling his land, to further dissuade people from seeking The Wastelands. From my Mescaline-inspired vantage point, I saw this as the embryonic beginnings of Ned and Collin's private world, one which I had tried in vain to infiltrate ever since. I began to wonder if this was truly the beginning, as well as whether it truly ever ended. Even as a child, Collin seemed to simultaneously inhabit two worlds. Whenever I Collin and I played together, there was a sense we were all in Collin's world; as if we played a small part in the unfolding of a fantastical drama that continued long after we stopped playing, following Collin home and into his dreams. Collin claimed to be in communion with the ‘Elder Gods’, entities who resided in ‘Outworld’ and gave Collin orders to pass on to the rest of us. I later found out that these characters and worlds were lifted from the video game Mortal Kombat, but Collin's brilliance shone through nonetheless. He told us that we weren't allowed to sing in assembly, and that we weren't to use manners when talking to teachers, lest we lose ‘chances’ - some kind of ranking system used by the Elder Gods as they obsessed over the activities of nine-year-olds. He once caught me saying ‘please’ to a teacher, and I claimed to have said ‘blease’, desperate to appease Collin, and, in turn, the Elder Gods of his imagination....

  ‘Robbie.’

  I realised that I never stopped trying to appease Collin; his rebellion against teachers turned into a rebellion against society; the Outworld of his imagination became the subterranean realms of the unconscious we dug tirelessly toward during adolescence. This tendency toward ostranenie gradually developed anti-social undertones and became paranoia and eventually a form of psychosis, perhaps triggered by Ned's departure to the psyche ward in year eleven....

  ‘Hey Robbie.’

  Ned's descent into psychosis was a more abstract transition, him being even more deeply secretive than Collin. In fact, it had been Ned who first showed Collin to The Wastelands, as well as introducing him to Michael, and therefore weed and amphetamines, later on....

  ‘I think it's time to go, Robbie....’

  But attempting to understand Ned has a curious effect on one’s thought patterns; to consider his words and actions from a rational perspective scrambles the mind, as their sense of order works in an obtuse way, subject to a kind of logic that exists only in its own terms, lost in the maze of pataphysics and sausage dog tales. In order to understand Ned, you have to think like Ned; and to think like Ned is to reject the very notion of understanding….

  ‘Robbie.’

  This makes it impossible to place the events of his life into a timeline without simplifying them, turning them into something they’re not. By the time one makes any sense out of it, it has lost all meaning. One finds himself wondering what the ‘it’ in question even is, and all that is left is a loosely connected string of thoughts with no sense of direction, and no desire to reach any kind of conclusion. Because what is the ‘it’ that is being concluded? It’s a question that questions itself, a psychic Chinese finger trap made of the same thoughts that are struggling to escape it. The true question is: Is the surrender to the antipodes of the mind worthwhile? Is the rejection of order and logic worth anything more than the act itself?

  ‘Robbie, wake up.’

  I opened my eyes.

  ‘Hey, Lucy. When do you think Ned went insane? Do you think there was something that set it off? Or was it a more gradual thing, like Collin?’

  ‘That's not what you were supposed to be thinking about in there,’ Lucy said, almost annoyed.

  ‘I know.... It was a, uh, side tangent.’

  ‘Did you forget what you were trying to think about?’

  ‘Uh, yeah I guess so. I was thinking about the guidebook....’

  ‘The Qabalah one?’

  ‘No the ... Oh yeah. Yeah the Qabalah one,’ I lied.

  ‘Did you forget about Chesed?’

  ‘Er, no not really. I went inside it for a look.’

  ‘Oh, okay. Can we go now? I'm a bit cold. Let's get walking. I don't want to keep sitting down.’

  ‘Yeah okay. Good idea.’

  Lucy stood up and started walking. I gathered my bag and Dictaphone and followed.

  ‘Ned didn't go insane, Robbie. Ned's fine,’ she said.

  ‘Yeah, you're right.’ The night was quiet and starry, the air cool and still. I said, ‘Guidebook,’ into my Dictaphone, to remind myself of the central point I had distracted myself from. I resolved to meditate more; I had failed to keep my mind on track, and once again blundered into thoughts of paranoia and insanity. I put my Dictaphone back into my bag and we walked silently. I would need one more stop before the Seed Freaks’ to resolve my meditation; but this time, I would keep focus. Guidebook. The beach, then Tracey, then Seed Freaks. Then some DMT.

Stan Richards

From the treetop and through my binoculars, I can see the sasquatches in the distance. They're standing in a circle around Tim, our unconscious fallen soldier, grunting to each other and prodding him with their feet.

  ‘I've spotted them,’ I call down to my comrades. The beasts acknowledge my voice and look around for a moment before turning their attention back to Tim. I have acted foolishly. This is no time to be rash. At times like this, one must be completely deliberate in all actions. One wrong move could prove fatal.

  I climb down the tree to my comrades waiting at our makeshift campsite. We've been awake for days, living only on carefully identified leaves and the occasional wild animal. The weary eyes look at me expectantly.

  ‘This is not a mission for the faint-hearted. We need stealth, wits, and most of all, nerves of steel,’ I say, unwilling to waste words as any energy expenditure must be rationed if we are to make it off the island alive.

  ‘But what chance do we have against these creatures? They have claws and teeth and they know this forest well. I say we sleep, and continue our pursuit in the morning.’

  ‘No. They'll be gone by morning. We need to do this now,’ I say. My comrades, fearless in their own world, have been reduced to cowards by hunger and misfortune. It's up to me to keep up the morale.

  ‘Well what's the plan then, Stan?’ Hunter, my unofficial second-in-command, manages, bringing a weak smile to the weary faces.

  ‘Look,’ I say, thinking quickly, ‘bamboo. We can make blow darts out of this. There's poison sumac just beyond the ridge.’

  ‘And I suppose you expect us to figure out how to make them?’ Joey says. He's been a thorn in my side for the entire expedition, and I've had to work non-stop to keep his cowardice from dampening everyone's spirits.

  ‘No, I've thought this through,’ I say, holding back the urge to snap at him. As much as his constant negativity has been putting our lives in jeopardy, I must fight to remain upbeat. The harsh truth is that Joey won't survive another day out here - his constitution is too weak. And as much as he's been bringing us all down, I know it'll destroy me when he finally goes, and what matters now is that I don't spend my last moments with him fighting.

  ‘Let's just go,’ he says. ‘We won't last another day out here, and if we leave him then at least maybe we could survive.’

  I ignore him - we've already lost one person out here, Tim's brother, and it is our duty to make sure we don't lose another. We owe it to their father, who took us all in when no one else would.

  ‘I've already figured this out,’ I say. ‘We'll boil the sumac in that pot-’

  ‘But that's our last pot! We won't be able use it to eat if you do that.’

  ‘Doesn't matter. We retrieve Tim tonight, then we're out of here by morning. We just need to follow the compass north. It will be a long trek - a day, maybe more - but we can survive on vegetation for that time.’

  ‘But what if you fail? I say we start heading back now, get help for Tim once we get back to the township. It's our only hope.’

  ‘No. It might be days before help makes it to Tim. He'll be sasquatch shit by then.’

  My comrades fall into silent agreement, so I continue.

  ‘Okay, so we boil the sumac down. Erin, you get started on that now. We'll use the needles from the hedgehogs we ate for dinner as darts. Just soak them in the concoction. I'll need as many as we can get, so start now.’

  ‘But think of how close you'll have to get to them! You'll be dead after one shot!’

  ‘Well that's where I need help. Joey: I know you don't agree with my plan, but I need you here.’

  ‘Oh here we go-’

  ‘Shut up. Remember the day before we got lost, when you won that throwing contest on the beach? Well now we need your skills. I've spotted monkeys sleeping in the trees just above the sasquatches. I need you to climb this tree and watch me through the binoculars. When I give you the signal, I need you to throw a barrage of rocks into the trees. That will wake up the monkeys. If the chaos caused is sufficient, I'll be able to-’

  A distant rustle of leaves.

  What the fuck?

  Oh fuck there's actually someone there.

  I put my fantasy on hold and squint into the darkness. Silhouetted against the street lights, right where I imagined the sasquatches, is a lanky figure struggling through the shrubs. I'm wondering what the fuck kind of creep is wandering around the bush on his own at night, and all I can think of is Kit, Rory's Dad. The proportions are about right.

  With my beer in one hand and skateboard in the other, I creep slowly to get a closer look. The figure is stumbling drunkenly, stopping every few steps. I can't see well enough to make out details. I walk as silently as I can, slowly closing the distance. He seems maybe slightly aware of my noise, but it's almost as if it's reacting to things I can't see or hear.

  Once I'm a few metres away, I squat down and watch. He mumbles something incoherent and stands completely still, looking in the opposite direction. I finish my beer silently and throw the empty bottle just in front of him. At first it seems like he didn't notice, but after a few seconds he continues walking, as if I'd snapped him out of a trance. I follow him till he gets knocked off his feet brushing past a tree. The shrubs seem to catch him as he falls, producing a soft rustle like he'd been placed down gently. He starts laughing and I recognise the voice straight away.

  ‘Ned!’ I call. No response.

  I jog over to him. It's too dark to see him down in the shadows, but his limbs are rustling around in the plants, and he's uttering shit that doesn't sound human. Tripping balls, as fuckin' usual. Crazy fuck... I know all those dudes get themselves in some fucked up states, but this cunt just doesn't know when to say when.

  ‘Ned, it's Stan. You okay?’ He doesn't respond. I shine my phone light on him. He's got no shirt on and his limbs are waving around clumsily, like he's trying to rearrange some small objects at eye-level. His body is even more skeletal than I remember, like some anorexia-level shit. His skin looks paper-thin, a weightless veil resting on top of a jagged, angular ribcage and visibly thumping heart.

  ‘Can you hear me?’ I ask, moving the light from his freakish body up to his face, looking for some kind of recognition. His eyes are open in a stoned squint, but they don't react even when I shine the light right into them. His pupils have expanded to the point that all I can see in the slits is reflected light. A fresh scar on his cheek seeps grimy blood like a single tear down past the side of his mouth. There's like a vague smile, but it's all slack and fucked up.

  ‘You want a beer?’ I ask, testing how out of it he really is. His face doesn't respond at all, but one of his hands pauses in midair expectantly. I pull my bag around to my front and get him a beer. As soon as the glass touches his hand, the fucker bats it away in an abrupt motion. I jump back in shock as he scrambles onto all fours and bounds away with a wounded howl, graceful and sleek like an animal, till he gallops face first into something with a dull crack.

  He melts limp into the darkness and I gather my shit in my arms and rush over. Just as I almost catch up to him, he gets back on his feet and crawls over a fallen log. He's moving quick now, out towards the city. I zip my bag up and follow him 'cause the fucker won't survive like this if he gets to the road.

Benji Miller

The cold night air was a welcome change from the microwave-like atmosphere of Mind Garden; incense and weak ethnic drums suffocating our inner animals as we chose our fuel for the night. I decided on a pack of Mad Mikes - BZP for the punk intensity, seasoned with just enough TFMPP to make things interesting - while Lance grabbed a pack of Torpedoes for himself, and some cheap Hyperdrives for Jordan, both straight BZP. We both popped our pills immediately, having lost patience with the prospect of dexies, looking for something more than the flimsy, caffeine-like high of pre-workout.

  Out on the street, we strode along with heightened senses and steel readiness. Lance had started motor-mouthing about fucking up that old hippy from Mind Garden and other potential targets, but I walked in silence, aware of Lance but focused on the rope-like tightness of my muscles and the endless reserves of potential energy standing by like Golems, awaiting the inevitable shock of sentience that was to come.

  ‘But bro, fuck, we should fully just roll that fucker for his dexies,’ Lance said, his vigour undisciplined and erratic. ‘Skinny little maggot goes down in one punch, every time. Why the fuck are we paying him for those shits? His safety should be enough. Let's pay him a visit, show him where he stands. Show him what happens when he holds out on us.’ BZP brings out the weakness in Lance; this weakness being, perversely, his unbridled potency, and the attendant unwillingness to compromise.

  ‘Bitch, you gotta think more long term. If it's immunity we offer in exchange for dexies, then bashing him will get us nowhere. Let's just keep him around. He's useful.’

  ‘He's taking the piss though; expects us to pay him and not fuck him up? Bro. You know what that's saying about us? That's saying it's us who answer to him. That's just not fuckin' right, bro. Not fucking right.’

  I remained in calm silence as his excess grit found something else to fixate on. I once looked up to Lance as an older brother; modelled my own identity around his explosive presence, his fearless dominance. But, over time, I reached the limitations of his unrestrained, volatile approach, and moved past them into something greater. I now felt as if it was I who was the older brother, composed and world-wary, using my excess of self-discipline to channel his energies to constructive ends, as a teacher would student.

  ‘Cunt's on the List, anyway,’ he said, moving his monologue to the topic of his ‘List’, as he always did eventually. I understood the appeal of this fantasy; Michael had fucked us around consistently and remorselessly ever since we started doing business. Of course, with Mind Garden around, this presented no serious issue; when the dosage, strength, and duration of effects were taken into account, BZP pills were of greater value than dexies. The real issue lay in Michael's insolence, his insulting disregard for the blindingly obvious hierarchy. Both Jordan and Lance had gone head to head with him in a one-outs - a pleasure I was yet to enjoy - easily reducing him to an impotent heap, whimpering into the concrete on one occasion, completely unconscious the other. It was beginning to seem as if he'd forgotten this fact, as he had become openly and unapologetically belligerent toward us - at times even hostile. But such is the nature of power dynamics: the complexities of the hierarchy that take more than brute force to navigate. It may be power and ruthlessness that propels a creature to the top of the pecking order, but to maintain this position takes cunning.

  ‘The time will come,’ I said, bringing about a much needed silence.

  A few blocks from Jordan's, we fell into line behind an older guy, early twenties, with a slightly unsteady gait that signified either physical or mental weakness. We hunted him from streetlight to streetlight, slowly closing the gap between him and us with every furtive glance over his shoulder. Foolishly, he took a turn down the barely-lit one-way behind the meatworks, speeding up his walk as one final glance confirmed we were still following. We moved with silent speed until we caught up and fell into step on either side of him. His walk became uneasy and indecisive, afraid to acknowledge us openly, but even more frightened to ignore the obvious.

  ‘Hey mate. Can I ask you a question?’ I said.

  Gripped with fear of the inevitable, he stopped walking and looked up from his feet from me to Lance as we both turned in on him.

  ‘I... I don't want any trouble here guys. I'm just heading home okay?’ he said, the weak effort to sound assertive shaking his thin, gutless voice.

  ‘Hey, there's no trouble,’ I put my hand on his shoulder and flashed him a clenched smile. ‘I just wanted to ask you a question.’

  ‘... What?’ he cleared his throat, eyes wide with fear, darting from me to Lance; Lance moved around him casually, looking around at the surrounding buildings with an air of mild appreciation.

  ‘Do you think my boyfriend's hot?’ I asked, nodding to Lance, tightening my grip on his shoulder almost imperceptibly. Lance shook his head at me, but fell into character when our victim's stare flicked from me to him.

  ‘Um... I, um...’ he looked from Lance to the ground, then back to me, his mind now paralysed with fear, capable of no more than repeating cycles.

  ‘Him, just over there,’ I nodded once again to Lance, who stared at our victim with an innocent shrug.

  ‘Um, I'm not gay so, uh...’

  ‘And you're saying I am?’ My grip tensed, clarifying our intentions.

  ‘What? I'm not saying anything dude, I'm just trying to-’

  ‘You think that 'cause I like a cock up my arse every once in a while it makes me gay?’

  ‘No, please, just let me go home. Please I've done nothing-’

  ‘You think that just 'cause I suck my brother's dick every morning that makes me a faggot? Huh? Can I not even share a steamy shower with my own brother without you getting-’

  ‘Oh fuck this shit,’ Lance cried, and knocked the victim to the ground with a swinging right-hander straight to the temple. Our victim crumbled with no more than a defeated groan, curling up into the foetal position, the fear in his face now a perverted relief, resigned to his fate as the two of us unleashed our built-up potency. I clamped his head under my boot with gradually building pressure, as Lance threw a volley of kicks into his chest and stomach, axe-kicking his kidneys to open him up whenever he curled in too tightly, his body pivoting around his head with each blow. I released his head from under my foot and signalled to Lance to back off; then wound my foot back, held the position until his eyes started to flicker open, and released the full force into his mouth, creating a satisfying scatter of blood and teeth as he rolled over into a defeated curl, sobbing pathetically with his hands against his bleeding face.

  ‘God damn faggot,’ Lance said, before booting the back of his head into the puddle of blood and skull. ‘And you,’ he nodded at me, ‘always with the gay shit.’

  ‘You love it, bitch,’ I said, a covert maintenance of the hierarchy. ‘Let's go.’ 

  Glowing with victory, we walked silently towards Jordan's, almost ready to settle in for some casual sparring, when Lance's hand on my shoulder suddenly halted me.

  ‘Bro,’ he nodded to a swaying silhouette emerging from the trees into the light.

  ‘Fuck it, let's just grab Jordan and we can go out hunting after.’

  ‘Nah bro, look.’

  Curious, I focused my eyes on the figure several streetlights down, which was now standing still with an unusual lean. It was a lanky, anorexic long-hair with no shirt or shoes. It took me a moment, but when it flashed to me, I grinned at Lance and we walked silently towards it.

  ‘Bitch, this'll make a good present for Jordan,’ I said; Lance nodded in agreement. It was Ned, the most wasted of all the wasters. Tonight, we were to celebrate Jordan's eighteenth birthday by getting wired and having some one-outs with the gloves, before heading into town to hunt. We had planned to get Jordan a tray of dexies as a gift, but settled on pills after losing patience with Michael. This, however, would be a superior gift; Jordan, like Lance, had a List of his own, one which had been headed by Ned for some time now. This was a real freak we were dealing with here; a physically weak specimen, utterly undisciplined, and, above all, sneaky and underhanded in combat and nature, the hallmarks of a kinky drug-user... To even think to tickle a man while he's winded is unforgivable; when it's one of us you're tickling, it's a death sentence. It was time to settle the score.

  The clown was so drugged-out that he didn't even notice us as we confronted him. His hair hung in front of his face and he stood as if leaning on an invisible wall, mumbling tripped-out bullshit to himself. I looked at Lance, who shrugged before knocking him into a flaccid heap on the ground in one punch.

  Branches crackled in the bush to the left, bringing us both to attention for a moment. The air was silent, so I said, ‘Let's save him for Jordan,’ bringing us back to the present. We bent down to pick him up, but a sudden rustle of leaves and the thump of blunt force impact knocked Lance onto the ground next to Ned, clutching his head. Lightning fast, I spun around and threw a blind punch in the direction of the ambush, but my fist was met with the sandpaper swipe of a skateboard. Alert and ready, I followed through with a weak left-handed punch that landed square in my opponent's jaw, followed by a right-handed uppercut and a swinging left-hander. With my rhythm in place and my opponent stunned, I wound back for the finishing headbutt to the jaw, but a rippling thud to the side of my head knocked me off balance with the taste of blood. Drunk on rage and adrenaline, I lunged at my attacker, but somehow ended up with a headbutt to my own nose, knocking me down. Unfazed, I tried to push myself up, but the splitting pain of a board to the back of the head sent me face first to the concrete. I managed to right myself enough to witness Lance try to do the same, only to get knocked back down with another murderous hack to the back of the head. Unusual fear turned my anger into bloodlust, and I sprung to my feet, dizzy but focused, and managed to catch the skateboard mid-swing. I used it to pull my assailant toward me for the finishing headbutt, but the sound of glass shattering turned into searing pain on the side of my head that dribbled warm down my face as I lost grip of the skateboard in weakness and crumbled onto the mess of glass shards on the concrete. My body trembled uncontrollably as I tried to push myself up, and the skateboard slammed down on the back of my already throbbing head, blurring my vision and numbing my mind to a stupor.

  Through a moist blur, I saw the unmoving shape of Lance on the ground. Out of the corner of my eye, Ned's unconscious legs lifted slightly and his feet dragged along the concrete, out of my vision. I accepted defeat and managed to hoist myself up into a slump against a rubbish bin, dazed but thinking in terms of recovery as my mind started to clear. Stan, the fucker. Perhaps he was a match for us after all. Now, I could only wait to regain my senses, then revenge would be mine.

Lucy Winters

Upon the throbbing beat of the Earth flames lick the darkness of the air, cracking and snapping, forging myths and fables within the dancing orchestra of Nature, impressionistic characters and scenarios flowing into and out of existence, glowing in my fingertips. The night wind strums uplifting soundscapes through the branches and leaves, prancing along the rumbling mass of ocean upon sand, waves through night . . . The occasional birdsong or distant shuffle of life in the seaside shrubbery floats atop the shifting terrain of melody, backing up Robbie's narrative as he channels the vibrations of his backup band into words, narrating the indescribable in human tongue . . . Deciphering the riffs of the treetop guitar strings, relating the rolling waves to the human experience . . .

  ‘The curious question is of the probability enhancing properties of thoughts. That being, that by simply thinking something, you increase its chances of occurring. Can this be attributed to a kind of subconscious self priming or self hypnosis, whereby one orchestrates a situation where their future self will believe the occurrence to be a manifestation of a past thought? This being the case, one might selectively reflect upon the past, salvaging a single relevant thought from the multidimensional mass of mental chatter in an attempt to invite some magic into the grey of the world . . .’ His voice is calm and flowing, riding the slow rolling motions of the water instead of the usual erratic geometry of his shivering mind, ‘Or perhaps even a prediction of such an event, a divination rather than an enchantment, a lower form of magic . . . But there is a third possibility, at odds with the secular sensibilities of modern humans. An ode to the times of shamans and magic. This is the notion that the very thought of an occurrence can serve as the embryonic seed of its existence . . .’

  I'm racking up small lines of ketamine for Robbie and me, a slow motion dance to the grand orchestra happening around us. I'm always the one dancing to the music instead of playing an instrument, but I contribute behind the scenes, make sure the whole terrarium is clean and running nice . . . two lines ready for us on the back of the Alan Watts book, The Way of Zen. Robbie was supposed to be reading it on this trip. He read it a few months ago and said he was going to read it between every other book. To cleanse his palette, he said. But he’s still only read it once. He just can’t resist the dark allure of Peter Carroll and Robert Anton Wilson . . . I lick up my line because I don't want to put anything up my nose, then put it on the sand because Robbie has to wait until he's finished his projection before he can have his . . .

  ‘. . . This can all be further complicated by considering the notion that by merely thinking about an occurrence, one may increase the chance of it occurring for others via some kind of transhuman force or energy . . . or perhaps simply by opening oneself up to certain phenomena and thereby subtly altering one's patterns in thought speech and action, inviting such influences into one's life, and, in turn, sparking imitation by others who would, in doing so, invite such influence into their own lives . . . Perhaps within this lies the art of charisma and the formation of cults. Either way, by merely thinking of this, one or more of these possibilities shall become more true, depending how true they already are individually and presently. . .’

  The wind calms and the fire dances silently to its own energy. I turn off the tape recorder, which is sitting listening next to The Way of Zen between Robbie and me. I start ripping up the weed and passionflower for a double skinner, enjoying the instrumental as Robbie stares into the fire invoking his paradoxes.

  I wait until his amber flickering face softens into a satisfied smile turned inwards, then hand him the ketamine book. He sniffs it up without a hooter, declares his love for something or someone, then lies back on the sandy grass. The roar of the tide picks up again and I carefully place the unrolled joint on a piece of driftwood next to me to go into Robbie's bag. I get out the bag of DMT and sprinkle a thick layer onto the weed and passionflower, hoping it's the right powder because I'm not quite ready to decompress yet.

The fire has dwindled to a slowly breathing patch of embers and the air is still and black. Robbie is crouched over the remains of the fire, lighting up the joint. I'm still not completely sure what ketamine does, but Robbie's flared up inside, overflowing with abandon and wild dancing hair. He gets the joint going and snuggles into the flaxes with me to smoke.

  ‘Owning land though . . . what a joke,’ he says, puffing on the joint. I'm not sure what kind of tangent he's on now. I think he's moved past aliens and psychic activity, but I'm not sure how he got onto owning land. The smoke smells like pungent potpourri with some sinister nuclear tones, reminds me of smoking weed after snorting party pills. The smell of adolescence.

  ‘Well it's not a very funny joke,’ I say. He passes me the joint and I take a nice deep puff. His hand is resting on my knee, idly tracing trails of pinpricks on my skin, the electricity where the land meets the sky . . .

  ‘It's not the kind of joke you laugh out loud at. It's a gallows joke . . . humour a few shades darker than black. Here, pass it over. We need to get this into us while we still can.’

  I puff again and pass it over to him, breathing out the song that I rolled it to . . . Glowing ferns uncoil from the shadows of the hills and the shimmering void of the ocean, reaching through and around the washes of colour . . . the deep breathing red of the embers . . . the pale liquid white of the moon, resting weightless and cool around us, like the thin layer of snow that glows on mountains on clear summer nights . . .

  ‘You know, people have started buying the space above buildings,’ his voice is oceanic and drifting, without end or beginning, just shimmers and disperses into the ethereal images he creates from the curling shadows . . . beams of white light projecting up into the sky from the ground like static searchlights, searching the skies for ways to expand, spread . . .

  He passes me the joint and I inhale deep into myself, further into the whiteness . . . riding the searchlights up to the sky like a spectral elevator . . . Riding Robbie's words higher . . . ‘This is just the start though. Soon they'll be buying escape points in the ozone layer to run away from the planet they fucked up . . .’ all the way up to the stratosphere, floating empty, looking down at the tiny cities like circuit boards spreading over the green and into the blue . . . acrobatic clouds thrashing gracefully, slowing into sick heavy grey, a single tear . . . ‘'Cause planet Earth by then is just a huge metal ball. A thin layer of earth and water over top of the mantle, then a huge layer of machinery over top of that, grinding gears and cogs and great lumbering machines . . . systematically mining the organic layer beneath it for resources . . .’ the human race knowing only the mechanical layer . . . the dirt and the trees and the water none of our business anymore . . . only of concern to scientists . . . ‘Property of the government . . .’ but the planet still alive, just like a cyborg now . . . tossing and turning beneath the layer of grim metal . . . volcanoes and earthquakes protesting beneath the human race . . . ‘Feeding the machine, a machine powered by the illness of the Earth . . . You done with that?’

  Robbie lifts the joint from my fingers and shrinks away with the rest of the great metal ball, spinning away from me . . . a tiny grey spaceship . . . connecting to all the other metal balls out there light years away with invisible tendrils of radio waves . . . unknowingly working together to colonise the suns . . .

  ‘But could that really be it? The mystical fifth element of malkuth, the ether, the path to yesod . . . no more than the ravaging of the biological planet, the harnessing of the four elements for their own gain . . . the inevitable destruction of brilliance . . . Here, you take it,’ I can't, I'm out here now . . . ‘That's the thing though . . . a more advanced species wouldn't be at peace with the universe. We're the most advanced species on this planet and we're the most vile and destructive of them all, murdering the planet we live on in the name of progress . . .’ A living planet would not consent to autopsy . . . ‘Killing the very thing that gives us life, just to own its corpse . . . Mining its dead flesh . . .’

  ‘Selling space to each other . . .’

  ‘Yeah. There's this artist though. Yves Klein.’

  ‘The scar on your arm from when you burnt your wings on the sun . . .’

  ‘Yeah. Well, anyway, Yves Klein . . . He was selling the sky, like in the form of art. He said he meditated into the sky one day, just like blasted up there and left his signature on it. Apparently he was with some friends and they divided the sky and the land and the sea between them . . .’

  ‘Ned can have the sea . . . I think Collin wants the sun . . .’

  ‘Yeah. So this guy, Yves Klein, he started selling these sky blue canvases. Just pure blue, nothing on them. Just painted them blue and sold them. Sold everyone bits of the sky. It was a symbol, like money or like the deed to a house or something. But he was selling them bits of the sky.’

  ‘The sky . . .’

  ‘Yeah . . . But so he did this martial art earlier on. It was to do with using the currents of the air, like harnessing it, like Chi kinda. I guess. But he mastered that, like got to black belt or whatever, then claimed the sky as his own. The source of the air he harnessed through his martial art . . . I mean, what gives him any less right to the sky than the people who are buying bits of it off the government for their buildings? What gives the government the right to the sky? Did they astral project into the sky to claim it? Did they pursue mastery over the air as an element? Who owns the sea? Who really owns the land? Is it all governed by marks on sheets of paper? Or is there something real?’

  ‘. . .’

  ‘What do you think?’

  ‘. . . The sky . . .’

  ‘Yeah. The sky.’

  ‘Should we go grab space then? Before someone else gets it.’

  ‘Yeah. Wanna roll up another one? That ketamine's kicking my ass. More DMT and less bud this time, I think.’

  ‘You wanna go again?’

  ‘Yeah, but this time we know what we're doing.’

Tracey Colombera

‘I'm...Peter. Peter. Yeah...Peter’ he says finally. He's still standing about two metres away from me. He looks like he's about to do something. He always looks like he's about to do something.

  ‘I'm Tracey.’

  ‘Hi Tracey.’

  ‘Hi Peter.’

  He stands very still when he talks. Just like Collin.

  ‘Do you...live here, Tracey?’ he says.

  ‘No. Do you?’

  ‘Well...yes. Yes, I suppose I do.’

  ‘Then you should know that I don't live here.’

  ‘Yes, yes I should know that. I should...I'm sorry.’

  ‘You don't need to apologise to me.’

  ‘I know. I'm very, very sorry...’

  ‘Do you need someone to accept your apology?’

  ‘So very sorry...’

  ‘Instead of apologising, you could try saying thanks. That way all the other person has to say is you're welcome. It's better than accepting an apology.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘You're welcome.’

  He holds my eye contact until I get bored and carry on looking through the mess for some ketamine. Eventually he sits down in the red chair. He lowers himself onto it like it's a hot bath.

  ‘You'll have to excuse my madness. I've been decohering downstairs for a while now’ he says to the floor.

  ‘That's okay. I think I've been decohering a bit too.’

  ‘I don't doubt that at all.’

  The table is covered in weird drawings and diagrams. They look like Da Vinci sketches but with scruffy handwriting. There's a few white pills in a baggie. They aren't dexies. I don't think they're ketamine either. I don't think ketamine comes in pills.

  ‘What does decohering mean?’ I ask.

  ‘...I suppose what I should have said is thank you for tolerating my madness.’

  ‘You're welcome.’

  There's a stain of white powder on the coffee table so I start gathering it into a line with one of the cards lying there.

  ‘Are you a friend of Collin's?’ he asks. He still seems really small, even though he's closer to me now. He's a very small man.

  ‘Kind of. A friend of a friend I suppose.’

  ‘I don't think Collin's here. I came up because I thought the house was finally empty.’

  ‘I'm actually looking for Robbie.’

  ‘You're very quiet. I couldn't even hear your footsteps.’

  ‘That's because I contracted.’

  ‘Contracted?’ He looks up at me then leans to his side, resting his head on two fingers and a thumb.

  ‘Yeah. I contracted all the way here because I didn't want to be seen. I guess I've expanded now’ I say.

  ‘Have you been talking to...’

  ‘Kit? Yeah. But that was a while ago. Do you think this is ketamine here?’

  ‘Ketamine? As in the tranquilliser?’

  ‘Yeah. I'll let you know.’ I tear a small sheet off of one of Michael's drawings and roll it into a hooter and snort my line. It doesn't really hurt going up like ketamine did.

  ‘What is it you want ketamine for?’

  ‘The feeling, mostly.’

  ‘The feeling?’

  ‘Yeah. And the powers.’

  ‘Powers?’

  ‘It lets me expand and contract at will.’

  ‘Did Kit introduce you to ketamine?’

  ‘No. Actually his son did. He got it from Robbie, though. Do you know Robbie?’

  ‘Which son is this?’

  ‘Rory. Do you know Robbie?’

  ‘Not that I’m aware of...’

  ‘Robbie Marks.’

  ‘It rings a bell. Is he one of the people who's been living here?’

  ‘Maybe. He's here a lot. Not today, though. Unfortunately.’

  Peter's frowning like he's doing maths. He tries to sit back in the chair, but then flinches as if he's sat on a pinecone and shuffles forwards again. He looks back to me. His eyes fizz like blue berocca.

  ‘Tell me, Tracey...How is old Kit doing? Is he okay?’

  ‘He's drunk every time I see him. He talks about interesting stuff but always just ends up contracting into nothing.’

  ‘I can hear the Kit in you when you talk...’

  ‘He tried to get into me but I didn't let him.’

  ‘Good move.’ He smiles for the first time. It fades back into his discomfort so quickly that I might have imagined it.

  ‘I let him have a look around, that way he does. I wouldn't know how to stop him, anyway. I didn't let him fuck me though.’

  ‘It's troubling what he's into...’ He looks back to the floor.

  ‘When you said you were decohering before, did you mean you were contracting?’

  ‘Not exactly...’

  ‘I feel like decohering either means expanding or contracting, but I'm not sure which one. You seem like you've contracted.’

  ‘Your three dimensional physics are laughable.’

  ‘I can't imagine you laughing.’

  ‘Me neither.’

  ‘But I'll give you a hand job if you explain what decohering is.’

  Peter laughs without smiling or looking up from the floor. ‘I can see the Kit in you alright’ he says.

  ‘He seemed so desperate. I almost gave him head 'cause I felt bad for him.’

  ‘I think that would decohere the old fool once and for all.’

  ‘I think it would make him expand for a while and then contract. That's how it usually goes.’

  ‘Yes, I suppose that's true.’

  ‘But you know I wasn't really gonna give you a hand job.’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘I just wanted to make you laugh.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘Robbie and Collin call it fourth dimensioning.’

  ‘What?’ He looks back at me in an abrupt motion, like how Collin does.

  ‘Expanding and contracting at the same time. That's what decohering is, right?’

  ‘Fourth dimensioning?’

  ‘Yeah, I think it's stupid too.’

  He seems amused for a moment, then concerned.

  ‘Are you Collin's Dad?’ I ask.

  ‘...By some stretch of the definition, yes.’

  ‘Was I right before, when I said that decohering is like expanding and contracting at the same time?’

  ‘In a sense, perhaps...’

  ‘How would you explain it better?’

  ‘I think you're better off not knowing, to be honest.’

  ‘But I'm curious now.’

  ‘I cannot explain this to you without compromising my moral standards.’

  ‘Your moral standards?’

  ‘Yes. I feel some sense of pride in knowing at least some part of me hasn't decohered completely.’

  ‘You're a tease.’

  ‘That's not my intention.’

  ‘I want to know how you think you can have moral standards when you're a predator.’

  ‘A what?’

  ‘A predator. I can tell because you can see me all the time, even when I've contracted. Overactive peripherals, like Kit.’

  ‘You'd be wise not to listen to that boy either.’

  ‘Do you think he could explain decoherence to me?’

  ‘I think he would do so willingly, but you'd only end up more ignorant than you started out.’

  ‘Kit's a polite pervert. He always asks permission before he touches.’

  ‘Yes, I remember.’

  ‘He's less of a predator than most of my friends, really.’

  ‘You should be wary of Kit though, Tracey.’

  ‘Should I be wary of you?’

  ‘No. I can see too much.’

  ‘Are you a pervert?’

  He says nothing. I want to keep talking.

  ‘I think that was dexies, not ketamine’ I say.

  ‘I suppose I am a pervert, really...’

  ‘Can you see into the invisible.’

  ‘Unfortunately, yes.’

  ‘Can you see all the way into the invisible?’

  ‘There is no all the way.’

  ‘Can you see further than Kit?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Does that make you more of a pervert than Kit?’

  He thinks about this for a long time. My leg starts shaking from the placebo. I lift up the couch cushion next to me trying to find ketamine and he finally answers. ‘Yes. I suppose it does, really. I'm a pervert of the highest order, a voyeur of the most private affairs of all. Perverted in ways most could never even comprehend...’

  ‘Are you a paedophile?’

  ‘In some deranged spatial sense, perhaps.’

  ‘Then why should I be wary of Kit and not you?’

  ‘If you were to divide yourself seven billion billion billion times, you might be in danger.’

  ‘Would you say I'd decohered if I divided myself seven billion billion times?’

  ‘Actually, it would be me who is in danger.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I'm always in danger. The invisible doesn't take kindly to being made visible...’

  ‘When you talk about invisible, do you really mean microscopic? Or are you talking about invisible like when someone contracts?’

  He says nothing. Seems to age significantly.

  ‘Or are those both the same thing?’

  ‘Tracey, are you the same age as Collin?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Then there may be some Kit in you after all’ he says.

  ‘Are you saying Kit might be my Father?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I wish Kit was my Father.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Well, you might be in luck.’

  ‘I don't think so, unfortunately. You're thinking of Rory.’

  ‘Rory?’

  ‘Yeah. Kit's son.’

  ‘When you say he's Kit's son, do you mean he was raised by Kit?’

  ‘Well, from what I heard he provided the sperm and not much else.’

  ‘Ah.’

  ‘I think that's everyone in town all up to date on that now.’

  ‘Does kit have much to do with...er...’

  ‘Rory?’

  ‘Yeah. Rory.’

  ‘A little. He turns up sometimes when Rory's Mum is out.’

  ‘Interesting.’

  ‘He just turns up and gets decoherent.’

  Peter laughs. I think. It could have been a cough.

  ‘Rory doesn't like him at all, but I think he's funny’ I say.

  ‘Yes, so do I. So is Rory the same age as you and Collin?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘And what is he like?’

  ‘He's a fuckwit.’

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Do you mean that in a schizophrenic, eccentric way?’

  ‘Nah he's just real cocky.’

  ‘How strange.’

  ‘Yeah. I don't know how a stand up guy like Kit ended up with a fuckwit like Rory.’

  ‘Does he have any brothers or sisters?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Step brothers or step sisters?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Well that's just not true.’ He smiles his trademark split second smile. At least I think he did.

  ‘Are you trying to say that Kit supplied the sperm and fucked off on more than one occasion?’

  ‘Yes. Are there any Rory lookalikes around? Or perhaps other youngsters who resemble Kit in some way?’

  ‘Just one that I can think of. But what I'm wondering is why you thought it was funny when I compared decohering to expanding and contracting at the same time.’

  ‘Who is the Rory lookalike?’ He's looking into my eyes like Collin again now. He seems so much younger when he's captivated.

  ‘Ketamine sort of makes you feel like you're expanding and contracting at the same time. I feel like you thought it was funny because it was so true.’

  ‘I honestly think you'd be better off sticking with fourth dimensioning. I wish I had.’

  ‘Well if decohering is expanding and contracting, then what's the opposite of that?’

  ‘Never mind that, I beg of you. But I'm interested...Who's this Rory lookalike?’

  ‘This is valuable intellectual property.’

  ‘I see. Well, if you tell me this, I'll tell you the opposite of decohering, provided there's no further questions on the matter.’

  ‘Okay. You go first though.’

  ‘...Collapsing.’

  ‘Collapsing?’

  ‘No further questions. So who's the Rory lookalike?’

  ‘Well I always thought him and my friend Damon looked like twins. They both have big, dark eyes and olden day faces. Like Kit, I guess.’

  ‘What's Damon like?’

  ‘He's like Rory but dumber.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘Yeah. Sorry to disappoint you.’

  ‘Could you phrase that better?’

  ‘Thank you for being so understanding about my lack of insight into the situation.’

  ‘A few kinks to work out in your system then?’

  ‘Yeah. Yours too, though.’

  ‘Yes. Now when you say Damon's dumb...Is this in any schizophrenic type way?’

  ‘Nah not really. He loses his train of thought a lot though.’

  ‘So is he a little spaced out then?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Any mentions of spirit sightings or strange dreams?’

  ‘He had a wet dream once when he stayed over with me.’

  ‘How strange.’

  ‘But no one's completely sure who his Dad is. So it would make sense if it was Kit. If that's what you're driving at.’

  Peter perks up in an intangible way. ‘He doesn't know his Dad?’

  ‘Not really. He lives with like seven step brothers and sisters. I think some of them are like cousins and stuff. Two of them look like Islanders. There's a few Dads around, but they're all white as far as I know.’

  ‘So it's a bit of an orphanage then is it?’

  ‘Not really. Maybe. They all go by the last name Brennan. Keeps it simple, I guess.’

  ‘Any-’

  ‘Nah none of them look like Damon.’

  ‘So just Damon and Rory then?’

  ‘Don't ask me.’

  ‘Do those two share any kind of interest in the esoteric side of things?’

  ‘No, not really. They smoke lots of weed but that's about it.’

  ‘Sounds like Kit failed.’

  ‘That seems to be the consensus.’

  ‘Although, from this vantage point, it could well be said that his failure was a true success.’

  ‘When you saying collapsing is the opposite of decohering, does that make decohering a way of ordering things?’

  ‘Far from it.’

  ‘I understand what it means for something to collapse.’

  ‘You clearly don't.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘We've been through this. No further questions.’

  ‘You're a tease.’

  He looks back at the floor for a while. I've given up looking for ketamine. I'm not sure what I'm still doing here. I'm curious about what he means by decohering.

  ‘Tell me, Tracey’ he says, still looking at the floor. ‘What are Collin and Hayden like? I'm ashamed to say I haven't been much of a father to them since they were small.’

  ‘So you provided the sperm and fucked off too, huh?’

  ‘Well...Yes. I suppose.’

  ‘Well Collin's wasted all the time and he's everybody's best friend. Always did well at school though. So you can give yourself a pat on the back for that, I suppose.’

  ‘Makes sense. And Hayden?’

  ‘I haven't seen Hayden in months. He used to sell us weed but that's all I know.’

  ‘Are you around here much?’

  ‘A little.’

  ‘Do you know...who's living here?’

  ‘I can't really say for sure.’

  'Collin and Hayden?’

  ‘This intellectual property's gonna cost you.’

  ‘Ah yes. Of course.’

  ‘Tell me more about collapsing and decohering. You can speak in riddles if it makes you feel better.’

  ‘Okay. Well...Do you see my reflection in the door?’ He nods towards the sliding door that leads to the backyard.

  ‘Only faintly’ I say.

  ‘And where abouts on the door do you see it?’

  ‘At the end the handle is on. I can only see half of it, the other half disappears onto the wall.’

  ‘Right. And you understand that from where I am my reflection is situated differently on the glass.’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘So can my reflection be truly said to exist at any point on the glass?’

  ‘I guess not.’

  ‘Well actually it could, if you say that the reflection you're seeing is a different one than the one I'm seeing.’

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘So was there a reflection before, when neither of us were looking?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Perhaps there existed infinite reflections of me in the glass, waiting to be observed from the specific angle that would allow them to exist.’

  ‘Maybe.’

  He looks at me as if he's done. But he hasn't really said much.

  ‘You wanna wrap that up?’

  ‘You permitted me to speak in riddles.’

  ‘Yeah but I already heard that one. If a tree falls in the forest and no one is around...’

  ‘Er, yes, okay, I suppose that illustrates a similar point...’

  ‘So when you make something real by looking at it, is that making it decohere or collapse?’

  ‘I'm going to have to ask you to hold up your end of the deal now.’

  ‘Okay. What was the question?’

  ‘Who lives here?’

  ‘Collin and Lucy, as far as I can tell. It's kind of a hangout, though. Everyone comes here to get wasted.’

  ‘Lucy?’

  ‘Yeah. I think so.’

  ‘Is Lucy Collin's girlfriend?’

  ‘Something like that.’

  ‘And what about Isabelle?’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Never mind. So just Collin and his girlfriend?’

  ‘Yeah I think so. But also maybe Ned. I think he's been living here since he got up from Cottonwood.’

  ‘Cottonwood?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Interesting.’ He looks up at the ceiling for a moment, then to me. ‘Who are Ned's parents then?’

  ‘That's valuable intellectual pr-’

  ‘Yes yes, okay.’

  ‘Well?’

  ‘Erm, okay. To simplify matters greatly, consider the reflections to collapse into existence upon viewing.’

  ‘Okay, yeah.’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘That's all?’

  ‘It's something to think about. It may clear things up to meditate upon that point, with regard to the sensation of knowing when someone is watching you.’

  I sneer at him. I don't want to meditate.

  ‘So who are Ned's parents?’

  ‘I have no idea.’

  He narrows his eyes at me.

  ‘Thanks for understanding.’

  ‘You're quite the shrewd businesswoman, Tracey’ he says. It makes me feel a little guilty.

  ‘They live in Cottonwood, I guess’ I say.

  ‘I gathered that. And what is Ned like?’

  ‘He's cool. Some schizophrenic tendencies, spirit sightings, strange dreams.’

  ‘Ah.’

  ‘Some interest in the esoteric.’

  ‘Yes, I see.’

  ‘Dark eyes, olden day face. He's usually decohering around the house somewhere.’

  ‘You really should stop throwing words around that you don't understand.’

  ‘Enlighten me then?’

  ‘Well what is it exactly you want to know?’

  ‘Do you know how I can get into contact with Robbie?’

  ‘I think you know that I don't.’

  ‘Well what's decohering then?’

  ‘I think we've established that there's no further questions on that matter.’

  ‘So if collapsing is when we make the reflection exist, is decohering when it goes back to being nothing?’

  ‘By nothing do you mean everything?’

  ‘We both know I mean everything and nothing.’

  ‘Yes, that is true.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘So what?’

  ‘Are the reflections decohered now that we're both looking away?’

  ‘Not exactly...Well, within the context of the metaphor...Not exactly.’

  ‘Is the thing you're getting at now that there is no exactly in this situation?’

  ‘Exactly.’

  ‘Good one.’

  ‘Well, actually that's a lie. Replace the word collapsing with exacting and you may understand things better.’

  ‘Exacting and decohering?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘So what would that make the reflections now that they've decohered?’

  ‘I can give you a one word answer to that, as long as there are no further questions.’

  ‘You should have a line, Peter.’

  ‘I'll take that as my cue to leave.’ He stands up and starts to turn. His movements are slow and stilted. It takes him three steps just to turn away from me.

  ‘I think you're all shit’ I say.

  ‘I think you may have just cracked the code’ he says, facing away from me.

  ‘Exact and all shit?’

  ‘It's all all shit, really. It's all just ghosts.’ He starts to hobble away.

  ‘May I have the one word answer before you go please?’

  He stops and turns his head to face me slightly. ‘Well, I suppose I should. I am a man of my word, if nothing else.’

  ‘And that word is?’

  ‘Superposition.’

  ‘I've heard that word before.’

  ‘Really?’ He turns slightly to face me a bit more.

  ‘Yeah, Robbie says it sometimes.’

  ‘Are you telling the truth?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘In what context does Robbie use that word?’

  ‘I think he uses it to describe being wasted.’

  ‘Huh.’ He smiles to himself. It's a microscopic smile that I only saw because I was looking at the reflections on the door. My peripherals are getting stronger.

  ‘Yeah. But I don't know. I don't really listen to Robbie’ I say, looking back to him. His smile is no longer visible, even in my peripherals.

  ‘Perhaps you should.’

  ‘No one really listens to Robbie.’

  ‘Why is that?’

  ‘He's all shit.’

  ‘Sounds like a good enough reason to listen to him.’

  ‘Maybe if he collapsed every once in a while.’

  ‘Maybe he'd collapse if you listened to him.’

  ‘That is so true.’

  ‘If no one listens to him then of course the poor boy spends his days in the superposition.’

  ‘It's scary to think how much is all shit because no one ever looked at or listened to it.’

  ‘You're preaching to the choir, Tracey.’

  ‘All it takes is a pair of overactive peripherals to change everything.’

  ‘I've said too much...’

  ‘I wonder how easy it is to accidentally collapse a ghost into existence.’

  ‘It's really the easiest thing in the world.’

  ‘All you have to do is look a little deeper...’

  ‘I really should go now.’

  ‘Do you have Collin's number? I really want to get ahold of Robbie.’

  ‘No. Thank you for understanding that I don't.’

  ‘You know, you should really explain the superposition to Robbie. Make him stop throwing the word around like that.’

  ‘Which one is Robbie?’

  ‘The one that looks like a young version of Kit.’

  ‘What?’ he turns to me, eyes blazing.

  ‘That was a joke’ I say.

  He ages about twenty years. ‘That was cruel’ he says.

  ‘Thanks for understanding.’

  ‘It's definitely time to go. I've been exact for too long...My bodies are not used to this anymore.’

  ‘Off to the superposition then?’

  ‘And beyond.’

  ‘Good luck in there.’

  ‘The implications of what you just said are too infinite to even consider.’

  ‘So you'd have to be all shit to even consider them?’

  ‘Yes. Consider that the answer you've been looking for this whole time. It's all shit. It's all all shit. I think there could be no wiser thing for you to do than to forget every detail of the conversation except for that. Consider the interplay of the exact and the all shit to be the paragon of wisdom you take away from all of this. You'd do well to forget about expanding and contracting, as well as anything else you've picked up from Kit. Just think of life in terms of varying ratios of exactness and all shitness, and perhaps you'll have a shot at some kind of contentment in this life.’

  ‘So everything you just said was all shit?’

  ‘Exactly.’

  Peter turns and hobbles away. The living room feels like a house of mirrors now, so I wave goodbye. He doesn't wave back.

Michael Farmer

Fuckin' yep, keen, missioning along hunter - Uh, the street next to it, the one that we were on the other night when we were - Oh yep, here it is, here's some cunts, fuckin' Eli and Logan and their mates, chargin', good shit, “Oh, you're one of them year thirteens aye bolts” “Nah cunt, year one out in the real world” “Aye?” “Fuckin' never mind, mate. You cunts got a beer?” and I'm fuckin' killin' it now, little year tens on the piss, fuckin' good on them I reckon, whatever the fuck they're up to, can't be shit compared to what us cunts used to - “Oi, oi, grab a cone oi” this little as cunt fuckin' Joe or John or some shit, he's just chucked a cone on top of a parked car. “Oi, you lads do it too oi” and they've all got cones on top of parked cars and I'm like fuck yeah, might as well aye, you're only year ten once and Eli's like “Mean boe, these cunts'll be like aye? There's a cone on my car... They'll be like aye...” and it's funny as how these guys try and talk like Rory and shit but sound even dumber. I'm like “Whatever cunt, they'll just be like some drunk kids just put a cone on my car” but then he's like “Nah boe. They're living in their little bubble oi, they don't even know. They'll be like” so I'm like “Fuck yeah whatever” and huck one of the cones up and they're all “Yeeya” but fuck it, I'm done here so “Oi, chuck us a beer for the mish then cunts, I'm off” and they're like aye? but chuck us a couple 'cause their parents got them these shits anyway. I'm off to the disarray, charge two beers in thirty seconds, if that, boom, fuckin' whatever cunt, I got ID, you see this beard? Huh? All good, I'm eighteen now, don't mean shit, fuckin' in there now, yep, bourban coke, mean, done - Fuckin' just cunts trying to live it up here, fuck yeah, shout em a shot later. Off to the D-floor now where the ladies at - Fuckin' nup, detour, we got Kit down here so I'm in there “Oi Kit ya zombie cunt. Just been with your fuckwit son and his mates, up to fuck all. What's happening with you?” and Kit's all glazey eyes like “My son?” and the cunt's fuckin' goneburgers so I'm skulling my drink then gonna say later cunt but he's just fuckin' lights dimmed laters world so I get his drink down me too and out of there off down mains, got a mean buzz going now, cunts giving me the eye for a second but nup, leave this cunt be, then “Michael!” from fiddy four which sucks but whatever I'm off over there and we got Max, Coleman, Elle, and a couple other cunts so I'm in there fuckin' “Whatup cunts, shots or nah?” and it's nah until yeah and we're on the tequila, them cunts struggling 'cause it's fuckin' my world now, bitches, get another one in ya, who got the cash but it's intros now so fuck, alright who's who here, and Max intros me this bitch ass cunt “Yeah Michael, this is my flatmate Hamish. Hamish, Michael” and I'm like sweet whatever give him a handshake and shit then “Alright, round two then cunts?” and Max is like “Careful mate, you got a day shift tomorrow remember?” but I'm like “Fuck whatever cunt, so do you. I'm just on dishes. You gotta run a kitchen, all hungover and shit-” then he goes “I'm on the lemonades mate, keeping it” but then I'm hyped straight in there “On the lemonades? I'll show you on the fuckin' lemonades cunt” and I'm all snapping my fingers to the barmaid and shit, got me a tall glass of lemonade, quick sip but it's no good to me so I get a whiskey shot in there, barmaid giving me the eye like keen, but after work, and I'm like yeah gotcha bitch but all with the eyebrows 'cause I'm going on to this Hamish cunt about how he looks like fuckin' Damo and I'm fuckin' gutted he's not Damo so I brush him off to yarn to this barmaid bitch who's playing it cool 'cause she's still got another couple hours before - Then this Hamish cunt's like “Wait, not Kelly's brother Damo” and now I've fuckin' just snapped at the cunt and he's pretty cut and fuckin' apologises to me of all people, like what the fuck cunt stand your ground, but I'm an opportunist and I’m just like “All good, cunt, that'll be one drink” and snatch it off him and he's like “Hey man that was” and fuckin' bla bla and I'm like “Whatever cunt, don't know shit. Oi, you don't even got a proper name. Fuckin' Ham-ish, half assed as fuck” and he's just “Wow, I have absolutely nothing to say to that” then me “Course you don't, 'cause you're just a fuckin' Hamish. A Hameful would know, he'd be in there like fuckin' boom! But you, nah” and he's vexed as fuck now but all the other cunts are real into it, cracking up, and I'm on a roll now, unmolested as fuck “Alright cunts, fuckin' listen up 'cause it's story time with ole fuckin' Farmdawg over here. Bitch, chuck us another whiskey. Alright, so fuckin' basically, cunts, here's how it is. There's two things you can count on in this world. One-” then the fuckin' barmaid's given me a drink all snooty, some fuckin' coke and something, all good, doesn't matter, get it in me, “So the first thing you can count on, is there's always gonna be some cunt trying to tell you what to do. That's one thing that never fuckin' changes. Take it from me, I've been around eighteen fuckin' years. Eighteen laps of the sun, cunt. Cunts, sorry. So yeah, you got these bitch ass teacher motherfucks and their shitty little books from like the fuckin' medieval times and shit, abusing the fuck out of you whenever you act up, but then the cunts never knew the fuckin' first law of thermodynamics, monkey see, monkey fuckin' do. Cunt. It's all fuckin' hippotersy 'cause then them same cunts'll-” “hippotersy?” and I'm fuckin' getting a bit sick of this Elle bitch too, tubby as fuck, another cunt who - “Aye, you know what I fuckin' well mean, bitch, I don't have time to ask fuckin' jeeves and shit, out in the real world here, cunts, shit coming at ya left and right, fuckin'-” but then boom! I click what's wrong with this Hamish cunt, “Oi, look at this cunt, doesn't even have fuckin' earlobes!” 'cause they just go like fuckin' straight into his head, no dangly tonsil bits like we all got, “Fuckin' sort it out, cunt. You don't see the rest of us fuckin' wandering round like that” and I give his shitty half assed ear a flick and he's going a bit red now so I'm like “Oi, fuckin' sort it out cunt. Look at him, bright red-” and then Max goes “Yeah, alright, we see that. What was the second thing then, Michael” and I'm like “Well the earlobes was the second thing. The first thing was his shitty name, fuckin' Ham-ish. And the third thing is he hasn't said shit since-” “No no, you were saying before, before the earlobe thing. There's two things you can count on in life?” and I'm like “Aye, you cunts still on about that shit” and he's like “We're not on about anything, mate. You were saying there's two things you can always count on. We're all ears here” and I'm like “All ears, tell that to fuckin'-” but I dunno where I'm going with that so I'm like “So fuckin' right, the second thing you can always count on, is fuckin' dexies, cunts. pharmaceutical grade shit. Always know what's in em, always know what you're getting, fuckin' doctors and shit on the case, know what they're fuckin' doing with that shit. Not like all those fuckin' pingers, all sorts of crazy fuckin' like letters and numbers and shit, no fuckin' clue what you're - Fuck, where the pingers at? Any of you cunts got contacts?” and there's a bit of staring around and turns out this Hamish fuckwit's got one so I'm like “Halves then, cunt?” and flash him a twenty and he shrugs alright then we're off, cunt's just after my approval now after that shit with - A couple nice looking ladies are just leaving the D-floor, well one's a bit of a fuckin' dog to tell the truth so I get real clever on it and go “Oi girl, you're hotter than your mate” to the dog one, fuckin' like some psychology shit but Hamish's pulled me into the cubicle now and we're racking this pill up on the toilet seat and I'm on the psychology buzz now so I give him the twenty to snort then start whispering shit like “Oi fuckin' hurry the fuck up dude, fuckin' bouncer's in here I can hear him” and get the cunt all flustered and I grab the note off him and huck my line, fuckin' ballin' now, cunt, tastes like some proper shit and I whisper “Alright, cunt, you head off first, make it look like you're closing the door, then I'll head out, fuckin'...” and I act all meerkat scoping shit out then “Now!” and the dumb cunt bolts and I gather up a bit more powder and sniff it up and pocket the twenty, fuckin' free pingers, all fuckin' psychology shit, like ole About and About About back at the shitlab, but real world shit. I'm off back to the table but I'm feeling a little straight from the pinger so I shady a beer from this dozy bitch at the bar, down it, then just like fuck, that was way too fuckin' easy, and go for round two but then there's some gorilla ass motherfucker trying to grab it off me and I'm “The fuck you up to cunt” and he's “Naughty naughty at fifty four” “Aye?” then he tries snatch it off me but I'm too quick but there's this other fat fuck got me from the other side and they're taking me outside so I fuckin' get a bit of the beer into me and the rest over us three cunts and go for the glass handle to gorillafuck's face but we're outside now and I'm tasting the fuckin' concrete with fuckin' police holds and shit “Alright alright I'm off, back the fuck off” and they let me up giving me the hard stares and I'm off down the road for a minute but then fuckin' straight back in there, too quick for you cunts, and then back outside on the concrete again, police holds and shit, shouting “Use your words you fuckin' animals! Just fuckin' talk!” but nothing and this time they take me all the way to the curb and dump me on the concrete, fuckin' thugs, whatever cunts, got beer all over your head for the rest of your shift, not my fuckin' problem, just jealous as fuck. I'm up and dusted off now no fuckin' problems, real sweet buzz going now just all dizzy from the fuckin' streetlights, way too fuckin' close together, makes them all spinny and shit like a fuckin' fishbowl or some shit, venus drinker traps - “Yo. Michael” and it's the fuckin' straight brigade, Lance's face all fucked up, Benji's too, good to see them cunts on the receiving end every once in a while. “Oi whatup cunts” and they're just not on the fuckin' buzz at all, stiff as cunts, what the fuck else is new? “Yeah sorry I didn't get back to you cunts about the dexies, just couldn't be fucked aye” “Yeah?” “Yeah was having a drink with your fuckin' mate, old mate Richards” and now it's sorta heated here, looks like Stan's gone and fucked some more people off - what the fuck else is new? “So you got dexies or what?” “Nah no good” “Well what else can you suss then?” and I'm getting heated too just fuckin' “Oi! I'm out here to fuckin' drink and maybe suss a bitch with a nice voice for the morning, not be mister fuckin' middle man for-” but then “Fuck, actually might be able to suss you cunts some pingers. Keen?” and that's Benji like “Please” then “Bitch” 'cause the cunt can't fuckin' well help himself with that shit, I don't even wanna know what the fuck Stan's done to cross the line with this lot, must be some real twisted - We're off back to the bar now for some pingers, middle man tax and shit for this cunt, and we're in the door and straight away it's these fuckin' gorilla cunts again, but I got backup this time cunts, full on punches getting thrown but these cunts are on form as fuck, fuckin' elbow to the face and I'm down but fuckin' running off on all fours, twenty in my hand to the bar, slap it down but the bitch ain't having none of it and I'm all in her face like “Well you've changed your fuckin' tune bitch” and then it's Max of all cunts trying to get me outside so I'm in with a right swing and a headbutt but the cunt's fuckin' quicker than he looks and now we're outside and I'm all up in his face telling him what a fuckwit he's being but he's mellow as fuck just trying to settle it all down and I'm on about Collin and Spacey for some reason but it's hard to talk now 'cause I'm like choking kinda 'cause I'm trying to talk about mum and the little cunts too and also the dexies and just like the fuckin' buds and the K and Rory and fuckin' Damo but it's coming out too quick I can't really keep up, just like half sentences and shit that don't make sense 'cause I'm shaking too hard in Max's arms but I'm not cold it's just - I shove the faggy cunt away and I'm off to the next bar, keep this shit going, but then back on the concrete, no police hold shit this time, just those fuckin' street lights all - Dunno why the fuck I'm crying so I just start shouting and punching this white bit on the pavement that's like a ghost face, screaming at the blood dripping off my knuckles onto him, a drop here for a nose, couple drops for the gaps in his teeth, rain drops here and there like shadows, dripping from my eyes onto his like a reflection, looking at me like what the fuck's the problem? What the fuck are we crying about? We've got a fuckin' mean buzz going, pingers and the booze and the dex, what the fuck's there to cry about? Fuckin' mean buzz going, it's just

Robbie Marks

Taking into account our current headspace, we decided to see the Seed Freaks rather than Tracey; though the psychedelic aspect of our cocktail had faded into a non-intrusive blur, and Ketamine can work reasonably well as a social drug, the extremes of the DMT trip had left me too vulnerable to cope with the abrasiveness of interpersonal contact. Tracey - snide, aloof, and unreadable - would surely spotlight the dormant anxiety of the post-psychedelic inebriation, especially given the insultingly small amount of Ketamine we had managed to save her. The Seed Freaks, however, were people I could handle; passive people. And perhaps, I thought, I would be ready for further social contact after a relaxing cup of tea.

  Deeply fatigued from a long day of mental and physical roaming, I struggled to keep up with an unusually energetic Lucy as we walked toward Penny's house at the cul de sac at the top of the terraces. The Ketamine and post-DMT serenity had dulled my seemingly vital train of thought into an indulgent but basically useless rasasvada, leaving me unable to continue my pursuit of the conclusion that had seemed so tantalisingly close. I expressed my disappointment to Lucy and she suggested listening to my Dictaphone to find my place, unaware that the true subject of my introspection had not been spoken aloud. Unable to find a reasonable excuse without exposing my self-alienating ways, I was forced to move on, hoping that the content of my introspection remained intact on some level, able to be excavated by some amphetamine-aided automatic writing over the next few days. All I managed to salvage at present was the disheartening conclusion that I lacked Collin's razor-sharp intuition regarding drug combinations and their uses - something I would have to develop in order to continue my journey outside of his guidance.

  We reached Penny's place and crept silently past the living room lights of the parental house and into the candlelit faux-Satanic darkness of the sleep-out. Inside, the incense, partial-nudity, and mellow guitar strumming evoked a free-spirited vibe contrary to their taste in substances, but well matched to Lucy's and my own. I stood awkwardly waiting for acknowledgement before finding a seat on one of the beanbags that lined the walls, following Lucy's lead. The languid guitar strumming continued, accompanied by a basic beat being tapped out on something hollow and wooden. After a minute or so awaiting a greeting, I settled into the carefree atmosphere, content that my social ineptness would not be an issue in this environment.

  ‘I lost my mind, I couldn't handle the vibes....’ someone sung, out of tune with both the strumming and the percussion. The three faces were slightly illuminated by the circle of tealight candles on the floor, and my senses were too worn out to discern facial features or voices. I could tell it was Penny playing the guitar; her puffy face and long, blonde hair set her apart from her company, and, on a superficial level, their lifestyle. I couldn't distinguish between the androgynous, slightly ethnic faces and short, dark hair of Alan and Irena; the husky femininity of the singing did little to clarify the issue, and I decided to stick with the umbrella term of Seed Freaks, as everyone else seemed to.

  ‘She came in through my brain, she took over my veins....’

  From my limited knowledge of musicianship, I could tell no one there was very talented as a musician; however, their noise had an attractive simplicity to it, in much the same way a few well-placed lines can produce a minimalist drawing more aesthetically pleasing than a carelessly excessive one.

  ‘Upon finishing my meditative beer and cigarette, I concluded that my body is a temple, before opening another beer and lighting another cigarette,’ the person to the left of Penny said. Everybody except me laughed. The person to the right of Penny started tapping on a xylophone idly. I closed my eyes, glad that I was predominately dissociated; perhaps I was in possession of Collin's drug-intuition after all.

  ‘And as I slept, I started to scream....’

  ‘Wondering just what was real, and what was a dream.’

  I did not experience visuals, but gravity took on obscure dimensions. There was an odd kind of synaesthesia, as the smell of a joint being lit briefly convinced me that I was stoned rather than dissociated.

  ‘What exactly is a dream?’ Lucy chimed in.

  ‘What exactly is a dream....’ someone echoed. The guitaring petered out and the xylophone held a slow beat. I took this as the end of their greeting and opened my eyes.

  ‘What exactly is a joke?’ Lucy finished her own joke. This time, only I laughed.

  The atmosphere settled into a relaxed silence, before a voice I recognised as Alan's said, ‘That was about you guys.’ It had been Irena singing, up until the last two lines sung by Alan. Irena passed me the joint and I puffed furtively on it a few times before handing it over to Lucy. The smoke had an oddly flowery taste, leading me to conclude it was spun with Damiana or Blue Lotus, or perhaps one of those legal highs from Mind Garden that never seemed to do anything. The taste complemented the incense obliquely, and I silently appreciated the unusual amount of thought they must have put into the atmosphere.

  ‘You guys want a few nangs before we get into this? Get us all onto the same page for the negotiations,’ Alan said. Irena began lighting the larger candles waiting unlit around the circle of smaller ones. The situation had an overly choreographed feel to it, but I decided to enjoy it rather than deride it, thanks largely to the Ketamine and possibly the throes of the DMT.

  ‘Okay. What's a nang?’ Lucy asked, passing the joint to Alan over the candles. I found it interesting that Lucy was talking rather than me, and realised that I hadn't said a word yet. Formless paranoia stirred inside me, but I vowed not to give it a chance to gain momentum, focusing on the excitement of possibly trying a new drug - something that had become a rarity for me. Penny did something with her hands in the darkness, producing an abrupt hiss.

  ‘Nitrous Oxide,’ Alan said, as Penny produced an inflated yellow balloon and passed it over to Lucy. ‘Just breathe in slowly, then out into the balloon, then in again. Take your time with it.’

  ‘Nyang nyang nyang nyang,’ Irena clarified.

  Lucy inhaled her balloon slowly. She breathed about half the balloon and stopped, turned to me, and giggled. I involuntarily smiled back. Her face then turned serious, and she said, ‘Robbie, joint,’ looking from me to Irena, who was holding the joint out to me with an inebriated smile. The joint seemed to be going around the circle much faster than usual, creating a complex, wordless edifice of thoughts inside me - a structure I couldn't even begin to dissect, as all the elements seemed to be balanced precariously upon each other; so much so that to remove one for inspection would cause the whole pile to come crashing down, compromising the quietude of our environment.

  As I took the joint from Irena, Penny said, ‘You two are in the cross-hairs,’ her wasted, deadpan expression highlighted by the various flickering light sources. I froze with the joint inches from my mouth in sudden anxiety, interpreting the notion to mean we were being watched. My perspective of the situation took on paranoid dimensions, and I saw our hosts as a trio of cagey merchants, feeding us drugs to dull our minds for the negotiations, prone to manipulation by the Seed Freaks: Drug-psychopaths untainted by the excessive empathy and internal complexities of the psychedelic-user, and even that of the non-drug user, their own opiate-squeegeed minds pure and free from distraction, neither clear nor muddy, an inhuman kind of composition invested entirely in the deals about to take place....

  ‘She means we're sitting where the joint and the nang cross over,’ Lucy said. ‘So you're gonna get a nang as soon as you have some of the joint. And I'm gonna have some joint as soon as you finish it.’

  I laughed insincerely to ground myself, then puffed once on the joint, decided it was to be my last puff for the night, and passed it to Lucy. A familiar hiss brought back my drug-zeal, and Penny filled a green balloon before passing it to me over the candles.

  I took the balloon and turned to Lucy. She exhaled a cloud of smoke and giggled to herself before toking again without restraint. I put the twisted lip of the balloon in my mouth and released it slowly into my lungs. The taste was pleasant - sweet and slightly metallic. I took in half of the balloon before holding it closed at arm's length to assess the effects of the drug; there was no notable change in my consciousness, though I attributed this to it being overshadowed by the effects of the more powerful drugs.

  ‘Nyang nyang nyang,’ Lucy said, grinning at me.

  ‘Nyang nyang nyang nyang nyang....’

  ‘Nyang nyang nyang,’ everybody joined in. Confused by the cicada-like sound and what it represented, I took in the rest of the balloon deeply. Alan and Irena continued their nyang-nyang insect noise, now accompanied by some rudimentary xylophone tapping. Though I was extremely wasted, I couldn't discern any effects on my consciousness that couldn't be attributed to weed or Ketamine.

  ‘Can I -’ I started, flinching at the odd sound of my voice before continuing, ‘Can I try another one? I don't think it did anything.’

  ‘No nyang nyang?’ Penny asked, before inhaling a balloon.

  ‘Nah, no nyang nyang.’

  ‘Na-no nyang nyang,’ Irena sung.

  ‘Nyang nyang no no....’

  ‘Nyang nyang nah no!’

  ‘No no, nyang no....’

  Even Lucy was singing with them. Though I appreciated the Dionysian revelry, I was beginning to feel isolated. Penny passed a balloon to Irena, who was holding the joint, and she inhaled them simultaneously, before sputtering and falling into a laughing coughing fit. After composing herself, she held the joint to me, which Lucy knowingly intercepted. Penny passed me another balloon, which I eagerly inhaled in one go.

  ‘Why don't you breathe our way?’ Alan said. I immediately perceived a double-meaning in the sentence, which quickly redoubled into a malevolent quadruple-entendre, threatening to multiply further if I gave it even another second of consideration.

  ‘I ... I have Valium and Cyclizine. Did you guys still have any Ketamine to trade?’ I said, banishing my nauseous alienation and paranoia. I was here to trade drugs; this, I could do. The laughter died down and no one said anything. Someone was still nyang-nyanging with a surreal whistling echo, a cartoonish caricature of a UFO. Everyone else's gaze lowered to the candles, as mine buffeted about, attempting to decipher the silence.

  ‘I broke the silence,’ Lucy said finally. All three of the Seed Freaks laughed. The nyanging continued behind the laughter, leading me to conclude, by process of elimination, that it was emanating from me. Penny started filling another balloon and Irena plucked aimlessly at the guitar sitting on her lap. I didn't understand why I was being ignored; were there subtle social rules in opiate-circles that I was unaware of? What was expected of me here? I just wanted to acquire some more Ketamine and leave. I started to wish I had seen Tracey instead - though, of course, that would have been a situation with its own set of anxieties. It was time to wind down.

  ‘Can I have a turn with that thing?’ Lucy said. Alan passed the xylophone over to her and she started playing it slowly. Much like everything else she does, this simple act seemed to be brimming with an aetheric beauty that could never be quantified. Something indescribably captivating about her contented smile stole me from the moment, from my plans, only to deliver me to the centre of the darkness I had deftly avoided.... Why don't you breathe our way? The question formed in my mind once more, carrying with it an enormous entourage of shadowy implications. Lucy simpered as a balloon was passed to her. She looked so at home with the Seed Freaks, so in her element.... Sitting around in incense smoked semi-darkness with a bright yellow balloon up to her face, making noises and playing instruments non-sensically ...

  ‘... Nyang nyang nyang nyang ...’

  ... just as Collin's friendship had seemingly slipped through my fingertips earlier, I felt I was now losing Lucy. My tribe, my family, had, over just a few days, disintegrated before me. What had happened to set off this chain of events? And, more pressing, what would become of me once Lucy falls in line with the Seed Freaks? I couldn't see myself with The Mars Fuckers or The Seed Freaks. My tribe was the only place I had ever felt at home - the tribe that had now been effectively reduced to Ned and myself. It seemed as if all the forces of the universe had conspired to push me into a solitary existence with only my thoughts as company - and perhaps Ned, which did little to ease my anxiety.

  It had been weed that once united us all: The Mars Fuckers, the Seed Freaks, and us - The Others, whatever that was supposed to mean. Once upon a time, we were all in it together - with, absurdly, Michael as the elder of the tribe, his hyperactive mind spreading transgression throughout all of us who had the guts to reject our perceived captors. Over time, our differing motives for smoking weed splintered the collective: The Seed Freaks sought to escape the sharp angles of life, a quest they soon found better suited to the consumption of opiates and other anxiolytics; the Mars Fuckers wanted to party and revel in their petty rebellions; and we, the Others, sought to transcend, to rise above the bullshit; for Michael, it was just another loose end in the beautiful mess of his life. I knew that moment had passed, no more than a communal step that once entwined our separate journeys, but I couldn't help but ask: Where to from here? I learnt early on in my journey that to attempt to recreate the dynamics of the past was damaging to the constitution; but, as I more recently concluded, progression often takes on the dimensions of the past on a higher ebb, following the blueprint of an upwardly-spiralling coil curved four-dimensionally into a circuit connecting Malkuth and Kether, climbing itself ever upward.... I started to reach for my bag to retrieve my Dictaphone, but was halted with a gift from within: Clear and concise, I knew for sure where the next step lay: Ketamine - a drug that the Seed Freaks had recently acquired from mysterious sources that was once again uniting us all. Ketamine.

  ‘Hey,’ I said, my voice fortified either by large-scale despair or small-scale certainty. ‘Do you guys have Ketamine or not? I have other places to be.’

  Four wasted eyes settled on me accusingly, charging me with solidity and calm. I furthered my self-assurance by visualising my expression as Collin's stone-eyed stare.

  ‘... Yeah, we do. I'll just grab it,’ Irena said curtly, before turning into the darkness behind her. I sat my bag in front of me to find the sedatives. Fingering my various bags of chemicals, I considered furthering my dominance by switching the light on, but decided against it; there is a fine line between being assertive and being an arsehole. My fingers came across my Dictaphone, and I closed my eyes to summon the strength to move past it to find the drugs. Clarity. Results. Malkuth....

  ‘Are you okay, Robbie?’ Lucy said quietly.

  ‘I'm good,’ I replied, taking a tray of Cyclizine out of my bag, then going back in to find the benzos. ‘We've still got to go see Tracey before we go home, remember?’

  ‘I know. But you didn't even say thanks for the nangs or the joint.’

  I stopped moving for a moment to consider this, then continued silently, feeling slightly guilty. This was to be my new way, though. Drug dealing would be a business: Free from the uncontrolled variables of friends, I would buy and sell pragmatically. With clarity of vision, my dealing would take on Malkuthian dimensions, forming a solid ground to my journey upon which to ride ever-upward toward The Void - in orbit, but always connected umbilically to consensus reality. Perhaps I could even get a scam going and afford myself a small unit to live in, where I would pursue the mysteries of the universe without distraction. Uppers, downers, and weed would no longer be part of my diet; I would stick to psychedelics and occasionally dissociatives or even nootropics, saving the rest for the indulgences of my clients.

  ‘Valium's in the front pocket,’ Lucy said.

  Irena sat back down opposite me. ‘Here. Two grams. What've you got?’ she flicked a baggy of white powder like a bottle cap into my lap.

  ‘Right, two grams.... Okay, I'll put that at one twenty credit to you. So, uh, I got ten mig benzos for five each, or a hundred bucks for thirty. Cyclizine is a tray for thirty. So how's a tray of Cyclizine and thirty benzos sound? That gives you ten bucks credit for the nangs and the joint.’

  ‘Deal,’ Irena said. I counted out thirty Valium and dropped them, along with the Cyclizine into Irena's cupped hands. ‘But that was just for vibes, you know. The nangs and that,’ she added.
  ‘Good vibes,’ I said vacantly. ‘Mind if I rack up a little K before I go?’

  ‘Go ahead.’ I felt some guilt for killing the atmosphere, but I wasn't there to hang out. I racked up a line each for me and Lucy, and three smaller ones for the Seed Freaks, on a laptop next to me; to keep good business relations. I believe all five of us felt the unity of the Moment as we stepped together inward to a higher ebb, climbing the spiral-geometry upward. Lucy traded some of her indoor for some of Alan's oddly fragrant bush weed, and we parted ways amicably wasted.

  Once again dissociated on the terraces, Lucy and I decided it would be better to see Tracey the following day. It had been a long journey, and both of us were keen to have a small bump of Ketamine at home and fall asleep to some Pink Floyd, deeply satiated and ready for the sweet afterglow.

  ‘You went all Mister Businessman after your nang,’ Lucy said, shining under the moon.

  ‘Well, it is my job. I'm thinking I'll get a one-bedroom soon, since we can't really keep living at Collin's. I gotta step my game up a little, I think.’

  ‘Why do we have to leave Collin's?’

  ‘He's with The Mars Fuckers now. And you're with the Seed Freaks. It's time for me to find my place.’

  ‘What? We're all still in it together. I'm gonna go to the art school and get the student allowance, and Ned's always gonna be allowed to get the invalids. Collin'll make it work whatever he does. Whatever happens we'll be doing it together. Remember the DMT? The sky, the land, the sea, and the sun. It's always gonna be that way.’

  ‘That was just us being typical mortals, trying to impose our human ideas on the great archetypes. I mean, that shit's valuable for, you know, self-exploration and stuff. But it was basically an excursion into the pagan; the world we're going back to just isn't a pagan world. I mean, yeah, maybe it should be - but the harsh truth is that it isn't. For now, at least.’

  ‘What are you saying? I mean, like.... What are you saying?’

  ‘You need me to spell this out for you?’

  ‘Well, yeah. You know I love it when you talk in poems, but I don't really understand what you're saying now.... That could mean lots of things, what you just said. I just wanna know what you actually mean. It's kind of scaring me.’

  ‘You don't know how to connect the dots yourself?’

  ‘Don't be mean, Robbie. I'm too tired to connect the dots. And, you know, sometimes I just don't want to connect the dots. That doesn't make me stupid; you shouldn't judge people by how well they play your games. That's really selfish.’

  I stopped walking to allow the dawning realisation to spawn. She was right; within the realm of Malkuth, Earth, the planet we all share, lies Common Ground: Consensus reality, money, society, being human - all the things that repulse me, but which I must reintegrate in order to ground my journey. Figurative and cryptic words are the domain of the Yesod-Hod and Yesod-Netzach pathways, respectively; they all add up to the idiosyncrasies I cling to, an emanation of the ever-alluring realm of Tiphareth. Lucy stood waiting in the middle of the road, forever patient and tolerant of my Tipharethian ways. Still silent, I started walking again to get my mental-wheels rolling. Being Day Three, it would be important to end the journey by reconnecting to Malkuth, where I would reside predominately for the next three days in order to solidify my findings. The coded secrecy of my private world held no place in these realms; clarity and simplicity are the keys that open the gateway to the Earth at the Yesod-Malkuth intersection. Contemplating Lucy's understanding silence, I noted that she had once more understood my journey more deeply than myself, guiding me back to the Malkuthian pursuit of my Day Three trip I found it so easy distract myself from; I owed it to her to speak candidly.

  ‘Well, what I'm thinking is I'll step up the dealing. Be smarter and more organised about it so I can get some kind of routine and consistency. Get like a base income going so I can afford -’

  ‘I know that, Robbie. I'm talking about how you said we gotta stop hanging out at Collin's. I know Collin's acting weird, but that's just how he gets when he's excited. Him and Ned haven't been sleeping. We'll all be back to normal tomorrow.’

  ‘It's not that simple though, Lucy. I mean, you can never really go back to normal. You can never go back at all. I mean, like, remember that horseshoe sphere I was talking about before....’

  ‘You're starting to talk in poems again.’

  ‘Oh yeah. What was the question?’

  ‘I just wanna know why you think we all gotta go in different ways. I don't think it's true; I know it's not true. I just want to know why you think that.’

  ‘Well, you know - did I tell you that Collin shaved his head last night?’

  ‘That doesn't matter. I was just saying that stuff about not cutting our hair 'cause yours looked real cool when I was tripping. It doesn't matter, really.’

  ‘No it's not that. It's just.... I mean, like, Stan had already shaved his head, ginger Stan, and like, you know how all The Mars Fuckers try and be like.... It's like, Collin just hangs around with Michael and The Mars Fuckers now - I only figured that out today. That's where he's been disappearing to all this time. And I felt that shit in there just before, like back with the Seed Freaks. You guys and your ‘vibe’.... Like, yeah, sure, I'm sorry I didn't say thanks and shit. Sorry I didn't get on same level as you guys. But I'm not gonna start breathing like you guys just so I can be in a tribe. I'd choose total alienation over breathing like I'm told. Do you think that's okay? Telling someone how to breathe?’

  ‘Robbie, you're being stupid. You've been thinking all day and your brain's tired. Don't think about that anymore until tomorrow, okay? And don’t think about Collin either. I can feel it too, but we don’t know anything yet. Sometimes feelings just happen for no reason. Not everything in your head is cosmic.’

  ‘... Yeah, okay.’

  And I didn't. Nor did I turn on my Dictaphone - the surest departure from Malkuth.

Stan Richards

This cunt's not on the fuckin' planet, that's for sure. We're a couple blocks from home and I've managed to keep him from causing a scene so far, but there's no way to tell what he's gonna do next. I figured out I can sorta guide him like a horse, like if I point him in a certain direction he'll head that way. He keeps tripping over though, so I gotta be on my game. He's already smacked his head on the concrete once, fuckin' whiplashed that shit. I just wanna get him indoors before he gets himself killed. Straightedges are out there somewhere too. I gotta stay on point.

  Ned stops and goes ‘Look,’ pointing into the distance, so I give him a push with my free hand to keep us moving. He's been doing this shit the whole way home, and I've realised that I can't look away from him for more than a second. I'd like to hear about what he's seeing right now, but I'm tired as fuck and just wanna get this shit over with. Maybe he'll tell me all about it in the morning. But probably not. If the devil's in the details, then this cunt's the fuckin' exorcist.

  We get home and the lights are out, thank fuck. There's no way Dad's gonna put up with Ned in this state, especially if he's been drinking - and the mass of empty beer bottles on the porch tells me he has.

  I get Ned down the dark hallway and into my room and shove him on my bed. I turn the light on, but he sits bolt upright mumbling all panicky, frantically staring around the room with cracked lips and blood and dirt all over his face.

  ‘Alright alright, chill,’ I say. I switch off the main light and put on the bedside one. He seems to tolerate it, so I head out to grab him some water.

  I'm walking slowly down the hall 'cause my eyes are playing tricks on me, and a voice jumps out and gives me a fuckin' heart attack.

  ‘I had a bad dream.’

  It's Katie, standing in the hall like a fuckin' goblin.

  ‘Jesus Katie. You scared the shit out of me.’

  ‘Can I stay in your room tonight Stan? I'm scared.’

  ‘Uh, no, I don't think that's a very good idea,’ I say. I think a lanky, half-naked scarecrow mumbling to himself with blood all over his face is prolly the last thing she needs to see right now.

  ‘Aw go on. I can sleep on the floor. In my sleeping bag. We don't even have to have a light on, I'm not scared of the dark anymore.’

  ‘No, it's not that... Ned's over tonight.’

  ‘That's okay I like Ned.’

  ‘...What?’

  ‘I like Ned. He told me about these things that live under the water called-’

  ‘Katie, you shouldn't be listening to Ned. That guy gives grown-ups nightmares.’

  ‘I don't care Stan I don't want to sleep in my bed tonight. Just let me stay with you guys!’

  ‘Alright alright, just be quiet okay? Don't wake Dad up or we'll both get in trouble. Stay with me.’

  We go into the kitchen and I get some water for her and Ned. She goes ‘I don't want water I want juice.’

  ‘Have we got any juice?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Well tough shit then.’

  We head back to my room and I'm relieved that Ned's still where I left him. Katie looks freaked out by his face so I tell her he got hurt skating.

  ‘But why does he look sick?’ she asks.

  ‘That's just what he looks like now. Don't worry about Ned, okay? He needs to go to sleep.’

  I get a Calvin and Hobbes book for Katie to read and sit next to her on the floor, then crack a beer to try and figure out how to deal with the situation. All I wanted to do was come home and sleep, and now I'm sitting here babysitting two delusional children without a bed to sleep in. My head's all foggy with paranoia about Dad or Karen waking up and seeing this scene, as well as some quieter concerns about the Straightedges turning up for some revenge. I guess I'm tired enough to go to sleep on the floor, but Katie's gonna need-

  ‘Look, Calvin's got monsters in his room too,’ Katie says. ‘And he likes hamburgers too. He's like me. Monsters must like kids like us.’

  ‘You know why monsters hang around kids like you?’ I say, starting to lose my patience. Katie shakes her head. ‘It's 'cause they're not real. That's why the other kids don't see them. That's why me and Dad and Karen can't see them. Kids like you and Calvin just eat way too much sugar and watch way too much TV, so when it gets dark your imagination gets carried away. There's no such thing as monsters.’

  ‘Yes there is,’ Ned says. I feel my face burn angry red - now the cunt decides he can string a fuckin' sentence together. ‘Most people just learn to ignore them, but not everyone can do that.’ He's looking more drunk than tripped-out now, stretched out on my bed in a way I can only describe as highly punchable.

  ‘See?’ Katie says casually, turning her attention back to the book.

  ‘I'm gonna leave you with the Straightedges next time you shit-stirring fuck,’ I say. He seems to be looking at me, but his eyes are all droopy and wasted so I can't really tell. For a moment I think he might have actually deserved the hiding he got, but the spite turns to the Miller psychopaths when their faces pop into my head. Sick fucks. The thought of them taking Michael's drugs gets more and more frightening the longer I sit on it.

  Forcing the Straightedges out of my head, I give Ned the finger and turn back to Katie. ‘I told you not to listen to Ned, Katie. I know you think he's cool, but he's taken so many drugs he doesn't know what's going on.’

  ‘That's what Mum said about you,’ she says without looking up from her book.

  ‘Well she fuckin' would, wouldn't she?’

  Katie gives me a pouty look and goes back to reading. Ned seems pretty placid now, so I look through my pile of comics for something to read till these two let me sleep. All my comics have unpleasant memories attached to them, but I realise that's true for pretty much everything in my life. I guess that means I need to get into some new shit. New books, new friends, new music. New life. Actually, I just need to fuckin' sleep so I can get my head together and do something about it instead of sitting here making more vague, incoherent plans I'll never stick to. I end up picking out an old Thrasher magazine to read, but then Ned pipes up again and I'm back in parent-mode.

  ‘I think your cat needs some water,’ he says. I look up and he's picking at my jacket sitting next to him. ‘It's all dry and flat.’

  ‘Whatever you say, man,’ I go. He seems to be coming down a little. Still fuckin' wasted, but at least he’s interacting with real stuff now.

  Katie gets up and sits on my bed next to him. ‘That's not our cat, Ned. That's Stan's jacket,’ she says.

  Ned goes ‘Oh yeah,’ and they both laugh. He picks up the jacket and goes ‘It looks kind of like a cat. The whiskers.’

  Katie takes it off Ned and folds it so that the arms are laid on top. She puts it down next to him and says ‘There, now it's like a rabbit. See the ears?’

  They're both laughing now, but I'm feeling pretty uneasy about this. I'm not usually all that protective over Katie, but the thought of her being friends with Ned isn't sitting well.

  ‘Now it's your turn, Stan,’ she says.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Your jacket. You gotta turn your jacket into something.’

  ‘Yeah, alright.’ I get up and put the jacket on. ‘Tada. It's a jacket,’ I say, turning 360 with my arms out.

  ‘You're a grinch,’ Katie says.

  I shrug and then Ned goes ‘No he's a big rabbit monster.’

  ‘Yeah Stan. You're a big rabbit monster!’ Katie says, laughing.

  ‘Yep that's spot on Ned. I'm a big rabbit monster. Just when I think you've finally lost your mind, you come out with a genius observation like that,’ I say, sitting back down on the floor.

  ‘You're just a grinch, Stan,’ Katie says. ‘Mum said that you're just mean 'cause you're sad all the time. She said that you only say mean things to us and Dad 'cause you're angry at yourself. Like a bully. You're a big bully rabbit grinch monster.’

  ‘Well she's pretty much spot on there,’ I say, taking a sip of beer.

  ‘She said Dad used to be like you before she met him, but she made him get a job and he's all better now.’

  ‘Well Karen's just a know it all bitch and she can fuck-’

  The door swings open and Dad barges in going ‘Is that what you think then? Huh?’

  My heart's slamming now and my mind's paralysed with shock. I open my mouth but there's no words. What the fuck's going on here?

  ‘Huh? Answer me! Don't just bloody well stare at me. Answer me.’

  ‘I didn't mean it man, I was just-’

  ‘And stop mumbling. Stand up straight and talk to me like a man! Go on!’

  I stand up and look him in the eye. Tension builds as we both sway slightly but keep our eyes locked. Dad's face is sallow from sleep and alcohol, naked without its beard, aged by his looming hangover.

  ‘It's all a joke to you isn't it,’ he says finally. ‘You think you can just go around, saying and doing whatever you bloody well please. Well let me tell you something about the real world, mate. It always comes back to bite you in the ass.’

  ‘Well what the fuck were you doing? Standing at the door listening?’ I'm taking a leaf from Collin's book, keeping my voice calm and composed, waiting for his rage to turn in on itself.

  ‘Who pays for the roof over your head? Huh?’

  ‘You think that makes-’

  ‘No, I'm asking you. Who pays for the roof over your head?’

  ‘Yeah, okay, but-’

  ‘Who pays for the fucking roof over your head?’

  ‘Dad, cool it. Katie's-’

  ‘Me, that's who. And just what the bloody hell's going on here anyway? She should be fast asleep,’ he points at Katie, sitting upright, eyes wide with fear, ‘not sitting up all night with you two... Look at yourselves. Whatever it is you're on it's doing the trick.’

  ‘Hey, I found Ned like this. What was I supposed to do, just let him-’

  A backhand to my already bruised cheek and Katie shoots off under us like a scared cat. I correct myself and give him the Collin-eyes, unfazed.

  ‘Yeah, nice one Dad. You know, Katie came to me 'cause she was having nightmares. Prolly freaked out watching you and Karen drunk out of your-’

  ‘Nightmares? Look at yourself! This is the fucking nightmare, mate. The two of you, spacing out like god damn junkies. You think it's okay to expose her to that? A girl of her age... What the hell were you thinking?’

  ‘Hey, if anything's gonna fuck her up tonight it's-’

  ‘I'll tell you what you were thinking. You were thinking about yourself, as always. You and your mate, out of your god damn minds on who knows what, just breezing around, never stopping to think about the people you're affecting.’

  ‘Dad, listen. I'm trying to tell you. Yeah, Ned's out of his fuckin' mind. I found him like this. If I didn't bring him here-’

  ‘Don't fucking lie to me son,’ his voice calms into a steady, sober threat. ‘I caught up with Chuck and his wife today. You know what he said? He said he saw you and your mate smoking pot at the park. In broad daylight. I hear about this. I have eyes and ears everywhere. Are you gonna stand here and call Chuck a liar?’

  ‘Well, yeah, I smoked a joint today. At least I'll remember it tomorrow.’ He stares at me, seeming to vaguely understand that it was a dig at him. I clarify it for him, ‘I got up at like nine and you and Karen were already drunk. And you're having a go at me for smoking a joint? Maybe it's you who needs to have a look at yourself.’

  Visible fear creeps into his eyes, but a wave of drunken rage seems to smooth it out. ‘What absolute crap. I work myself into the ground all week to enjoy myself. So yeah, I have a beer in the weekend. Is that a problem to you?’

  ‘No, I'm just saying. You have your vices, I-’

  ‘It's not the bloody same and you know it.’

  ‘Yeah, weed's prolly better-’

  ‘Don't get lippy with me boy. Just what the hell do you do all day? You obviously don't clean your room. Look at the state of it!’

  ‘Well I, uh... what?’ I look around at the slight mess of my room, speechless from the bizarre accusation.

  ‘You need to have a good think about what you're doing with your life. You screwed around at school, so that's University down the drain. You're off to that doctor for pills every week, 'cause you can't even cope when all you're doing is laying around playing video games and smoking pot all day. You're making no effort to find a job. You-’

  ‘No, Dad. I got a job today.’

  He blinks himself to a stop, then looks at me all sceptical.

  ‘Yeah, dish- uh, kitchen hand,’ I say, deciding kitchen hand sounds better. ‘Bolton and Sons in town. Calls for some minor celebrations, right?’

  ‘Oh...’ He breaks the eye contact as it seems to dawn on him that he's being a cunt. ‘Right. Well, don't get too carried away. It's a start, not a career,’ he continues, egotistic scorn still intact.

  ‘Yeah, well gotta start somewhere, right?’

  ‘Right. Well, yeah, nice one,’ he looks me in the eye again, just for a second.

  I revel in the victorious silence until his eyes take on a different glaze and I start to feel like a cunt. I feel my eyes do the same and go ‘Hey, I meant to bring you home a beer but-’

  ‘Listen,’ he interrupts. ‘I'm sorry about hitting you before, that was out of line.’

  ‘It's okay.’

  ‘No, it's not. Look, me and Karen... I was a bit wound up. She was giving me shit all day, then I had Chuck at me about my parenting-’

  ‘So Karen was being a know it all bitch then?’

  ‘Yeah, as usual.’ He pauses and seems to disappear into himself for a second, then goes ‘So, you've got some beers do you?’

  ‘Nah. Well just this one. Sorry, I saw Ned and-’

  ‘It's alright. We've got some G and T left over. I'm a little thirsty after that. You wanna go outside for a drink... to celebrate?’

  ‘Sounds good.’ I'm exhausted and have no idea what G and T means, but the adrenaline's got me perked up again and my plan was to have a drink with Dad, so, yeah. Why not?

  ‘I'll be out there,’ he says. He starts to turn but stops and says ‘Your mate... Is he gonna be okay?’

  I turn to Ned. Looks like he's sleeping, but who knows what's going on in that head.

  ‘Fuck knows. He seems to be able to wriggle his way out of anything. I dunno. You'd better check on Katie though.’

  ‘...I think I'll leave that to you,’ he says, and walks out.

  I consider offering Dad some weed to mellow it all out, but decide against it. I know how to handle myself if shit gets serious. More than Dad at least. He forgets that I'm not a kid anymore. I'm an eighteen year old with poor impulse control and fuck all self-preservation - pretty much the worst kind of person to get on the wrong side of. I'll leave that up to Dad, though. I'm keen for a few quiet drinks out the front, but who the fuck knows with that cunt? Who the fuck knows with any cunt? All you can do is be ready.

  I put a blanket over Ned and say ‘I fuckin' hate you, Ned,’ but I'm not sure if he can hear or if I actually mean it. I grab the Calvin and Hobbes book for Katie and head out, knowing fuck all but ready for whatever.

Ned Devlin

(Scene missing)

Lucy Winters

The sky lied . . . Collin never made it home. I've been pretending it's all okay, for Robbie. But really I can feel it too. We have to wait though. We don't know anything yet . . .

  It's strange to be back here. That quiet peaceful strangeness of empty places that are usually full of activity, one of my favourite feelings, one of the only ones that gets Collin out of my mind. Tracey sitting stoned and satisfied, an unknowing embodiment of serendipity. Robbie finally relaxed, a post orgasmic calm softening the urgency that had manoeuvred him through the forests and stars. Extra curricular ketamine and dexies being divided on the table, joint sitting smoking itself. I don't know why Robbie wants dexies now. Sometimes Robbie's a bit like a little kid with drugs. Like a kid with chocolate and lollies. It's okay though because ketamine is a relaxing drug and I have some valium. But still. Odd.

  Robbie sniffs two lines with hooters up both nostrils like a walrus, then hands them to Tracey who does the same. He clicks his tape recorder on as the snorters come over to me. I have my lines one by one and sit with my back against the couch with my neck flaccid at the ceiling, waiting to see what Robbie has to say . . .

  ‘So to conclude,’ he starts, pauses wearily at Tracey's presence, then continues, ‘these things I seek, which I endeavour to make visible, are things too delicate for the test of human perspective, irritable when forced to conform with words and images. To make the unknown known is an endless quest, one where it is not the conclusion that brings about insight, but every step of the journey. The hidden remains hidden, indefinitely.’ He clicks the tape recorder off and relaxes for just a moment before getting up to look for a CD to put on, still restless after a long day of wondering.

  ‘By invisible, do you mean microscopic?’ Tracey says.

  ‘. . . Uh, no, not really,’ Robbie says, looking at us over his shoulder. ‘But that's a pretty good metaphor. I guess you could say it's too fine to see, rather than too small. But the more I describe it, the further we get from the truth of it.’

  ‘So there is a truth to it? Or is it something that is only perceived?’

  ‘Yeah, kinda,’ Robbie says, roused into an animal crouch by Tracey's capricious musing. ‘It's an exploration of subjectivity, a question of cause and effect, observer created reality.’

  The speakers begin to whisper and growl over a strange starry twinkle as Emotive takes form in the spaces between us. Robbie gets up and sits behind me, legs on either side, and we appreciate the music for a moment as the drugs find their groove. I can smell Robbie’s musk now that we’re away from nature’s aromas. He smells like an old book, opened for the first time in centuries.

  ‘See, here's where the ego comes in,’ Robbie starts up, clearing his throat and shuffling around to get comfortable in his endless fidget. ‘Reality is far too infinitely complex to see in its entirety, so we construct the ego to create one perspective, which hunts for shit that confirms its own obscene certainty that it, and only it, is aware of everything.’ He’s back to his old self, moved past the spook of his earlier trip. I surrender my body to him, splaying my arms across his knees like arm rests.

  ‘Collapses the infinity of reality into one perspective?’ Tracey says.

  ‘Uh, yeah. Yeah that's exactly it.’ Robbie's body reanimates beneath me, his knees bouncing me around with a rising wave of nervous energy. I close my eyes to ride the vibes.

  ‘Exactly?’

  ‘Well, exact relative to my perspective.’

  ‘So is the invisible you're talking about the things between perspectives?’

  ‘Yeah, well, according to my - Hey, if we're gonna talk at all, let's assume we're all talking from our own perspectives.’

  ‘That's what talking always is.’

  ‘Yeah, true, alright. But, what I mean is, let's assume that each sentence begins with From my perspective. Like an unspoken disclaimer. I don't want it to sound like I think I'm talking with, like, objective truth, you know?’

  ‘You don't need to say that though. People talk all the time without saying that.’

  ‘Oh yeah, I guess so . . . What was the question?’

  ‘I dunno. Something about a tree falling in the forest . . .’ Tracey laughs in her flattened way, like a black satire of joy. Robbie's getting irritated underneath me so I start him up again.

  ‘Spacey asked if the invisible you're talking about is the things between perspectives.’

  ‘Oh yeah. Well, fuck, I guess . . . Alright, a metaphor. So the truth is like the skeleton, and the flesh is the - think of it as an animal, say, like a, um, I dunno, just like a salamander or something. It's not important which-’

  ‘Get to the point,’ Tracey says.

  ‘Okay, yeah, so like the flesh is your perspective, right? 'Cause that's what - Okay, so the skeleton is the truth, then your own experiences and ego ideas add the flesh. So now you've got what you perceive. But for someone else, or from a different perspective, the beast can look dramatically different in terms of, say, colour and like whether or not it's got fur or anything . . . But the skeleton remains the same. The unseen dimension. And the only way to see the skeleton is to kill the animal, to view an event or thing collectively in hindsight. That way, our perspectives will add up to something real that we can agree on. But it is dead. The moment has passed. It’s like taxidermy. What is needed is wabi sabi, which is, uh . . .’

  ‘So the skeleton could be the super-’

  ‘Wait hang on. I just had a, um, yeah. About the ego. So the ego perspective tends to try to render others invalid, by selectively mining manifestations of the invisible for, like, phenomena, that confirm - 'cause like, our perspectives are real convincing 'cause we only have our perspective of other perspectives to compare it to . . . and when we perceive other perspectives, we fill in the parts we don't understand with our own perspective. So the result is an inferior version of our own perspective. Just, like, a small element of it. So naturally our one seems more valid.’

  ‘So it's varying degrees of exactness and all shitness?’

  ‘Oh right, like Newtonian and quantum mechanics you mean? Yeah, I guess that's like the fundamental yin and yang of what I'm describing. But see with those two, there's like one perspective that sees everything in terms of yin and yang, and the other that sees it as Newtonian or quantum. But neither is truer. In fact, they actually work as a good metaphor for each other. But people holding those conflicting, or, like, seemingly conflicting models, can argue for hours about what it really is. Like this other proverb. Uh, so there's like five different people describing an elephant, and they - but, oh wait, five blind people . . . I think they're blind . . .’

  ‘But it's all all shit, really.’

  ‘Sort of. I mean, ultimately it's all quantum, but sometimes it's useful to use the Newtonian instead. Neither are truer, they just illuminate different parts of the, uh, skeleton. Or elephant. Oh there we go, the skeleton is an elephant’s, now the metaphor works. So uh, yeah . . . What?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘What did you say?’

  ‘So it's a kind of fourth dimensioning thing?’ Tracey cracks up laughing at her own non joke. Me too, but I don't know why. Maybe just the thought of Tracey finding something funny.

  ‘Well, yeah, I mean, that works as an example of . . . Wait, what's so funny?’ Robbie stiffens up.

  ‘The song,’ Tracey giggles.

  ‘What's funny about it?’

  ‘Drugs, Robbie,’ I remind him.

  ‘Oh yeah.’ He laughs and relaxes into his jitters. I start to snuggle into him a little, but then like a jolt of electricity he's up and leaning forward. ‘Holy shit!’ he shouts right in my ear, ‘Fuck, I got it. Alright so, hang on . . . Yeah, okay, so Newtonian physics, certainty, the rationalistic perspective - Okay, Newtonian physics is omniscience at the price of impotence. And quantum physics, uh, uncertainty, the psychedelic perspective, is, uh . . . omnipotence at the price of ignorance! Yeah, that's good. Cool.’

  Now it's Robbie laughing in disbelief while me and Tracey wait for him to explain himself.

  ‘Okay, so with Newtonian physics, right, so Newtonian physics is based on the premise that everything in the universe can be predicted if we know enough variables. Always gets compared to clockwork when the, uh, scientists try . . . Anyway, so that's omniscience, knowing everything. But it's at the cost of impotence, 'cause like now mankind has no free will - it’s all just the result of chemical and environmental stuff. Determinism. You guys know about determinism right?’

  ‘As of right now, yes,’ Tracey says.

  ‘Yeah, so um . . . quantum physics is, uh, what did I say it was?’

  ‘Probably either yin or yang, I don't know.’

  ‘Oh yeah. Omnipotence at the price of ignorance. It gives man personal agency and ultimate control over his environment, which is now a product of his mind, himself his own thought. But . . . But! At the price of ignorance, 'cause he now has no way of knowing anything for sure, uh, like indeterminacy, indeterminacy as opposed to determinism, uh, knowing the whereabouts of a particle is . . . 'Cause, alright, did you guys know that it's impossible to know where a particle is at the same time as, um . . . uh, on the quantum level it's uh . . .’

  ‘You should sum this up but with exactness and all shitness.’

  ‘Okay, so to be exact is omniscience at the price of impotence . . . and to be all shit is omnipotence at the price of ignorance. With determinism you sacrifice free will for answers. With indeterminacy, you sacrifice answers for free will.’

  ‘Like how you know all this stuff but can't get it up, but Michael's full of shit but always gets what he wants?’

  ‘Hey, you two both know I can get it up,’ Robbie protests. Both Tracey and me make sure not to laugh at him, because it's not often Robbie gets to act like a player.

  Imagining the silence as something nasty, Robbie says, ‘Not to brag, but I actually don't know much about quantum physics. I'm all shit.’ Tracey and me both purr at his strange joke. ‘So keep that in mind, ladies,’ he adds.

  ‘You won't be able to get it up right now,’ Tracey says.

  ‘Nah, probably not.’ The mild pressure on the back of my head tells me he's just being humble. I move more weight onto my head because I don't mind it if this gets weird. It does, in the form of another outburst from Robbie.

  ‘Alright, I got it now,’ he says, pushing into me slightly. ‘So like back to what we were talking about before, about the different perspectives. You guys know about the wave particle duality, right?’

  I shake my head sensually.

  ‘Okay, so basically it's like, the birth of quantum uncertainty. The beginnings of the battle between determinism and indeterminacy. So, right, when they were, like in the early nineteen hundreds . . . Man I am all shit right now,’ pressing into me, ‘Uh, so they were trying to figure out if photons, like, light, uh, units of light, they were trying to figure out if they were waves or particles, since there were competing theories that seemed to confirm both. But what they found, was that light behaved sometimes as waves, and sometimes as particles, and different experiments gave different results. They could basically choose what result they got by how they measured it.’

  He pauses to feel the drugs, running his hand through my hair. It takes me a moment to realise that both of his hands are gesturing in my peripherals, but I close my eyes and enjoy it anyway.

  ‘So, like, 'cause waves and particles are both invisible, you know, products of human consciousness and not the light itself, both just work as interpretations of what light is. But really, the truth lies at a deeper level than science can currently take us. Both particles and waves are just ideas that work well to describe things, up to a point. Both work well to describe what light is for all practical purposes, but when we assume that one is true - which is to say that the other is false - then the whole theory collapses . . . so to speak. And then we realise that the truth is once again out of our grasp. But, like I said before, each step of the way toward truth holds an answer, but none is an answer in any absolute sense.’

  I slide my fingers into Robbie's shoes and he obediently lifts his feet so I can take them off.

  ‘Like . . .’ his body hums with sensuous indulgence as he lets the idea bloom in his mind, ‘like how a plant grows always toward the sun, but never reaches it. Like the way the kabbalistic tree of life goes all the way up to the ineffable. Consciousness grows from malkuth through the spheres toward kether and further into varying degrees of nonexistence, but it remains the ever unattainable point toward which we climb, the force that moves us through the spheres, past anything we can recognise as real . . .’

  Robbie pronounces it re-cognise now.

  ‘So you wanna put a conclusion out there?’ Tracey says, writhing with us to the deep, crashing beats of Freedom of Choice.

  ‘Fuck conclusions. They’re just death in the abstract,’ Robbie says. For a second I think Ned is with us, and I get a fright when I realise he isn't and I'm actually really wasted. The flow of our bodies has become suddenly less rhythmic, and a cold murmur haunts the air. It felt like there was more of us here . . .

  ‘Man, where the fuck is everybody?’ Robbie says. The sudden malaise is tangible, the closeness of our bodies rendering us completely transparent to each other. Where the fuck is everybody?

  ‘They'll be doing something awesome, I'm sure,’ I say, moving us past the worry and back into the situation, ready to lead it towards, but not to, its natural conclusion.

Michael Farmer

Fuckin' loose night, cunt. Fuckin' loose. Bit of a fuckin' nap, staunch through my morning shift, then off to help out the old cunt, then same shit again, hopefully the other cunts'll be up and ready to rage. Fuckin' mean.

18/09/2005

The Guidebook-

It was the acquisition of the teacher's guidebook in childhood that awoke the dormant rebellion within us. It was our first illumination, the original conspiracy.

In the teacher's guidebook, we found our first taste of disillusionment and empowerment, the beginning of our endless yearning for the secrets hidden behind the illusions of reality.

Most of the revelations were unremarkable; perhaps the most illuminating was finding out that every child was to be awarded student of the week at least once per year. Also of note was the advice for dealing with troublesome students by downplaying their transgressions and highlighting their minor accomplishments.

None of these discoveries were illuminating in and of themselves; but together they revealed that these reward systems were in place as a means of control, in much the same way as the brain's reward system exists to reinforce behaviour that increases the organism's chances of survival and therefore reproduction.

From the guidebook, we learned that authority was a game that could be played. We discovered that the systems were in place for reasons other than the obvious. We found out how much of what we were told was lies to keep us in check. Most of all, we found out that the true motivations of authority were shrouded in secrecy.

With black irony, we began to see the teacher's guidebook as a guidebook for ourselves. The book gave teachers guidance in an instructional sense; for us, its guidance was darker, subtler, and more enticing. Rather than instruction, we received guidance through revelation. This was the embryonic seed of an attitude that would follow us well beyond the walls of the school: To find guidance not in the advice of authorities, but in the endless pursuit of the mysterious secrets that lie behind the obvious.

We discovered that through transgression, analysis, and faith in our own genius, we could get a glimpse behind the scenes, at the inner workings of society and reality. It awakened within us a lust for mystery, and the fires of rebellion.

19/09/2005

Crossroads-

Two days have passed and Collin and Ned have yet to return. My anxiety continues to grow. Part of this is my faith in Lucy’s intuition: She had felt it important to keep Collin and ketamine separate. Though she was unable to explain exactly why, experience has taught me to trust her vague fears. And yet, as if by some preternatural magnetism, ketamine had ended up in Collin’s hands.

Collin’s erratic behaviour seemed to reach a crescendo that night. Transcribing my own notes from my voyage has been put on hold as I try to decipher our cryptic exchange. He seemed to be referring to the same Christian virus he often spoke of, but what he once viewed with contempt now seemed to fill him with genuine terror. I saw a new desperation in Collin that night.

As for Ned, I have even less clues. Though his behaviour that night was bizarre, it was not out of character. Lucy has been in a restive state since then; and, when questioned about the significance of her exchange with Ned, assured me he was fine and that I shouldn’t be worried. When questioned about Collin she was silent, eventually responded by eating some Valium and going back to sleep.

With an unsent message to Michael typed out on my phone, I’m starting to think I should do the same.

ᛏᛁᚾᚤ-ᛒᛚᚨᚲᚴ-ᚺᛟᛚᛖᛋ.ᚲᛟᛗ/ᛞᚨᛏᚢᚱᚨᚲᚺᛁᛚᛞ