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Mar 25th, 2017
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  1. Deprivation of Liberty
  2. Or, Ego by Psychosis
  3.  
  4. On February the 14th, Robert sat by himself in front of a collection of drug paraphernalia. Expensive tools, resembling scientific glassware. He let his eyes explore the tubes and chambers, enjoying the crystalline transparency, the clean functional lines. He visualised the process: heating the plant with a flame, burnt matter falling into the ash-catcher, smoke travelling through glass straws into a reservoir of filtered water, streaming past chunks of ice. Into his lungs.
  5. Malignant thoughts lived inside Robert’s head, perhaps in part due to bad chemicals, or faulty wiring. Earlier that morning, the bad thoughts had made his body release it’s own drugs into his system. Adrenalin, perhaps. It numbed his extremities, shrank and distorted his vision, quickened his heartbeat and breathing. It energised his malignant thoughts.
  6. Taking a hit, he pushed aside the bad thoughts and imagined the particles of tetrahydrocannabinol as tiny golden points of light. He thought he felt them warming his blood, but by then the chemicals had attached to receptors in his brain and were altering the signals he perceived from his nervous system. Nevertheless, warm tingly sensations spread down to his previously numb fingertips.
  7.  
  8. I put several police cars, officers, and members of the United Kingdom Border Agency outside of the house where Robert lives. It is his parent’s house. I name a border officer Scarlett and have her knock on the front door. I place a policeman next to her and give him a battering ram. I go into Robert’s brain, and with my finger I touch one of his neurons and send an electric signal through him. The signal coincides with Scarlett knocking on the door.
  9.  
  10. Hearing the knock, and interpreting the signal I sent, Robert felt the sensation of mass and momentum slamming into his heart. The experience of panic he had been treating with cannabis returned. Nociception compelled him to his feet, and he pressed his body against his bedroom door to hear what was happening. He rationalized his body’s reaction as drug induced paranoia. The knocking became insistent, and Robert’s seemingly baseless fear grew. He heard voices. He trembled. He opened the door just wide enough to look through, and saw his mother accompanied by a border officer which he took to be a policewoman. His mother is already crying.
  11.  
  12. Robert knows that this is about. He likes to take psychedelic drugs and when he takes them, I paint beautiful pictures for him. A month ago, he sent around one hundred pounds sterling to a man in Peru. In return, the man would export nine hundred grams of powdered San Pedro cactus. The plant contains mescaline. I live inside mescaline.
  13. The ruler of the United Kingdom decided that people who posses mescaline should be sent to prison. It also chose to allow the free sale of dried cactus powder in shops across it’s great land. The ruler of the United kingdom is a radioactive isotope. As it decays, it emits particles. The particles signal a ‘yes’ or a ‘no’, depending on which of two Geiger counters detects one first.
  14.  
  15. Robert’s eyes are cadmium red. They produce tears when talking to Scarlett. His family is there, he derives no comfort in this. He guesses that they must be suffering greatly.
  16. I can see that his younger brother sees the current act of law enforcement as unjust.
  17. The middle child is thinking about the small amount of cocaine that he keeps in a safe in his bedroom. He is picturing the combination. I step inside his brain and whisper: “locks only keep the criminals out”. He shivers.
  18. Robert’s mother is worried that her firstborn will be taken from her.
  19. His father is personally embarrassed about what he thinks his son is.
  20. The dog is afraid, and wishes to be a mastodon. I don’t grant this wish.
  21. Robert sees none of this, but feels great sadness about his assumption of the family’s pain. In equal measure he feels terror.
  22.  
  23. Scarlett takes Robert away to another room and softly says,
  24. “You have to wear these. We’ll do it here so your family won’t see”.
  25. She puts his wrists in a pair of handcuffs and locks them. They are just tight enough to be uncomfortable, but not to restrict blood flow. She says something related to due process, that he was being formally detained, and Robert nods. He doesn’t know what she said, he was too busy being touched by her small display of kindness.
  26. She takes him to an unmarked car, and sits him in the back seat. They drive away from Robert’s house and family.
  27.  
  28. Several policemen stay at Robert’s house to talk to his family, and to search his bedroom. They take his computer, his mobile phone, his diary. They search thoroughly. Looking for clues. Robert had many secrets, only a few were about drugs.
  29. They destroy his bong.
  30.  
  31. Scarlett sees that Robert is in some distress. She strikes up a casual conversation. Robert assumes she is being kind.
  32. ‘Is that your car with the ‘L’ plates I saw in the driveway?’, she asked.
  33. ‘Yeah, I just started taking lessons.’
  34. And so on.
  35.  
  36. One hour later, the car enters the city. Robert hopes to see a friend walking the streets. He visualizes raising his arms to the window to show off the handcuffs. I temporarily pull his friends out of existence to ensure this doesn’t happen.
  37.  
  38. At the police station, they take his fingerprints and ask him if he has taken any drugs that day. He answers truthfully. They ask questions about his mental health, and whether or not he has considered self arm. He answers truthfully. He is taken to a special cell with a large window. Behind the window there is a policeman who will watch to make sure Robert doesn’t kill himself. I give the policeman a detailed backstory, and a table detailing his likes and dislikes.
  39.  
  40. Robert is made to strip, and to change into a set of blue pajamas. The pajamas have short legs and arms, and are made of a fabric which is resistant to tearing. This will supposedly make it impossible for Robert to create a suicide device. He asks if he has to take his underwear off too, and is told that he must. Robert complies. Blood rushes to the capillaries of his face as he changes, facing away from the policeman at the door. He feels the presence of the window and doesn’t look at it. The room is specially designed to withhold privacy.
  41.  
  42. Alone in his cell, Robert is thinking about how to kill himself. He believes the legs of his shorts are wide enough to go around his neck, and if he could only find a hook for the other leg, he’d be on his way out.
  43. He has metabolized most of the cannabis now, and his biological drug glands are all but worn out. He is thinking now.
  44. ‘There is a difference between law and morality’, he says to himself.
  45.  
  46. He is led out and up to an interrogation room. He is given a mobile phone to contact a public defender.
  47. One hundred and fifty meters away I summon a building to grow out of the ground. I populate the building with robots in the shape of law clerks. In the building I create an office, with a glass fronted door. On the glass it is written:
  48.  
  49. BOB GRAY: CRIMINAL DEFENCE ATTORNEY AND GOD
  50.  
  51. I sit on the chair at the desk.
  52. On the desk there are these things: One ashtray in the shape of a skull, containing thirteen cigarette butts. One Bakelite rotary dial telephone. One white rat. One copy of this story.
  53.  
  54. The telephone rings and I snatch it out of the reviver.
  55. ‘Hello?’, Robert asks.
  56. ‘Hello, yes. I see. You’re in trouble, huh? Well, I’m the best in the business and you have not one thing to worry about. I’ve plied my trade in courts up in down this land and I know the law better than most. I’ve looked at your case, and my advice to you is simple: speak the truth.’
  57. I’m lying through my teeth. I’m no lawyer, never have been.
  58.  
  59. Robert is led into the interrogation room. Scarlett is there and she produces the bag of cactus powder, sealed in a clear evidence bag.
  60. ‘This item was seized by border force agents, we have identified it as mescaline and estimate a street price of £30,000.’
  61. She speaks clearly and confidently, despite being almost completely wrong.
  62. ‘The invoice identifies the recipient as yourself. Can you confirm this accuracy?’
  63. Robert thinks back to the lawyers words.
  64. ‘No comment’, he says.
  65. Robert wielded his defiance uncomfortably. He was almost naked, and felt uncomfortably aware of his genitalia.
  66. ‘Did you purchase your vehicle with the profits of drug dealing?
  67. Robert thinks back to the conversation they had in the car. He looks Scarlett in the eyes and gives her a dirty look.
  68. ‘No comment.’
  69. ‘Do you sell the drug as is, or do you mix it with drugs such as marijuana to increase your profit margin?’
  70. ‘No comment.’
  71. ‘Is that “no comment” to selling the drugs as is, or “no comment” to cutting the drugs?’
  72. ‘No comment.’
  73. And so on.
  74.  
  75. After leaving the room momentarily to take a phone call she informed Robert that:
  76. ‘I have spoken with my superior and he is happy to place you under arrest following this interrogation.’
  77. Upon hearing the word “happy”, Robert visualised himself biting Scarlett’s throat. He saw himself crying with joy as her blood spattered across his face. I disprove of such things.
  78.  
  79. Robert was taken back to his suicide-proof chamber.
  80.  
  81. I place men in the cells surrounding him, and have them sing the chorus of Yellow Submarine over and over.
  82.  
  83. Robert falls asleep, and I stop existing.
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