Where In The World Is Evan?

One of the interesting things about being back in Australia after such a long period of absence is the many things that I get to discover anew. My lifestyle over the last year has been quite dynamic and my interests and attitudes have changed in tandem with many of the external influences in my life. Shortly after I got back I went through the address book on my old SIM card, and was surprised to find how few people I actually wanted to call. By the time I’d finished my deleting frenzy there were only about six names left. Partly this reflected a change in my interests, but it also reflected a desire to start anew, with as few ties to the past as possible.

Although it’s an obvious statement to make, the sort of social scene that I got into while living in China just doesn’t exist here. The bars, the clubs, but more importantly the people and their attitude to life, are just so different. As I no longer really mesh with my old lifestyle in this country I’ve been broadening my horizons a little recently.

On Friday night I drove out to Gippsland with A and J to attend a two day bush party. This party, on a remote farm property, was held in celebration of the anniversary of the accidental discovery of LSD by Albert Hoffman. Having never been to a bush doof before I was in for quite a treat.

Being a mostly hippie event—a social group I’ve not really had much to do with—it was interesting to see a facet of modern hippie culture. Gone were the guitars and folk singers of my parents’ generation. Instead I was confronted with the expected, yet bizarre, juxtaposition of thousands of dollars worth of high-powered equipment pumping out the highly artificial sound of psychedelic trance in the midst of untouched nature.

Having arrived just as the party seemed to be kicking off we parked the car in an accessible spot and had a couple of drinks before heading down to the dance floor. Realising that I’d forgotten to bring any rolling papers I went off in search of a charitable soul. When I returned J had ensconced himself on the dance floor so I rolled a joint and had my first pill.

Whilst the music was certainly danceable I don’t share J and A’s knowledge of the genre and wasn’t especially impressed with the headline act; Raja Ram. As the night wore on and my second pill started to fade J asked me if I wanted to split a tab of acid. Seeing as this was a party to celebrate that very drug it seemed both fitting and appropriate that I said yes.

A while later, feeling pretty tired from all the dancing and the MDMA heavy mix in my pills I reclined on the blanket and cushions that we’d spread on the ground. Before I knew it J and A had joined me there before both falling asleep under the stars. As I was feeling way too wired to sleep I sat upright observing the crowd. The acid I’d taken earlier was already in full force by this stage, however, J must have absorbed most of it into his fingers while ripping it in half, as I wasn’t getting much of an effect.

When J and A woke up, a couple of hours later, I convinced A of our pressing need to acquire more acid. J it seemed had woken up while peaking from his earlier tab of acid and couldn’t be drawn away from staring straight up at the clouds hovering above us.

In short order A had found a guy she knew who had a small vial of liquid acid. As A ran back to the car to get money I had my first drop, not even inquiring as to the price. When she got back I discovered that it was going for $10 a drop, so at that price I just had to have another. A, who’s always a good sport, had one too.

We all lounged around on the blanket for a while listening to the really chilled electro that was playing. The day was beautifully warm and laying in the shade after being up all night was just so peaceful. With weather like this our plan of driving home this morning just wasn’t going to happen. There were, however, some serious problems associated with staying. We had no food, almost no water, and only half a six pack of beer—sitting warm in the back of the car.

Considering this, A and I set off up the hill to find the well stocked camp of a friend. At some stage earlier in the morning I’d taken off my shoes and consequently I was walking around in the thick thorny grass with bare feet. This just didn’t seem to be a problem at the time, as I felt such an overwhelming kinship with nature.

When we arrived at S’s camp my face was rather flushed from exposure to the glaring sun. Thankfully S was in less of an incapacitated state than A and I and he offered me some sunscreen. As I rubbed the sunscreen into my face I could feel that something just wasn’t right. The more I rubbed the oily cream into my face the more the pronounced the feeling became… my face was melting off! Rather than being concerned by this unexpected realisation I began to giggle, and continued to shift my semi liquefied features around on my face.

By the time the sunscreen had been absorbed into my skin I’d lost interest in my face, and sat down in a chair under the shade of the tent. A series of fractured attempts at conversation followed before S produced a book for me to look at. ‘Thumb’ is an independently produced scrapbook filled with the insane acid ravings of a man who watched too much Australian TV during the 90s. Accompanying the enthrallingly detailed descriptions of irrelevant minutiae are dozens of childish doodles. With great effort I could concentrate sufficiently to read short passages, but with all the letters moving around on the page and the doodles coming to life it was quite a taxing job.

After imposing on S and his girlfriend for long enough, A and I set off back down the hill to our blanket. This proved a lot more difficult than anticipated. With the ground refusing to stay in one place, and the grass teeming with movement, I hopped from one location to another before carefully reassessing the situation and hopping again. By the time I reached our blanket I was exhausted from the effort of walking and crashed down into the cushions.

As I realised how intense my hallucinations were becoming I looked up expectantly at the sky to find the clouds that J had been so captivated by earlier. But there were none to be found. As I cursed my bad luck and pointed at the sky A became transfixed by something in the mid distance. “Look at that giant bird,” she insisted. With nothing but clear blue sky above us I dismissed A’s obvious insanity and returned to complaining about the lack of clouds. “It’s always me me me, and it’s always cloud cloud cloud!” Yelled A, in a hugely amusing reference to an unrelated incident.

When I regained my composure from the hysterical fit of laughter that took hold of my very being I became aware of the sample that was playing in the current track…

“Tommy was going to be an engineer, he was twenty two, good looking, personable, athletic, he had a high IQ. The dean said he had the best potential of any man in his class… but Tommy is dead… his problem was acid…”

“Hey, that’s me,” I announced. Which prompted several loud refrains of “Evan is dead!” from both A and J. Falling back into my hysterical fit of laughter I writhed around on the grass unable to regain my composure.

With the sun moving across the midday sky our position in the shade had become compromised. I, however, refused to get up and assist with moving the blanket. After brushing off several threats from J to kick me in the balls, A took things into her own hands. Grabbing me by my right foot she dragged me off the blanket and along the ground. The blanket was then repositioned and I was dragged back into the shade.

Feeling somewhat restless after not having moving in a while I produced a cigarette from my pocket and stuck it in my mouth. As I had the attention span of a gold-fish, however, the cigarette hung there unlit for some time. Through the combination of the now stifling heat and my troublesome dehydration the cigarette had stuck to a portion of my lower lip and continued to hang there as I chatted to A. When I realised what was happening I plucked the cigarette from my lip, taking a chunk of skin off with it.

J, who by this stage had a much clearer grip on reality than either A or I, wanted to know when we were going back. After a brief consultation with A, it was decided that we would go off in search of more drugs and then stay for another night. The absence of food and water was brushed over as insignificant—none of us had eaten since dinner the day before and it didn’t seem likely that we would be getting hungry anytime soon.

What followed can only be described as a complete and utter farce—resembling something like a cross between Mr Magoo and Inspector Clouseau—as A and I staggered about asking people for acid. By this stage in the afternoon everyone at the party was so gacked on acid that communication was becoming a real problem. The people who’d been selling acid earlier were now far too high to be drawn into anything as straight as a conversation.

After countless demands and counter-demands that someone else should find more acid, J made a biting observation. “Considering where you two are right now, if you can’t manage to find some acid then that’s proof enough that you don’t need it.” We both dismissed this outrageous suggestion and A set off again for another attempt. A short time later she came running back to the blanket to collect her purse—she’d found someone with acid! A few minuted later she returned again with a sad look upon her face. Apparently in their drug addled confusion, A and the person she’d spoken to, had both assumed that the other had acid they were trying to sell.

Meanwhile J was observing an interesting situation developing in the bushes near our blanket. A Thai guy, whom J had bought his acid off earlier, was squatting down with a cup of tea in his left hand whilst rummaging through the bushes with his right hand. His highly focused search continued for about five minutes before he triumphantly raised a small stick above his head. Standing up he used the end of the stick to quickly stir his tea, before tossing the stick over his shoulder and striding off.

At this point A and I gave up on our epic search for more acid, as I had discovered that my last joint was still tucked behind my right ear—I’d rolled it some time the previous night and then simply forgotten about it. After lighting that up and smoking it we all reclined again on the cushions.

Despite the subjective frenzy of activity that had transpired, not much physical time had actually elapsed, and I realised that I wasn’t even peaking yet. As I looked around at the trees and bushes that surrounded us I had a sudden urge to wander. Actually standing up and walking didn’t really seem that enticing so I just crawled off into the grass.

I really can’t put into words what happened after this as there just aren’t words in this language, or my vocabulary, that can do any justice to such an intense hallucinogenic experience. Suffice to say I lost all mental connection to my physical form and drifted in a sea of shifting patterns, colours and organic forms.

When I returned to the blanket both A and J seemed to be snoozing, so I sat upright again and observed the crowd. There were about half a dozen hippies getting naked down by the pond and smothering themselves from head to toe in green slime. The dance floor was empty save by one person—an amazingly toned feral woman, who was covered in tatts. As she danced to the music I became absolutely captivated by her amazing physical form. She resembled how I imagine an Amazon would have, but her dancing conveyed such amazing beauty and emotion. I couldn’t say how long I sat there without moving, but subjectively it was an eternity. At one point she looked up from her dance and our eyes met for a fleeting second. My heart skipped a beat and the adrenalin rush was so overpowering I had to look away.

Suddenly feeling a brief moment of clarity I stood up and surveyed our situation. Throughout the day we’d moved the blanket several times to follow the shade and now had a rather incriminating trail of intensifying debris charting our various locations. As I moved to put my shoes back on I became cognisant of a sensation that had been there for some time… pain. Looking at my hands I realised that there were several long spines dug deep into my palms and fingers. When I inspected my feet I found the same thing. Apparently I had acquired them whilst crawling around in the grass and just hadn’t noticed at the time.

I pulled out the ones that were still protruding above the skin and began consolidating our mess. When I picked up my jacket I realised that the weight in its pocket was my mobile phone. I pulled it out and looked at the time. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. Since A and I had first walked up the hill to S’s camp it had only been an hour and a half. I can’t begin to express how unbelievable this seemed as my subjective perception of time was so altered that the only reason I knew less than a day had passed was that it hadn’t gotten dark.

A couple of hours later, when we’d all returned to a state more closely resembling reality, we reassessed our plans. The food situation wasn’t that pressing, however, we’d completely run out of water by now and that was an issue. So we decided to head back to Melbourne. J announced that he was right to drive because he hadn’t taken anything in about 12 hours. As A and I were still struggling to walk straight there was no issue over who would drive.

The long drive home was rather uneventful, save for an amusing comment J made while on the freeway. Squinting into the setting sun he announced “Look at that giant dune buggy on the road in front of us. It’s the size of a lane of traffic!” A and I, who were still hallucinating, looked ahead but couldn’t see anything of the sort. Instead there was a four-wheel drive towing a boat on a trailer.

The issue was briefly raised as to whether J should be operating a motor vehicle, but we soon lost interest in such a theoretical topic and continued home without incident.

Check out the photos here.