. His head keeled dangerously. He blinked at the faces swimming before him, trying desperately to penetrate the mire his vision had become. Sets of eyes floated before him, at turns magnified then microscopic. The sounds around him were surrealy tangible. He could almost visualise them; a snicker tumbling towards him only to veer left before making contact, a high pitched squeal of excitement that hung overhead ominously taut like a bowstring.
He peered about him through cracked eyelids, sniffing in aroused amusement at the brazen picture of a thumbtacked postergirl simpering topless in the sand. It seemed to him at once absurd and cartoonishly erotic.
His gaze drifted to a chandelier hanging from the ceiling( or was it a lamp?). A web of cracks ran from the corner of the ceiling to the base of the chandelier. He imagined them as little arteries of light connected to ethereal cords that extended from the heavens and touched the walls of the room. What else could generate this orchestra of swooping sounds and shimmering colours?
He felt permeable somehow, as if what he was experiencing now, in this very moment, had become the complete sum of his identity. He grinned savagely about him, closing his eyes and rolling his head back on his shoulders. His head did not stop reeling as he did so. The erratic lurching and swaying of his mind he now found queasy without the distraction of his vision. He lent forward, head in hands, trying desperately to assuage the feeling of helpless nausea rising in him. Gratefully, he lurched onto his hands and knees, spewing bile and ethanol reeking mush.
He was assaulted by a wave of jeers and exclamations of disgust:
“What the fuck man!?”
“Ohmygod you spa!Like I am so not cleaning that up!”
Rolling onto his back in exhaustion he wiped his mouth on the back of his hand and closed his eyes, an overwhelming feeling of fear and embaressment suddenly hit him. How could he have done that? What if word spread about his disgrace? He was convinced every eye in the room was fixed on him savouring and filing away every single nuance of his humiliation for future ridicule. He knew he would never live this down.
Determined to make the best of his situation he sat upright ( causing a fresh bout of seasickness) and plastered a small sickly smile across his face. In a bid to appear unphased and nonchalante he reached lazily for a bottle of beer next to him and tossed it back with as much indifference as he could muster. Too late he realized the bottle had been serving as an ashtray and a grimy deposit for forlorn cigarette butts. Completely at a loss about how to react he screwed shut his eyes and hoped against hope this new calamity would go unnoticed. Alas, as the filthy dregs and sodden roaches swilled against his lips a cry went up heralding his mistake:
“Jesus Christ that is rank man!”
“What a freak!”
He cast the bottle aside in despair, feeling his face burning in shame and self disgust. He collapsed back against the floor holding a forearm in front of his eyes and trying to filter out the sounds of his degredation. An urge to cry out in defiance of the moment came upon him but it caught in his throat and instead a strangled groan slid from between his lips. He curled himself into a ball and with all his might willed time forward to a moment beyond his current humiliation.
The thumping in his head had grown into a cacophony too intense to bear. Some distant part of his mind was vaguely aware of his fumbling, fast slipping grasp on consciousness. He plummeted gratefully towards oblivion, welcoming the reprieve of sleep. He could feel the coherency of any rational thoughts slurring together in a jumbled mess. The only thing that pervaded was an unshakeable feeling of fear. Finally the ambience around him faded into the ether and he slid into an uneasy comatose.
Except he didn’t. Something refused to shut down in him despite the depth of his unconsciousness. The tiny cogs in his head that belonged to that part of his mind that is a spectator remained painfully aware. He felt suddenly frustrated with himself, despairing that his mind wasn’t allowing him a complete release.
He could feel his awareness lifting somehow. As if that part of his brain still functioning had decided to abandon the rest of his sluggish inferior consciousness in distaste as it slumbered, completely incapacitated.
He experienced an odd vacuum sensation as if his vision was being sucked through a narrow tube from the rest of his body to his fragmented awareness ballooning upwards, it teetered between the two places momentarily before snapping upwards in the unsettling manner of velcro being torn apart.
Mod note: Topic rated 16+ for language.
