surface spray: low irritant

A collaboration between High Times and Mens Health Magazine titled “Still Ripped”.

I searched for bong smoking robots and found this picture taken of a train belonging to the Bong Mining Company. Apparently an Italian rail venture that didn’t succeed. I don’t give a single fuck. This is a gorgeous photo.

I couldn’t find any robots smoking weed so I have to build this thing from the ground up.

I think the afterlife for me will be finding answers to everything in a cold wet rain at a pub before anyone has shown up and every hour on the hour they will appear and I will play it wet and cool and forget and they will dissapear soon after and I will be back at the start again and that will be it. Heaven or hell. Whatever.

We’re taking the view from the passenger seat as a man in his early thirties drives at a slow pace. From what we can see through the window space framing his head, we’re in a dockland area. Industrial. Occasionally a place of business is observed. The man’s eyes are best described ridiculously. They look like dead suns emitting the last of their fiery waves. Black centers rounded by creases. A person the man works with calls them “worry wrinkles” but we know that they are fiery waves shot from a dying sun. The car slows a little more and we’re turning right. The entrance to a complex car park rolls past and we come to a halt. The window is rolled down and the man removes a card from his dashboard. He swipes the card which triggers a warm electronic noise. The hum of a riser. The window is rolled back up and the car slowly crawls through a twisting mouse trap of ramps. A suitable position is found amid some 20 or so other cars of varying age and cleanliness. One of the cars is curiously without a passenger side door. Our man takes no notice as he’s seen this car multiple times. One time he saw it parked a little over from where it is now with what looked like sprayed markings of blood on the hood. We pass into what resembles a hollowed out supermarket. It is dressed in lighting that has been refused maintenance. A collection of bulbs all in a alternate states of operation. Each one a new marking on the line between functional and no longer working hasn’t worked for a long time. This gives the space a dream like quality. There are no noises yet, they are coming. Our man walks to a re-appropriated information desk and greets a uniformed male.

“Length of visit?”

“Just for the night.”

The card comes out again and is handed to the man in uniform. It is scanned on some such thing that registers something or other. A name. An intention. A history. It is handed back. Our man halts for a moment as he catches hint of a smirk on the other mans face, now lit by a computers screen presumably filled with our man’s name, intention and history. A sudden move from the desk and we follow our man to a new space. He knows where he wants to be now.

Here we are at the beginning of a hallway. Where we came from was silent but for light buzz. Now there is a low drone of muffled human noises. The occasional shout. It is a vicious shouting and to someone unfamiliar with this atmosphere it would be reason to question the correctness of its being. This hallway is much alike to the halls you pass through to gain access to a public toilet. There are rooms evenly spaced on either side, each approximately three meters apart. Some of the doors are open. Some of them are shut. Our man selects a stride out of his collection of walking ways. This looks like purpose. No more slow rolling cars. We’re here now. The first two doors on either side are shut. There comes a thump against a wall to the left. The next on the right side is open and we look inside. Four men are sat in fold up chairs observing violent pornography. Three of these four men are crying. Onward. Two of the doors on the right following this are open. Let’s look inside again. In one, a man gives a heated talk to a promising crowd of 6.

“We ARE nice! We’re NICE! What are they missing from the equation nice + us = YES. How many doors have you held open in your lifetime? I’ll speak for myself and tell you right now. I DON’T KNOW HOW MANY because it is SO MANY. And where is she. Well I’ll tell you. She’s…”

And the next. The next shakes our man from his stride and he waits a while at the door. One man is in this room. The outline of a female joins him. An effigy. Cartoonish eyes and a smashed colour spectrum of one mans idea of a sensible application of makeup. Like so many of the men here, he is crying. He is holding a cricket bat. In half a breath the man strikes the effigy with the bat. The initial strike was hesitant, but paves the way for a sudden and energetic delivery of fevered contact. The bat again and again on the clown effigies body.

“I paid for your lunch you sat with me and I told you everything you always said I was nice well why isn’t that GOOD ENOUGH FOR YOU! YOU! YOU! YOU! BITCH!!”

Our man’s heart quickens and he’s energized by this show of force. He showed her. We’re all nice guys here. Why don’t they fucking understand that. If they knew what was good for them they’d be sorry for their rejections and take us in. They’d never have to open a door again. Free lunch for life. Fuck, I’d even drive her some places. Fuck.

He hurries along now. It is taking him.

Length of visit?

Just the night.

Our man stops at an open door. It is his designated room. Let’s have a look inside. There is a TV on a stand to the right. A collection of marked CD’s sit beside it. “The Notebook”, “Titanic”, “Four Weddings and a Funeral”. A dilapidated bed consumes the space on the left hand wall. There is a phone in the middle of the room, sat on an cardboard box filled with bed sheets. There are no windows. Our man moves to stand in front of the bed. He removes a leather satchel from his jacket pocket. From his pant pocket he takes a small worn piece of paper with what looks to be a mobile phone number on it. He unravels the leather satchel and here we are. A screwdriver. A Stanley knife. Several drill bits. A single blood stained hanky.

Our man has shut the door and we are to leave him be now. Let’s leave here. Come on. What’s that? What is this place? Haha, sorry. I didn’t realize that I hadn’t mentioned it. This place? They call it the Friendzone.