Wednesday
A tale of drugs, nausea, and enlightenment
Written by Noah T. Pinder
Wednesday, 6:00 am
I woke up in a stooper, and a hangover, having drank myself to oblivion the night before to ensure I stayed drunk the whole retreat, obviously it wasn’t enough, I began to pack everything I needed, change of clothes, towel, toiletries, mescaline, LSD, ecstasy, high powered blotter acid, quart of rum and tequila, a multicoloured pharmacy of uppers, downers, fasters, slowers, sun glasses, bucket hat, smoking pipe, and of course, a Hawaiian shirt.
This was the year 12 retreat, and I come prepared, we were going to talk about our feelings and relationship with god, to each other, screw that, even before I was dropped off by my father I had popped a shroom and was munching on a pearl harbour brownie, now these little bastards are loaded with tequila, mescaline and chocolate mix, luckily I had it hidden under my hat, so no one was the wiser.
We all gathered around the bus, eager to get this trip over with, a teacher stood on top of a box and started shouting orders, of course, by this time, the shrooms had kicked in, slowly, the teacher grew taller, slowly stretching his limbs, I began to feel smaller than everyone, as everyone grew taller around me the soft spoken teachers voice became louder and booming, soon, I was lying on the ground, with smeared and liquefied faces peering down at me, fire rained down from the heavens as they all spoke in a semi toned voice “you have been weighed, you have been measured, and you have been found wanting”
Suddenly, all was ok, but I was the last to get on the bus, so I was stuck sitting next to someone, and oh dear god it was my R.E. teacher, the one who had a student expelled for saying drugs were good, and me, as high as I was, sitting next to them.
I sat there, sweat, pouring down my brow, my heart was racing, my music I was listening was failing to quell the paranoia I felt, .......”what was I going to do, OH!”, I was speaking out loud, just like that scene in fear and loathing in las Vegas, hmm....de ja vu, but yes, they did hear me, all this time I had been speaking out loud, then, one of them spoke, “the hell are you on”, the list would be longer than the bus I was on, but I simply tried to say “it’s the... MUSIC I’m listening to”
Obviously I made no sense because the people recoiled in fear and went back to their own iPods, the teacher sitting next to me was so disgusted...oh wait, there asleep, phew, the paranoia left me, and I was able to sleep.
When I awoke the bus had arrived in Hepburn springs, a small chalet country house with many rooms, there was a certain smell of spring water, as I stepped off the bus I spotted a beautiful white dove perched upon a gum tree, singing so beautifully, but this image of serine euphoria was squished by bill Gaskell ordering us to put our bags away in our rooms, I got stuck with a man known by many names, so we will call him Dalton brown, to protect his identity, oh wait.....
We both walk, well..... Dalton dragged me to our room, I swore and shouted that the floors were lava, but he didn’t believe me, I saw flames licking at my legs, the walls began to melt, the door opened wide and we threw our bags in, it was as if they were suspended in mid air and, oh god there I was, lying on the bed.
Dalton threw the bags at me and shouted at me to head up stairs for brunch, yes, I was quite peckish, and since I needed food in my system to throw up it was a good idea, I quickly threw my two bags in the closet and pad locked it shut, making my way up to the second floor I walked past the other rooms, I could only hear and see short snippets, so I had to fill in the blanks, one room was planning on climbing the walls like Spiderman, the other was going to jump through time and space, the other was getting their lap top out to play hello kitty island adventures.
Reaching the dining hall I saw some familiar faces sitting around a table, before I knew it I sat down with them, bill Gaskell began his speech about the retreat; I could hardly contain my laughter when he reached the bit about no alcohol or drugs, “what are you laughing at Noah?” bill asked, looking very concerned, “oh, just this thing on my phone, internet explorer what a joke!”
“Oh that’s right, everyone hand in your phones, I nearly forgot thanks Noah”
I felt one thousand eyes piercing my skin like red hot bullets, I knew they wanted my head on a pike after that, worse, bill gave me the bag of holding for people to put their phones in, I received more dirty looks than a flasher on burke street, their hatred of me grew even more when I pocketed my own phone.
After that we were split up into our smaller groups, where we would talk about *shudder* our feelings, every group was assigned a room, we got outside next to the road, the smell of exhaust fumes could have kept me high, but I preferred a swig of my tequila bottle, before I knew it, it was time for me to tell my life story.
“well, where to begin, I was born in 1992, um, complications meant I died for about 2 minutes, um, primary school was ok, but high school was a b***h, anxiety stemming from my aspergers syndrome meant I could never relax, the doctor said I was going to get an aneurism, I didn’t get that but I did get a lot of bullying, around year 8 or 9 I had a growth spurt, so then I became the bully, I didn’t mean it, but the anxiety meant I would do things without thinking, at year 10 I made some new friends, which meant I could relax, which intern led to my crippling depression, and so I delved into the bottle powders and pills to quell the pain I feel everyday”
At least, that’s what I thought I said
“I think I’m going to be sick” I mumbled as I ran to the toilet, a multi coloured mix flew across the room and fell into the toilet, hey, if you had been drinking as long as I had you would be that good as well, obviously this would have raised some suspicions with the teachers so I decided to lie low and hide in the closet (a ha! See what I did there).
I locked the closet from the inside and blocked of any source of light, it had been a long arduous 5 minutes until Dalton found me.
“Come on dude, the teachers are looking for you” he said from outside the room, I locked the door as well, just to be sure, “no! I don’t want” I yelled, hopefully sound can travel through solid wood, “the last time I did they put me in a mental hospital”.
Silence...
I awoke hours later, using the empty tequila bottle as a pillow, I guestimated it was around the morning of the second day, “BREAKFAST!”, “SHUT UP IN THERE!” Dalton yelled.... 6 AM in the morning to be precise.
Thursday 7:00AM
We all shuffled into the dining room, plopped ourselves down and layed our heads on the table, slowly one by one we all went up like clockwork, get bowl, fill bowl, get cup, fill cup, sit down, repeat, why was I the only one to notice the toast.
Happily munching on my toast I quizzed Dalton on last nights proceeding’s, apparently I had been saying “I shall call him squishy and he shall be mine, he shall be mine and I shall call him squishy” over and over again, and the cuts along my chest indicated it was the broken whiskey bottle.
We all shuffled into the meeting room and quickly found the closest chair, fortunately I had been a smart cookie and got there early, I used this time to not only roll, but smoke an entire roach, I took the liberty of filling the room with the smell of cannabis to quell the riot that was to ensue, much to my dismay, it didn’t work.
“now I want you all to go into your groups again, but this time you will be taking these tennis balls with you” as bill spoke I could feel the tequila wearing of from last night, I quickly took a bite out of my pearl harbour cookie, the bitter taste left me wiping my mouth repeatedly, as we walked to our groups I found out we had been moved into the meeting room, at least there we could have chairs.
My teacher handed me a sheet, but before I could read what it said the words began to melt in front of my eyes, the people on my Hawaiian shirt were having a luou, the sheet melted through my fingers onto the floor and pooled around my dirty feet, the teacher tried to pierce through the wall of spinning colours and loud noises,
“Noah are you alright” she asked, and my response was of course what I could comprehend, which wasn’t much.
“IT’S NOT my fault they f****d the pope, the dog was no FAULT OF MINE, that isn’t my shaven craven, on the nights plutonian shore!”
Of course my outburst didn’t go un noticed, they sent me back to my room and took all of the drugs I had stashed on my persons, naturally I locked myself back into the closet, it took me and hour or so to detox enough to emerge again and return to the meeting room, luckily the only drugs they found were prescription ones so I got off Scott free, but my arrival was, ill timed.
It was the group sharing, we were all sitting in a circle, and one by one we would share something about ourselves, luckily I would be the last to share, slowly, one by one, each person shared a little something about themselves, slowly opening a window into the life, there words at first were mumbled, but when they saw how accepting the group was of them, they opened up, and for a few a flood gate was opened, they poured there heart and soul out onto the floor, and the group all together heaved there problems aside to get to the person, to make them feel comfortable, and safe.
By the time they got to me I was in a state of despair, listening to these tales of woe had opened up my own personal flood gate, watching them and finding out that they were just as sad as me, just as tortured, bitter, and unjustifiably judgmental, I had it wrong the hole time, this retreat wasn’t about cramming god down our throats, it was about coming together as a group.
In the time it took me to figure all this out it was lunch time and I was sitting alone in the meeting room, pondering if I had said any of that out loud, obviously not, as everyone thought I was being non confirmative and didn’t share anything.
I picked myself up to eat a lovely lunch that was prepared for me, I ate in silence, I listened in silence, I walked with the group down to abridge where we would receive letters from our parents, I already knew what was going to be in mine, or so I thought.
I won’t rewrite what was in it, but the basic jest was that my other, for all of my faults, thought the world of me, no matter who I was, or what I did, I would always be her son, I sat and sobbed for a while, until I decided to return to my room, it was a long walk back but it was worth it.
I flopped onto my bed and removed my shoes, rethinking everything that had happened to past 2 days, what I had achieved, what I had learnt about myself, these thoughts raced through my mind and the marijuana smoke circled into the air, gently dancing on its way up to the ceiling, I thought to myself, “this isn’t fun anymore, approaching things the way I am, I used to find it amusing to argue a point that had no meaning, but now, it was no fun, before when I would say a sarcastic comment I would sit back and watch the people react in horror, but now I just feel bad, it makes me glum, why even bother if it will achieve nothing, why resist the retreat when I could have opened up and shared with these people, I thought I had an opened mind to everything, but apparently not”
With that last thought swirling in my mind I took my last puff and rolled over to sleep.
Friday, 11:00 AM
I awoke, body stiff, stomach aching, head ringing, my system was in revolt because of the lack of narcotics in my system.
I slowly packed my things and brought them up stairs to the bus, the bus driver stored them away and we returned to the meeting room for the final time.
The liturgy, a half hour of prayer, I sat there once again saying nothing, but watching these people partake in organised religion, what did they have that I didn’t, why did they enjoy this liturgy, before I could formulate an answer we were herded onto the bus and driven back to Bendigo, I looked out the window to see the serine Hepburn springs pass by, going so fast I hardly noticed it, just like the days, one after the other, it was then I finally realised something, I had to take the days and squeeze every moment out of them, to not let them pass by like the trees out of my window.
With one final swig, I layed back and fell asleep to the sounds of an epic tale coming to a close.
- Noah T. Pinder
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5 years since I last logged in, and nothing of value was lost
27 Feb 2011, 8:16 pm
