I had my first run in with mind-altering chemicals last night. No, mom, don't worry, not those. It's the ones I'm supposed to be taking - you know the ones that are supposed to prevent me from getting the shakes and the chills and the vomiting - malaria.
The prescription slip that came along with my mind (I mean malaria) drugs reads, in big capital letters something like this:
WARNING! DO NOT TAKE THIS MEDICATION IF YOU ARE SUFFERING FROM DEPRESSION, ANXIETY, SCHITZOPHRENIA, MULTIPLE PERSONALITY DISORDER, OR ANY OTHER MENTAL DISORDER. THIS MEDICATION HAS BEEN KNOWN TO EXACERBATE (wait did I spell that right?) ANY AND ALL MENTAL CONDITIONS.
POSSIBLE SIDE EFFECTS INCLUDE: (the boring kind like) HEADACHE, NAUSEA, STOMACH ACHE, FUZZY VISION, (and then the much more fun)VIVID NIGHTMARES, PARANOIA, ANXIETY, HALLUCINATIONS, CONFUSION, SEIZURES, LOSS OF PERSONALITY, MEMORY LOSS, LOSS OF A SENSE OF REALITY...and the list goes on and on (I didn't make any of those up either).
Now, before leaving for Africa, I was (admittedly) looking forward to some of these side effects. I mean confusion and memory loss are things that I've dealt with my whole life, usually it goes something like this: I'll be walking down the street on my way to class, then I'll almost get run over by say, a firetruck on its way to rescue an old lady who managed to get stuck in a tree. Then I'll promptly forget where I was going and I'd be confused: Do I know any old ladies? And what's she doing in that tree anyways?
Fortunately, I've managed to defeat natural selection for just over 20 years (because we all know that the caveman wondering what the old lady is doing in the tree isn't going to catch any buffalo), so confusion and memory loss are nothing new. What I wanted was something hipper, edgier: paranoia, loss of reality, hallucinations, vivid dreams. Something to write home about. Something to brag to my friends about when I got home: "yeah, you think your trip to Paris was cool, well I went to Africa where I discovered that eviler pelicans are plotting to take over the world and convinced the evil hoards of evil goats to join me in defending humanity." The seizures though I can do without.
Unfortunately, my medications and mental state would not comply and I remained hallucination-free dissapointedly sensible, and all my dreams were just weird.
That is, until late last night.
I'm on some elevator, riding it around. It's like Willy Wonka's great glass elevator: it goes upways and sideways and downways and leftways and inside and outside and inside-out and outside-in. So I'm going through my day, taking the elevator to and from class. When I try to go to the library however, the elevator decides that I would rather go to the cafeteria because it's hungry. So it does a bendy loopy turn and dives down to the cafeteria. It crashes through the window and dumps me in the top of the playspace above the food court (yes, apparently my foodcourts come with playspaces).
I pick myself up, dust myself off, and turn to go get something to eat. Except I can't. Something's holding me back. I turn around to find a man in a bubu holding on to me. That wasn't the weird thing (if you can believe it - how many times do men in bubus decide that they're not going to let go of you? How many times do men in bubus grab you in the first place?). The weird thing was that this man in a bubu had no eyes - just holes where his eye sockets would normally be. Fortunately, he kept his eyes closed so as to spare me the sight of his brain, but still it was freaky enough.
Now, when I see a man in a bubu with no eyes, I immediately get suspicious. I mean the color of his bubu looked really good on him, and how did he pick it out if he had no eyes? How did this dude find the bubu in the morning after he woke up? Do eyeless men in bubus open their eyelids when they wake up or are they just "awake" in a metaphysical sense of the word? When he finally got out of bed, how did he find his closet? Did he put the bubu on himself or did his wife dress him? Who would marry an eyeless zombie anyways? Did they have eyeless bubu-clad zombies to go with their bubu-clad house? Do you think he cleans the sockets of his eyes or do they just collect dust? What is he going to do when the evil hoards of evil goats implement their plot to take over the world? He'll just be sitting there looking as the goats silently ate every last scrap of clothing on his body, and wouldn't notice until it was too late and he was chilly (cause it doesn't get cold here).
And when an eyeless zombie all decked out in a really nice bubu won't let go to me, I (naturally enough) start to panic. I mean what does this guy want with me anyways? He better not come for my eyes because I enjoy doing things like looking. I hope he doesn't try to eat me because I'm kind of skinny and don't have that much meat on my bones - and everyone knows that toubabs taste like sour milk anyways. So I did what anyone would do when attached to a very persistant bubu clad eyeless zombie - I kicked him in the shins. But everyone knows that bubu-clad eyeless zombies are immune to shin kicks - a fact that I was made painfully aware of when my bubu-clad eyeless zombie turned into (and I'm not making this up) a little alligator wearing a t-shirt that said "get me some taco." Oh and he still wouldn't let me go.
Little alligators are scary enough, but when they come with a craving for Mexican food they become downright freaky. My dad showed up to save the day (from where I cannot say), and started to stomp on our t-shirt wearing taco-eating lizard. At this point, I decided that enough was enough. I wanted out. You might think I'm a quitter, but up to this point I had endured the Willy Wonka ride from hell, an eyeless bubu-wearing zombie, and a taco loving lizard. You would have left too. This being a dream, I did what any sensible dreamer would do - I forced myself to wake up.
I opened my eyes and found myself gasping in my room. My heart was beating a million miles a minute, and a cold sweat was pouring down my back. It was really really dark (maybe because it was only 1.30), but luckily my eyes came equipped with built in flashlights. I would look at the walls and there would be a little patch dimly illuminated - just enough so I could see the graffitti painted all over my walls.
It was at this point that I realized that eyes don't come with flashlights built in. Furthermore, upon going to sleep the walls of my room were painted in a dull shade of white - no graffitti to be found anywhere. Something was amiss. I began to panic. I knew I was awake, but still seeing all sorts of crazy things. Don't look at the fan, the little red lights will look like eyes oh my god they do look like eyes quick turn on the light before you start imagining people in the room what the hell was that shadow over by the door am i going crazy?
I reached over and turned on my bathroom light. I saw that my fan did not have eyes and was only an air-mover. I saw that my walls were eggshell white and sufficiently graffitti free. Its effect was immediately calming - like a cool breeze on a hot day - I wasn't crazy.
I got a drink of water and tried to slow my heart down. But I kept coming back to my bubu-clad eyeless zombie and taco-eating alligator. Every time I pictured that eyeless zombie face or taco shirt, I shivered a little bit.
But it might have just been the chilly (not cold) air.
Anyways, I've got to go discuss the impending eviler pelican invasion with the evil hoard of evil goats that lives by my house. Right after I take this week's malaria meds...
Love,
Jake
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