right.’
Stevo sits down next to us, Timothy and Hunter on each of his shoulders like gargoyles. They look like they’re staring through the window at the secrets of the universe.
‘So … what happened to your hair?’ I ask. ‘Was it always like that?’
‘Magic happened,’ he says. ‘I tried a spell to make a marijuana plant grow to four times its natural size. Good idea, but I was punching way above my weight magically and I totally overextended myself. Well, the plant exploded into a fiery ball and I went instantly George Clooney.’
‘Wow,’ I say.
‘Still, it could have been worse.’ Stevo shrugs.
‘How?’ asks Nom. ‘You look like an old man. How could it possibly have been worse?’
‘I was originally going to use it as a dick enlargement spell,’ Stevo says with a grin.
The train starts purring, proceeds to screeching and then shudders violently as it pulls away from the station. Cape Town begins to jog by outside, slowly at first, then rushing by all at once. I lie back on the seat and watch the colours of the city – ash, brown, silver and white – give way to a blurred palette of wheat, viridian, rust, ash and vivid blue. The smells change from oil and cars, underscored by the scent of the sea, to dry earth, brush and manure.
The Runeshine settles like warm sand in my brain and I begin to drift in and out of consciousness to the metronome clacking of the train on the tracks. I feel the familiar throb in my forehead. I’m starting to be able to distinguish the various sensations that spew from my third eye like bilge water during times like these. Sometimes it’s just a sensation of the vast emptiness that lies beneath everything, the empty screen on which the icons of life glow and blink reassuringly. At other times it’s like my nervous system is a tree of lights and I can watch the electrical impulses complete their circuits and feel the vast miasma of desires and aversions rise and fall within myself. It would be quite cool and Zen if it weren’t so utterly terrifying; this experience of being a single entity gurgling and pulsing away in an empty universe.
My eyelids start to flicker and the inside and outside worlds begin to merge, the train feeling like it’s travelling down my brain stem and into my spine.
When I open my eyes again, things are different. Very different. The kind of different that makes you wonder whether reality is just a giant game of Twister played by unimaginably powerful beings to keep themselves entertained. Which is one thing to think when you’re stoned and looking up at the night sky, but quite another when you’re in a place where everything is saying your name. Even the rocks.
‘Baxter,’ says a small rock in front of me. ‘Baxter,’ adds another older, chubbier-looking rock conversationally. Next to them trees drip multifaceted pastel jewels into ponds with cherub faces that sing like choirs of angels, ‘Baxxxxxteerrrrrrr.’
I rub my eyes confusedly, which, to be frank, is the only really acceptable response in a situation like this. I look into the radiant blue sky above me, where languid waterfalls run backwards through turbines that power the wings of huge bird-shaped flying machines all humming the name ‘Baxter’.
The noise rises to an unbearable crescendo and I have no other choice but to huddle down with my hands over my ears and try to block out the thronging chorus. It does absolutely no good. The noise is as much in my head as it is anywhere else. I think I’m about to go mad because I just can’t fucking stand my name any more. It’s got to stop. Please, it’s absolutely got to stop. It really, really, really just has to …
‘The Conscious Self,’ a deep booming voice says. ‘Never thought we’d actually ever meet you.’ I’m so pathetically grateful to hear anything that’s not ‘Baxter’ that I open my eyes. Four people are standing in a loose circle around me. Four people in pastel-coloured,
Stevo sits down next to us, Timothy and Hunter on each of his shoulders like gargoyles. They look like they’re staring through the window at the secrets of the universe.
‘So … what happened to your hair?’ I ask. ‘Was it always like that?’
‘Magic happened,’ he says. ‘I tried a spell to make a marijuana plant grow to four times its natural size. Good idea, but I was punching way above my weight magically and I totally overextended myself. Well, the plant exploded into a fiery ball and I went instantly George Clooney.’
‘Wow,’ I say.
‘Still, it could have been worse.’ Stevo shrugs.
‘How?’ asks Nom. ‘You look like an old man. How could it possibly have been worse?’
‘I was originally going to use it as a dick enlargement spell,’ Stevo says with a grin.
The train starts purring, proceeds to screeching and then shudders violently as it pulls away from the station. Cape Town begins to jog by outside, slowly at first, then rushing by all at once. I lie back on the seat and watch the colours of the city – ash, brown, silver and white – give way to a blurred palette of wheat, viridian, rust, ash and vivid blue. The smells change from oil and cars, underscored by the scent of the sea, to dry earth, brush and manure.
The Runeshine settles like warm sand in my brain and I begin to drift in and out of consciousness to the metronome clacking of the train on the tracks. I feel the familiar throb in my forehead. I’m starting to be able to distinguish the various sensations that spew from my third eye like bilge water during times like these. Sometimes it’s just a sensation of the vast emptiness that lies beneath everything, the empty screen on which the icons of life glow and blink reassuringly. At other times it’s like my nervous system is a tree of lights and I can watch the electrical impulses complete their circuits and feel the vast miasma of desires and aversions rise and fall within myself. It would be quite cool and Zen if it weren’t so utterly terrifying; this experience of being a single entity gurgling and pulsing away in an empty universe.
My eyelids start to flicker and the inside and outside worlds begin to merge, the train feeling like it’s travelling down my brain stem and into my spine.
When I open my eyes again, things are different. Very different. The kind of different that makes you wonder whether reality is just a giant game of Twister played by unimaginably powerful beings to keep themselves entertained. Which is one thing to think when you’re stoned and looking up at the night sky, but quite another when you’re in a place where everything is saying your name. Even the rocks.
‘Baxter,’ says a small rock in front of me. ‘Baxter,’ adds another older, chubbier-looking rock conversationally. Next to them trees drip multifaceted pastel jewels into ponds with cherub faces that sing like choirs of angels, ‘Baxxxxxteerrrrrrr.’
I rub my eyes confusedly, which, to be frank, is the only really acceptable response in a situation like this. I look into the radiant blue sky above me, where languid waterfalls run backwards through turbines that power the wings of huge bird-shaped flying machines all humming the name ‘Baxter’.
The noise rises to an unbearable crescendo and I have no other choice but to huddle down with my hands over my ears and try to block out the thronging chorus. It does absolutely no good. The noise is as much in my head as it is anywhere else. I think I’m about to go mad because I just can’t fucking stand my name any more. It’s got to stop. Please, it’s absolutely got to stop. It really, really, really just has to …
‘The Conscious Self,’ a deep booming voice says. ‘Never thought we’d actually ever meet you.’ I’m so pathetically grateful to hear anything that’s not ‘Baxter’ that I open my eyes. Four people are standing in a loose circle around me. Four people in pastel-coloured,
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