Dragons

 It has been six months since I discovered this glorious poison that I have become addicted to. This wonderful drug that was 'invented' in 1874 by some idiot I've never heard of, working at some hospital that probably doesn't even exist anymore. That is your history lesson for the day ladies, learn it well. This stuff is glorious, poisonous, and addicting. It is also the only way I have been able to make it through the past six months. It is the crutch that allows to me 'walk' out into the public world and not curl up into the fetal position.

How I managed to find it isn't really important. The important bit is that, in a few minutes when I press down on that plunger, I will experience an euphoria like no other. All this of this euphoria is due to very complex brain chemistry that happens when the dragon hits my veins. I don't care about chemistry, or about my brain, at least not when that first rush hits. All I care about it how green everything looks, how transcendent I feel, and how I am now almost certain that I know the exact meaning of life. I know everything, I can do everything, I feel everything. It is something that makes Pink Floyd make a lot more sense. To describe it is far beyond my meager ability with the English (or any other) language. It makes everything so fucking clear, that if you could stay there in that rush you would probably cure cancer, feed the hungry, and put an end to war.

Of course the problem is that the feeling doesn't last nearly as long as it should. While I was so busy feeling that rush, and understanding the meaning of life, I forgot to writ it down, or to record it in any way. Therefore, I need more of the dragon to get back to that state of being, and this time I WILL make sure to write it all out. All of those complex formulas that will make the world a better place will be written down with precision, and given freely to humankind as my gift to them. Maybe this is what Jim Morrison was talking about when he wrote some of those hard to understand, crazy lines of his poetry and his music. Maybe a little bit of this stuff, and I will be writing the great American novel.  I can do anything as long as this shit is around. Change the course of history if I feel inclined to. Move mountains, save little babies from burning buildings, the whole nine yards of heroism is mine.

That was one of the beauties of wearing long sleeves as a part of my job, it made my addiction easier to hide, all I had to do was not go out in public much. Then summer came, and the wiser part of me (if any still exists) decided to try a new way to chase the dragon. The classical way, the way that gives the expression its name. Chasing the dragon all over some foil, as it slides to the left and to the right leaving a trail of impurities behind. It is in those impurities that you start to see your doom writ large. If this stuff is doing that to a piece of foil, what is it doing to your system? Making your lungs as black as your soul. A soul that I became willing to sell on the cheap, just so I can get another chance to chase the dragon. I will now tell the most outrageous of tall tales, lies, and stories just to explain my actions while on the dragon, and to attempt to get another chance to grab the dragon by the tail.

It is the 'chic' thing to do chase this dragon along a path that has a lot of potential for bad endings. A lot of people have chased this dragon, none that I know of, have ever caught it. It has been the final path that a lot of people took, and I don't think I want to end up in their shoes (or in the same state as them), but once on this chase, it becomes ever so hard to get off of the chase. Things start to lost a lot of meaning, and the 'dream' life that we are convinced that we are after starts to fade into the background very quickly, and not just because we stopped sleeping more than 2 hours a night about 4 months ago. That faded dream is all too real, becoming frayed around the edges, the edges that we use to further chase our dragon.

The final truth of the matter is that dragons eat people both figuratively and in reality, and sure this dragon isn't really what it sounds like, but that doesn't make it any less dangerous, poisonous, or deadly. That poison that has been coursing through your system for six months, and colouring almost every aspect of your life, has to be drawn out, purged as it were, for you own, and others safety. We all have our dragons to slay, and we all could use a St. George to ride in and 'save the day' as it were, but the fact is there was only one St. George, and he slew his own dragon. Maybe that should be a lesson for us all, it is (at the end of the day) your dragon, you must needs be the one that slays it.