Seashells

Slow slow I drift, staring with eyes that see beneath the shadows. I
was feeling insecure and paranoid and... well there's no excuse for it
really. I put the ecstasy tablet in my mouth, and wash it down with
some cool water. I sit there for a while, feeling a little guilty for
taking drugs, but realizing it's too late to worry about it now. I chat
to a friend and he laughs and tells me he never feels guilty for taking
drugs, cause he enjoys them so much, and to chill out and just have a
good time. I smile...

The 'e' starts to come on and I feel the warm sweaty tingling sensation
on my scalp and in my hands. I sit there for a moment feeling light
headed and the adrenaline rushing like crazy. I really want to dance
now, but I carry on sitting there, staring at the lights and colourful
pictures on the walls, grinning maniacally. After a while some people I
know grab me and guide me to the dancefloor, where I stand, feeling a
little bit wobbly on my feet. I look around me at the people on the
dancefloor with this tenderness and compassion. Empathy filling me. I
find I can't judge anyone when I feel like this, not even myself. I
just love, appreciate the wonder, the sanctity of life.

I start dancing to the music, which suddenly sounds so clear, stirs my
emotions, takes my head to all sorts of wierd and wonderful places,
sometimes to psychosis and insanity I think. I can pick out all the
different beats, and they seem to flow through the fabric of my being,
unlocking it, freeing it up. I take things too serious sometimes, just
gotta lighten up and have fun. I close my eyes feeling the ecstasy buzz
round my system and I send out positive uplifting energy to the
world.

And then a strange thing happens: I feel myself leave my body and I'm
stood at the back of your house, in the orchard near the woods and the
caravan. I walk through the gate into your garden. Everything is so
vivid and real, like I'm really stood there. I walk passed your
father's vegetable plots and the windchime hanging in the branches of
the tree, I pass through the second gate. Walk right up to the back of
your house, look up towards your bedroom window. It's so quiet, and all
the lights in your house are off. It is late, not sure what time, but
definately some time after 2 a.m. -- Then suddenly I am stood in your
room, it's pitch black in there, but I manage somehow to create a
phantom light which illuminates the scenery around me. I see your
huddled sleeping form wrapped up in a douvet. I tell you softly, that I
love you more than anything in the world. That I want to make you
happy. I stroke your hair, you stir a little from sleep, but don't wake
up. I feel this overwhelming feeling of wanting nothing but the best
for you. I really care for you. I tell you not to worry about things,
that everything is going to be alright, and we'll be real happy
together in Scotland. I kiss you softly... and wooomph suddenly my eyes
open and I find myself stood in the midst of a rave party, with loud
music, and lots of people dancing wildly around me. I look around
feeling a bit lost and disorientated, but still buzzing.

I go to the chill out room for a bit.

In the chill out room I want to tell you how much you mean to me, but
it's late and I know you'll be fast asleep, so I start writing you a
text message, knowing you never have your mobile phone switched on, and
probably won't read it for weeks. But I have to tell you something
about what I'm feeling. I press the send button and the 'message sent'
screen appears. I put the phone back in my pocket. Then eat another
pill. I talk to some of the folk sat around me. We have a good laugh,
we're all nutted, and we keep forgetting what we're talking about
mid-sentence - we sit there with silly smiles on our faces, passing
round some spliff, which is starting to fall to pieces, cause nobody is
in a fit state to skin up properly.

I feel the second pill kick in, and get up to go back to the
dancefloor. I'm really really off it now, don't really know what I'm
doing. In my pocket is a brown paper bag full of sea shells, the one's
that we collected together on the beach. And I start giving them away
to people. Holding the bag in my hand and asking folk to pick one. I
tell them that they're magical shells from Scotland. Some people give
me funny looks and think me a bit odd. Some people are cool and take
one off me and say thanks. Some people think that I am offering them
drugs and try to politely say no. But I follow them around and keep
trying to offer them these shells, telling them that they're sea shells
from Scotland. They look worried, as if what I'm offering them is the
latest killer designer drug or something - this makes some of my
friends laugh. Dan goes a bit hypo, and pulls out the shell I gave him
earlier from his shirt pocket and shows it to these people. Saying:
"Look I got one, they're shells, they come from Scotland...." He waves
it frantically in front of these poor people's faces, who don't know
what to make of us bunch of nutters; they look terrified of us... and
remembering this I feel a bit embarrassed now - I hope I never see them
again.

The strangest moment was when I entered the club and the bouncer
searched my pockets and found my paper bag of shells. "They're sea
shells from Scotland," I said. He gave me a suspicious look. He sniffed
and even tasted one to make sure they really were sea shells. Then
realizing that they were sea shells, he handed them back to me puzzled,
this made people in the queue laugh.

Drugs do strange things to your mind man... or do they? Is it us who
are strange stuck in civilization? Maybe being high on drugs frees us
from structure, makes us more real; cause I feel truth is deeper than
logic and reason, deeper than words. The truth you speak has no future,
no past. Doesn't need words to express it. It is, and that's all it
needs to be.

I bite my last pill in half and give half of it to Dan whose coming
down and has no more pills left. I place it in his hand, and he gives
me a happy nod when I tell him what it is. Some time later we're both
jumping up and down again on the dancefloor, whooping, with big grins.
Everybody cheers, and it gets really really banging in there, and I can
feel the floor quaking under my boots, everybody is really giving it
some, going for it... dancing like total loonies... it's great.

Towards the end of the night I start to comedown a little, and sit down
and close my eyes and just listen to the music. Still high enough to
feel it take me places. I sit there tranced, hypnotized, in awe of
sound, smiling away happily to myself. Feeling these mighty spirits
around me, and a strong sense that all things are possible, and not to
worry about stuff anymore, cause everything is gonna be alright, is
gonna be sorted. Then I'm sat in my flat on my sofa in front of the
long coffee table. Ben, my dog looks up from his bed and wags his tail,
he walks over to me and I pat him gently on the head, tell him that
everything is gonna be alright... he looks so beautiful, and I tell him
I love him and he's my brother... that I'll do my best to take care of
him...

... suddenly there is bright white light everywhere and a voice coming
from a speaker; "Thankyou all for coming. Hope you had a good night..."
opening my eyes I find I'm back at the rave, feeling lost and
disorientated again...

loads of people are shouting, pleading for more music:

"One more!"

"Go on... one more!!"

"One more!"

... the lights go out, the music kicks in again and everybody cheers.
Dan grabs me at this point and says now would be a good time to get our
coats before everybody rushes all at once and you have to queue for
ages. We get our coats, then walk the passage da terror of people
handing out flyers, and by the time we're clear of the club I have
pockets stuffed full of them.

We walk back home, and realize halfway back that walking was a bad
idea, cause we come right down off all the drugs we've taken, and are
really tired and can hardly walk... it is very hard to just put one
foot in front of the other, and we moan about it, wishing we had got a
taxi. When we get home we don't really talk much and just crash out and
sleep.

I wake up feeling rough, but happy, and trudge downstairs. Nobody else
in the house is up, so I make myself some tea and start writing all
this down on any scraps of paper I can find, mainly the flyers I have
stuffed in my pockets...