I never saw God on Ecstasy, but I did see someone who claimed to be the Devil. It was 6 a.m. and I was coming down heavily in a rave, teeth grinding and sweat drying tight on my face, hair matted. Where as earlier I could not put my hands together as some mad force pushed them apart as I brought them close, now my palms could touch and it was deflating. The magic was fading fast. It was then he appeared. Off to the side, looking on intently with a wicked Jack Nicholson intense grin. I don't know if it was someone pretending to be the Devil, or auld Nick himself, but it freaked me out.
I quickly averted my gaze down towards my trainers, but when I glanced up, he was still there, through the darkness and the moving arms of the crowd, leering at me. I tried to concentrate on the music, the crashing cymbals and pounding drums, the basslines that rumbled up through my body and made every nerve-end tingle, but I couldn't get the Diablo out of my clouded thoughts. What the hell did he want with me? I walked away from the barrier I'd been leaning on, nervously twisting the cap on the bottle of water I was carrying, and when I quickly flashed my eyes across, he was gone.
A surge of relief raced through my body. I tried to dance, but my feet were heavy and plodding, my arms stiff and disjointed. And when I looked over again, he was back. A twisted smile and dark eyes piercing right through me. I instantly froze up and looked the other way. He was definitely after me. No denying it, the Devil was following me about full of evil intent. Projecting menacing messages embedded in the repetitive metallic bleeps and squelches of the Acid House tracks into my mind. I was freaking out big style: gasping for breath as my chest tightened, waves of panic chilling the beads of sweat running down my back.
A girl with black pig-tailed hair, chewing hard on some gum, appeared through the fog belching out of a smoke machine like an industrial chimney and squeezed my wrist.
“Are you OK? You look a bit done in?” she said.
“My head's mashed,” I replied. “The Devil's been following me about,” I said, angrily jerking my thumb back in the direction of the fallen angel.
Her dark eyebrows knotted as she frowned across at him, then her eyes gleamed brown and wide.
“It's a mirrored wall, you nutter!” she laughed.
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