Monday, June 11, 2012

Of Time and Candy Lime

A tropical resort, poolside. An artificial waterfall feeds the pool. Apparently, the pool is clothing optional: I’m watching a golden-haired nymph float by on an inflatable lily pad, her sunglasses reflecting the annular eclipse … tattooed natives play bongos under the palm trees …

Tom Cruise walks up grinning, takes a baggie of weed out of his pocket, sits down next to me and holds the baggie open for my inspection. But it’s not weed—looks like sugar-coated candy lime slices. “This will put you in the right place,” he says.

I’m doubtful, but follow him into the hotel. Walking up a crooked stairwell, I suddenly feel strange and realize I’m already high, even though I haven’t ingested anything yet ...

The luxury suite is fluorescent green—green ceiling, green floor, green furniture, and the walls covered in glimmering green stones, thousands of them, and inside each stone a moving picture, each one a different jungle scene … but like no jungle I’ve ever seen, the animals are strange and freakish: brightly-colored winged serpents, lizard-monkeys swinging in the trees, a paisley pig unrolling his feathery snout while the female pigs grunt in excitement … and a spotted cat-woman with a diamond-toothed smile lying on the sofa smoking from a hookah …

My head feels like a helium balloon floating several feet above my body … Panic sets in … What’s happening to me?

“It’s the drug,” says the cat-woman, exhaling green smoke. “It takes effect before you take it. You take it to come down.”

Tom holds out one of the candy lime slices.

“No,” I say, “I’m not taking anything I don’t know what it is.”

“But you’ve already taken it,” says the cat-woman, “or will take it. You have no choice.”

“Of course I have a choice.”

“Choice is a fiction,” she purrs. “Did you have a choice when you were born? Will you have a choice when you die?”

I turn towards the door. It begins to rain …