II. LSD
a trip in Japan
Do you feel anything?
Not yet.
Actually, I am feeling a slight buzz. But I chalk it up to the adrenaline from this morning’s travels.
After a bit of wandering around, we find a spot at the back of the crowd and insert ourselves, swaying lightly to an opener we’ve never heard of — and that’s when it happens.
It’s like my back is turned to the ocean — and I can hear the cresting of a wave — but before I can turn around I’m caught in the barrel, hurled into the soft white sand of psychedelia, tumbling over and over as reality unravels around me, as my thoughts fade into oblivion.
A heady synthetic euphoria floats up from my stomach and curls into my chest.
I swallow hard.
Cash Cash comes on and the crowd presses in, but something is off. In this state, it takes me a while to figure it out, but eventually I get my finger on it. Every group seems to be dressed in their own set of matching outfits. I look at K and E and they confirm that, sure enough, they’re seeing it too. All around us, pressing in closer, like a Tweedledum & Tweedledee fever dream.
But there's something else — see, the people staggering by us are blasted out of their minds. Not unusual at a festival by any means, but… the type of staggering. That’s what gets me. Most festivals are jammed to the brim with folks drifting by, sky high from pill concoctions stuffed inside pastel fanny-packs. But here, everyone is blindingly, smashingly drunk. Neck after neck is yoked with plastic shot glass lanyards. A guy next to us pulls out a (glass!) handle of vodka from his crotch and offers it to us, grinning.
I look at his eyeballs and they bulge out at me, like they’re trying to escape their sockets. His face is close to mine and his skin looks both moist and parched, his pores opening and closing like sea anemones. I stare at him as he waits — presumably, for me to open my mouth so he can pour vodka down my throat.
I look at K and E.
Wordlessly, the three of us peel away.
Away from Crotch Alcohol Man, away from the Tweedledums and Tweedledees, away from it all.
I watch my feet move, one in front of the other.
Underneath us, the asphalt is starting to melt.
