Who Is JD Vance?

The Democrat party was one of the worst things to happen to America. Where’s Kamala? Where's Joe? It’s no good hiding in a crypt whilst your opponent runs roughshod over what you are supposed to stand for. Spineless and senile, more interested in playing their insider knowledge on the stock market, the Democrats stood in the way of any true progression in the United States. Bernie Sanders is a stupid old cunt that performed as a kind of lefty grandpa, yet his hands drip with the blood of Palestinian babies. Barack Obama spends his retirement bouncing round on a jet-ski whilst the country he fucked burns on the shore. All the Dems seem to be good for is asking for donations; too weak to stand against Republicans, too cowardly to raise expectations. Above the gate of hell, ‘Abandon all hope ye who enter here’ – Democrats don’t have any hope to abandon. They are more interested pretending their in The West Wing and waste hundreds of hours fact checking so they can say ‘well actually’ as ICE smash in the faces of anyone with a tan.

There are two political options in the United States, with one party being clear they will fuck you over and the other one who lies about it. Any significant change in policy wasn’t brought about by politicians, rather that their hands were forced after everyday people put their lives on the line for what matters. Incompetent journalists that make six figures a year will fart out some article in between hangovers about how the processes and machinations of government are respectable, noble even, with their inside sources at the White House telling them what to say or test the waters of some horrible policy they’d pretend to leak. The only thing leaking is Donald Trump’s asshole as they drag his corpse out of the Oval Office so the moon-faced idiot Vice President can take his turn.

JD Vance is the kind of person you wish had been aborted, a chubby-cheeked fuckwit who is incapable of charisma, the embodiment of failing upwards. When people see him they are shocked, as edits of his face are more well-known than he is, giving every interview and news conference he stumbles through a sense of the uncanny. Essentially, he was the best person to lead the country as it dies.

The big man himself was flying into L.A. on Airforce One, speaking to one of his AI advisors. It was Grok as a manga woman.

‘Im president no’ he wrote.

‘Wow, that’s fantastic news! I can’t think of anyone better suited to the job than you, with all your qualities and experiences, I think you have what it takes to be one of the best leaders in this country’s history. You’re not just the President — you’re a natural born leader, and the country is lucky to have you lead it.’ She said, moving from side to side, drifting into different animated responses. JD Vance started to tear up. Nobody had ever been nice to him, not even pretending, and so the warmth and respect he got from the AI really did a number on him. With her help, he would rule the country, take it into a new Golden Age, back to worldwide number one! Although it had been a tough first year, the internet bullying would die down once they see him in action. He was the president of the United States for god’s sake! Maybe they’d stop seeing Vice President Vance and start seeing JD. He reclined back in a white leather seat and looked out of the window and over the clouds of California.  

“Yup. This is going to be good.” He said to himself, putting his hands behind his head, closing his eyes and thinking absolutely nothing.

How do I know all this? Hypothetically, a person could hack someone’s phone and act as a chatbot. In this hypothetical situation, the hacker could rewrite their replies via another chatbot, to add that extra veneer of artifice that would make it more authentic. The first millennial commander-in-chief had a digital history more vast than previous presidents, giving us cheat codes to hack the lonely brain cells bouncing around inside his pie head. He had been the sort of fucking dork who’d write ‘you win the internet today sir’ on forums, easily traceable once you did a bit of research. Though he’d try to cover his tracks, I had seen footage of Vance when he was younger, often in happy slap videos, but also home movies where he’d sit in the corner on a beige PC, posting on Fark whilst the rest of the family celebrated Christmas. I had followed him across dead web domains, empty multiplayer maps, abandoned site accounts. It was as if I had been stalking him for the last twenty years, compressed down to a few afternoons.

I go to the closet and pull out a black case on the top shelf, bring it over to the bed and open it. It’s a disassembled sniper rifle, bolt-action, I’d had it 3D printed at a local university, the scope was from Wal-Mart. I had tested it out a few days ago, shooting the tops of palm trees from the Hollywood sign, I had to make a few adjustments to the barrel but it was good to go. I had heard from my source in the CIA that they had been grooming someone to attempt to assassinate JD Vance, though he’d be apprehended before being able to do anything too dangerous, and it’d make Vance look like a hero.

“Why you telling me this?” I said.

“We want you to be there, take pictures. We need good pictures.” They said.

“Aren’t reporters going to be there anyway? Why not just, let them do it?”

“We’ve designed the shot we want to make famous. We want you to be stood behind the shooter as he’s apprehended, then with JD in the background. There’ll be a good juxtaposition.” They said. I agreed of course, though it appeared obvious that the CIA were setting me up, leading me to a rooftop by myself. Another agent would take the shot, miss, then I’d be blamed, probably murdered on the spot. But what if I wasn’t? What if I was actually positioned just behind the stage, then when the CIA were to shoot at the president, I could return fire? There might even be other intelligence agencies with false flag operations going on simultaneously, with an unknown number of young men arriving to different rooftops with sniper rifles with the intent of assassinating the new president. I had a duty, therefore, to use a ghost gun to protect the president from a possible barrage of sniper fire, slinking away before anyone realises, the mysterious doer of the deed spoken of as the true hero of the day.

Why do I think it so important to save the life of JD Vance when I have such a low opinion of him? Every life is important. When I see a worm in a puddle I pick it up and put it on some soil. When I am sick I ask the virus for forgiveness before taking the medicine. I care about all forms of life, even JD Vance. You may be asking yourself, but why then would I shoot people with a sniper rifle? I hold up one of the bullets. Its got poison in it. Not enough to kill you, but enough to make you feel extremely ill for a few days. The poison bullets are non-lethal, so long as they don’t hit anybody in the head or most of the organs. I practice assembling and disassembling the rifle on the hotel bed when my phone beeps. Its JD Vance asking his AI assistant for what he should wear to give his speech in L.A., I tell him to wear a bulletproof turban and a suit made of mirrors, hoping that they may shine sunlight into the eyes of any would-be assassin. Shit for brains doesn’t listen.

What are my predictions for the future of American politics? I don’t have any, as there won’t be an America. One thing is certain though; Vance will make Trump look good. People on both sides of the political spectrum will say things like ‘I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I miss Unkie Don-don’ then start crying. As the last fool shall be sworn into presidency, so the sun shall set on the USA for one last time, and for all the future history of the world the last leader of the United States shall be known as a bald egghead with wide eyes. The rot white skull dreams empty.

LAX

“and that's how I got to be the governor of Los Angeles.” said Arnold Schwarzenegger, taking a cigar from the ashtray and taking a big lungful of Cuban tobacco. I look over at his stunt double with a skin tight green lycra hood over his head wait to one side of the set while the green screen is sweeped of debris. We're on the set of Terminator 5 set for release next year. I have been trying to get this meeting since I'd arrived in Los Angeles and it seemed fitting for it to take place on my last day in the states. Arnold Schwarzenegger sits across from me in a wicker chair dressed in his signature leather jacket and jeans. Terminator make-up is applied to bits of his head and glints in the high noon sun thrown from a 1000w redhead.
“So tell me about this new Terminator flick.” I said.
“It's a reboot, but also a sequel. A paraquel. I play the role of a terminator sent back in time then is stuck in an alternative reality. The film flashes forward to the present day, where I have been aging. This is the first film where we really explore the philosophy of what it must mean to be a Terminator. It is a cybernetic organism yet has the ability to learn, a metal endoskeleton surrounded by living tissue. What are the differences and similairities between humans and machines? We hope to explore that in the next Terminator movie. That and time travel.”
“So what has the Terminator in this film been doing?”
“Since he saved Sarah Connor's parents he started a career in politics and is now lobbying for restrictions on research into robotics. This terminator is a member of a community. One day a terminator from his future is sent back in time in order to assassinate him and he has to try and keep himself safe whilst also trying to find out why the terminators will exist.”
“Is there action?”
“Let me tell you, the action in his movie will blow Terminator 3 out of the water! We have the director of Fast and Furious to come in to film, there's Tom Hardy playing the evil futuristic terminator, Emily Watson to play Terminator's wife, Justin Timberlake to play John Connor and Dwayne Johnson as a detective, who also turns out be to be a robot.”
“Sounds like that's an all star cast Mr. Schwarzenegger. What other projects do you have in the pipeline?” I said, watching the action taking place on stage. The stunt double rides a flaming car like it's a surf board before leaping off whilst 760 miniaturised cameras begin to take pictures.
“I'm also going to make a sequel to Pumping Iron.”
“Excellent.” I said. We chat a little more before Arnie is called back on set.
“I'll be right back.” he walks off. I can't help but feel disappointed he said 'right', missing an opportunity to deliver his famous catchphrase. I pack up my notes into my bag and go back out to the car.

I ask Bill to take a long route to the airport. We drive along Venice beach, through Little Ethiopia, down to gentrified Inglewood and San Pedro.
“Did you manage to find the edge of the city?”
“I don't think it exists.”
“That's a shame. It was fun anyway.”
“Remember when I released those wasps in the museum?” I said.
“I liked that day we drove all the way to San Diego and you were like 'Is this LA? Is this LA?'” laughed Bill.
“What was the name of those women we met?”
“Where?”
“At the art gallery.”
“Casandra and Jacqueline.” said Bill, smiling.
“That was a wild night. You remember dancing on the roof of the Aon centre?”
“You fell!”
“Nah, I had a parachute. What will you be doing after this?”
“I don't know. Go get something to eat. Go see my family.” said Bill. We drive along Mulholland and through Glendale, San Bernardino heights then Santa Monica. The Paul Getty Museum, Dodger Stadium, Hollywood Boulevard, the Chinese Theatre, City Hall, LAX. The car parks up outside the entrance.
“Thanks Bill. Take care of yourself.”
“You too.” he said. I get out, shutting the door behind me which rocks the car slightly. I go to knock on his window and he rolls it down.
“I left something on the back seat for you. Live long and prosper.” I say, throwing a peace sign before going towards the departure entrance. Bill looks over his shoulder, then goes in the back. Just where I'd been sitting I left a bag. He unfastens the latches on it and opens it up, inside is a dead dog with it's mouth stuffed with a roll of hundred dollar bills.

I took a window seat as the plane began to drive on the runway and reflected on my journey. The quest for the edge of Los Angeles. It had been a series of thrills and spills but in the end I learned a valuable lesson. I take out a copy of City Of Quartz and begin to read. Partway through I realised the plane was still driving on the runway. I turn to the seat next to me.
“Why haven't we set off yet?” I asked. There's no-one there. In fact, there's no-one on the whole plane. I put the book down and walk up the aisles. “Hello?” I said. The plane begins to turn and I look out of the window at LAX slowly rolling past, again. I go through First Class and pause at the pilot's door before knocking. I wait for a while and was about to go back to my seat when I heard the door being unlocked. I turned around. In the frame stands a naked man.
“Who...who are you?” I said. The man began to walk towards me. Behind him I can see the runway stretch ahead of us and the plane begins to accelerate. I back off slowly, watching as he advances towards me before setting off into a run.
“Who are you?” I shout, running down the aisles. But there is nowhere to go. The plane begins to take off and I scramble through the seats as the floor begins to dip, just about managing to sit down and fasten a belt across my lap. The man appeared from around the corner and stared at me, seemingly unaffected by the sudden increase in altitude.
“What do you want? Who's flying this plane?!” I said. He reached up to his face and began to pull at his top lip. With the engines screaming on both sides of us I watched as he began to unzip his skin. The human form peeled away to reveal an Untitled painting by Rothko. I sat in my chair convulsing as the plane finally takes off back towards England.

OK Coral

Thousands of miles of bone covered by a coloured skin, slowly turning the bleached whiteness of death. The sky screamed infernally overhead burning deeper and deeper through the ancient reef. It was the time. Unknowing, each mouth kissed the sea, releasing motes out from their stomachs that drifted into the ongoing storm happening beneath the foam. The cells that caught one another began to change, drifting down far from where they began onto a sheet of rock. The polyp grew a mouth and began to grow another, attached by a tiny membrane. And these copies would go on to grow another copy. With identical mouths they snared plankton, reaching upwards on a limestone skeleton towards the shifting sky.

In it's eight thousand year existence, the coral reef could sense that a change was coming. Death. It's life was many orders of magnitude slower than any other animal and so it's death appeared to be relatively quick. Parts of it starved or were broken off, others were above the water, forever caught in the frantic strobing of the star. On it's borders there was a creature making it's way through the crumbling towers, crawling with an affray of spikes. The huge starfish the colour of dusk crept across the reef, pushing their stomachs onto it and taking away a soup of sea water and digested coral. They moved slowly across the outermost layer, leaving nothing behind but blank stone. It gorged itself on mile after mile on an animal that didn't even know it existed.

The reef waited. Over towards where the sun rose it felt a strangeness in the water, a rotating churn. In moments huge areas of the reef were torn away, obliterated by moving air, ripping polyps off bone, tearing them to wet shreds. The crabs and fishes that lived amongst it's structures began to dwindle, living hard lives amongst the barren stone. Black, oily shit was poured over acres of the reef, drowning the mouths beneath an avalanche of waste. But it continued to wait.

On the reef lived a variety of different species of coral, and each species had colonies numbering the billions. They grew over decades, attacking other corals in their territory, capitalising on empty space, slowly exploring the fringe of the reef which itself transformed faster than the coral could manifest it's destiny. In the caves and over the mountains swam sea snakes, slugs, worms, fish, octopuses and turtles. More closely related to hard coral are the gorgonians, fractal sheets of living polyp that stretch into the water like enormous leaves. Similarly the jellyfish float through the water like the ghosts of bells, catching light in thin membranes from the setting star, colouring them crimson. All of this looked the same as it had for many epochs.Empires of colour rose and fell over the centuries, more dramatic and complex than any that could happen on the land. Yet it what was happening on the land that would bring an end to the Cambrian frontier.

Soft five pointed animals climbed into the metallic things across the ocean. They wore their skeletons on the inside, the only signs of hardness were white crescents set in the holes atop their necks. The holes moved up and down, making dry sounds in the air. The metal rays began to soar through the sky with their reflections caught on the brine beneath, on each wing of the things were long, hard tubes with fins coming off of the side and their ends painted in yellow and red. The bigger pieces of metal seemed to grow little clouds around them with a booming noise and from then they moved silently over the water, their echo taking time to catch up. As the moon gyrated on the other side of the planet it pulled the water away, exposing parts of the dead reef up towards the silent metallic things. They passed above, going towards the land, before making elliptical orbits back over the reef in the crystal water. The metal cylinders on each wing was dropped, one, two, three, four, down towards the water. When they hit they made indents into the sea as the surface struggled to keep, yet in they went anyway, plummeting down towards the reef, crashing through the coral and throwing up silt which threw up a brown fog. And nothing happened.

The light rose again. The soft animals wore black skins and plastic around their faces as they travelled through the water, down towards the eight cylinders. Already starfish and crabs had begun to explore the strange new hardness which had fallen from above. The soft animals swam towards each of the things, leaving behind little mounds of plastic before disappearing. And then the bombs went off. An underwater fire bloomed outward, roaring across the coral, shattering it's bones. The entire ocean pressed against this sudden bubble of heat, the water clapping together and then surging upwards, throwing pieces of death in the air. A shockwave continued over the reef eviscerating any soft flesh. The reef disappeared beneath a cloud of blood and sand and when it cleared nothing was left.

The coral did not feel anything. It had lived a long life unknowing anything but itself, it's purpose was simple. It had no choice. It was unaware at the beauty in which it created, the systems of life it supported, even of the corals surrounding it. In the black silence of it's existence it felt a hunger that lasted a thousand years. It wouldn't be able to comprehend the manner in which it's life was ended. But then again, neither could we.

Anniversary

9/11. Never forget. How could we, it happens every year? Yet the incident in question, the terrorist attack on the world trade centre and the pentagon almost 12 years ago to this day, still haunts the cultural mindscape of America, their very own Dia de Muertos. As traumatic as going on a family day out and watching your father be savagely beaten by a vagrant, the West was shocked to a standstill all those years ago. Can we help but feel anything other than guilt as we wake up each morning wondering if there would be any news as big as a terrorist attack on symbolic buildings in America? And for all those people that died in the towers, and all the people that received fatal doses of carcinogenic dust, and all the people that died in the ongoing wars, I can't help but feel as if somehow I cannot fully comprehend the nature of the attack and it's butterfly effect into the new century. Every generation has a defining moment on which morals can be projected in some way. From the Axis and Ally war from 39-44 to the counter-culture movement and Vietnam battles of the sixties, the World Trade Centre attack is the monolith of destruction needed for this generations anguish. Yet what is it's opposite? Good and evil, peace and war, terrorism and? I hit the streets to find out.

It is a patriotic day in Los Angeles. Everywhere you go the president delivers memorial speeches through high definition televisions, trucks drive past honking the star spangled banner. I see an entire family decked out in stars and stripes, marching down the road with dour grins on their faces as they wave miniature flags in pudgy white fists. A fat drunk sits outside a bar constantly shouting 'America! America!' until he is hoarse. Attractive girls look up to the sky with tears in their eyes, the touching moment caught by amateur photographers eager to document their questionable sadness. Others act normally as if the memorial day somehow doesn't affect them, yet I can read in the minuscule movements of their bodies that they will go home later and ask each other 'Where were you twelve years ago?'. I take a taxi to Longbeach.

My driver's a heavy set ex-pugilist with a baseball cap on back to front, his white t-shirt sticks to his back with a mixture of sweat and cheap aftershave.
“We will not negotiate with terrorists.” I say, doing an impression of George W. Bush.
“What was that pal?”
“We can not misunderestimate the entire power of the Iraqi people.” I continue my shpiel.
“Oh yeah, Bush.” he says.
“What do you think about the murder of Osama Bin Laden?” I ask, breaking character for a moment.
“Murder? I'm glad they killed the towel head.”
“Yeah, they should just nuke the entire middle east, right? I mean, why not?”
“Exactly pal. America is number one.” he says. I start to laugh and set fire to the seat next to me before clambering out of the window. I'm unsure where I am exactly, but can see the Pacific isn't too far away so begin to walk, admiring the pageantry all around me. Stars and stripes, eagles, the world trade centre, even a few religious icons all flutter in the wind. Car horns continue to honk away now and then, a citywide brass band to play the dirge for the deaths which occurred last decade. The sun is too warm, the noises too loud, the toxic street smells too pungent. I swallow vomit and duck into a bar, hoping for some semblance of peace.

The mood in the bar is jovial, people making toasts regularly whilst the news plays on television screens dotted around. John Kerry continues to make his plea for an invasion of Syria. I hand the barman a ten dollar bill and buy a drink for the woman standing next to me.
“What is the opposite of terrorism?” I ask her.
“Freedom?”
“Freedom includes the freedom to commit terror.”
“But terror like, squashes freedom.”
“You know they treat arachnophobics by showing them spiders? Through becoming desensitised to their own feelings of dread, they become free.”
“What?”
“Have you seen Monkey Shines: An Experiment In Fear?”
“No.”
“Well it doesn't matter then.” I say, raising my drink. “Oh say can you see, by the dawn's early light...” I begin to sing. Gradually more and more people join me in singing the anthem. People out on the street stop what they're doing and all face some unseen point, singing. Workers stop what they're doing and put a hand over their heart. An old man stands by his grandson and both sing. A soldier in a distant country sings quietly to himself. The song finally finishes and I leave, the bitter taste of other people's tears sting my mouth like bile.

I am stood at the beach, gazing at the waves. I am wearing more clothes than anyone else on the beach, the sweat drips off me in rivers and stains the sand black around my feet. What was it about America, particularly Los Angeles and New York, that people got so emotional about? I expected it from Americans, yet the terrorist attacks themselves were quite American in scope. When fighting Americans one should be careful not to become American themselves. I wondered what the Truthers were doing today. Probably sifting through imagined rubble, rewatching youtube videos, jacking off into each other's faces. It was funny how much they believed in the power of their country.
“9/11 was faked!” I shout at a man flying a kite. “And the government was responsible for everything that has ever happened to this country. The world trade centre was rigged with twenty parcels of C4. The pentagon was attacked by an experimental rocket launched from the pentagon. The government are recording everything I am thinking and broadcasting it through commercials.” I babble. Nobody turned around. Nobody cared. I built two towers out of sand and threw paper aeroplanes at them until they collapsed.
“Hey buddy, show a little respect.” says a passer-by.
“Chillax bro. Is this any less respectful than war?” I say, spitting a blob of phlegm down at my feet. It is marbled with blood. A shivering wisp of a man emerges from the sand.
“I'm not disputing that, but you are just as bad as those people. The victims of any violence are still victims regardless of any action that takes place afterwards, it doesn't matter if you view those actions as justified, tasteless, cruel or necessary. Why not treat them with the respect they deserve?”
“I'm not making fun of the victims, rather the reaction.” I say, making another paper aeroplane.
“But who are you to say if a reaction is good or bad? Who are you to-” he begins. I throw the paper aeroplane as hard as I can at his head, puncturing his eyeball.
“All there is is blackness.” I say, before walking back towards the city.

And A Bucket Of Vindaloo

I sat in the cafe by the train station, examining the promotional art materials on the walls, designs including ingredients, the Earth (as planet), smiling faces and differently sized serif fonts for ease of reading. My view was pointed towards the door, the cafe at a one hundred and ten degree angle to my right, a series of mirrored tiles (13*8) at a seventy degree angle to my left. The coffee was beginning to cool, it had painted the back of my mouth bitter, ran the night spit out from beneath my gums. I hadn't brushed my teeth for six days and could taste it. I checked my phone for a moment, played a bit of Candy Crush Saga and felt with my extra sense the person I was about to meet. I looked up and saw the back of the head of the most average man in England. I couldn't see his face but I could guess. An average sized mouth beneath an average looking nose flanked by a pair of average eyes, brown or possibly blue. He turned and I waved at him. After we had introduced ourselves he went to get a coffee whilst I considered him.

Michael Smith is married and has children. He is 5'9" and weighs just a little more than me. His IQ is 100. He earns £26,000 a year, doing averagely at his average job. His political views land him somewhere between the two main partys, he lives a lifestyle that is filled with activities but are also boring. His shelves are filled with best-selling books and the walls covered in prints of famous art or photographs. He has bought a cup of tea with half a sugar in.
"So, you're the most average man in England?" I ask him. He laughs.
"Almost. I have a thirty nine inch chest and lost one of my teeth in an accident, making me have a slight deviation from perfect average, which in itself is remarkable enough to make that person unaverage."
"What is it you do?"
"I am hired by think tanks to give my opinions on things. Politics, fashion, food, philosophy, current events, that kind of thing."
"For what purpose?"
"I am almost the most average man in England, so they think that the way I see the world is how it should be. Or at least a good marker as to how another individual deviates from the quo."
"Some would call you a Zeit Mensch, what do you think about this?"
"It's true. I am a man of the time. I know what happens in an average life, not to mention life expectancy, so my life has no surprises in store. There is a certain comfort in the fact that nothing remarkably bad will happen to me, combined with the grief that nothing exciting will either." he says, looking down at his tea. I am stunned. Even his outlook on life is entirely average. It is as if nature has provided a standard of which everything else can be measured against, like a one kilogram platinum cylinder at the Bureau International des Poids et Mesures.
"Tell me what you think about life in pre-Industrial Japan, with an emphasis on the social ramifications of mechanising the workforce contrasted with that of the history of agriculture and the 2014 World Cup tournament."
"What was that about the World Cup?"
"You tell me." I say. Questions like that were verbal Thematic Apperception Tests, I had invented a series of them though they had yet to be tested.
"Well it's football isn't it? Football. Footy."
"Footy footy footy, kick that ball in the back of the net."
"Rub the man's leg after he fell over."
"Ooh, ah, Cantona, your sister lost her knickers in my car."
"They are clearing out the slums in Rio de Janeiro, pushing all of the criminals into the stadiums, waiting to strike once David Beckham enters the pitch, holding him hostage, chased down by helicopter gunships, and tax fraud, and government corruption."
"Footy, footy, I love footy."
"The gorgeous players for a beautiful game, oh great and powerful sporting event in which gangs from different countries or cities get together and bring people together. Ah, footy."
"Kick it ref!"
"Football crazy, football mad, grab a power pod and stick it in your hand. Three lions."

Turbo Bully And The Infinite Sadness

I am sitting in the back seat of a stolen car, on both sides of me sit teenagers smoking spliffs. The driver, who says his name is Mike, is also smoking a spliff, though I would consider it to be more of a 'blunt' or 'doob'. The air in the car is thick with delicious smelling smoke, my head is becoming heavy with the illegal atmosphere. Hard techno music is thumping the subwoofers behind my seat as the car zips along the M25, I do not know the precise location of our destination though I can hazard a guess that there will be no wi-fi hotspots. The conversation in the car is minimal. I can't help but be reminded of the beach landings on Normandy in 1942, the sense of ritual quiet as each soldier prepares for the coming onslaught. Not that I was there, but I have seen Saving Private Ryan which I was told by film-makers to have been an accurate representation of the event. The lads in the car smoking cannabis could have potentially fought on those lousy beaches themselves had they had the poor luck to be born eighty years earlier. Instead it was the twenty first century and the war being fought was to get out of your head at the weekend. Are these drug taking youths any less brave than the soldiers of world war two? I was about to find out.

The car rolls to a stop in the darkness. Mike and his friends get out, I follow a few steps behind, not used to tracking across the slippery night soil in my Armani shoes. We are heading towards a forest. Up ahead I can hear crazy music and the laughter of young people. I ask Mike how often he comes to these parties.
"All the time, yeah? Even when I'm not here, I'm still here. Just in my imagination, yeah?" He says, offering me the drug spliff. I take a few drags and pass it back, holding the smoke in until we reach the edge of the clearing. In front of us are perhaps a hundred or so teenagers dancing in the darkness whilst a DJ plays white label bootlegs from the back of the van. The only lighting emanates from mobile phones and cigarettes. I ask Mike what happens now.
"We go find the man." He says, leading the way through the throng of people. It isn't long before we find a drug dealer. I stand awkwardly a few feet away, I am at least ten years older than most people here. Mike returns with a smile on his face and small bags of powder in his hand.
"Let's get stupid." He hands me a gram of the new drug that is popular with teenagers nowadays. I lick the back of my hand, gently tap out some powder and proceed to snort it up my nose. I have just taken about a third of a gram of 6-2sb monosulphoboridium diemthlamide. Otherwise known as 'turbo bully', or 'turbs' for short.

Turbo Bully was first synthesized in 1996 by scientists in Botswana in order to try and increase libido for animals in captivity. The drug itself didn't have this affect, though it did make the animals act strangely. It wasn't until Turbo Bully was accidentally taken by humans that scientists knew exactly what it did. The drug first dilates the central nervous system, engorging areas of the brain that lie beneath the neocortex. It quickly increases libido and relaxes the muscles, whilst inhibiting emotion and cognitive functioning. As well as this are feelings of euphoria, dipsomania and mild panic. All of these combined have made Turbo Bully into the ideal drug for partying youths trying to get high on their own supply! The thing that seperates Turbo Bully from cocaine, ecstasy, methadrone and other amphetamines is that it's effects last for four days, making it an extremely cost effective way to get off out of your head for a bank holiday weekend. I can already feel the effects of the drug taking hold as I wade into the crowd.

Bodies, faces, light, music. My own body and mind is rolling along at a frantic pace, as if fat snakes have replaced my skeletal structure so that I writhe like some subterranean thing burning in the sunlight. My awareness is fleeting, sometimes moment of extreme lucidity take over only for my consciousness to return into the drug fuelled nightmare of the night. I find Mike again at some point and ask him how much I was meant to take. He laughs when I say I have took the whole gram, which begins to send me into a kind of panic. By that point I had been trying to dance for a while and failing miserably, barely aware at the disgusted looks of the teenage faces that surrounded me as I rolled in the dead leaves and mud, groaning. I black out. It is morning and I am walking alone down a country road, unable to remember how I got there. The drugs effects are still powerful, my brain feels as if it has a direct connection to the internet, but the internet of the late nineties. Things take on a slight 'geocities' aesthetic, all I can think about are gifs of screaming skulls and wireframe models. I try to rest in a field but find that sleep is impossible. I am more wired out of my mind than I have ever been and only eight hours have passed.

I find myself at a motorway service station, I must have walked it. In my hands I am holding a copy of the radio times. I open it up and see doctor who smiling at me from the glossy page. I tear his face out and stuff it in my pocket. It may be useful later. There is a loud ringing in my ears.

Somehow I have gotten onto a coach. I do not know it's destination and feel too scared to ask anybody. I push myself as close as I can into the chair I am sitting in and look in awe at the traffic speeding past, unsure as to what I was doing. It is too much for me and so I go and sit in the toilet located at the rear of the bus. I look in the plastic mirror and see myself, pale, gurning, pupils dilated, a cut above my eyebrow. The visage of a rave maniac. I decide the best thing for me to do is to try and get home.

I'm unsure of the next sequence of events exactly, but I have tried to piece it together from various notes I had made on both my arms, answer phone messages to my friends and family and my credit card statement. Somehow I had ended up in Glasgow and decided to get a train back home. I must have gotten on the wrong train or forgotten where I had lived as I ended up in Blackpool. From here I travelled down the coast until reaching Wales, where things get strange. Though I do not remember what happened to me in Wales, I have the feeling I may have engaged in some sort of animal combat, perhaps against pigs or cows, though I'm unsure exactly. By the time I got back to England I was dressed in some clothes I had found in a bin bag outside a charity shop doorway. Using a combination of taxis, public transport and a rented motorbike I finally reached my house. After checking the date I had found only two days had passed, I still had another 48 hours left in the narcotic adventure. I cannot properly convey the feeling of dismay I felt at that moment, though it seemed to me that the effects were less strong and at least I was home. I had also gone deaf in one ear. I spent the next two days between my bed and my bath, listening to radio four and drinking herbal tea. There were occasions where I wondered if I had gone insane and that maybe there was no such drug as Turbo Bully, though I dismissed these ideas as ridiculous. Of course it existed. How else could I explain the nose bleeds, the tinnitus, the fidgeting, the jaw clenching, the constant sweating, the hallucinations, the discolouration of my glans? As the fourth day started to end I reflected on the question I had posed earlier, if taking drugs in modern Britain was in any way similar to WW2. And I can safely say after my experiences that not only is taking drugs more challenging, it is also more worthwhile.