ANTISOCIAL

ANTISOCIAL

BY BRIAN MOSETI

Weed does not make one antisocial. It makes one selective. Its ties are far much stronger than the chain of smokers. It is smoked in a chain, the joint always to the left. Puff, puff, pass. You don’t jump the next man in line, the next man does not refuse the toke.

There is nothing the smoker wants more than to be left alone. With his pink bubbles. Society assumes you do not want them around you. They do not understand the level at which your thoughts are flowing could never match yours. Different dimensions of thought. They do not understand the monotony or boredom of a drug, and its impulses.

Weed loves monotony. It loves boredom. A type that can be achieved by doing the same thing over and over. Or the kind of boredom that drives men to try counting the pebbles on a beach. Enjoyably.

The Rasta guy who sits outside the veranda on your way to Hema is always stoned. Hourly intervals between tokes you see. “Yessayah!” Fist bump!  He has a very cute wife and an even cuter son, about four. The whole family had dreadlocks. He makes ornaments; necklaces, earrings, bangles… He is one of the familiar faces. A face I know I will meet tomorrow, here.

The smoker seeks smokers. Those smokers who know the savored sweetness of a dying joint and burnt fingers. Where conversations range from inverted logic to lopsided philosophy. The stars seem nearer, the oceans less deep, the colors more vivid. You can clearly count your heartbeat in your ears. The impossible becomes theoretically possible. Except for people. The nonsmokers judge, point fingers and fear. Always. Maybe it’s the paranoia setting in.

Often, one is forced to justify.

When M had not really started smoking, he attended a funeral vigil and got stoned. Margret, the old Catholic widow who was known to and knew everyone in the village had died. M sat around the vigil fire reminiscing about the little hells the little old woman had made them go through in Sunday school. M and his friends sneaked off behind the banana plantation. After the third joint amongst the four of them, M wanted to eat raw sweet bananas. His friends had to drag him away with him baying at the top of his voice for the bananas. The light from the fire had made the sweet bananas seem ripe. So you see why sometimes it can be called antisocial.

ENDS

@Mossetti

(photo credit - Internet) 

THE SMOKER'S ROOM

THE SMOKER’S ROOM.

BY BRIAN MOSETI

M’ window is always open to filter out the smoke, but it hangs in the air, thick as fog in the dim jaundiced light from a bulb that never goes off, except for blackouts. An ash stained carpet with stubs from three weeks ago scattered all over the floor. The smell is thick, almost sweet in cannabis tones. Unwashed dishes jut out of a on a sink, an arm’s length away from the bed. It’s one room, a bed, a table and a rack, containing his dreams, which are gathering fast gathering dust. His guests, the spiders have made themselves at home feasting on the cockroaches and mosquitoes.

M sits on the bed, newspaper on his lap, fingers deftly rolling a joint, eyes in stupor concentration. Evening strides in in halos through holes in the curtain, “oh, its evening again,” the smoker says without realizing what day it is. But M is a man in a haze, whose mind is bewildered up by the passage of time measured through high moments. He sees it all in isolation, through a solitude fraught with empty dreams and a room that he hasn’t left for a week. M thinks, he will clean after the toke, then go out tomorrow and look for work.

After his smoke, M lies on the bed, serenely blowing out smoke rings. In the background, from under the bed, a bass speaker haltingly pulses out a reggae song. M shuts his eyes, the music plays on, M can’t get up to clean his room, maybe tomorrow.

ENDS

@Mossetti