different buzz.
So here we are. Victoria line, Euston second stop then change. Our usual route, followed out now. How many times have we sat through this journey? Who knows? Who’s counting? Well, I’m not anyway. It’s too soon to tell if the mushrooms are kicking in yet, with each trip it’s becoming harder to define the line between reality and induced. I don’t know, maybe our bodies are becoming used to it, our minds left open longer, our dosage increasing in volume each time. When you’ve visited the other realm so often it leaves an imprint. There’s only so much your brain can take before there’s no going back. Madness is a state of mind after all.
So here we are for the second time today. Euston. We have no intention of raising up to the main station. We’ve got to switch lines, grab the Northern line to Waterloo. We could get off at any stop but no, today we have once again chosen Waterloo as our destination. Sat on the tube train, eyes looking around, seeking out changes. Try to pull apart the fiction from the fact. There’s the rocker, headphones in ears, his head nodding in time to the music, exaggerated movements but maybe that’s his style. There in front of me is the fat black woman, gripping the Atkins diet book in her hands, reading intensely. Is she really that fat? The only way in which you could check would be to take a photo, but I don’t have a camera. I guess you could just reach out and touch her, grip the rolls of flesh, but that is something you shouldn’t do, well unless you wanted a black eye.
It’s becoming harder to tell when our eyes are deceiving us. Next to me I can see Sam imitating the rocker, pushing his fingers in his ears and bobbing his head simultaneously. I nudge him with my elbow and nod towards the fat woman. I hear him giggle, he hides his mouth behind his hand. Maybe she really is that fat, maybe we’re both viewing a mind altered extreme. Either way, at least we’re existing on the same plains. No disconnection here, Sam and I are a team, we’ll help each other through this no matter what.
We arrive at Waterloo, the train journey seemingly endless, a constant change of people squeezing on and off the crowded train. The air is ripe with anticipation, anticipation for the new year, a chance to metaphorically wipe the slate clean, a chance to pretend that the change of the year’s final digit will ease the past. Tomorrow will be the night billions of lies will be told across the globe, billions of empty promises made. I look around the train, nothing is going to change for any of these people. They’ll plan for it, believe it for a day before they fall back into the same old routines with the same old faces. It’s kinda upsetting, mankind putting their hopes into one change of date.
Gradually we manage to squeeze off the train and find ourselves on the platform. I look at Sam, he looks at me in the same way. It’s the look of ‘what now?’. What can we do this time that’ll be different to the last? What places have we still to explore? We need adventure, something to maintain the high we’ve been on for weeks, something to drain our energy and let us laugh openly. Another memory to add to the hundreds already stored. It snowed on Christmas day, beat that.
Sam’s voice next to me. ‘I need a piss.’
‘Really? I dunno if I want one yet.’
‘Well we might as well go now, it’ll save us having to go later.’
‘Makes sense.’ Laughter leaves my lips. ‘Well, at least this time we’ll know where to go won’t we.’
Sam laughs too. We’re both laughing. When he looks at me I can see the love in his eyes, I’m sure he can see it in mine. Foot after foot we approach the escalator. Standing, being risen to the upper levels. Walk, put the ticket into the machine, take it once it has been regurgitated, then hop onto the final escalator that’ll bring us to the concourse. The event with the Japanese Akita long forgotten by the surroundings.
As usual, we let our feet guide us. We ignore everyone, it’s like they are invisible to us, merely obstacles in our path that need to be avoided. The toilets our destination. Pull twenty pence from our pockets. Twenty pence the price you pay to relieve your body of waste. Descend the stairs, push the money in the slot and spin the gate as you walk through. A clumsy sequence of events but they’re soon forgotten, not too much of a trauma to endure for this. The palace of body waste. It’s larger and more opulent than I remember. I hear Sam take an intake of air, I smile, it’s his first time here. Walk down the aisle to find a urinal that suits you. Sam walks in the direction of the terrace of cubicles, finding a room to relieve himself in private. He wanders off and I choose my urinal, I’m bored of looking.
Unzip, pull out, aim. Or should that say ‘wait’? I’m stood in front of a urinal, my dick in hand and nothing is forthcoming. I can’t even tell if I need a piss. Think, focus. Convince the body to force out anything it might be storing in that bladder. Stand. So nothing is going to come out. Don’t look around. Think what to do. Somewhere in this palace Sam is taking a piss behind a closed door, I can’t just stand here and wait, already I just look like a guy standing with his dick in his hand just because he can. I mean, if there’s no piss coming out of it, what is the need to be holding it in public? It’s not like I’m intending to flap it around in people’s faces.
Push it back, zip and turn. Ignore the man who’s watching me. Walk over to the sinks and press the tap into action. Wash the hands, waste time. Sam still hasn’t emerged from his hiding place. He must have really needed the piss. Look to my right, the man’s stood next to me washing his hands, he notices me looking, smiles slyly then nods his head. I shake my hands and move around to the hand dryer, he follows. Stay calm, rub the hands dry in the warm air, I can sense how close he’s standing to me. Step back, bump into him, I look, he’s smiling. I walk. There’s no way I’m waiting for Sam in here. Look straight ahead, luckily this time I know the way out, a quick exit. Through the barriers then stop. Wait. Think. You can’t wait outside a toilet’s entrance, it looks weird. I climb the stairs and wait for Sam on the main concourse. Looking down occasionally for his presence.
Time’s pressing on and still no sign of him. Is time pressing though? Has my concept of it been altered by the toxins running through my system? Indeed, isn’t time a funny concept? It’s always moving forward, yet you can alter the speed at which it does so. Okay, maybe you can’t alter it, but you can certainly change the perception of it, make it speed up or last forever. Who knows, maybe this is one of those moments. I can feel a smile pop across my face, maybe he got lost in there like I did on my first visit.
There he is. I see him. What the fuck is he doing? He stands, leant back against the wall, arms folded. Standing outside the toilets like a fucking slut. I feel a cold chill down my spine. My feet can’t move. My other half is standing there looking like a rent boy and I can’t even move towards him. Frozen, watch, anger. Then I see it, like watching television on mute and in slow motion. A man approaching him, I’d seen him watching and now he is making a move. Slam into gear, smashing through the television and onto the set. Feet on the steps, halfway down and the guy is almost upon him. I hear myself shout Sam’s name. He looks up and sees me, he moves in my direction. The guy has paused, he too looks up at me, his face giving me the message of ‘how dare you’. I feel my anger boil, one step from lashing out, rushing down those remaining steps and forcing my fist down his throat regardless of its toothy barrier. Sam reaches me, I grab his wrist and drag him in front of me, push him on the back and lead him away. My face filled with rage, ignoring people’s ‘what the fuck?’ looks, pushing Sam away from the situation. We reach the concourse and Sam swings around.
‘What was that for?’ he asks.
‘What the fuck were you doing?’
‘What’d I do?’
‘What did you do? Standing outside a toilet looking like a rent boy, that’s what you did.’
‘I wasn’t.’
‘So tell me why that guy checked you out and then approached you?’
‘What guy? I didn’t notice him, I was looking for yo
u.’ His voice pleading.