I Should Not Have Smoked: A Viscous Midnight on THC.

I am not at ease.

It is about 12:30 AM.

I am perambulating the darkness-enshrouded streets of Victoria Island, Lagos Nigeria.

I am not at ease.

There is THC in my system. I feel particularly vulnerable.

:: It felt like the ingestion had for that space in time, dispossessed me of my cognitive shell- the protective exterior forged by training and thinking and identity-moulding experience, and that in that period in time I was a naked inchoate mind- exposed and soft and malleable- being bullied about by the intimidating darkness and the midnight island air.

I am not at ease.

I should not have smoked.

I am not at ease.

I should not have smoked.

I am moving about, not precisely sure in what direction I am headed, trusting that intuition and its sibling unconscious sense of navigation have things under control- although my conscious mind is far from feeling convinced.

I hear the voices of my parents in my head. I find myself walking through feeling-beams made of words- their words. Like discontinuous ropes of constituent raindrops in my path, each beam making sure to smite me in its own unique way.

There was the person who something horrific happened to, while they were out at night in Lagos.

Ahh.

That smites me somewhere in my face.

There was the old man who got lost in Lagos, in search of his child who preceded him in being misplaced.

Ahh.

That smites me somewhere else along my physical frame.

There is a scalding verbal downpour today.

No public transport tricycle has passed by for a considerable amount of time. 

Jesus, great. One proactive thought. One proactive thought. One thought that in contrast to an indulgent revelling in haplessness, actually endeavours to commence searching for a path towards a means of direly necessitated extrication from this foundationally perturbing situation.

I’ll need more of those. I’ll need more of those proactive thoughts, I’ll need more of those.

I have training. I have experience. The task before me should not at all be a problem. It just feels like the direction-designating, directive-effectuating resource that is my mind, is running on Vaseline. Everything is just so, slooowww.

And I feel detached from it.

I feel like I am a separate entity- disparate from this facility that is my mind, and experiencing my personal consciousness from the perspective of a passenger.

I’m attempting to prod the driver: Hey! Hey! I need to get somewhere! It’s late! And I’m here on the road!

But the intravening pathway feels blocked. The conduit through which the urgency borne of my disconcertion should be communicated, feels clogged. 

My agency-driver is on THC.

Ah, I shouldn’t have smoked.

I find myself going in and out of a number of restaurants. I am not sure what is happening. I am saying something to the attendants. They are responding. Apparently I am making sense. I find myself browsing through menus, glimpsing different options and their accompanying price tags.

Mayowa, what are you doing here? It is 12:30 AM! Is this what you are supposed to be doing right now?

I keep perambulating.

Next I’m engaging in disagreements with a number of security guards.

These people are so hostile, all of these people are so hostile. Nobody even appears interested in taking time to calmly exchange words. Not even the security guards, not even them who should be the guardians of the night.

My parents had chilled me appropriately with richly-gruesome stories before I left their house for Lagos earlier that evening.

In the midst of my unsettlement I find myself walking towards a building. For refuge apparently.

::There was a glowing emblem illuminating the muzzle of a formidably composed guard dog.

I find myself drifting towards this building. The gates appear so strong and confidence-inspiring.

Ah. Let me relax here for a while. I should be safe here. I don’t think anyone will come to enact any adversarial intent on my own existence, at least not while I’m here.

I stop to take a look at the building.

In my marijuana-induced- haze, I gape in awe at the intimidating imposingness of this building.

Jesus Christ! This building is so big! And tall! Yeh!!

At the top of the building, I make out a name. In bold glowing red.

“THE MIKE ADENUGA BUILDING”

AHHHHHHH. Jesus Christ!! MIke Adenuga!!! Yeehhhh!! You were the one who built this thing??!! Yeeehhhhhh!!!! 

Look at how huge this building is!!! Yeehhhhh!!!

I have definitely seen bigger buildings before, but the THC in my system appeared to have temporarily undone a learnt imperviousness to the sheer magnitude of such buildings.

Yeeeehhhhh!!! Mike Adenugaaa!!!! Yeeeehhhhhh!!!!

Now I see why people speak of you with regard in this country. Yeehhhh!!!! Look at this big building!!!!

Jessuuss Chrisstt!!!!!!!!!! Mike Adenuga oooooo!!!!!!!!!!

 

 

I should not have smoked.

 

 

A Viscous Midnight on THC.