Media Sift

I found some old chat logs in a lost folder of my Fife Park archive. You never really remember anything, right. I spent hours poring through my youthful conversations looking for gold, but it was all mundane and teenage.

I found my old Final Fantasy 8 save games; that’s where February went, in the Fife Park year. I’d forgotten that. I found a box of photographs. I looked happy, of course. Sometimes I was thinner than I remember ever being.

I used to skip meals, for days on end. I remember it as a montage, some Rocky-style weight loss video, all fast cuts and motivating music. But, now I think about it, I kind of tortured myself. For months, for nothing, because I didn’t realise that my weight had fuck all to do with how likely I was to get laid, to meet someone, to be popular.

I found old emails from Darcy. And emails to Darcy. She would send me a page of nothing at all, and I’d try to be precocious when I replied. It’s nothing like I remember. Every time I think of myself, I look differently.

I’ve still got the music, too. I keep that folder of pirate MP3s safe as houses, backed up across a multitude of sites, because it is the most direct line I have to these memories.

These memories put me in the mood for more than just memories. I’m remembering things, but also feelings, and some old feelings can be bought for a price. I put out the word that I wanted some cannabis.

It has been years since I bought dope. I’ve hardly even touched it since St. Andrews. Took about two fucking weeks to get some, so nothing new there. I don’t know any drug dealers, or have any friends with pretensions to know any. But somebody sorted me out.

I didn’t specify the type. I went through a friend of a friend who didn’t even know there were types. So, when it came, it was a little mystery gift. I almost forgot I’d asked for it. I kind of hoped it would be hash, but of course it was skunk. What else is there?

I made a single joint and smoked half of it before putting it out. Later I smoked the rest. McQueen would have called me a lightweight. I can hear his voice in my head, just imagining it. But I have always been cautious, and one of the main reasons is because, just occasionally, I haven’t been cautious enough. I wanted to be pretty stoned, of course. I wanted to remember that feeling, and all the little things that go along with it.

It was still the same.

The much and too much of it; the shivering, hysterical diaphragm, all giddy butterflies and nerves; the discretion of noise – those noises! The willingness and ability of the ears and the mind to put some hundreds of echoes of small sounds back into the mix, the drops and tinkles and audio also-rans that the senses would otherwise completely discard, but which cannabis makes sound so rich, and seem so planned.

I have had this feeling a lot of times.

It is its own thing. It sinks me into a very unique contentedness. But it wasn’t the feeling I was looking for. It’s not the answer to the question that is this book. The happy pleasantness of cannabis is just a holiday from whatever you’re feeling right when you smoke it. If I’m honest, that’s why I smoked it in the first place. Even in Fife Park, there were times it made sense to take a break from everything else. Heck, maybe especially in Fife Park. It was a learning curve, for all its well-aged warmth.

I threw on some music, feeling like a tourist in my own stories. Tried to think what would sound best, what would bring it back most. That’s when I remembered what I’d been listening to, on the night I left a note for myself, jotted down on a square of blue paper, and wedged under the feet of my Hi Fi.

I put on Media Sift… and closed my eyes.