They drift on, feet not touching the ground. Gliding along carriage atmosphere. They don’t need anything, at all. Finding seats, they are already nodding. Heads bobbing back and forth but the train hasn’t left the station. Sensory and high we are flying home today. Watching them from where we sit, lounging, like a couple of school kids attending gym class in 89, only it’s 2015 and we are moving forward, not backward. We feel compelled to watch, there is no other way, my body memory sends waves through me, and that radiation looks divine. We watch them as they are in our line of vision and obviously flying very high. They’re nodding off. In a way that means they have prepared for this trip. The last hit was close, probably just before; the drugs seem to be taking hold, coming on, right in front of us.
The first guy drifts away dreaming while the other sits and looks forward, eyes rolling over. As the train lunges, we noticed the closer of the two doing something strange with his mouth. Rolling and smacking his tongue, he is playing with his teeth and gums. While his tongue rolls, his whiter teeth jut in and out abnormally. Pleasure melts down his face – I am transfixed. Rolling around his mouth, I realise his false teeth are feeling so good at this time. He moves them around, in and out and round and round. Holding them with the tip of his fingers his blissful ecstasy moves me. He begins massaging his gums with them, up and down, eyes rolling to the back of his head, saliva building, pouring down his t-shirt. I guess he isn’t there, but if he was, this was living, get me out of here. After a while, after just the right amount, he places the teeth down, on his knee, and falls asleep.
“We are now approaching Melton Station”, the loud speaker complains.
His unsaid friend jolts. ‘Fuck, dude, we’re here, get off.’
Jumping where they sit, both of them lurch forward, grabbing overhead, checking pockets, rolling eyeballs, side to side, back on ground. Before we know, they are disembarking the train. Pounding down the aisle, into another stark and bleary day.
Sitting close, enthralled by our new visionary actors, I remember.
THE TeETH.
Leaning forward,
‘Where are they?’, ‘He didn’t leave them, did he.’
From my seated position, I can see a set of glistening white teeth, poised, in waiting, expectant, even triumphant under an empty chair. His dentures look like they must belong to someone but that someone has gone. Out for a walk, on an excursion somewhere, they proudly know who they really belong to. I jump from my seated position and skate down the compartment.
‘I’m not going to pick them up.’
Rushing from the idling train, I clamber down platform wild, in search of a toothless, gummy, mid-flight, dancer unawares of his impending disaster. I scan madly for two distinctly stoned dudes, one of them toothless and both obviously blissed out. I know that their floating along here somewhere but where? Suddenly I see him, the toothless one, amongst a throng of grey nomads, back turned. I lurch forward and place my hand on his shoulder he turns a sticky grin.
‘Your Teeth’, I exclaim.
He motions for a moment but then his altered state shifts dramatically, with eyes bulging terror, he tears down the busy platform, arms outstretched, manoeuvring through, and displacing people everywhere. Watching him shove commuters aside, I follow in his wake committed to this final task. Inside out from a hole, he clambers down the idle compartment searching and retracing hazy steps. Peering over and under, looking, scouting, everywhere all over… and finally… FOUND. Loyal to the last, waiting, never once doubting his return. He sweeps them up, holds them up, and slurps them back in place. With a satisfied grin, he retreats to the compartment door, turns a sticky grin, wave’s one last good bye, and is gone forever.
The train lunges forward…
The world is a better place…
