One joint down, when that old familiar disapproval mixed with tamed disgust kicks in at not being stoned yet, and you reach into your desk drawer for another from your store for the night, a sudden idea might just land on your head from the thousands of ideas floating about on the invisible brainwaves that surround us and tumble into a red-earth runway in your mind, maybe by a Mexican farmland or a hillside meadow and look about in wonder and comfort; the dogs barking outside might catch your attention then, like a drowning man to a straw, before you are already at your easel, and the paints are out, and your brush-strokes scratch an order-less beat to contrast your fan’s steady creaks as they mix with the dogs infrequent barks and form a symphony of sorts that sets in like a fog around you, though outside you as the idea keeps your attention entirely to itself. As the second joint ends, you might realize that familiar buzzing, like a storm approaching that approach the lonely innards of your brain, and you might reach for a third, light, and look at the canvas askance, maybe smile, and sit down with the lights out to look outside; the night outside too may just be a rainy one, and the sound of the rain on a neighboring wet tin roof might draw you from your desktop screen to the window to smell the wet air and squint at a sodden cat searching for a spot that the rain missed. You might forget all about what you were doing, pack the remaining joints, cigarettes, a lighter, a bottle of water and your iPod, and head up to your terrace to sit in the dry patch that your water tanks snatch from the pouring rain and sit snugly cross-legged against the wall. You might, or might not, but most probably will reach for a joint, plug your iPod earphones squeakily into your ears and light the carefully twisted end of this joint, Maryanne you’d named her, and gaze into the sky searching for the moon that sometimes lit up the billow of smoke that you so loved to blow into a night sky, meeting nothing but an expanse of fluorescent red clouds that painted the entire sky till where the suburban rooftops and the occasional swaying palm tree made up the round horizon.
It might just happen then, if you’re lucky and if you’re in love, that Leonard Cohen’s springing guitar enters your brain as if you’re ears didn’t exist and is joined by a voice that assumes immediate control of your brain as the words “like a bird on a wire” make parts of you marvel and parts of you sigh and parts of you fume that he stole those words from you before you were born; straying drops of rain boosted by the mystic wind splatter onto your forearm almost to soothe your pained soul with their wet coldness, keeping curiously accurate time to that guitar as they form little rivers down to your knees. It might equally so happen instead, if you’re just as lucky and some unknown god decides to embrace you, that an array of sounds which only could come as Manzarek’s creations lifts you like the cloud of smoke that rises from your mouth and the unknown god reveals himself as a lizard in Jim’s voice as you look to search for them around you on the treetops, and find them nowhere, those Riders; the sound of the rain batters on the surface of the lake, demanding entry into the underwater treasure-chests and turning the placid mirror into a frothy orgasm of sheer chaos, and the water on your forearms enter the song as if the song was meant to be never played without a storm around it. Your idea might peek then back into your enthralled mind to find a wonderland where it can grow and can play and can bloom and can stay, and might swirl the colors around into a dream that with the rain’s lullaby might kiss you and close your eyes and slacken you into a happy heap safe in that dry patch; the rain will lick you into a deeper sleep as the green mother nature in your blood fuels your mind and comforts your sleeping soul to make you smile in your slumber, and maybe drool.
But who knows? That floating little idea that landed in your head might find upon landing that it is in the New York airport, and walk out to find buildings that tower and shine with perfection, men who function in gear and happiness draining out of a curb-side gutter along with the blood of a dead dog run over in the morning traffic, and women in tights turn away feeling comforted that it was just another stray. I believe the thought might just flee from panic and desert you, leaving you looking half-confused at a spot on the wall, before you return to maybe your homework, or maybe the twitter dialog box, or maybe the sites that you still couldn’t openly declare to your parents of having visited.
Who knows? All I know is if indeed the idea left your brain, I’d be much happier to see those joints leave piggyback on the idea to be presented to the next home the idea finds.
