Swallow

It was his.

All that lay before him was waiting. As was he. It hadn't been long since he had swallowed the pill. Felt the grit against of it between his teeth - the bitterness down among his taste buds.

It wouldn't be long before it was coursing through his veins, rocketing through his body, causing every muscle to fire, like dormant machines that had suddenly been thrown into overdrive. He could already feel it creeping into his soul. The music that was pumping from the streets below seemed to gravitate towards him, higher and higher, straight to his ears. The beat was beginning to grab him, move him, control him. His toes were clenched around the carpet - softer than anything he had every felt before. Lights were brighter, the buildings seemed bigger, his morals were loosening - the tempo of the city was shifting.

His restlessness approached hysteria.

As he left his room, he couldn't help but smile. It was inevitable. The drugs had kicked in. Ahead of him, the hallway seemed to stretch on, like some overly decorated carnival attraction. Each step he took, the further it continued. If he didn't have somewhere to go, he'd be more than happy to walk down it forever.

The elevator ride seemed to crawl through time. All he could focus on was the design of the carpet - as if the drip paintings of Jackson Pollock had made some bastard child with Pablo Picasso's blue period - a mess of abstractly splattered cubes. Did it mean something? It felt like it did. It was so bright. It was just so soft - without even realizing it - his shoe was off again, and his foot was caressing it. It all just felt so good.

The shutter of the elevator as it reached the lobby shook him from his trance. When the door opened, he was blinded by the lights overhead and the glitz and the glamour. Spread out before him was the lobby he had walked through so many times before, but now it was different. Enhanced. He fought the urge to run up to everyone and shake their hand, introduce himself, feel them, smell them, just be with them, in their company. His mind was going a million miles a minute. It was hard to concentrate. He knew he couldn't get sidetracked and lost amongst the crowds. He had to escape.

The first breath of air that went into his lungs was a salvation. Down it went, full of the street car vendors' aromas, the smog of all the rickshaws, the saltiness of the sea. It all culminated deep within his chest, pulling him back down to Earth for a brief moment. But it was fleeting. For as quickly as he came back down, he was lost again in the sea of endorphins that had been released with a simple swallow.

The city stretched out before him, waiting.

It was his time and he wasn't going to waste it.