3.03 That's some speed.

Shortly after hanging up the phone with Azami, the sleek white bullet train pulled into the station and unloaded its cargo of salarimen, OLs and schoolgirls. I got on board, and settled into a window seat. The train departed and in no time was rocketing through the city along elevated tracks at a speed exceeding one hundred fifty miles per hour. The forty-plus mile trip to Kokura would take just over fifteen minutes.

“That’s some speed,” I murmured to myself, the city becoming a gray blur outside the window.

Having partied with Jean for nearly a year, I was used to my friend digging his hands into his pockets and producing Ziploc bags of coke, vials of honey oil, lumps of hashish, or the occasional tin of ecstasy pills. “Felix and his Magic Bag of Tricks” I got to calling him. So, I didn't have to think twice before following him out onto the darkened stairwell of a building where he would offer me my first hit of shabu.

It had been a damn good twelve months. Despite being in one altered state or another, I managed to accomplish quite a lot. I finished most of the core course work for my Masters degree, and even managed to pass the highest level of the Japanese Proficiency Test without breaking a sweat. Business was booming, too.

And if that weren’t enough to have me floating on cloud nine, I pulled off a major coup d’état persuading my wife, Yuko, to study abroad for a year. If she wouldn’t agree to a divorce, the next best thing I could hope for was a long vacation from the marriage.

Once on the stairwell, Jean pulled a pen out of his pocket, unscrewed the tip and removed the ink chamber.

“Hold on to this,” he said, handing me the hollowed out pen.

From his wallet, he removed a square piece of tinfoil, folded neatly in half. Carefully opening the foil, he showed me the contents, what looked like shards of clear glass. It was chrystal meth.

“Put the pen in your mouth and wait for my signal,” Jean instructed.

I put one end of the hollow pen in my mouth, and hunched over so that the other end was poised above the foil.

With a lighter, he heated the foil. The shards melted instantly, forming a clear liquid, and a moment later a milky vapor rose from the foil. When Jean nodded, I inhaled deeply. It was flavorless, odorless, but upon exhaling a long stream of white smoke billowed out of my mouth.

For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened,

and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil. 

And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food,

and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise,

she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her;

and he did eat.

And the eyes of them both were opened . . .

 Genesis, 3:5-7 

Jean took a small packet out of his pocket and asked if I wanted it.

Did I want it? After only a single hit I felt as if the curtains had been drawn and the windows flung open. Everything was so goddamn clear to me now. Yes, I did want it.

I handed my friend thirty thousand yen for two one-gram packs.

“That’s some speed you’ve got there,” Jean warned. “Go easy on it.”

© Aonghas Crowe, 2010. All rights reserved. No unauthorized duplication of any kind.

注意：この作品はフィクションです。登場人物、団体等、実在のモノとは一切関係ありません。

All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

No. 6 is now available on Kindle.