Like a Flame to Gasoline
By: The Kalahari Review
Tags: Nabila Ismail Shaikh, Nonfiction, South Africa, Addiction

Like a Flame to Gasoline

The rush of instant euphoria pumping through your veins like a flame being thrown into a tunnel laced with gasoline is probably what makes drugs so addictive. The flame of euphoria pumps through every vein of your being, declaring itself superior to any pain you might feel including that of the needle that has just entered your skin with a burning piercing. The flame travels to your brain, setting fire to your tree of self-pity which has its roots planted firmly in a foundation consisting of guilt over your parent’s divorce, fear of future rejection, and self-pity due to the horrific results attained in the examination that handles the switchboard of the rest of your life. The tree burns to ashes and with every sigh, you exhale not just the carbon dioxide from your lungs, but the remnants of the emotions previously held captive by your mind.

You feel free, devoid of any pain — physical, emotional, mental. If your eyes weren’t open, you would swear you were floating on clouds. In fact, sometimes the rush controls you to the extent that you really would swear you were floating on clouds — if not to explain the lightness you feel within, then at least to explain how high you are.

And then, with an evil laugh and a piece of your peace, the drugs begin to pull itself out of your system like a silk cloth being pulled over barbed wire. Suddenly, your Ultra High Definition senses regress. Your eyes begin watching a dull, black-and-white television. Your ears are attuned to a radio that hears only static white noise. The world feels distorted and “less than” in every way.

Before you’re able to begin dealing with your uncomfortable experience, your thoughts return, ambushing you, forcing you into a room of mirrors in which all you’re able to see are your own faults. Emotion, the wife of thought, returns too with her incessant nagging. These mental and emotional demons begin evolving into physical beings which crawl under your skin, reminding you at every moment that you are as captive to your inner being as they are to your outer being. You try to close your eyes, praying to God that this is a dream, only for the demons to appear against your red inner eyelid, reminding you that you cannot escape that which is already within you.

By now, the tree of self-pity has already regrown, this time taller and stronger than it was two hours prior. You notice that new branches have grown on it too, with leaves that read “drug addict”. You attempt to pluck off every leaf, furious at the label of “drug addict”. You’re not a drug addict, you assure yourself, anger building within: you can stop using whenever you like, you simply choose not to — but you could choose differently at any time. But with every leaf you pluck, you notice new leaves growing back ten-fold. You cannot escape the accusatory pointed finger and shameful grimace of your own mind.

Waddling like a penguin on the street, unstable and out of place, you walk with purpose. Your mind must be silenced at all costs, this is your goal. Screams of you being a failure continue echoing before you like a wall of dough, through which you force like a hot knife. You will succeed. You have to.

You furnish a handful of bronze coins and settle like a rock in water onto the sidewalk. Removing the sword from its sheath, you point it at the culprit. Trying hard to stabilise yourself knowing fully well that one wrong move could trigger a fatality but reminding yourself repeatedly that the act is worth it, you make your move, delving as deep as you can. Every troubling thought leaves your mind. As you push down on the syringe, somewhat like filling gas into your car, you feel the rush of instant euphoria pumping through your veins like a flame being thrown into a tunnel laced with gasoline…