15 minutes.
It was 15 minutes before I realized that my world was horizontal, that the cold I was feeling was from my floor. And this wasn’t a normal cold, it was a cold that reached into your core and clung on. It was a persistent cold.

I tried to reach my fingers, but my brain was too tired to reach that far, but instead I got my heart, its beating was hypnotic and magnified as I could feel every muscle contracting and every nerve reacting.

“WAKE UP!”

Someone screamed, and the sound cancelled out all others. Purpose took over me again. I reached out and found my fingers, and from there I found my toes. The cold had gotten stronger while I was engrossed by my heart, it crept up from my physical into my mental, the cold threatened to engulf my mind, leaving it as frozen as my body felt.

‘WAKE UP!”

Was it another scream, or was this an echo? It felt hollow, lifeless, like a crow screaming on an empty street. But it helped, my arms and legs screamed in unison and strength returned to my mind. I found that I had to focus on my movements, it was as if my body had reset itself and lost all memory of movement.

Knees bent, muscles tensed. And all at once,like a behemoth rising from slumber I ascended. Time, or at least my perception of it, slowed to a crawl, and my joints ached and groaned like a corpse. Pain had never felt so real and vivid. The pain actually translated into a visible color to me,it was a cross between brown and purple and it filled the room. My pain filled the room as I struggled to rise to my feet.

“WAKE UP!”

This time it staggers me, the sound hits me like a shockwave and I was thrown back into myself, and I think a bit past myself. My eyes felt like they were 10 inches above my head and my mouth tasted like my hair. But I was standing, a retarded version of it, but I was on my hind legs, though at this point all sense of anything was beyond me.
But I had a feeling.

15 seconds
15 seconds passed before I realized I was still standing. My knees seemed to have locked themselves into position, and my head had forgotten to stop rising when my body did. The air seemed to have a body of its own that caressed me and kept me afloat. And in the distance there was a something that felt like music but sounded like food.

“WAKE UP!”

I was awake,I wanted to scream back,but my throat had forgotten what it sounded like, ashamed, it remained silent. I fumbled around me with what I think was my hand and found something soft,and almost organic. I dreaded my decision but it had to be done. I willed the gravity of my soul to returned,and I came crashing down back into my body. And in one swift move I lowered my body into my sofa as it seemed to mould itself around me.

And then I finally opened my eyes. And reached for the bong