i headed down to the orange line...i hadn't really slept much as of late...i was in my manic phase... you know all hyped up on a project...

i descended into the subway stop...whisked purposefully by the vagrants splayed about on the subway benches and headed down to the part of the T stop i always stand at...

as i picked at my tweed coat, the pattern of which was devastatingly intriguing, i heard the most beautiful music.

i looked up trying to figure out where this music was coming from...

it was almost ethereal...like some sort of synthesized choral arrangement...and i hate synthesized music and i usually hate choral arrangements...but this...this was utterly compelling...

i walked around the pylons in the T stop to see if the sound would change...

oh...i thought...the grateful dead are playing at the garden tonight, the sound must be echoing down the subway tunnel...

but no...this wasn't the dead...this wasn't even music...

i was truly enjoying the sounds...noticing how the harmonies changed as i moved around the pylons... fucking gorgeous...i wished one of my musician friends were with me to experience this with me...maybe tell me what notes or harmonics those sounds were...

i was smiling...dodging around the subway like a kook...the sound of the drunk panhandler's voice (the guy i had passed by with indignation earlier) became delicately interwoven into this incredible musical lattice work...no longer garbled words...they became notes.

it was then that i realized this was some sort of fucked up chemical anamoly in my brain...

i still enjoyed it though...it was beautiful after all.

the train came.

i stepped on and it hit me...that familiar feeling in my stomach...like someone died.

i got weak.

my jewelry was too heavy to wear...i took off my ring and my necklace...my right hand and right side of my face were getting numb...i couldn't keep my head up...the numbness was starting to spread down my throat... panic...keep breathing...don't pass out on the train...

i looked drunk.

as fucked up looking as those godforsaken bums at the T stop.

people were staring...i couldn't have spoken if i wanted to...can't pass out on the T.

finally my stop.

i dragged myself off the train...my right hand was doing this funky contortion...

everything in the station was purple...really purple...overwhelmingly purple...the shadows cast in seemingly mismatched placements were too purple to even look at...i could taste the purple...the velvety color began to cloak my throat...i had to get out of there.

i tried not to look at anything for fear the intensity of the hue would overwhelm me. can't pass out in the T station...

trying to regulate my breathing...trying to ignore my hand that looked as if the fingers were bent backwards... didn't give a shit about the onlookers...

finally...outside.

natural light...night air.

ok...i'm going to be ok.

go to Kinko's Copies...they're open 24 hours. i started to feel better knowing i was going someplace safe.

i got to kinko's went into the bathroom and my consciousness stepped out of my body. my body fell to the floor... my point of assemblage had shifted from inside of myself to slightly right of my body.

my consciousness took notes on my body's situation.

drooling, glassy eyed and crying...i was back...a fat woman in a pink cotton dress had made her way into the bathroom, found me, and was hugging me, stroking my head and kissing my hands...

yuck.

i couldn't speak if i wanted to...when i tried it was just a garbled mess of meaningless vocabulary...no grammatical structure...couldn't think of the right word...

frustrating.

went home.

slept for 16 hours.

despite all of this i still feel lucky to have these experiences...i would miss them if they left.

by rachael mc intosh