Ambient 06 - Going, Going, Gone

left, and jumped, and I thought he was coming to try out a new line on me. Sense tried to crawl back into my head but now the opening was too small, and sense gave up. I couldn’t understand why Eulie ignored the subtle facial gestures I was sure I was making. The corners of my mouth began to ache and I realized my grin might be noticeable. At least I’d fade in with the rest of the crowd.
    »If you have to beat the shit out of a nonadult,« Crewy said, »in order to drag their child into sunlight, what is needed? What?«
    Jamming a hand into his pants pocket, he yanked out a stopwatch. There’re trails and there’re trails, but this was something else entirely. As Crewy Lou performed that action I saw its progression take place in about fifty individual static frames. Think of a strobe going off in a black-lit room, but without black light. »Five,« Crewy counted off, though as I expected the sound no longer issued directly from his lips. »Four.«
    »Eulie,« I said, trying to squeak it out under my breath. When she turned to look at me I know I gaped when I saw her make hundreds of facial expressions, nearly all at once and every one sequential, as earlier described. I’d experienced this effect many times, in milder form – under the influence of any of the LSDs, once after swallowing (to be on the safe side) a baggie full of dried stropharia cubensis, and again following the intake of a number of other derivatives of vegetable agents, notably toloache. But comparing those to this was like comparing automatic vaudeville to 3-D Cinemascope.
    » You stupid fucking assholes!!«
    Crewy was going into overdrive. While shifting my head to look at the dozens of him I felt the blood shoot down into my feet and then shoot back up twice as high. All the Crewies moved simultaneously, jabbing in all directions, lifting scores of legs. The words didn’t come from them, or underneath them, or above them – they just landed on my ears and tumbled in. As I heard them I perceived the fugal music underpinning speech, neuronic Bach.
    »Fed up. Fed up with you. Fucking. Fucking People. Fed. Up. With You People. With. You. You people.«
    I thought I said Eulie, but I didn’t hear myself say it, after the fact, and she gave no sign that anything had distracted either her or Chlojo, both of whom appeared to be watching these dynamic escapades wide-eyed. Their hundreds of faces flowed, slowly, toward Crewy. All ten thousand of him were shifting, floating like gulls, toward me. Then the echo severely kicked in.
    »Iffff youuuu. Haave. Toooo beat theeee livingjnging. Shitititit out. Of Aaaaa nooooo-nothing –«
    Blue and brown blended into dirty violet as he swerved away from me. Crewy now hovered directly in front of Chlo, who was now vibrating like a tuning-fork. Even so, since she wasn’t moving, per se, I was able to focus in on her, imagining I could see her various aspects merging into one until they actually did so. Once I had her fixed, she and everything around her started to move as if floating through clear syrup. Her jaws moved, slightly, as if she were chewing something. Veins popped out on Crewy’s temples and that bloodless face of his took on the colour of an August tomato. I heard hummingbird wings abuzz somewhere in the back of my head.
    »What. Do. You. Do. What. Do. You. Do? Do? What? Do?« Then Crewy started counting out again. »Five.« An hour passed. »Four.« Another. »Three.«
    Then I heard Crewy say the next word:
    »Two.«
    The notion passed through my head that old flattop was getting ready to do something he’d regret.
    »One.«
    I felt myself trying to get up, briefly; then sensibly stopped trying. Eulie’s grip tightened on my arm. I started to think about how much I wanted to get down on something soft with her and making with the appassionatta till all the glasses in the cabinet broke.
    » Response?«
    Some want to know the experience without having the experience, but there’ll never be a way. Most people shouldn’t even think about the experience. But maybe I can give you a hint. Think of the clearest dream you ever had, the sharpness of the colours, the facial expressions of the people drifting through, the fast-shifting backgrounds, everything in reach yet not in reach, the profound silence that falls when nobody speaks. Think how the dream felt more real than life, and as greatly unreal. The non-hallucinatory part of the experience is twenty times as clear, but exactly the same.
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