I am coming back down the road after taking the dog to the park one more time, just to make sure that she’s absolutely certain of its exact layout, and I am passing a pub with the people outside, and a guy shouts: ‘Phil Kay you've got a fat arse by the way. Write about that in The Sunday Herald.’ But seeing as how I accidentally trousered enough sand to passively tunnel my way out of that job via the tangled maze of an underground network of substandard writings, I can't.

I appreciate his sounds, and I feel an awkward relation to them, and a strange responsibility to them. I fist the air.

Last weekend I took some Ketamine after we had vaporised it, let it cool and form crystals on an upturned plate heating over a pan of boiling water. Three of us took it in a kitchen. Kev was first and he soon started to lean his chin on his chest and say ‘ohmygod, it's strong’. I remember getting a strong sense of the surge and l was saying: 'My ear is hot. It's like I've fallen on a spike up my nose.’ I was finding it buzzy and amusing to be saying this, and as we all agreed to sit down, the last thing I remember clearly, before my mind was taken from me, was Kev sinking down into

a floorsleep. The trip came on really strongly, seriously

getting hold of my consciousness and pulling it forward in a cartoon loop out of

the front of my head.

I became totally aware, falling into the liquid nature of all the

air. I was moving and then being really aware of it as a physical echo-like muscular objectivity. I realised that rather than me acting really slowly, I was becoming super aware of the molecular length of a second. I became worried and I realise I was thinking this: is this it, is this when I totally see if my mind can take it, and can my mind take it, the absolute weight of being conscious, to be hyper aware of your own awareness? Let go Phil.

The realisation of the amount of fear I can produce in my head was itself the most fearful thing I had ever felt. Then I had moved to an after, where I no longer attached this kind of thought to this kind of physical feeling.

8 TIIELIST 10—17 Aug 2000

MY EAR is HOT. ITS LIKE IVE FALLEN ON A SPIKE UP MY NOSE.

I felt like I was in a spaceship. We were all in a white place with that resonance, the sense of nothingness outside the room, nowhere we could go and the volatile importance of being in space. My whole body was vibrating and I could feel the ripples on the surface of my rib skin and especially my eyes and cheeks.

I can move my head and every now and then when I try to speak I realise that I am, and then, now, I am simply stopped, having achieved a phrase. All my body- bones are operating on smooth milky lubricated joints, elastically responsible. I am able to touch my face and get a vague repercussion of a recalled sensation equivalent to that of a chin felt.

I was, at times, unable to speak and yet I don't remember trying to speak and not being able, nor did I ever feel like I should have said anything. I think that was because my mind was working so fast that there was not actually that much time to speak, it just felt like there was and I was comfortable in big gaps

that weren't. Now I realise that this was not the case. I was moving

slowly and being aware of having longer at the same time. I look at the wall next to Keith and decide to drink and receive the pleasant sensation of a beer correctly at my lips and a distant enjoyment and pride for the mouth way down there being quite capable. Keith is sitting down talking at me and I hear all sorts of appropriate montaged sounds, perfectly feasible sounds that would indeed be entire real words, oh yes, but I could not catch them or remember, as they were being heard, how it was to

reach the surface where I would then be able to know what to do with these sounds. I became overly aware that they were appearing like all the words

were around the side outside

the hearing centre at the periphery of range. I felt I had to see these sounds to be able to hear them. My senses were linked into one great blended sense.

I felt no need to feel

related to his sounds.

I appreciated his sounds, and I felt an awkward relation to them, and a strange responsibility to them. I see my arm moving through the air.

ROISI". ‘.'i(( 10894?

Famespotting Marc We

«9"

Who he? Marc Pye grew up in the crime-happy enVironment of Kensington in Liverpool: 'It made Manchester’s Moss Side look like Butlin's,’ he has noted. He later moved to AViemore in his late teens for a JOb as trainee prOJectionist in the local Cinema and in his spare time DJed for students under the pseudonym of Valentino. Attempts at getting his scriptwriting noticed finally paid off and he has made a bit of a name for himself in the TV world haVing knocked up episodes for The Bill and High Road, Pye is currently IiVing and writing in Glasgow where he wrote his debut novel Lollipop

What's it about? Set in Glasgow, the story revolves around Shug, a Buckie-swallowmg, car-thievmg, Rangers-supporting, chemist-raiding good-for- nothing who has invaded the lives of his Sister and her family. When Shug gets involved in an inCident With the local lollipop man (for those wondering what the title related to) he sets off a train of mayhem, Violence and lunacy from which there appears no escape. It's mainly about Our horribly diVided sooety as manifested by the religious 'debate', good and eVil, crime and lawfulness, all that Stuff

First line test ’It was the week before Christmas. The pubs were dead. It seemed everyone in Glasgow was skint this time of the year, savmg their money for Hogmanay. Except for the boys in Finlays, it was a cause for celebration: Celtic had Just beaten Motherwell 3—O.‘

Marc Pye’s Lollipop is published by Sceptre, Thu 77 Aug, [70.

'IN GLASGOW PEOPLE GOSSIP ABOUT MURDERS WHEREAS IF YOU LIVED IN SURBITON, YOU WOULDN'T DO Denise Mina