Wait a minute…no. I cannot have attained enlightenment. That would be far too easy, especially for a dope fiend like me.
I haven’t attained nirvana…I’m just really fucking high.
No, I’ll just have to work hard to attain it like everyone else, with discipline, like that old man meditating under the tree. That man I see over there…wait a minute. He’s gone! Oh, I wanted to ask him for guidance!
Oh, well. I’ll just have to look for him, or someone like him, to teach me how to gain that peace of mind I saw on his grinning face, that impressive grin I saw while hearing the bombs and gunfire all around me. I’ll float up and fly in the air in search of him, airborne by ketamine.
I’m flying as if lying on my side, as if reclining on the ground. Am I? I’m traveling high in the air, but I feel as if I’m not at all moving.
I see all these Asian faces looking at me in wonder and awe, amazed at my superhuman flying ability. I see a mix of wonder and worry, as if they think I’m having health problems. Am I? All I know is that I need to find that wise old man, or any wise old man, to guide me to enlightenment.
I see Asian gurus in robes advising me to use extreme discipline and self-denial. They tell me that I must learn to endure extreme pain and discomfort, including fasting.
One of them says to me, “The evil is inside of you, Sid! You must expel it! Vomit it out of your body!”
So I do.
My puke smells as awful as it looks, a pink ooze pouring out of my mouth and onto the stony ground that my head is using as a pillow. I hear voices in Chinese saying, “How disgusting! This foreigner needs a doctor.”
My stomach is empty…so empty. I need food…No! I must be disciplined and resist the urge for material comforts.
I’m getting dizzy. Everything around me is spinning. Apart from that, I feel nothing, as if I have no body.
I hear someone say in Chinese, “Is he dying?”
I’m scared.
Am I dying?
Hey! Was that an explosion in the sky? I thought I saw a huge fireball.
I hear machine gun fire. Since I don’t know where my body begins and ends, and I feel an ache in my…stomach?…I wonder if the bullets have hit me.
I feel a black hole growing in my centre. Is it a bullet hole? Is it my growing hunger? It hurts.
Am I going to throw up again? That puke stink is still all around me.
Wait…now I see only black all around me.
Am I dead? Have I become a huge black void? Is that what the black hole in my centre has grown into? A black everything?
Oh, my God…help me! Wait, I don’t believe in God.
I smell…food. Some kind of…rice pudding? Milk? I still see only black.
Something soft and mushy is going in my mouth…I think. Am I eating the rice pudding? I taste milk.
Hey, that feels better. Still, I’m really wasted. That smell of vomit is still nearby. I wish someone would clean it up.
The black void around me is gone. I’m floating in the air again, still on my side, as if I were lying on the ground.
I see groups of men in army uniforms. Some speak of liberation, some of revolution, others of “restoring order.” All of them are speaking in Chinese. Many are arguing.
Still floating in the air above, I look down and see all of these soldiers from a bird’s eye view. Some are anarchists, dressed all in black and carrying Molotov cocktails. They would overthrow the government immediately and replace it with the ideal world they want, or so I hear them shouting.
Some are wearing PLA uniforms, demanding loyalty to the Beijing government, their rifles pointed at the anarchists and the soldiers of the third group, who are in camouflage, their rifles also pointing at the anarchists and PLA men. This third group is shouting about wanting to restore order to the island.
Shots are fired. Molotov cocktails are thrown, breaking some windows in the neighbourhood buildings. I see a few more fireballs bursting in the night sky, breaking up the darkness.
Several of the men, one or two from each of the three groups, are lying on the streets and sidewalks by my apartment, bleeding. Those that aren’t dead are wailing and moaning in pain from their injuries.
I agree that revolutionary change must happen, to eliminate poverty and end this war; and I agree that some kind of restoration of order must come, so our lives can at least go back to normal. I don’t, however, want to see needless infighting among the revolutionaries, and I don’t want the restoration of order to be so repressive and violent.
These agitators, therefore, are not my kind of people. I’ll float away to some other part of town, one where I can hope to find either that wise old man, or some other guru, one not so extreme in his quest for nirvana, or some other revolutionaries to help me bring down this oppressive power structure we’re all forced to live under.
Buoyed by my ketamine high, I’m flying away from my home.
Infinite Ocean 