Frightened Tummy

One of the many things I hate about this government is the way it’s turned me into a conspiracy theorist.

Behind the door in front of me I hear the thunder of feet descending the stairs.

I also hate the way they turn the law on its head, handing down value judgements they’re not fit to make. No longer are only certain mind-altering substances illegal. That’s too egalitarian. Now all such things are illegal by definition - unless they make an exception.

Bolts rattle and the door is flung open to reveal Annie. A tall young woman with pitch-black hair and dark makeup that contrasts violently with the joi de vivre evident on her face. “Holly!” she shrieks, grabbing my forearm with one be-ringed hand, “Come on in, we’re just getting started.”

The exceptions are few and far between and too expensive for the likes of us. I don’t understand — why stop people feeling high? Surely it’s easier to govern and police a drugged population than a stone-cold sober one? Unless they want people living in poverty and squalor to suffer as much as possible by being fully aware of it.

After all, what is the purpose of power if those you have power over don’t know it?

But there I go, starting to think like a conspiracy theorist again.

Annie says it’s because they want to keep it all for themselves. That doesn’t make sense either. But that’s Annie for you — enthusiastic and very clever but prone to flights of fancy. I follow her upstairs, the strips of pale flesh between the top of her black socks and the bottom of her trouser-legs flashing in my face. Her feet slide on the bare wood of the staircase; her socks have glitter and sequins embedded in the soles. What’s been going on up here?

All avenues of pleasure have been closed off — we take our thrills where we can. If you’re happy or excited you don’t need drugs. Those experiments with rats showed us that. But who is happy these days? It was different when I was a child. My earliest mind-altering experience was when strapped into the back of my parents’ car as they drove over a humpbacked bridge. The brief moment of free fall at the apex of the arc, the rollercoaster instant that turned my viscera into nervous water and sent thrills of fear and pleasure through my body. I told my parents it gave me a frightened tummy.

But I didn’t tell them I enjoyed it.

Annie’s smiles also give me a frightened tummy. That’s something I’ve kept to myself as well. As we reach the top of the stairs she gives me a dose before dragging me into the lounge.

Mirror-balls are suspended from the ceiling and battery powered halogens are dotted around the room. The beams fracture and slash across the space like the searchlights of tiny drones seeking out the perpetrators of microscopic crime. There’s glitter in the air, infinitesimal panes of silver foil turning over and over in the current from the portable aircon.

Some bodies dance to the music being beamed directly into their owners’ ear buds by DJ Silence crouched over her tablet in the corner of the room. Other bodies are gathered in slicks at the bottom of the wall on duvets and beanbags, sipping fluorescent liquids from transparent plastic.

Sometimes we alter our minds with sensory stimulation.

You know about the rats, right? They experimented on a rat in a cage with two water bottles – one plain, one laced with cocaine. Every time the experiment was run, the rat got hooked on the drugged water until it died.

Annie drags me into the kitchen. We have other business. She leans back against the work surface, smiling at me from behind obsidian bangs. In the glare from the loose strip-light propped against one wall her face is fragile — beautiful but with a trace of fatigue beneath the surface, a hint of the sleep avoidance she’s been pursuing for days. Annie’s default way of altering her mind.

“I got some.” I reach underneath my skirt and pull out the padded cloth bag hidden in the lining.

Annie snatches it and sits down, pouring its contents onto a paper plate, sorting the multi-coloured capsules with long fingers,  ragged nails tipped with chipped black varnish. She’s looking for something that will make a difference.

The government has long since removed any psychoactive ingredients from pharmaceuticals — all medicines are non-drowsy by default. But this is where combos come in. Sometimes inhibitors in one drug cancel out those in another. Taking both frees the brain from the prison of reality.

Our reality. A reality like one of those rat cages in the original experiment.

They did the rat experiment again of course. Part two, the sequel. This time the rats weren’t alone and the cage was a pleasant environment, rich with stimuli. The two bottles were still there but the rats ignored the drugged one.

I sit next to Annie on the bench, leaning against her arm. The wool of her ragged black jumper is comforting against my face; it smells of cheap washing powder and patchouli. I watch her tip the pills into tiny plastic bottles she’s labelled with orange, red and yellow stickers. Despite her background in biochemistry she’s got outlandish theories about what happens when you get very high. She thinks you go somewhere else, another happier psychedelic realm sitting alongside this one.

Like I say, she’s prone to flights of fancy. Personally I think the idea that the highs are already within us is more encouraging. It means that ideally we don’t need all this.

Drug addiction could just be our natural response to a bad environment. Just ask the rats. When they had each other, when they were happy, they were on a natural high.

However, Annie is after the total high. She’s obsessed with it. She believes there’s a combination that not only cancels out the inhibitors but also forces them into contradictory shapes that enhance the psychoactive effect. It sounds exciting but right now just sitting here leaning against Annie is more than enough for me.

She pushes three pills towards me; three similar ones cupped in the palm of her other hand.

“Give this a go. It’s something I’m trying out.”

“What are they?” It’s unusual to take three - the combos usually work in twos.

“I think I’ve got it! Three pills! They work in a triangle - a acts on b acts on c acts on a - cancelling each other out and releasing the real highs!”

I swallow them with a swig from a half empty can of flat alcohol-free lager.

Ten minutes later I am waiting for something to happen. It can take up to an hour for any real effect to kick in but a false precursor - pure placebo - is sending shivers of excitement up and down my limbs. Even anticipation is enough to alter our minds.

Annie stands and takes me by the hand, leading me into a dark room off the kitchen. Panes of frosted glass illuminate it with dim grey light from outside — indeterminate white goods huddle in one corner. Grit and dirt crunch underfoot.

Annie pulls open a wooden door, which shudders as it scrapes against the floor. The building backs onto an abandoned railway embankment. From the tiny concrete yard outside we climb rotting wooden steps up onto the wide trackbed. The rails have long since been stripped up, melted down and repurposed for the war effort. We hop across cracked cement sleepers, feet crunching on the track ballast when we miss our footing.

The moon and stars shine unchallenged by electric streetlight. Somewhere to the north a drone sweeps the city with a tightly focussed beam. The beam fractures into myriad colours that are reflected inside my head and I’m now coming up fast. Annie squeezes my hand and I look up into her moonlit face.

Her eyes are smiling at a twisted angle that mirrors the spiral of pleasure mounting my spine in a reverse helter-skelter. I take her other hand as the ground falls away from beneath us and my tummy becomes very frightened indeed.

For a moment I forget where I am and am totally focussed on the warmth of Annie’s hands in mine, skin interface, the excitement flowing back and forth between us. And then the world comes back into view, edges limbed with fractal patterns, shadows illuminated by a light in the back of my head. What was the distant bulk of the derelict station is nearer now, a smaller silhouette, distance twisted into height. It’s a doorway, but before I can say anything Annie pulls me through and we are elsewhere.

There’s no sign of the real world and deep inside me a tiny rational kernel shrieks that this can’t possibly be. But it is. We are surrounded by swirling red noise, spinning organic motifs familiar from the borders of sleep. My spinal dervish whirls faster, liberating me. The top of my skull has opened; only now do I realise how tense I have been my whole life.

We are somewhere else.

Something is wrong.

Dark shapes coalesce from the chaos in front of us. They stride forward faces hidden behind visors of smoke, batons raised.

CLEAR THE AREA! YOU ARE TRESPASSING! THIS IS YOUR LAST WARNING!

Crackling electric voice driving razor shards between my vertebrae, shattering the helix of pleasure and plunging me into a pit of paranoia.

They want it all for themselves. They want us to suffer.

I can no longer feel Annie’s hands and am battered on all sides by despair as their batons fall.