Did your Granny take A Trip? Mine did.

C. This is a short story written by Peter Cheevers and published byEther Books

        Did your Granny Take a Trip?

‘You didn’t Gran, did you really take LSD?’

‘Yep, I did...got to be honest...’window pane’ ...that’s what we used to call it in those days.’

‘Window pane, that’s quite a neat name for it.'

‘What do they call it now?’

‘Oh acid, just acid.’

‘So what year would that be?’

‘When I took it?...oh about 64, 1964, they were all doing it then, the Beatles and just about everybody.’

‘Where were you living then?’

‘Chelsea...just off the King’s Road.’

‘Tell me about it, Jeez, my Granny took a trip...that is uber cool.’

‘Oh there was this hairdresser I used to go to...what was his name....memory...just seems to be getting worse and worse...’

‘Doesn’t matter about his name, Gran.’

‘Gavin, Gavin, that was his name. Anyway he was one of those groovy King’s Road types, married some titled Lady in the end till she kicked him out, so he sold his story to the tabloid papers of being this suburban lad who married into the aristocracy.’

‘Oh that’s enough of Gavin, so tell me about how you took it...the LSD.’

‘No, it is important Gavin died young, very young...a lot my friends did.’

‘60s casualties?’

‘That’s right. Can you pass me my glasses?’

‘Sure, here. Do you want the walking stick?;

‘No, no, stop fussing will you?’

‘So go on?’

‘Go on about what?’

‘The acid, the LSD you took.’

‘Oh right, well Gavin hands me these a piece of blotting paper one evening.’

‘Is that it? I say.’

‘Yeah, ‘window pane’...have a good ‘trip’.’

 ‘So you took it?’

‘Well I have to be honest...not before... I was the careful type, I mean I never did Heroin, that’s why I am still here. Can you stop doing that?’

‘What?'

‘Stop rocking my chair like that, you are making me sea sick, are you nervous?’

‘Naw...no, I’m not so go on, so you didn’t take Heroin.’

‘No, well it was close.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Oh I had friends in the music business and Heroin was around...they took it, talked about the glow it gave them, mind you I snorted a lot of cocaine, it would be laid out...the lines of white powder, and there would be a few gasps when I continued snort line after line... then 'coked up' arriving at some guy's place and him asking                                                                                                                         ‘Do you want an injection?’                                                                                                                   'Of what?’

‘A booster’

‘Yeah  yeah sure.’

‘Right give me your arm.’

‘Dangerous Gran...anything could have happened.’

‘Right, lucky I am here and lucky you are here, for I was playing Russian Roulette with my life. Then there was the Valium, handfuls of them like sweeties...then in the evening I would take ‘uppers’ Benzedrine. I would wait for the off license in those days there were licensing hours to get my bottles of wine, mix them up with Valium and then drive my mother’s car down Kings Road after taking some uppers, 'Qualus’ I think they were called.'

'Wow, didn’t it ever catch up with you.'

'I would have the odd blackout with booze, you lose a day out of your life... I was in the pub on Tuesday last and all the rest is a blank.

Anyway you wanted to know about the LSD I had read  of some alarming stories about people  thinking they could fly and jumping off buildings  and I have always been a bit of a coward about heights anyway I put a bowl of sugar by the base of the bed as I was told it takes you down if you are flying too high and read that.

So  I place the blotting paper in my hand that Gavin gave me, and waited nothing...then I took a bit more....nothing. Then I took quite a chunk ... and the window in the basement started moving.

There were bars in this window as it was a basement and then a face began to appear; not quite a human face then another and another and then a body and then I realised that these were not human form but monkeys and I have always had a phobia about monkeys...'
'So it brought out your worse fears...'
'...and the monkeys were trying get through the window to get through to me, and God, I remember  the bars were being bent by them pulling at them and...'

'Steady on Gran, I don't want you to get upset, have a sip of that cocoa.'

'So then...then I reached down for the sugar but as I did the bed seemed to be a hundred feet high and I thought if I fell off the bed reaching down for the sugar I would fall to my death.'

'So what did you do, oh here your blanket has fallen off,'

'Don’t fuss.'

'I am trying to remember, oh right and then I looked at my watch because I had read the ‘trip’ would last for so long, but the hands of the watch started spinning round and then I shook it and it got giant sized and turned into Big Ben. Then I desperately tried to think of my boy friend, he was a dancer,,,in the Corps de ballet and I would try to vision of him dancing and that vision came of him dancing and the monkeys looking on in quiet appreciation. I will never forget the beauty of that. Then the windows started to turn into these beautiful stained glass windows like some Chartres Cathedral...oh the beauty of it,...’

‘The Cathedral?’

‘No, my 60s innocence. The innocence of that waste.'
'Don't upset yourself Gran, why are you weeping?'
'I am weeping for the lost innocence that was the 60s...I am weeping for my innocence in
losing 10 years of my life through drugs,..I am weeping for the world as it is now
compared to those innocent days of the 60s, ah lost innocence can never be regained.
'Don’t upset yourself  Gran, here's a tissue, dry your eyes now...come on now, put your shawl round you. There, there.’

c Peter P. Cheevers