Spice

Years ago, I read of a man who left his house to collect the morning paper, only to find a basket, made entirely of crystal, sitting unambiguously on his doorstep. The article’s lead paragraph described the basket, its preliminary appraisal, listed its exorbitant net worth, and then finally, in a vague, tersely written sentence, described the basket’s contents: a red, palm-sized brick of what appeared to be grain and plant roots, which crumbled at the slightest touch. The contents of the basket were not mentioned again in the article.

At the time that the man, a fifty-three year old clerk, made his fortuitous discovery, he was deeply in credit card debt and on the brink of divorce, two interlocking tragedies made worse by the fact that he could not see them as two separate manners, one demanding strength and insistence, the other vulnerability and patience; as different from one another as cutting down a tree is from amputating an arm. For this hapless man, this man of quiet desperation, the worst feeling of all was seeing that stack of envelopes on his front doorstep, his divorce folded twice in order to fit inside the envelope, a document to which he must accede, and for which he must sign the same signature he gives to VISA. But on this golden morning, the envelopes that once abounded at his doorstep were gone, vanished, into the vague disconsolation of the past, and in its place a priceless hand basket of pure crystal. He fell to pieces at the sight of the enormous glistening basket. Sunken-shouldered and prostrate as though relieved of an enormous burden, he prayed incessantly to a God in whom he did not believe, because he knew the envelopes would never return. His marriage was saved.

I didn’t think anything of this story at the time; I saw it as a poor attempt at human interest, or allegory, or both; but over the next few weeks these articles kept resurfacing in the media, stories of ruined men finding crystal baskets by accident, and delighting at their own good fortune.

Forensic scientists and horticulturists had no record of the substance that was found inside these baskets, always the same seven inch long, five inch wide red brick. When at last they agreed to classify it as a spice, it was only to bring the months of obstreperous disagreement to a respectable conclusion. To speak freely, things as simple as classifying a new substance into an the existing taxonomy of data always seemed to drag on. It happens whenever a stagnant discipline happens upon the unknown; the men of science ramble on and on out of fear—a crippling fear of appearing unqualified and hackneyed in the eyes of their peers by defying the natural order of chapters in their coauthored textbooks, for only source of validation men of science need or want comes from other men of science. Nonetheless, everyone was captivated and, for the most part, baffled, by this exotic and previously unclassified substance—only the frail-minded scholars affected disinterest, fearing that opening their mouths on the subject would expose the gaps in their classical education as quickly as the ones in their teeth.

By the time horticulturists amended their textbooks so as to include the spice’s name and picture, it was promptly forgotten. It was not until years later, when it was flagged by a reputed medical journal flagged for its acute psychoactive properties, that the spice reached the acme of it’s popularity.

The journal related the story of a man in South America who murdered another man and then his own family. He was tried by the state, whereupon the following was discerned: The accused, a former general, had found a crystal basket in the courtyard of his modest, agrarian home. At the time there was a terrible, persistent drought in the region, and dying, drooping black flowers partially concealed the basket from view. When he discovered it, the man brought the crystal basket, empty, as it was discovered in cross questioning, to the victim, a successful merchant in the province, with the intention of pawning it for grain. The accused decided to sell the basket to this man, his prideful family beginning to feel the oppressive pitch of hunger, which they associated with working class destitution. They began to loath the accused for what they saw as his failure to provide for them.

it was said to induce in users an avid belief in their own immortality, one so intense that it could turn a timid, lower management type into a revolutionary. ‘drove’ scores of people to senseless murder.


or at least this was the belief held by the chaste, puritanical members of society who spoke of spice as a great, unprecedented evil
“What horrors will befall a nation in which every man fancies himself a Napoleon?”
it was my belief at the time that the explosion in spice’s popularity was fueled by those evangelists who, in their attempts to blame the spice for society’s ills, undermined human agency altogether, that is to say, brought the capacity of man to exercise moderation and judgment in to question

Then followed the inevitable backlash: a roaring deluge of passive protest by the self- Ritcheous left, likewise elevating spice to this idealistic platform, into something more important than it actually was. They took spice and turned it into a design on a mass-produced, slim-fit 100% cotton t-shirt. For these mislead youths substance abuse became a symbol of personal liberty.

Because it was undetectable, and betrayed no outward
signs of intoxication, the user was often the only one aware of his own
mental state. I used spice, in a ‘safe place’ and recorded the event on my phone. I have no memory of how I reacted to it, but the video shows me staring at the people around me with an alarmed look on my face, the way …first thoughts of immortality were as follows…

“everyone is about to die Why is it all still business as usual for them? I feel so much pity for them all as a whole, but as it stands I am incapable of feeling any empathy for them individually”

the crime and suicides did peak
and naturally, the spice did become a convenient device for
prosecutors whenever they were unable to isolate mens rea
every single toe-tagged doe in the morgue
became another victim of the will to power
a wife might find wake up to find her husband had hanged himself overnight
an unfinished glass of rye, no coaster, sitting on his desk
and she would get angry and refuse to read his note, so insistent
that he hadn’t learned of her infidelity,
“It was that cursed spice, a veritable scourge of the Earth”

nobody knows exactly why some people felt the urge to
kill other people when they were on spice,

most people had used spice at least once, they might have been
preparing for a job interview, an important sports game,
a major exam; the spice obliterated any thoughts or feelings
which might distract or otherwise inhibit a person from realising
the potential of their actions
However, what I found worthy of note was the difference
in how I imagined the future as a shapeless mass
where all of sources of uncertainty would fuse together
like hundreds of small cracks in a window pane
each crack a vector pointing to a contortion of the present
where everyone has two unique aspects and you spend
your time just staring greedily at the world around you
trying to see everything from the most gratifying angle

At first I only used spice to understand what exactly
drove my friends and family to murder;
But I grew to need it, like everyone else
Funerals were an ordeal if I wasn’t on spice
and there were so many funerals back then
it seemed like every other day I would hear about
a friend from high school
executing his entire family and then himself


When under the influence of spice,
the immortality often spoke of
is not so much a refusal of death so much as an end to anticipation
You stop envisaging the future as significantly worse than the present
I remember thinking that no matter what happened to me
in that uncharted wasteland of the future
my heart would still beat