Distortions

By Dave Wightman

Collection of stories, sometimes funny, sometimes dark.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Sep 11, 2022
• ISBN: 9781471056192

Book preview

Does God have udders?

Lots of transcendent lovers?

Does he get between the covers

With ten superior mothers?

Does God have udders?

Sleep with his brothers?

And in whipped cream smother

The Holy Mary Mother?

Does God have udders?

Sleep drunk in gutters?

And does he pull down the shutters

To hide the fact he stutters?

Does God have udders?

Or just weak bladders?

ALICE IN THE DOPE SHOW

Alice totally lost it one day.

Before then she had been the prettiest child. People would always comment on how beautiful she was.

She was thirteen when she lost her looks.

She woke up one day to find her face covered in acne. Her hair was greasy and she could do nothing with it. She was getting fat.

‘It’s just your hormones playing up,’ her mum reassured her. ‘You will be alright again soon.’

But Alice didn’t believe her.

Alice couldn’t stand to be seen by anyone. She wouldn’t go to school. She wouldn’t let her friends come to visit. She wouldn’t even leave her room.

She stayed there for three months.

Her mother wouldn’t stop pestering her. She would try to motivate her to get up and dress, to eat, to drink, to bathe, to stop crying. Why wouldn’t she become her pretty little girl again?

She ran away on her fourteenth birthday. She wanted to live in the forest where only the animals could ever see her face. She wanted to be alone forever.

Whilst she was in the forest she chased a white rabbit down a hole and had a crazy adventure.

After her adventure she returned home.

She told her mum all about her trip to the forest. She told fantastic stories of talking creatures and of magic mushrooms that changed your size.

Her mum believed none of it.

‘You need help my dear. I’m going to phone the doctor.’

‘I’m not crazy,’ replied Alice. ‘But do as you must.’

Alice told the doctor the same stories. She soon found herself in the local psychiatric hospital.

At first she continued to tell the same stories and refused to take her medication. But then she learnt that she would get out much quicker if she admitted she was mad and took her pills.

She went home two months later with a month’s supply of tranquilisers.

For the first month she was out of hospital Alice’s mum was happy. Alice returned to school. Her friends started coming to the house again. She had stopped obsessing about her appearance.

Then her tranquilisers ran out.

They went to the doctor to get more. Even Alice admitted they were helping.

At first he was willing to give them to her. She took them for over a year and during that time Alice and her mum were both very happy.

Until one day the doctor suddenly cut off her supply. He said she was too young to rely on pills. Her problems were all part of growing up. She would be right soon.

Things did not get better.

Alice looked in the mirror one day. She did not see her usual reflection. She saw none of the good and all of the bad.

She screamed and she screamed.

Her mother swore that there was nothing wrong with her, that she was beautiful.

Alice did not believe her.

She decided to go back to the forest where she met a friendly snake lying in the grass, a long roll-up cigarette between his fangs.

‘What’s the matter young girl?’ he asked.

‘I’m depressed,’ said Alice.

‘Why is a pretty thing like you depressed?’

‘I’m not pretty. I’m a freak. Everyone laughs at me. Everyone criticises me.’

‘I’m sure they don’t. How long have you felt like that?’

‘It seems like all my life. I was alright when I was on tablets. But the doctor won’t give them to me anymore. What am I going to do?’

‘You don’t need doctors to make you feel better. I can give you a tranquiliser. But mine is herbal. Much better than what the doctor prescribes.’

He passed her his roll-up.

‘I don’t smoke,’ said Alice.

‘It’s not a normal cigarette,’ he laughed. ‘It’ll make you feel better. Go on. Have a toke, find some hope.’

Alice dragged on the reefer. She coughed.

‘I can’t smoke any more,’ she said.

‘Yes you can,’ hissed the snake. ‘Smoke the whole joint, find out the point.’

Alice smoked the spliff to the end.

She was no longer coughing, she was laughing.

‘Now follow me,’ said the snake.

He led her to a lake.

‘Look in there and tell me what you see.’

‘I see me,’ she said.

‘And do you frighten yourself anymore?’

‘No, I’m actually quite pretty.’

‘Yes,’ said the snake. ‘Now go home and remember that.

Alice went home to her mother.

She still had days when she thought the world was against her. On these days she would go and visit the snake and smoke a pipe with him.

‘Hashish pacifies your soul,’ he explained. ‘Don’t abuse it or you’ll lose it.’

For a while Alice was happy.

But then one day she realised there was something missing from her life.

‘What’s the matter?’ asked the snake.

‘All the time I was on tranquilisers and now the dope my brain has slowed down. I no longer have the ability to communicate with people. I am so far behind in conversations that by the time I’ve thought up a response the subject has changed. What can I do?’

‘Follow me,’ said the snake.

He led her to a river.

On the river there was a beaver building a dam.

‘Hello,’ said the beaver. ‘What can I do for you?’

The snake explained Alice’s problem to him.

He scratched his chin.

‘What you need is some speed. Some of that and then you’ll chat.’

He produced a wrap from his pocket.

‘Go on. Snort a few lines and rhyme those rhymes.’

She tried it.

The beaver had many friends. Every weekend Alice would go and visit them and take some speed. They would talk for hours about anything and everything. Alice felt like she belonged. She felt loved.

But all highs have their lows.

During the week she would be moody and depressed. She would go nowhere unless she was on speed. She started to look pale and twisted. She started to look like her worst nightmare.

She returned to the hospital.

The thing that makes mental institutions worse than prison is the boredom. Something about the place and the medication they feed you makes you constantly restless.

Alice decided to seek help from the spider that lived in her room.

‘I’m so bored. I need excitement. My mind is numb. I need some inspiration for my mind. What can I do?’

‘I can help you,’ said the spider. ‘What you need is LSD. Take a trip, don’t bite your lip. A sting from me and inspired you will be.’

She tried it.

Alice decided to look in the mirror. She picked up her looking glass and as if by magic went through it.

She had all kinds of adventures. But this time she kept them to herself.

Quite soon after that she was released from the hospital.

She tried hard to adjust to normal life. But everything was pointless and inane since her experience with acid. She asked her cat for advice.

‘I need excitement. I crave fun. I need to be aroused. What can I do?’

‘What do you say to MDMA?' Pop a pill, you need the thrill.’

Alice tried it.

She spent the night hopping from one club to another. She had more friends in one night than she’d ever had in her life. She had found a world in which she belonged.

Soon she was taking Ecstasy every weekend. Sometimes two, sometimes three times a week. She would double drop, treble drop. She was the life of any party. She was in with the A crowd. She was special.

But soon her magic pills stopped working. She no longer felt like dancing. She began to get bored and irritated when she was in a club.

Eventually she lost the ability to enjoy life.

She went to see her old friend the snake again.

‘I have drained all of my serotonin. I can no longer find pleasure in anything. Nothing stimulates me. I’d be better off dead. I wish I was dead.’

‘There’s something better than death,’ said the snake. ‘Take this smack and there will be nothing for your life to lack. You’ll be numb like Tweedle Dum. Stick a needle in your arm; it’ll do you no harm.’

She tried it.

Very soon she realised she’d found a purpose in her life. She had a routine. Her day consisted of finding the money to buy smack, finding someone who had smack, persuading said person to sell smack, getting home safely with the smack, preparing the smack, injecting the smack, living the smack.

One day Alice took too much and the curtains closed on The Dope Show.

INFINITY

I am a graduate of chemistry. My girlfriend studied architecture and graphic design. My research was in psychedelics. Sandy always referred to her work as ‘Chemical Architecture’. We wanted to find a way to combine both of our skills.

The most obvious psychedelics are the lysergic acids. But there are many more different chemical compounds that can be used for psychedelic effect. Sandy and I worked our way through most of them until we were bored. They were all very different chemicals but they all had similar effects. We wanted new experiences. We needed a breakthrough drug.

We wanted a drug that you could switch on and off. We wanted a drug that you only had to take once. We wanted a drug that needed just the right environment. So we created our own. The result was ‘Infinity’.

Ecstasy relies very heavily on the environment around you. The music, the crowds, the lights, they all add to your enjoyment of the drug. The same is true of LSD. Infinity relies entirely on where you take it; in fact it only works in one building.

Sandy designed the building of course. She named it The Memory Factory.

I am not going to describe the architecture to you. This is partly because it is not my speciality and partly because without the drug the architecture is unimportant. In the same way I am not going to bore you with the chemical equations behind the drug. Without the architecture the drug is irrelevant. Hopefully in describing our experiences with Infinity and The Memory Factory you will understand both.

Infinity only needs to be taken once. Once it is in your system it stays there. But it lies dormant when you are not in The Memory Factory. It is only when you’re in The Memory Factory that Infinity works its magic.

What are the effects of Infinity and The Memory Factory? They replay your life experiences back to you but not as they actually happened. You relive your experiences as they appear in your sub-conscious. How they would be replayed as dreams.

It was a Thursday in June when I finally perfected the drug. Sandy finished the blueprints a couple of weeks later. But to actually build The Memory Factory we needed money. This came a year later in the form of an inheritance from Sandy’s uncle. There was enough to erect the building and purchase the necessary fixtures and fittings. This included all the computers we needed to produce the exact combinations of light and sound required to stimulate the drug. We were finished six months after starting.

Infinity has to be taken in just the right quantity. Too little and it will not work. Too much and upon entering The Memory Factory the experience would be akin to your worst nightmares. The correct dose is ten milligrams. I only made two pills. I marked them with a sideways figure eight to represent infinity. Sandy and I were ready for our first experience of the drug.

We were hoping for an almost religious experience so we decided to take them on a Sunday. It was not a nice day but The Memory Factory makes its own weather. We had both spent a lot of time in the factory but with Infinity in our systems we were about to see it a whole lot differently.

We sat in the reception area and I produced the two pills from a baggie. We swallowed them down with a glass of vintage champagne and waited. Infinity takes about an hour to get into your system. We spent the time drinking the rest of the champagne. By twelve o’clock we were ready to enter the main building. We knew that as soon as we did nothing would ever be the same again. We both had ideas as to what we were about to experience but our expectations in no way lived up to the actual experience.

I let Sandy open the door. It was her building after all. We stepped into an expansive room. In the centre of the room there was a large pond. Frog spawn covered the surface.

Suddenly Sandy disappeared and a chicken took her place. I laughed and walked over to the edge of the pond. The chicken came running at me and in an effort not to get pecked I fell in the water.

I made no splash. I made no impact on the surface of the pond. I was a tiny little tadpole, swimming through the spawn.

I went below the surface to explore. The water was murky and I could see very little. I could just make out the edges of the pond and I swam towards one of them. As I approached it I noticed an opening. As I got closer I realised that it was in the shape of a heart. I swam through in anticipation. As I did so I entered a giant tube which ran for miles. I swam and swam until I was tired. Finally I reached a room. Somehow the chicken had got there first.

‘Is that you Sandy?’ I asked.

The chicken sat down and produced a clucking sound. After a while it stood up again and flew out of a window. There was an egg left in its place.

The egg was leaking a trail of yoke that was gradually approaching me. Eventually I found myself covered with the stuff and I was able to swim in it.

I swam towards the egg. When I got there I found the hole that the stuff was leaking from. I swam into it.

I suddenly felt safe and secure. I felt like I had come home for the first time in years. I felt warm. I felt comfortable. I felt protected.

Suddenly I realised that I was no longer a tadpole. I was back to myself. But I was still as tiny as a tadpole. Lying beside me was a miniscule Sandy.

‘What’s going on?’ she asked.

‘Do you remember when you were a baby and everything seemed so big and important? And you felt so small and insignificant in comparison. That’s what we’re experiencing now.’

‘I think we’re both growing,’ said Sandy. ‘But I can’t be sure.’

‘If the whole universe was expanding at the same rate we would have no way to perceive it. At the moment us two make up the