The shit blog of Paul Chris Jones

Dear Diary. Today I take ketamine for the first time.

We're by the swimming pool when one of the girls, a British girl called Quirina, asks me, "Do you want to try ketamine?"

"Sure," I say.

"Have you ever done it before?"

"No," I say. "What's it like?"

"Well, it just makes you feel happy and relaxed, really. I used to take all the time as a teenager. Me and my friends would have ketamine parties and all get wasted."

So the people go out the ketamine. It's a white powder in a plastic bag. Quirina tips out a tiny amount of the white powder on the table.

"So I just snort it then?" I say.

"Yeah, you just snort it."

"Can't I drink it? In water?"

My friend Joe cuts in. "Dude, people don't drink this stuff. You just snort it."

So I snort it using a five-euro bank note.

"How do you feel?" asks Quirina.

"I don't feel any different," I say.

"Well, just let it kick in."

While I wait for the drug to kick in, we play the card game Uno. I've never played Uno before. And I have to say, Uno is really boring. It really is. There's almost no skill to it. It's mostly just luck.

As if to prove my point, I win the first game.

"I won even though I'm on ketamine," I say proudly.

"How do you feel now?" asks Quirina.

"The same," I say. It's true.

"He probably needs a bigger dose," says Joe. "Give him a bigger one."

So Quirina starts tipping out a bigger pile of ketamine.

Then she says, "Do you want to K-hole?"

"I don't know," I say. "What's a K-hole?"

"It's like hallucinating. An out-of-body experience."

"Sounds good," I say.

I've never had an out-of-body experience before. Maybe I'll be floating above the pool. Maybe I'll get to fly.

So Quirina tips out a bigger pile of ketamine on the table.

"That's a lot, isn't it?" says a girl called Madeline.

"Ah, it'll be alright," I say, and before anyone can stop me, I snort the entire line of ketamine powder using my rolled-up five-euro note.

***

I'm no longer human. I don't know what I am. My body has gone. I'm not sure where my body has gone. I can't, in all truth to you, remember even having a body. Or where I am for that matter. Or what my name is. Or who I am. Or what a human being is.

And time is no longer linear: it goes forwards, backwards, and everything in between. It's terrifying but strangely cool as well.

I dumbly wonder what the freaking heck is going on. Then I remember something about drugs. This must be a drug trip, I realize, though I can't remember what drug I've taken or even where I've been a few minutes ago.

And then I think... this is AMAZING! It's no wonder people take hallucinogenic drugs! This is FANTASTIC!

It's very intense. The experience reminds me of the scene in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness where Doctor Strange and America are falling through the multiverse. They just keep falling, falling, falling through different dimensions: one where everything is water, one where everything is a cartoon, one where everything is made of paint, and so on. They have no control over where they go, they just keep falling through all these strange and weird dimensions. Maybe the makers of that movie were on drugs.

***

At some point, I open my eyes, and my friends are there. Suddenly, I remember where I am: sitting next to a swimming pool at a villa in Ibiza.

I turn to the woman next to me. I've forgotten her name.

"What... drug... did... I... take?" I say, slowly. Talking is difficult. I have to make an effort to form words.

"Ketamine," she says. "You took ketamine."

I think about this carefully. Then I say, "What... drug... did... I... take?"

"Ketamine," she repeats.

"Oh," I say. I'm still not sure what drug I've taken.

I look down at my hands. They look normal. But when I try moving my hands around slowly, they seem to move jerkily, like a video game with a low frame rate.

My friend Joe is sitting opposite me. He smiles and says, "K-holing is a really strange experience, man."

He can say that again.

Joe continues, "You know, a friend of mine once said that the first time you try ketamine, it's really weird.

"But the second time you try ketamine... it's really weird.

"But the third time you try ketamine... it's really weird.

"But the fourth time you try ketamine... it's really weird."

I think he's trying to freak me out.

(He repeats that story several times to me during the night. I still think he's trying to freak me out.)