One toke over the line:

An Experience in Amsterdam

Walking down by the canal the beauty of the swans swimming is juxtaposed with the crass content of the neon reflections they are swimming on. The plastic model in the home erotic shop wearing a knotty limp pink wig and torn cerise fishnets is appealing as the women selling themselves through the glass.

As the warmth of the tango goes down I feel the orange spikily surging back up and I have to get rid of this filth. Black and white flashing before me as heavy limbs sink to the ground, overwhelmed by the filth there amongst the debris on the floor. I hold my head in my hands and crumple down against the wall.

I’ve lost control of my haphazard path along the canal and my ankles are unable to bend, lunging forward wildly. Neon sky litters the night and women in red, fast food fast fucks filth, I participate in them both, watching the live sex show and eating chips from a cone.

The show is awful, I pay two euros for two minutes and am ushered into a booth, where a screen suddenly becomes transparent. In front of me is a near naked woman writhing on a rotating platform, which she has draped in a leopard print throw. She is curvy and has long dark hair, and struts around touching herself and gyrating on the floor. Dotted around the room are several other windows like mine and I can see five other pairs of eyes, all belonging to men who are hungrily devouring the sight of the woman, their hands are not visible. The woman turns to my window and I recoil, she makes out my feminine facial features in the dark and her eyes give me a piercing look of disgust at both me and herself, before she haughtily tosses her head to the direction of another window, which she swaggers over to, perching one leg up on a ledge whilst her fingers brush aside her g string. I can still see the stranger’s eyes opposite and all around me and I feel disgust at participating in this voyeuristic fantasy wash over me in waves.

Staggering out my legs feel like fish flesh impaled and wobbling on a businessman’s fork, wild eyes, curled moustache and manic grin. My whole body surges forwards like a slinky and my arms and legs have turned to jelly, I can’t feel the chain of my bag on my shoulder but am aware of the socks on my feet, I wonder if this is what it felt like to have autism. My shoulders are frozen and my feet are numb, I navigate my way through the varying pavement terrain with difficulty. I reach the Mecca of the hostel and I sink onto the mattress, my hand is embedded in my cheek, my fingers are scalpels. I crawl under the covers and lie very still, eyes clenched shut arms glued to my sides, unable to undress, weighed down insurmountably by my clothes, and pass out.