Sunday — Hive

Word Count: 1200 - 5 minute read

"What time is it?" Paulo asked.

My breath puffed out in brief white clouds, the drugs were wearing off and I was beginning to feel as flat as the dull grey sky stretched above our heads.

"Dunno, about six I think." I answered.

I looked down at my feet, my pristine white trainers were now the colour of grime. A gentle yet persistence cold wind whistled through the dilapidated and disused buildings surrounding us.

Four hours ago when our lifts were leaving the party, Paulo and I felt like it was a good idea to take more ecstasy and stay.

Now though, standing in puddles of rain and grit, the idea revealed itself for the stupid decision it really was. We had spent all our money on party drugs and had no easy way of getting back across London to the warm safety of our beds.

We stood in a moment of silence, fine water droplets gathering on us fast.

"What time's the tube open?" Paolo asked like he already knew the answer.

"Sunday innit, gotta be at least nine, not before eight definitely." I answered.

"Johnny! Paulo!" A friendly voice.

I spin round and see my old mate from school Mazza, emerging from the doors of the now quiet warehouse. Mazza's wiry hair pokes out of his grey hood in spiky bunches, his dark skin made even darker by streaks of grime and dust.

"Alright Maz! I didn't see you in there." I say.

"Yeah man, I been here all night. Oi you lot hanging around? We got a squat round the corner wanna come?"

Ten minutes later I'm in a large living room lit only by the light cascading in through huge bay windows. Two sofas bookend the opposite sides of the room. A long rectangular glass table completely covered in a sea of empty beer cans, sits between the sofas.

An array of bodies are strewn about the place, some possessing faces I recognise, but most are strangers to me.

Laughter emanates from a small door halfway along the left wall.

A thin man dressed in black combats and a white Tee emerges from the kitchen and looks at me in recognition.

"Alright Johnny."

"Alright Josh."

I smile, Jumpy Josh is always good for a laugh. Loves the raves like the rest of us, has an insatiable appetite for drugs and always sounds like he has a cold.

"Fancy some ketamine John?"

He's balancing a dinner plate containing a heap of white powder in the palm of his hand.

K isn't really my thing, I've always said; if I want to feel like I've drunk a bottle of whisky all at once and stumble around like a new born foal, then I'll bang some ketamine, otherwise, no fucking thank you.

With his free hand Josh uses a card to chop the powder as he waits for my answer, looking like he's just offered me a piece of his prize-winning cake, baked especially for me.

"Yeah go on then." I shrugged.

"Ha! You used to curse ketamine Johnny!" He said in his blocked-nose voice.

"Yeah well, when in Rome Josh, when in Rome."

I give him a few crushed up ecstasy tabs I've got left over, and he sweeps everything together.

Some time later I'm sitting on the sofa next to Paulo and gabba is thumping through the entire room.

If you've never heard gabba before, imagine you're walking through a construction site full of angry men screaming their heads off and smashing their tools up with metal bars, whilst a huge piledriver smashes the ground to a vaguely melodic beat.

To say the least, it's fucking horrible.

But sitting there on that fucked up sofa next to Paulo, bathed in the silver-white light that had now enveloped the entire room as the sun outside broke through the cloud cover. And of course flying on a mixture of ketamine and crushed up ecstasy tablets, I had as near to a religious experience as I've ever had.

"I get it now!"

"What?" Paulo rolled his head towards me, his eyes flickering unable to focus on me.

"Gabba, I fucking get it now! I can hear all the little intricacies. It's fucking genius!"

Paulo rolled his eyes into the back of his head in response, a thin trail of dribble began to make its way out of the corner of his open mouth and down his cheek.

Something caught my eye at the end of the room, Jumpy Josh was standing at the end of the table, bathed in the ever-brightening light pouring in from behind him, through those massive windows.

I stared at his silhouette, as he ever-so-slowly started to spread his arms. Each hand still held a plate of ketamine and a credit card.

As the gabba thumped Josh spread his arms till he stood there, all Christlike.

He stood with feet locked together, arms spread wide, and neck craned up, highlighted motes of dust drifted down on him from the high ceiling, his eyes wide open with a thousand yard stare.

A quick glance around told me that nobody else had noticed him.

"Look everybody!" I said pointing. "It's the Joshua Tree!"

Various heads rose to look and laugh, Paulo laughed so hard he gasped for air.

Within thirty seconds everyone in the room, including Paulo lost interest in Josh but I was mesmerised. He stood unmoving as a rock.

Eventually I stopped looking at him, the ketamine and ecstasy mix taking me to a place I'll never remember.

Possibly ten minutes had past, Josh remained unmoving and unblinking, bathed in golden light, a living crucifix watching over us.

Then, almost imperceptibly at first, Josh, without once breaking his Christ-pose, began to tilt forwards.

I watched frozen as centimetre by centimetre he carried on pivoting forwards and ultimately downwards like a gently toppled statue from its plinth.

He passed the point where any normal person would have reacted by stepping forwards, dropping what was in their hands and shooting their arms out to break their fall.

Josh however, kept his rigid pose all the way down, I watched in fascination as his frozen expression refused to leave him even after he smashed face first into the thick forest of empty beer cans adorning the table in front of him.

The resulting noise caused everyone in that room apart from me to jump up in shock.

"Fuck!"

"Shit!"

"What the fuck was that?!"

"Oh my fu-!!"

Josh had bounced off the table like a piece of ply wood, amazingly his cruciform pose hadn't broken and his staring expression remained unchanged.

Ten minutes later he sprung up and bounded into the kitchen. No more than ten seconds later he was back.

"Where's my ketamine?" A deep frown creased his brow.

"Josh, you fell over." I said.

More laughter.

"Bullshit." As he said it, he lifted up his T-shirt to reveal an angry looking waist-to-chest red welt.

He looked for some time while we cracked up. He bent down to pick up the plate and his card and disappeared off into the kitchen.

Not too long later the ting-ting of card on plate was the only sound in the room.