The new drug

Steg was perched on a freezer which claimed to contain hake and halibut, though both Kim and Steg decided to take the label at its word. Another day, another drug, they’d have all the fish out on the floor checking them one frozen slab at a time, categorising them into hake, halibut and other unidentified fish, but today they simply used the freezer as a handy place to sit down.

 

Around them an illegal rave boomed and thumped, though neither of them showed any interest in taking part in the dancing. The fish storage depot, unlike many of the venues they had attended, was vast, with acres of empty floorspace between the banks of freezers, the sort of place you sit apart from the rest of the rave if you wanted.

 

“So what drugs you got?” Kim asked his friend.

 

“It’s a new drug,” Steg said, “hasn’t even got a name yet.”

 

“What’s it made from?”

 

“It’s part rhino repellent, part crushed mandrake vines and part banjo-juice.”

 

“What do the mandrake vines do?”

 

“Nothing, they just sound sound.”

 

“And the banjo-juice? What’s that?”

 

“It’s a drug designed by corrupt banjo players to enhance their performance.”

 

“Corrupt banjo players?”

 

“There’s cheats in every layer of life, even playing the banjo. It gives banjo players an advantage over their rivals.”

 

“What does it do exactly?”

 

“It’s hard to put into words. It sort of makes you twangier.”

 

“Twangier?”

 

“You know, twangier. The wanton twistage of words, rhythmic, impulsive, faster, tongue-twisting, verbal twattery.”

 

“And that’s the only effect of the drug?”

 

“As far as I can tell.”

“Why exactly would I want to take a drug that makes me talk in a twangy manner, and offers no feeling of high nor exhilaration?”

 

“Kim! You disappoint me. It’s NEW! You have to try it.”

 

Kim tipped the powder down his throat, the way he’d guzzled sherbert as a child. Steg was right, the point of the drug wasn’t what it did, but the fact that it was new. So new in fact that nobody else was taking it. He looked at the dancefloor, he recognised the drug-induced states the other ravers were in, they were high, tripping, in states of amplified sexuality, ecstatic or just plain funked. There was nobody else in a state of banjified twanginess.

 

‘I’m ahead of the pack’ thought  Kim, ‘taking the newest drug on the market, months before everyone else.’ This was what it was all about, being first.

 

He felt the drug starting to take effect.

 

“How is it?” Steg asked.

 

“I’m wallowing in wicked, twisted, ricocheting weirdness. Wowsers in serious trousers, this is whamming, bamming, twanging.”

 

“And the great thing is, if a rhino were to run into the warehouse now, it would keep well away from us.”

 

“Wicked!”