were in a language he didn't understand. Already he was speeding to another nexus of internal confusion and clarity, the liberated elements of his mind forming and reforming to shape new perspectives. He tried desperately to remember what it was that had just made so much sense, why his tears had felt so good. But his eyes were dry, and the first tinges of nausea were colouring his outlook. Cynthia looked grotesque, a cubist melange of angles covered with melting flesh, a surreal gargoyle. He was certain he was going to vomit.
Conrad led him to the centre of the room and helped him to lie down. 'Whatever you think, whatever you feel, whatever you understand, don't hold on to it,' he said. 'You're just a river, and you're going to assume ten thousand shapes before the night is finished. Don't identify with any of them. Just keep flowing.' His voice, low and lulling, put Aaron in a state of relaxation, and he closed his eyes. Immediately the feeling of illness passed, and he entered a state of consciousness for which there was no conceptual expression. He let go of his environment, of his awareness of Conrad and Cynthia, and sank into himself, to mine the rich lode of his long untapped unconscious mind.
Cynthia sat in the large chair, her lips and hands trembling. She had received the waves of revulsion that had poured from Aaron when he last looked at her, and coupled with her burgeoning feeling of insecurity, they undermined her sense of well-being. She opened and closed her eyes rapidly, and finally looked at Conrad imploringly.
'Why don't you make some tea?' he said, directing her toward an activity, knowing that to be the best therapy for her current state. And as she moved about the kitchen, working slowly and exactly, holding on to the familiar routine of boiling water, washing dishes, clearing the table, sweeping the floor, Conrad sat cross-legged a few feet from where Aaron lay, and took several deep breaths, finding himself keenly aroused by the developments of the evening.
For three hours there was little movement. Aaron lay like a man in a coma; Cynthia shared her time between dozing on the couch and prowling around the back yard; Conrad sat like a stone statue, lost in his mescaline revery. In each of them solitude sang like a loon; there are some places which can only be got to alone, and to these three products of a culture which did not prepare its members for communion with that god who can be found only in the chambers of the heart, the loss of social amenity produced various stages of oppressiveness. Aaron felt as though he had been buried alive, and lived for most of the time with a sharp awareness of the walls of the crypt which contained him. Oscillating between stark terror and currents of omnipotence, he churned silently within the tomb that was his mind. Conrad sailed similar seas, but his experience allowed him to accept the voyage for what it was, a passage through forces which gave man a taste of his utter insignificance in the face of the enormity of creation. Cynthia was cast into paroxysms of paranoia; the stoned withdrawal of the men at a time when she was negotiating her own high reaches threw her mercilessly onto her own resources, and she discovered, with angry amazement, that up to that moment she had defined herself entirely in reference to whatever man she was with, and had no sense of herself as an individual, as a person, except in the sociological role of woman. She saw that her relationship with Aaron comprised only one and a half people, neither of them ever able to attain fullness, except at the expense of the other.
Finally, Aaron stirred. His eyes opened slowly and with the sense of being entombed still dominant, acknowledged his actual physical environment. Like a person who has lived for months on amphetamines and has come to accept that psychic state as permanent, and then stops injecting the drug and descends to the chemically normal equilibrium only to find it massively
Conrad led him to the centre of the room and helped him to lie down. 'Whatever you think, whatever you feel, whatever you understand, don't hold on to it,' he said. 'You're just a river, and you're going to assume ten thousand shapes before the night is finished. Don't identify with any of them. Just keep flowing.' His voice, low and lulling, put Aaron in a state of relaxation, and he closed his eyes. Immediately the feeling of illness passed, and he entered a state of consciousness for which there was no conceptual expression. He let go of his environment, of his awareness of Conrad and Cynthia, and sank into himself, to mine the rich lode of his long untapped unconscious mind.
Cynthia sat in the large chair, her lips and hands trembling. She had received the waves of revulsion that had poured from Aaron when he last looked at her, and coupled with her burgeoning feeling of insecurity, they undermined her sense of well-being. She opened and closed her eyes rapidly, and finally looked at Conrad imploringly.
'Why don't you make some tea?' he said, directing her toward an activity, knowing that to be the best therapy for her current state. And as she moved about the kitchen, working slowly and exactly, holding on to the familiar routine of boiling water, washing dishes, clearing the table, sweeping the floor, Conrad sat cross-legged a few feet from where Aaron lay, and took several deep breaths, finding himself keenly aroused by the developments of the evening.
For three hours there was little movement. Aaron lay like a man in a coma; Cynthia shared her time between dozing on the couch and prowling around the back yard; Conrad sat like a stone statue, lost in his mescaline revery. In each of them solitude sang like a loon; there are some places which can only be got to alone, and to these three products of a culture which did not prepare its members for communion with that god who can be found only in the chambers of the heart, the loss of social amenity produced various stages of oppressiveness. Aaron felt as though he had been buried alive, and lived for most of the time with a sharp awareness of the walls of the crypt which contained him. Oscillating between stark terror and currents of omnipotence, he churned silently within the tomb that was his mind. Conrad sailed similar seas, but his experience allowed him to accept the voyage for what it was, a passage through forces which gave man a taste of his utter insignificance in the face of the enormity of creation. Cynthia was cast into paroxysms of paranoia; the stoned withdrawal of the men at a time when she was negotiating her own high reaches threw her mercilessly onto her own resources, and she discovered, with angry amazement, that up to that moment she had defined herself entirely in reference to whatever man she was with, and had no sense of herself as an individual, as a person, except in the sociological role of woman. She saw that her relationship with Aaron comprised only one and a half people, neither of them ever able to attain fullness, except at the expense of the other.
Finally, Aaron stirred. His eyes opened slowly and with the sense of being entombed still dominant, acknowledged his actual physical environment. Like a person who has lived for months on amphetamines and has come to accept that psychic state as permanent, and then stops injecting the drug and descends to the chemically normal equilibrium only to find it massively
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