Free Dying to Survive by Rachael Keogh Page A

missing. They’re fuckin’ deadly. If yiz want, I can get ye Mad Bastards, White Doves or Mitsubishis. You’re probably better off going with the White Doves if it’s your first time, and only take a half of one.’
    ‘Is everyone on Es here?’ I asked Joanne.
    She looked around the room at the crush of bodies, all dancing as if in a trance. ‘Yeah, I think so.’
    ‘What will we do?’ I said to Katie, unsure if I wanted to try out this new drug. With hash, I knew where I was, but this was different. ‘D’ye wanna get some?’ Like me, Katie didn’t seem too sure, but she said yes anyway. We paid Tony ten pounds each and swallowed half an E each. We were completely unaware of what we were putting into our bodies. But everyone seemed to be having so much fun we didn’t think much of it.
    ‘There’s nothing happening, Joanne. How long does it take for these to work?’ I asked about twenty minutes later.
    ‘You should be feeling it by now,’ she said, looking as if the drug had taken hold.
    ‘Well, I’m not,’ I replied. ‘Will I take the other half?’
    ‘If ye want,’ she said, shrugging. So I took the other half and within minutes I began to feel really alert. My senses were heightened. The music was louder. My thinking was clearer. Even my body felt lighter. A lovely warm sensation was dancing its way from my toes up into my head, massaging every cell in my body and washing away all my teenage stresses. The intensity of it overwhelmed me, making it difficult for me to breathe. I was losing my balance and my eyes began to roll into the back of my head. But I had never felt this good in my whole life.
    ‘Katie, I’m fuckin’ out of it,’ I whispered to my friend, as if it were some sort of secret.
    ‘So am I,’ she said, looking around the rave as if she thought her mother was watching.
    ‘Are you alright?’ I asked her, feeling genuinely concerned. ‘C’mere, give us a hug.’ We embraced each other for what seemed like an eternity. Once again, I felt a rush of energy surge through my body, making myself and my best friend spin. The rave had become busier. It was at its peak and everyone was on the same wavelength. All that we wanted to do was dance.
    _____
     
    ‘It takes five seconds
    Five seconds of decision
    Five seconds to realise your purpose here on the planet
    It takes five seconds to realise that it’s time to move
    It’s time to get down with it
    Brothers, it’s time to testify and I want to know
    Are you ready to testify...’
    _____
     
    The music penetrated my soul.
    ‘It’s coming, it’s coming,’ people were shouting, with their hands in the air and everyone exploded into dance. We danced until the early hours of the morning, unable to stop, high on the music.
    When The Pavilion was almost empty, myself and my two friends decided to go home. ‘Jaysus, you would want a fuckin’ boat to get across to that place. Look at me, I’m full of muck,’ Katie said, as myself and Joanne laughed.
    ‘But it was deadly, wasn’t it?’ she said.
    ‘Yeah, it really was,’ I replied, still floating.
    ‘Ah, you’re deadly swell,’ she said.
    ‘So are you, and you are swell, Joanne,’ I told them.
    ‘I just can’t get over it. It was deadly, wasn’t it?’ Katie said again. And this is how it was, all the way home.
    Soon The Pavilion became the highlight of my week. On the rare occasions that I went to school, I would sit in class fantasising about the weekend ahead. The rest of the time we would hang around the blocks, talking animatedly about different things that had happened in The Pavilion, feeling euphoric and re-living the weekend just gone.
    My family were beginning to notice a change in my behaviour. I was sullen and indifferent at home and I had no interest in anything that they had to say to me. They didn’t understand me anyway, I told myself. They could never understand what my life was like now, mitching from school, staying out all day and all night without