The fix is in, the fix is in!
The shaman, the black-clad night-tripper smiles and beckons me to follow. We enter the garden together and stand chilling in the winter air. He lets my eyes grow accustomed to the darkness and I wait, heart pounding.
A lightening flash. A bare-bone skeleton tree sears my retina! It splits in two, opening the gate to a new world beyond.
I fall to my knees before a shrunken shrub resting its head on the night soil. I'm captivated by its charms.
The shaman stands to my left. He claps his hands three times. At the third clap a shaft of light emerges from the ground. It races the length of a far away tree before it disappears into the blackness only to return a moment later to repeat its journey over and over again in a hypnotic tic-toc loop.
I'm locked in now. Unable to rise to my feet I crawl slowly on my hands and knees
toward the distant tree.
My body absorbs the textures of
the ground beneath as I edge ever closer. I look up. A spectral pattern of light veins the night sky.
I rest for a while, holding my hand to the intermittent pulses of light. Strange iridescent forms start to course back and forth across the surface of my skin
One final push and I'm there. The tree greets my arrival with a shower of myrrh-scented needles. They prick open my flesh and enter in.
The iridescent skin formations crystallise, turning me to bark at the moon. Now the fix kicks.
Dancing among the death of last year. Strange hues and flash backs. The shaman draws near, in his hand a single preserved flower. 'Look' he commands.
I look and the flower explodes into tone before reaching forward to bite off my head. And now things get seriously weird.
the world spins around me
all colour drains
until there is nothing left
but
the smallest spectral trace of my life
as it passes
from the garden
