Mushrooms

Gasping up on the westwood plains, rains sweep past clouds. Behind us the blue sky thrusts through the migraine mists and my hair drips. Eyes cast to the ground scrutinising each life filled space of grass. The sound of the East Yorkshire town is far behind us now and we gather mushrooms, bags of psylosybin promise. Drift unconsciously homewards, three gatherers, through the scent of crushed pine needles and soft mud, and take the mushrooms and prepare a soup, the envy of any chef though laden with the doors of perception.

A swallow is irreversible.The strained mycelial juices potent and pumping the pulmonary paths of my presence in this world. They penetrate my brain and pull me high above the northern streets, whose houses look like toy-brick dwellings for Lego men and the cars like matchboxes.

Past a churchyard and over a level crossing we came to a fairground. Row upon row of sparkling pockets of carnivality ; of Gypsy Lee, candyfloss and tea, the smell of onion, the sounds of techno music swinging an accompaniment to a mechanical skydance. The rhythm betrayed an out-of-time-ness. Had I stepped into a near-future Hull or was the hallucinogen playing a devilish trick on me? Helium filled foil dolphins swim the dry smoke sky. A new organic advancement? Is he an automated sea-mammal chasing invisible plankton through the heavy air or are two electrons in each atom straining at the leash? I had always thought that if this life ever became too much for me to live, I would lovingly leap from eight floors and I have often wondered how that ultimate journey would drum an experience into my brain only to be obliterated upon impact. In the thirst for discovery I went on a fairground ride - the tallest of its kind; a one hundred and eighty foot vertical drop and as I hung suspended in peace looking across at the lights and the myriad small people below, I knew a little more. Then, when they dropped us, clutching to safety bar and breathless, I knew how it would feel to rush to the desperate end in that way . Falling at twenty four feet per second is too swift for thought or regret and I took comfort in that knowledge.

Trip trip tripping away to the end of the evening, to the end of the world, we did eventually rest and I stared fascinated at the blur of televisioned images and a melting wall and carpet. Sensory perception so shafted now, but I have been here before and I am not afraid. Late into the night I cannot sleep for visions disturb and I surf the fine waves on the outer edges of my mind, and I remember those long gone LSD days and pray for rest. Yet through all the mangled lights there is you, there is warm, there is something solid.