I haven’t hallucinated in many, many years.

I’ve been out of it for eleven days and counting. Combination flu/chest infection that went bad very quickly. Things got interesting after four days without a sleep period that ran longer than fifteen minutes. That was the point at which I could identify that I was very definitely not dreaming but the walls were very definitely bending. My brain had been thoroughly scrambled already by the sleeplessness, but it was fascinating to watch the pivot into complete loss of signal. I swear to god I could do that period of sleeplessness with delicious dexidrine back in my youth, but, let’s face it, this year’s put some mileage on the chassis.

I ended up taking out the nuclear option, and necked a gram of co-codamol, which reliably knocks me out for twelve hours. This time, it worked for three, and I ended up at an emergency doctor and eating emergency antibiotics. But I remain amused — significantly fucked up, but nonetheless amused — that a flu gone mad could be far more visually interesting than any tab of acid I took as a kid. I guess the Eighties really were as shit as everyone says these days.

My weekly newsletter will resume this Sunday: please consider subscribing at http://orbitaloperations.com.