Clouds

I had wanted to drink more but by now that seemed pointless. In fact I just wanted to drink, smoke, eat and stimulate every part as far as I could and could survive. I imagined an imaginary line, red in colour somewhere near the top of my head, I wanted it all to go up there and beyond, covering the dip stick. All the dials showing full and fuller still. It was a series of silly , destructive, juvenile, lovable thoughts. I tried to dismiss them but who has any power over their thoughts, who can exercise that kind of control over any such an abstract thing?

I was probably rolling now, probably unsteady, doorways, stairs, seats and the smell of cooking, the wide world I was peering into all had a warm and ragged edge attached. Seats and levers and a vague sense of the others around me. I knew it (the feeling) didn’t belong there and I didn’t belong either. It was about then that I became aware of the clouds. White and shiny and magnificent. A wild parade of random curves swooping and diving in their own cloudy slow motion and I felt I was amongst them. Rays of golden lasers of sunlight would penetrate and pursue them ready to bring them low as if they were hostile bombers in formation. Light like some surgical incisor pushing into the droplets and swirls, threatening to deflate and explode all this flying water, brining it down as an unholy rain on the masses below. The white fluff moved towards me and through me, I was excited and elated and on the edge of needing to be drinking more, everything in my senses was overloading and the barrage of cloud was like some final piece of over indulgence. I was focusing on the strange detail, the changing shapes, seeing the inside out and the microscopic detail that was pushing against my retina and back into my brain. I was high.

Time was a lost concept, the cloud armies overrunning and over coming at me like crazy Chinese warriors or a sweating and rising Hawaiian surf. I felt my nose pressed against glass, my palms were dry and then wet, there was a crackle in my ears, I was still elated but unaware, the voices were close and then far. I could hear words but not get the meaning. I pulled my fingers tight and moved my knuckles, like a pianist preparing to play some elegant sonata. I wanted to roll up my sleeves and read the music, see the notes and hear the tune. I knew I was a part of something, I knew I was in a team, perhaps the leader , perhaps the apprentice, surely the apprentice, young and immature and infatuated with clouds and the silly feelings of feeling good. I must because I had an invigorating and clear sense of having no responsibility, no pressure. Perhaps I was the tea boy or a messenger who just fetches and carries and never has to think. I must be that, a winged messenger striding through the tinted fields of strato nimbus and cumulous without a care like some flipped out experience junkie. Maybe an angel, maybe I have been hitch hiking and an angel picked me up.

Minutes and hours rushed by and I suddenly became aware of my white shirt, it gleamed like some bright sword cutting across my torso into the skies. What am I wearing and where am I now? A firm hand is on my shoulder, more unexpected noise, vibration travels up my arm, I’m controlling, people are to the left, clouds to the right, close rushing clouds, grey now and thick as soup. The voice in my ear becomes clear, I’m wearing an ear piece so it travels right through my head, jarring and breaking into the warmth of the dream, “Stanstead tower to EZ361, clear for approach, over!”