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© Stephen Cain

I wish I could remember what day it happened. Monday was the day the nurse came to visit. Tuesday, I am certain, was the day that I went to visit the doctor. I can't quite remember whether it was Wednesday or Thursday. I want to remember because on Wednesday afternoon I took some 5htp so that I would be relaxed when my girlfriend came to visit. I sometimes seem to get rebound effects a day or so after taking 5htp. No — I'm sure it was Wednesday because I remember my girlfriend coming over afterwards, so it can't have been the 5htp.

Whatever I might have done the day before my visit to the Schizophrenia Fellowship offices, that morning I felt good. I had yoghurt, coffee, and vitamins before setting out for the long walk across town. Crossing Manners Mall, I was ambushed by a Krishna freak who wanted to give me a copy of the Bhagavad Gita.

Me: "But I've got a copy of that in my computer."

She: "This translation is by (someone with an Indian name that I cannot recall). It is translated as it really is."

Me: "That's the story of how Krishna persuades someone who wasn't very keen on killing his kinsmen to get back to the battlefield and get on with it, isn't it? I will never buy into that stuff."

She: "Yes, but you can't understand..."

Me: "Yes I can. I studied Eastern religions at university and I have a degree in philosophy."

She: "You can't understand the Bhagavad Gita through philosophy."

Me: "Can't you? But Indian religion is very philosophical."

She: "You can't understand..."

Me: "Can't I?"

She: "...Indian..."

Me: "My religious studies teacher was a Brahmin, and several of my philosophy teachers were Indian."

She: "Have an ice day!"

It was an ice day. The words "ice" and "day" were festooned with icicles.

You see? — I was on form. Okay, so I am a lousy listener, but how many people can boast being told to get lost by a Krishna freak bent on giving them a copy of the Bhagavad Gita? Even so, I felt uncomfortable about entering the offices of the Schizophrenia Fellowship. People would see me going in. What would they think?

The reception desk was personed by a slim young man with fair hair and beard. His skin was blue — although I didn't suppose for one moment that he was an incarnation of Krishna — and his movements were slow. It took considerable prompting to get him to answer my questions. Why won't I take medication? Why not indeed. An improvement over drilling a hole in the head to let the evil spirits out? Maybe not. Anyway, there was no voluntary work available. But what about this peer support thing I had been told about? Ah yes — he found for me a little fold-out card. It was run by a different organisation. Their offices were on the side of town I had just come from.

I suppose it was only the vitamins and coffee plus all that exercise, but I was feeling double-plus great. I don't know why people smile at me when I feel like that. The rational answer is that it must show in my face. After having caught a smile from an attractive young woman, I confess that I slipped momentarily into a sexual fantasy. That isn't a serious crime is it? Walking along the road briskly, smile presumably gracing the old boat race, caressing a pair of swollen nipples, placing my hand on a warm...

I stopped. You see, my thoughts are not particularly private at the best of times, but there was more to it than that. There were a couple of girls — their style of dress not all that upscale, if you know what I mean — staring at me, giggling. I'm 53 years of age and white-bearded. I don't have physiological reactions to sexual fantasies that I may on rare occasions have while walking along the road after vitamins, coffee, and a warm smile from a pretty girl, so there is no way these other girls could have known what was in my mind — is there? — although they did. And so did everyone else who happened to be within a couple of zillion light-years of those ridiculously haughty lions in front of the Cenotaph at the top of Lambton Quay that morning. In fact, I had an epiphany of sorts:

The voices, the telepathy — it's not a disease at all; it is how adults communicate. The glittering shoals of minds that are the space within which space and everything else have their being were at one on this. The difference between "inside" and "outside" is an illusion. The limitless ocean of universal awareness does not suddenly appear because it has always been. Nothing changes. Everything is as it was. Except that everything was, as it has always been, a gigantic, cosmic singles bar filled with warm, flowing, conscious light and serious prospects.

The resentment reached my throat. What a joke! I'm 53 years of age. I thought back over the more than three decades of confusion and torment that had preceded this moment. I'm the guy who goes for years on end without sex — even sex for one. I am — you know — a bit religious. I felt the waves of disbelief. I was walking down a busy street in the middle of town, neurons naked to a sky suddenly filled with the excruciating sunshine of a universal superconsciousness that, for all its vastness, held no hiding-place for me. It was the nightmare of appearing naked in public. I was nowhere near as asleep as I would have liked to have been.

"Graaass-ss-s-s-s...." The word arrived like a transparent blast from heaven. The people on the street seemed to shudder visibly and turn chaos grey as it engulfed them and tangled their legs up like so many daddy longlegs caught in a bath flood.

Not only sex.

I see.

I crossed Bowen Street. But I don't even like grass, I told the universal superconsciousness without moving my lips. For me, it's a bit like The Exorcist only for real these days. I avoid it like poison.

The ocean of clarity dried up. The universal superconsciousness had no time for one for whom unrestricted sex and/or cannabinoids were not synonymous with paradise. I was left with my resentment — there should be a paradise, but not like that — and a growing feeling of alienation. The crowd of people on the street seemed in some vague psychic sense to be turning its collective back on the sad weirdo, leaving me to the semi-comprehensible twittering of the rat-or-bat-things that live in the lining of the invisible walls that mark off the spaces inhabitable by humans. My discomfort remained acute, but a way to hide my nakedness presented itself. It was nearing that time when it becomes necessary to buy a new pair of Levi's. Farmers had some on special — 20% off if you bought two or more pairs. I decided to walk down to the Lambton Quay Farmers and look at jeans. I couldn't find Farmers. Thinking that I must have walked past it, I went into a Lotto shop and asked for directions. No, I was going the right way, but it was further down, quite close to McDonald's. Oh. I reached McDonald's without spotting the store. A young girl wanted to give me a glossy magazine, although quite without the greasy fervour of the profferor of Bhagavad Gitas. I offered to take one of her magazines if she would tell me how to find Farmers. She said that I should go back the way I had come and that the sign was visible from where we were standing. I couldn't see the sign, but headed back up the Quay on faith. I was beginning to wonder whether it was one of those days when enormous department-stores I have often visited really can vanish from the face of the Earth when I turned again and, looking back towards the magazine girl, saw it. They did not have the style I wanted in my size. The young salesman checked on the computer and told me that none of the other city stores had them either. I didn't quite believe him because I had been in the Cuba Street store the day before and had seen a pair — that was how I had known about the special. I had not bought them at the time because my current pair still had some wear in them and I have to be very careful with money. Buying two pairs of jeans was still out of the question and I was relieved that they hadn't got the ones I wanted because if they had then I would have had to think of some excuse not to buy them — the point of my search was to lose myself, not practically a whole week's income. I was doing quite well with the getting lost part of the plan. The young man said that I might be able to get a pair at the Levi's shop. I wasn't sure where the Levi's shop was, but when I offered to take another of the magazine girl's magazines she revealed its location with her usual accuracy. You would think that the Levi's shop would sell Levi's more cheaply than other shops, wouldn't you? The manageress said they would sell them at the same price as Farmers if I could prove — I would need something in writing — that Farmers were in fact selling them at that price. But I was beginning to make out the lie of the land and I had formulated another, better plan. I walked quickly across town to the Cuba Street Farmers store and, as I had suspected, either the young man or his computer had lied. After carefully ascertaining that there was but a single pair of the style I wanted in my size, I walked up to the counter and asked for two pairs. Of course they had to give me the special price on a single pair because it was not my fault they could not supply two pairs. Thus I am the proud owner of a brand new pair of Levi's in my favourite style and they only cost me $71.99 as opposed to the $89.99 I would have been charged had I asked for only one pair, or $99.99 had I been green enough to shop for Levi's at the Levi's shop. I was by now close to the offices of the peer support organisation. The voices had become fully comprehensible again. It seemed to me that the people on the street were speculating about whether I would go to the offices or not. The general opinion, expressed clearly several times, was that I would not. I have a long-term project in relation to my voices. They almost never give me commands. They are far more likely merely to say that something will or won't happen. I have long wished to prove them wrong on one of these predictions. I cannot remember ever doing that. It is all disturbingly supernatural and that is reason enough to want to prove them fallible. I was fairly sure that I had them this time though! I fully intended to go to the peer support organisation's offices and volunteer my services. As long as I was able to avoid being run over while crossing a street, there was every chance I would succeed. As I crossed Cuba Street to walk up Vivian Street I could hear a girl — no hallucination — behind me screaming, "No! No — don't do it!" but I paid her no heed. As I tried to round the corner by the Flying Burrito Brothers Cantina & Tequileria I had a spectacular encounter of the "Shall we dance?" kind with a blonde in a grey, pinstriped miniskirt and matching jacket who was prepared to risk all to prevent me from getting around the corner. I have played football. I sidestepped the blonde. I had only taken a couple of paces up Vivian Street, however, when my enterprise was dealt a fatal blow from an unexpected quarter. I had walked for miles and my mind, weakened by hunger, was forced to relinquish executive power. From somewhere out in the hypoglycaemic shadowlands I watched helplessly as my stomach took the reigns and guided me back towards the Cuba Street eateries.

My post-sushi mood was very different. I was tired and sweaty. I no longer felt strong enough to go and volunteer for what, if you glance as I then did at the fold-out card, is a pretty comprehensive list of things that people suffering from schizophrenia don't enjoy anywhere near as much as the "normal" folk seem to think they should — phone calls; meeting for coffee; walking with people; going to the beach with people; cooking with people; exchanging e-mails; joining community groups; playing sport… aarrgghh! And, besides, it was getting late. I needed to be at home in time to take a bath, calcium, magnesium, and 5htp because my girlfriend would be coming over later. These simple supplements relax me quite effectively. If I am not relaxed enough I tend to get irritable and end up spoiling everything one way or another. I do my best.

I haven't been troubled by voices while writing this up, it's just like zap... ka-pow... going on quietly in the background. When I'm writing the voices usually fade away and I only notice what they say if I deliberately pay attention. That is a perfectly adequate reason for writing. Another reason, perhaps even better, is that it forces me to think clearly about things. Of course I was just hallucinating a bit more vividly than usual the other day on Lambton Quay — the extra exercise may have pushed my dopamine levels too high — and I am almost certain that the girls on the street weren't really trying to prevent me from getting to the peer support organisation's offices. Almost anyway. I haven't contacted them though, the peer support people, that is — my voices have told me not to; that is quite unusual, but I guess I don't often try to force myself to do things I'm just not supposed to do.

I wrote that a few days ago. I had thought it was more or less complete. This morning my voices were quiet, sounding as frail as I felt (I will have to try to eat more proper meals). After reading an enthusiastic article on the internet about peer counselling I announced to whom it may concern that I had changed my mind and would go this day to the peer support organisation's offices. Were there any objections? None were apparent. Was there any good reason I should not go? It was raining, but I reached the corner by the Flying Burrito Brothers Cantina & Tequileria without getting too wet. I tried to turn the corner, but my way was blocked by a young man with a phantom moustache. Tiring of the dance, I would simply go by another route. There might be more shelter from the rain this way. I reached the corner of Willis Street unsure of whether I needed to turn right or left. I guessed wrong. I turned back, recrossed the motorway intersection, and found the building — it could not hide from me forever, but it had no door. Impossible — every building has a door! And so did this one, it was just that it was not very obvious. The offices were on the sixth floor. Of course the lift didn't work. I dismissed the thought that the forces of darkness might actually be capable of preventing me from reaching my destination and went in search of another lift. If all else failed there must be stairs.

The young woman with the long, velvety brown hair spotted a crazy person wandering around and asked what I was looking for. When I told her, she said that I had found it. She was about to go into a meeting, but they were there to help people. She ushered me into a room with velvety chairs. I told her why I had come, very shamefacedly, embarrassed for myself. She had sympathetic eyes but was oddly unhelpful. She finally let slip that the service was for inpatients, not free birds such as myself.

After leaving the building I went to buy a book of poetry I had wanted. It cost about what I had saved on the Levi's. On exiting the bookshop I was approached by a pretty, black Krishna freak. We had a pleasant conversation.

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