more drafts for a terrible novel...

Martin had been a student of psychoactive medications for most of his life. Hermetic traditions and pharmaceutic commercialisms and all other manner of methodises for somewhat socially acceptable intoxication had delivered him a sparkling and all encompassing doorway into the poisoned caverns of his confused, and often panic driven, hypertensive mind. His memory capacity, his reflexes and his congested sinuses were only the more immediately obvious faculties of his skull that he industriously and randomly offered as sacrifice, over the years, to worms of the senses who ate their way inside out of him with virus power. “Ah…” he would sigh proudly “the places I’ve been.” As the fabric of reality began to vibrate and shimmer and the haze descended through him, the heavy fluids crashing through his dilated bloodstream, the grey green smoke shimmering in his lungs and sucking at the pulse beat. The compulsion to drink was powerful for him, his habit had built a mountain stronghold; downloaded the addiction into his cells; hijacked and fortified unconscious survival mechanisms. Like most alcoholics, Martin couldn’t see himself scratching at the inside of the bottle until it climbed out of his mouth and onto his back in the troubled hours of the morning after, and by then he could score for some weed and the plant guides could deliver him and his bloodshot eyes into their singing holy jungle, easing his punishment by cutting through the nausea and aching in his head and pledging him to contemplation and inaction, to a concerned, bewildered, more forgiving state of being. His body could nurse itself back to health while he rested in the dusty green shadows, gazing at himself in the timeless light reflections washing over him. The gods of addiction laughed mercilessly behind his back when his stomach felt the sting of anxiety over the dilapidating seat of his consciousness. Even when his own father warned him of the recurring dangers of LSD, skull faced trickster deities emerged from the abyss, laughing and twirling and merging into sardonic tentacles, challenging him “how many times have we brought you closer to the man you fear? Without your childish and submissive trepidation, how could any psychedelic syntheses be self-destructive? Don’t you want the spine tingling cosmic consolation, however temporary, that our magnifying mirrors so willingly provide? Wonderland awaits you. Come with us…”

Martin and Charles were dropping partners, and the assumption they shared was that they could enjoy an increased measure of physical safety by taking shelter from the unpredictable, medication-driven enlightenment storms in each others company. Tripping on distorted suburban dreams, and driven drunk by proud faith in subjective individuality and an ingrained, belligerent sense of applied hedonics, the two of them would walk for kilometres into the city lights. They would wear backpacks, carrying a standard assortment of bottled water; mobile phones; lollipops and chewing gum; potato chips; chocolate bars; and paper and materials to transcribe vague and soon forgotten visions in frenetic hebephrenic shorthand.

One night in October, they consume a good measure of cocaine and ecstasy tablets, score for a bottle of tequila and another of cheap Greek ouzo from the local bottle shop, and start walking aimlessly towards a major airport on the other side of town. About a half hour into their trek they climb through a hole in razor wire fence and arrive at the 16^th hole of a deserted golf course. Charles sits down and drops a dying cigarette into the hole while Martin paces in ragged circles around the edges of the green. As he wanders about, his exclamations of indignation become increasingly audible. Charles is having trouble following the conversation that Martin is having with agents unknown, it would seem, to anyone other than himself “there is no tighter hierarchy than extreme wealth, and no one gets in who is not devoted to the interests of money!” He nods his head furiously and throws a half finished cigarette at the ground in frustration. “Did you think I hadn’t figured that out old man?” he chuckles cynically and lights another smoke, drawing deeply. “Did you hear that Charlie? Old Bill thinks he can tell me how the ball rolls when he’s over the hill already!” Martin wanders off purposefully towards the next hole, stopping only to stare up at the stars, yelling loudly “tell me something I don’t know that I know old man!” Charles gets up and starts after him, swigging gladly from the tequila bottle and telling himself how much it annoys him to have to bear witness to his friends reckless channelling of long dead literary outlaws.

After discarding the airport as a worthwhile destination, the two friends arrive at Lucifer’s Lounge around midnight, staggering through the door with their arms across each others shoulders and laughing demonically. Kat is waiting at the bar for them with champagne, majoun candies, shots of mescal and fresh mangoes. “You guys look fucking trashed.” She smiles affectionately at her delirious friends. “I take it the chemical demons and wander bugs still bitin’ you both eh? Well gimme another three or four hours and I’ll put this business to sleep for a while, we can dig these new shrooms that Spider Mike brought in this arvo. Says this afterglow, he gets now is real sweet and like tasting the setting sun, so I took a bunch of that off his hands too, thought maybe we’d dig some of that first eh?”