In the space of an hour he covers birth, life and death. We do a full cycle, spinning countless revolutions per minute like a speeding carousel going so fast you can’t get off. So you dig your heels into the painted stirrups, wrap your arms around the multi-coloured mane and hang on.
He’s frantically fidgeting, his jaws gnawing at a hundred miles an hour, blowing bubblegum, bursting bubbles. His thoughts go on and on, like a train out of control, hurtling down the tracks. Each time I think I’ve caught up it lurches forward again, picks up speed jumps tracks and dances ahead of me.
At the end of the session, I’m exhausted. I feel suddenly heavy and overcome with melancholy. My stomach is churning and my pulse is racing. I feel sick and suddenly empty, so I get a biscuit, eat it and immediately want more. I get some more and then I want a cup of tea, so I go back downstairs and make a cup of tea. And I look down and think: why have I got this cup in my hand? I’m not thirsty, so I throw it down the sink, clean the cup and go back upstairs.
My thoughts are jumbled; they break off mid-sentence and disintegrate and big blank spaces open out in my brain, like cigarette burns in plastic. Everything falls through the holes. I feel disoriented. The world is spinning too fast. I laugh and then suddenly feel sad. Whole emotional sequences pass through me in minutes, all too fast to be felt or caught but leaving trails in my veins; fleeting impressions, like shadows speeding past in the night. I can’t slow them down. I can’t stop them. They move through me with a life of their own. I am not in control.
Joolz Mclay 2004