turkeyphant's Adventures In Wonderland II: turkeyphant

Stuck in the White Rabbit's house seeking a pair of gloves and a fan

Alice began to feel very uneasy: to be sure she had not as yet had any dispute with the Queen, but she knew that it might happen any minute, “and then,” thought she, “what would become of me? They’re dreadfully fond of beheading people here: the great wonder is that there’s anyone left alive!”

“The cracked paint began to bubble ... as though the stone itself were boiling like a thick broth.”

turkeyphant decided to spend some time in undoubtedly the most fucked up room in the house to try and glean some deep sensory experience from Val's densely postered walls. Sitting there with so many eclectic stimuli and weird vents for a somewhat disturbed soul surrounding him, he found it weird that his vision was drawn to the one bare patch of flaking white pigment. Val's room is covered with the nonsensical and absurd in a way that would easily even make Danny proud, but all he could see through the mental magnifying glass was this one plain section of wall. And there, right before his glazed eyes, the cracked paint began to bubble out of the wall as though the stone itself were boiling like a thick broth or sorcerer's concoction. He watched closely, and still the whiteness bubbled up and swelled and just made him feel dizzy. Running back to his room,

turkeyphant was dismayed to find Charlemagne waiting there for him. Despite

turkeyphant acting drunkenly, Charlemagne couldn't seem to work out what was causing his strangeness and, in fact, barely even noticed anything particularly different. He grabbed his gel and went to the sink to apply it to his hair.

Returning to his room,

turkeyphant found Charlemagne still there. Hannah had turned up and he cunningly persuaded her to take his laundry downstairs for him as he was still terrified of encountering the cleaning ladies working downstairs. He reached up to dislodge a stray lock of hair, only to find his whole head covered in gel. He must have inadvertently used up a whole pot of the greasy cosmetic in a rather unliberal application of beauty product. As he gingerly moved his fingers through his hair and teased each individual strand, he realised that his entire scalp was saturated in the foul substance. He asked Charlemagne if it seemed that he'd used too much – Charlemagne replied negatively and simply mocked his concern. Still, he continued to feel in there in his hair and it disgusted him. It felt as though he'd washed his hair in a vat of old chip fat and he desperately wiped his head against his dressing gown, scratching at his the top of it and trying to rub the gel out. But it was all still there and so he rushed to the sink again and washed it off his fingers and out of his hair. Looking up into the mirror, he was given a shock as he was greeted by an apparition that actually scared him with its grotesque ugliness. His face was warped with Kai's Power Goo, his hair slick and greasy like an olive oil bottle and his complexion blotted with hundreds of bursting spots that had been magnified by the 'shrooms' influence. He reeled into the glass, but that only made the reflection worse and his repulsiveness at once became tangible as it floated, suspended in the air. It was foul and he immediately ran back to his room in terror.

There, he annoyed Charlemagne who bellowed, "what's wrong with you?" until he buggered off and then

turkeyphant sank into the deepest pits of paranoia. He realised that he and the droogs that had colluded with him faced very real and very serious consequences should their extra-curricular activities become known by the authorities. He became obsessed with the notion of avoiding capture and fretted over every possibility, remotely conceivable or not. Which course of action could he take that would be least likely to result in his arrest and expulsion as a result? Every possible happening was carefully cogitated over, and he considered every conceivable combination of events. And all the while he was trying to be rational to carefully and objectively think things through, the drug would tug at his brain and drag him in a thousand directions at once through those big brown eyes that were seeing googolplex times as much as usual.

He was terrified of what might happen to him that day and truly thought he would be thrown in jail if he went into town. Certainly, if Mr. Dath walked into his room their would be no concealing the symptoms of a liberated brain and he would instantly be apprehended and swiftly dealt with according to the draconian drug regulations. He could only imagine what would happen – smoking cigarettes is an incredibly serious offence and, if you're caught in possession of some dope or pills, you should expect to be instantly expelled. Would he be better off just lying in his room with the lights out and hope that nobody would notice his absence or come to look for him until it was all over? He wasn't sure whether he'd had enough of it already, and it was scary that he had no control over the trip's duration. And anyway, surely they'd come to find him for roll call? Factor in the possibility of people coming in to visit him and, although they probably wouldn't directly inform the authorities, teachers and other staff would surely find out due to the velocity of gossip in this loudmouthed school. He was just so scared about being confronted by people. He was not sure how he'd react nor whether he'd have that much control over his brain's new perspective.

What if he barricaded the door? Dath would either burst in and demand to see him and shout in his face (which he could never bare) or, wouldn't it just encourage McD to knock down the door and find out what he was doing? In a school so devoid of compassion and the notion of privacy, how likely would it be that people would just assume he was in a bad mood and leave him be? It was a possibility, but carried exceedingly high risks.

So, what were the alternatives? He could wander about town, but he wasn't sure he could bear so many people looking at him as he went past and he couldn't endure the fear that was caused by the certainty that they could all see what was happening to him; what was really going on inside that supercharged head. Maybe he could lock himself in the toilet, or was that too suspicious? How about just going off to the secret place and staying there for a few hours? No: primary school teaching assistants go out there to smoke and there was sure to be some nosey git creeping around there to find him. What about the park? Maybe: he'd have to be sure he didn't collapse and allow curious policemen to approach him. It would surely be a lot worse when they realised he wasn't just some passed-out warm-weather drunk. It was a big risk because he really couldn't risk getting busted by the cops who would then inevitably inform the school.

Shit, what is to be done, what is to be done?

He could think of nothing else and drove himself crazy worrying about what to do. It was a real dilemma and he couldn't think of anything worse. It was torturous sitting there and shitting himself about what to do. To others, it would seem nonsensical, paranoid and sensationalist, but it was probably only natural that his only reaction was so absurd – the new sensations were causing a type of delirium. "I'm screwed," he thought, for he truly had no idea what to do. And still A Clockwork Orange kept rolling and he had no idea what the time was.

Picture album film-strip

      Alice sighed wearily. “I think you might do something better with the time,” she said, “than wasting it asking riddles that have no answers.”
      “If you knew Time as well as I do,” said the Hatter, “you wouldn’t talk about wasting it. It’s him.”
      “I don’t know what you mean,” said Alice.
      “Of course you don’t!” the Hatter said tossing his head contemptuously. “I dare say you never even spoke to Time!”

Then Val phoned and told him to come to Westgate park – they were all there waiting for him. Val's experience with psilocin had been very different to that of

turkeyphant and Eric. His trip started off with weird feelings preempting something unknown, giggles and hilarious realisations of the blindingly obvious. When they visited the secret place, he was intrigued with nature and even got some open-eye visuals but after only a couple of hours after ingestion, his come-down began. By the time the call was received, Val was feeling, to all intents and purposes, ordinary. Of course, as you are aware, ladies and gentlemen,

turkeyphant was still having the time of his life.

“He yearned for a record of the kaleidoscopic visuals that graced his retinae and the inside of his eyelids. He hoped he could live the phantasmagoria again...”

And so, he quickly grabbed a pile of stuff (money: no bank card and only two pounds because he daren't risk more in this state; mobile; no water; no food; free Polaroid camera to photograph the things he saw) and ran out of the door. He stopped to consider again whether he should grab his digital camera to document his journey. All that day he'd been wishing he could take snapshots of everything he was seeing. A cool mark on the pavement, a deranged person's expression, a mouldy milk carton or just a piece of paper that was slightly lopsided. Fuck, it was all just so fascinating to him – every corner introduced another marvellously fulfilling sight and he wasn't even sure how much of it was due to him seeing things or just being able to see in a different way. There were a million photo opportunities in every yard. He longed for a photographic diary of his trip. He yearned for a record of the kaleidoscopic visuals that graced his retinae and the inside of his eyelids. He hoped he could live the phantasmagoria again and revel in the skewed magnificence once more in the future. The wonderscapes could be captured by no camera, but nor could they ever be forgotten. It was so tempting, but the rational part that still remained persuaded him that even this trip wasn't worth a £400 camera. Afterward, he would wonder whether he really made the right decision. Still, he placed it down on the desk, tentatively checked his hair with a brush of his hand and, with that, bolted through the door.

On his way out, he glanced at a mirror and almost jumped in horror when he saw that his pupils had encroached upon his irises and had even begun to envelop the whites of his eyes. They were just so damn huge as they sought out the maximum amount of sensory information, and he couldn't help thinking that they looked pretty damn cool. After quickly returning to his room and surreally taking a stray shirt down to the laundry ladies (the experience only convinced him that he couldn't cope with human contact under this influence) he was in town again.

Before he started walking, he looked at his watch once more. Time was passing and he couldn't begin to understand why, how or even what Time was. His watch remained adamant, however, and just said there was anything up to four hours left. Whatever that meant.

The plateau of plateaux

“It was much pleasanter at home,” thought poor Alice, “ when one wasn't always growing larger and smaller and being ordered about by mice and rabbits. I almost wish I hadn’t gone down the rabbit-hole—and yet—and yet—it’s rather curious, you know, this sort of life!”

And so he walked through the town and through the people. And as he walked, he saw again all the massive accentuations of diminutive details you usually never notice. All the people he walked past had huge carrot noses, gigantic furrowed eyebrows and mouths that looked like they'd been melted like beeswax. They had utterly unnatural hairstyles and foreheads that were so huge he wondered whether Fiona felt threatened. It was fucking scary as the streets of Canterbury, which he'd always remembered as being faintly normal, were suddenly inhabited by extras from Star Trek and Babylon 5. It seemed that the make-up artists had really pulled out the stops this time. Once-quiet side roads and secluded avenues were now crowded with the casts of every major horror movie and/or space drama of the last decade. And the weird thing was, they scared him shitless even though he could see exactly what his brain was doing. Say someone has an Ian de Boat-style abnormally large nose – well this meant that he saw it three times its actual size. Every pimple, scar or slight blemish was emphasised and exaggerated so much that his brain made freaks out of everyone. No matter which way he looked, the inhabitants of Canterbury no longer seemed to come from Earth. But still, he looked down at his feet and kept on walking, trying to ignore the leering stares of these newly discovered aliens.

He'd been plodding through town for about ten minutes before he remembered he was meant to be heading toward Westgate Park. "Westgate, Westgate..." – he thought it over for a few seconds. "Right, that's over that way," and he set off in a slightly altered direction. After another five minutes, he found he'd gone deeper into town and had found himself on the high street. It was at this point that he realised he had absolutely no idea where Westgate Park was situated any longer. He'd completely forgotten how to get there and he was worried. Bloody worried. Somehow he managed to retrace his steps and, standing in familiar territory outside the school gates, followed an inkling and set off again toward where he hoped Westgate would still be. He would only realise later that, although it wasn't the optimal route, he could still have easily reached the park from the high street.

“He [was] only catching Doppler-shifted morsels of a thousand different conversations all at once.”

As it was, he was thinking of all the "people" looking at him as he walked. He felt stupid carrying the bulky Polaroid camera, but realised he shouldn't be thinking straight enough to feel self-conscious about stupid little things as usual. He didn't think he really cared about other people's perceptions of him. But he still felt everyone looking at him. All day, as he'd been walking, he heard the hundreds of snippets of sound and noise going so very fast past his hypersensitive ears. It was actually quite similar to the sensory overload portrayed in tripping scenes in films. His supercharged sound-receptor organs were impatient and only concentrated on each conversation he passed for a split second. But while it was there, he heard every word and every artifact of the voices that passed out of their throats. It was like walking through a busy market with all the stall owners clamouring for your attention and shouting out the benefits of their myriad various wares. He felt as if he were driving past everyone at warp speed, only catching Doppler-shifted morsels of a thousand different conversations all at once.

He imagined more people looking at him and ideated that they could see inside him and see the crazy thoughts that were going through his head. He thought they could tell he was tripping, and that they were out to get him. Or something. He'd been wanted to run for ages but hadn't yet. Then, suddenly, for some reason, he burst into a sprint and tore past them all like he didn't care. They didn't even have enough time to look at his face. And he knew it was too hot to run and he'd soon break into an uncomfortable sweat, but he couldn't stop dashing onward.

Beautiful Velocity accompanied by the Red Queen

“A slow sort of country!” said the Queen. “Now, here, you see, it takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place. If you want to get somewhere else, you must run at least twice as fast as that!”

As he ran he suddenly noticed he'd been talking to himself out loud. Now, this usually happens anyway – he subconsciously talks to himself under his breath drugs or not – but it slightly scared him at the time, especially considering the volume with which he was speaking. He was articulating his thoughts in order to try and make sense of them through enunciation.

He ran past the river and there was only a low wall between it and him. He felt himself being drawn to it and wanting to throw himself in. The water looked nothing like what it was. The surface was growing up toward him and the warm colours and light green weeds seemed to blend together while the liquid didn't even flow and it turned pastel coloured. The water all seemed to blend together and the colours merged and the matter itself merged and all the while it seemed to draw him closer. He wondered what would happen if he fell in. Would he snap out of it or just forget how to swim and wildly flail about? Still he was leaning to it as he ran and it scared him that he seemed to have no control over whether he fell in or not. The water looked refreshing, but there were sharp rocks beneath the surface and he was terrified of going in. Once, he brushed against the wall and his head cleared for a moment allowing him to push himself away and run off in the other direction. He successfully navigated several roads before finding himself in the tranquil landscaped surroundings of the park. And all the while, he'd been trying to think fast enough to work it all out before this benediction ran out.

He slowed down and walked through the park's lawns and beds when he got there. Val had phoned again and told

turkeyphant to meet him and Eric at the very end of the park in a large, open field. And so he walked through the beautiful park on his own, envying all the lucky people out enjoying themselves picnicking with friends in the sun. He saw vividly bright flowers that Eric had previously passed. Eric however, had turned back to look at the city. There he saw a true surrealist landscape. The ancient ruins of the old City gate seamlessly blended into sooty Victorian terraces, a modern road from a thriving metropolis and a stately garden while the grounds of an eighteen century mansion completed the view. The scene was royally fucked up. Only in Canterbury, England could you see such a fantastically haphazard cityscape encompassing four centuries all within thirty yards of each other.

As he walked through the gardens his brain continued to play with him. He could feel gallons of sweat pouring down his body and soaking his shirt coming from every single pore. He looked down at his bare arms and the veins bulged out hideously like worms. He saw an old woman lying motionless on the gently graduated grass. A sudden fear saturated his body as he was convinced he'd killed her at some time under the influence of the 'shrooms. Moving on, he caught sight of a tree that seemed to have every single branch completely covered in pigeons. For some reason, he thought of Zeuxis and Parrhasius in Pliny's Natural History.

He walked along the river still only barely preventing himself from falling in. He passed under the graffiti bridge he had only recently tried to photograph. On passing through to the other side, the whole playground opened up to him and seemed to be full of pikeys. Unfaltering, he walked on and crossed a fairytale bridge to a wide open meadow. Here, a man was walking his dog and, as he passed his shoulder, the man seemed to give him a strange look.

turkeyphant looked up and saw a scary dark building that must have been a prison. The BT logo on the side did nothing to reassure him – if he couldn't find Val soon, he may have to spend some time in that threatening looking '70s concrete jailhouse. But anyway, he kept walking until he found himself on a main road. He crossed this and crossed another river until he found himself in the third graveyard of the day. Everywhere he went, no matter how unlikely it would seem (high street, primary school, main road) he found a graveyard. Before he ventured out onto the road again, he realised that he'd been here before. He recognised the housing from a walk he once went on with Theodore. Nevertheless, looking down the main road he realised he was far away from the park and instead of finding Val and Eric was actually heading out of Canterbury itself.

Meanwhile, Val and Eric were with James Jamónvía, David Griffiths, Alexandre Cohen-Santi and some other French kid on exchange called Guillaume. They were sitting peaceful by the grassy riverside smoking tobacco and marijuana and enjoying the dregs of a tepid carton of juice together. It was hot and some of them had taken off their shirts to lounge about in the sun, happily skipping an afternoon of school. Eric was just beginning to come down and Val was feeling completely normal by now. He persuaded James to call

turkeyphant to try and find out where he was.

turkeyphant was still wandering about the main road trying to think what to do. When he received James' phone call, he was moping around the graveyard again, not thinking anything comprehendible at all. James carefully and kindly instructed him back across the river, the road and the meadow where he met the man and dog. All the while

turkeyphant was getting rather worried. He was desperate to find familiar faces and to feel safe, but kept wondering where the hell they could be. Looking for them, he took a secluded path and went across a broad bridge and down a slope into a large field enclosed by trees. To his horror he looked up and, instead of seeing his smiling friends greeting him,

turkeyphant was confronted with six foot nettles as far as the eye could see. There were maze-like meandering pathways cut into the diabolic plants, but none were wide enough to pass through without incurring painful stings. He almost screamed as he turned and ran back to the meadow. When he went across the arch bridge again, instead of being placed on a slight mound, it seemed to be situated at the apex of a small mountain and he struggled to climb the steep ascent and even had to strain his neck to look up to it.

Eventually,

turkeyphant found the secret pathway from the playground to the vast field in which the others were waiting. He walked by the river to meet them and was amazed at the pastelly nature of the water again, as well as the way it effectively seemed that the surface level was actually higher than the top of the banks. James and Dave came up to meet him, but he was just too surprised that, from here, he could see the "prison" and a huge metal cylinder he'd always found beautiful before. And so, that was how he found himself sitting down with the others by the riverside at about three thirty or something like that. He used up the last few Polaroid photos he had left taking pictures of them all sitting there in utterly laid-back stoned relaxation. There were memories to cherish and he took the perfect photographs to record the day for posterity. Strangely enough, one completely borked up forming weird psychedelic patterns instead of a focussed image and one of Eric looking stoned turned out very overexposed. Everyone was being very quiet and soon only Val, Eric and he remained. Eric was still recovering from his trip a bit and, in his excitement,

turkeyphant was unable to extract details of any of Eric's psychedelic phantasmagorias and experiences. Val was adamant that he hadn't felt anything and they sat there for a while, just enjoying being together, enjoying the grass, the water, the cloudy sky and the sun.

The come down and THE END

      “Wake up, Alice dear!” said her sister. “Why, what a long sleep you’ve had!”
      “Oh, I’ve had such a curious dream!” said Alice.
      Alice got up and ran off, thinking while she ran, as well she might, what a wonderful dream it had been.

This chronicle is coming to an end and this seems to be the moment for

turkeyphant to confess that he is the narrator. But, before describing the closing scenes, he would wish anyhow to justify his undertaking and to set it down that he expressly made a point of adopting the tone of an impartial observer. While the narrative naturally has the necessity of centring around his observations, thoughts and actions, he feels that, even with the mushrooms' influence, he was well placed for giving a true account of all he saw, heard and sensed. But, in doing so, he has tried to keep within the limits that seemed desirable. For instance, in a general way, he has confined himself to describing only such things as he was able to see for himself, and refrained from attributing to his companions sentiments that, when all is said and done, they were bound not to have. And, as for documents, he has only used such as chance, or mischance put in his way.

“...they sat outside on the street for a while, drenched in euphoria, simply considering the beauty of life.”

But anyway, after sitting there with Val and Eric for a while, they realised that it had all suddenly died off. They were used to the nature of the trip in which the effects came in strong waves, but this time it only seemed to be fading away. They all decided to head off. They walked back and Eric and

turkeyphant shared their experiences as they went, gleefully remarking at anything they saw that conjured up memories. After

turkeyphant purchased them all some refreshments (the only time he's been happy to recklessly spend money) they sat outside on the street for a while, drenched in euphoria, simply considering the beauty of life. Val had to wait for a haircut he would have later and asked Eric to wait and accompany him. As they sat, more weird people walked past and, although this time their faces weren't hideously warped by the drug, it caused them all to reflect upon where all these strange people had come from this day. There were two old hunchbacked men with wrinkled faces on the opposite side of the road who moved in such a strenuous yet utterly unnatural way that Eric was sure he'd have been totally freaked out coming across them when he was tripping.

turkeyphant also remembered that he'd seen some girl with pink hair and a young dude with a German army jacket at least three separate times during his travels. He was feeling fine by now and, after bidding the others valedictions, set off back to school again. He was desperate to be left alone with his thoughts once more on a quiet walk back with time to reflect on the day's experience.

Once at school,

turkeyphant browsed the internet, showered and generally tried to come to terms with it all before supper. He sighed, lay back and thought about what a wonderful, wonderful day it had been. And then Charlemagne walked in and revealed that everyone had just discovered his journal that afternoon (in accordance with Murphy's Law, the latest entry had been some über angsty cuss-fest of all the people at school) and, not only that, he had read the sheet of crazed gurglings and rambles that

turkeyphant had scribbled down about 'shrooms whilst watching A Clockwork Orange.

turkeyphant was tired and became very upset and pissed off but soon calmed down, even though, in frantically friendifying all his entries, a few were deleted due to poor Java skills.

Still at the end of the day, at the end of this amazing experience, he only feels one thing overall. He feels that perhaps he's weak-willed (hell, he knows he is), but damn, he can't wait until he gets hold of some more of this shit. Afterward, he can never really understand that level of transcendence he had reached and he still feels anyone who's never done 'shrooms really has no idea at all. He had seen like a god, he had tasted the deity. Truly he had.

THE END.

Though, really he felt, it doesn't ever end. This epiphanic revalation would affect the rest of his life to come...

~

[This took several weeks to complete at a standard I could be semi-content with. I am severely indebted to countless wordsmiths, all of which possess much greater skill than I. Despite having to rely on my own conjuring skill to attempt to recreate my experience, I am aware of my multifarious influences. While I am not conscious of them all, I hope I have not shied from displaying them with complete transparency throughout the text. While I am unable to fully acknowledge all those who deserve citation, I admit that I have shamelessly lifted entire passages from Messrs. Camus and Burgess whose marvellous literary dexterity I could only fail to emulate. Finally, as I'm sure you, dear reader, found all too apparent, I have based a lot of this chronicle around the work of a certain Charles Lutwidge Dodgson whose passages are liberally interspersed throughout. My deepest gratitude goes to all who have assisted me.]

We shall by morning
Inherit the earth.
Our foot's in the door.

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turkeyphant's Adventures In Wonderland II

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