Just ten minutes

The first thing that happens is fear, an intense fear.

The more I have done it the more fear I experience. This is one of those things when experience is more of a handicap than being a novice is, because I know what is coming.

My hands tremble as I hold the pipe. I attempt to light it a few times, but I chicken out. I try to calm down. I know that being calm is the best state to be in, but when you are standing in an airplane, with the door open, and no parachute on your back and you are about to jump… well you would tremble a bit.

The only comfort I have is the fact that in ten minutes everything will be back to “normal”, but I also know that ten minutes can be an extremely long time.

Another part of the fear is the fact, not that I am scared to do it, but that I know that I will. When I am sitting there committed I never back out. So even if it frightens me I know that I will take the leap. So it is not a question of “if” the hammer is coming down, but “when” will it? When will I light the pipe?

Eventually the internal debate of trying to find a reason not to do it is over and I let it rip, but it is not so easy to smoke… I only have a few seconds to successfully manage to get at least two massive hits into my lungs, but the nervousness of doing this makes it a feat on its own. Also the fact that once the first hit is done it all comes on so quickly, and in such an intense fashion, that I question the sanity of doing yet another hit.

And if I manage to do the second hit there is a terrifying moment right after where I question if that really was the right thing to do, and an even more terrifying moment when I know that it doesn’t matter what I think was right or not right - because it is too fucking late to do anything about it now. There is no parachute. No way to step off the train. It is going and all I can do is hang on to my socks and hope I can survive the next ten minutes.

I will survive. I know it is safe. But knowing such things is irrelevant when I am inside the experience. The experience itself is so overwhelming that fear takes over completely.

I hear a sound, like breaking through the sound barrier. A chrysanthemum-like geometrical pattern in constant transformational loops sparkle all the colors of a diamond-encrusted rainbow… it approaches like a speeding train and explode in my mind.

I’m back.

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