Voices green and purple

I bought two tabs of LSD, large blotters with 'LSD 100' embossed on them, from Stu’s friend Kev Yettram who lives in Gaunt’s Hill View. Stu had work to do, so I took one tab on my own at about nine-thirty and went to the Westdorgan with Gareth, Lindsey and Susie. I took a second tab at midnight as I watched the Uruguay v England match live on TV.

I started to feel the effects mid-way through the second half: it was a subtle change, and I suddenly noticed that the players seemed to be moving oddly and the pitch was no longer a monotone grey but writhed and twisted in green and purple. I was aware I was no longer watching the football, but was now simply staring at the movement of the screen.

In the bathroom  I flushed the toilet, and out of the corner of my eye I caught sight of what appeared to be foam spilling over on to the carpet, but when I looked again I saw that the ‘foam’ was all around me, advancing across the floor at my feet. The carpet writhed and heaved and was overlaid with spectacular coloured geometrical patterns. I stared at my face in the mirror and the longer I gazed at it the less familiar it appeared until, with a slight shock and recoil I saw the face was no longer mine.

In the kitchen I kept losing track of where I was, thinking for an odd moment that I was in Robin Quinn’s kitchen on Briar Avenue, back in Farnshaw. I couldn’t manage a simple task like boiling a kettle of water and making tea. Too easily distracted. I went and sat in Gareth’s room with  Stu and Gareth and Lindsey but I was suddenly overcome with a fit of self-consciousness and awareness of my self, and other people, separate from me.

Barry arrived back quite late on bringing some hash oil with him, which the four of them proceeded to smoke, smearing the oil on silver foil, heating it from beneath with a match and then simultaneously sucking the fumes in through a tube as the oil droplet trickled and vapourized down the foil. Lindsey had never tried ‘chasing the dragon’ before and she found it difficult to manipulate tube, foil and match, and Barry made some derogatory comment. I was intensely aware of her embarrassment and sullen resentment at the male dominance of this ‘drug-culture’ she was experiencing. When she tried it again she sulky and with a prickle of annoyance in her voice said to Barry, “You won’t shout at me this time will you?”

I had quite a good time at this point as conversations blurred into misunderstanding and general hilarity. Gareth eventually fell asleep on his bed at six o’clock and Stu disappeared half-an-hour later.