A Tale of Two Fictions

towering giants of Wright and Bruce, balconies waved and folded into patterns of sacred geometry. The technicolour strees that we walked every other day became another world to explore.

The campus seemed like another planet, distinctly separate from the familiar buildings and lawns we had passed just hours before. The quickly flowing stream of Sully’s Creek seemed to have been rendered in cheaply animated polygons. The bright purple trees hanging above did little to alleviate my confusion. But the most shocking effect was a dramatic impact on my own introspection. I can still recall how it felt to have my regular patterns of thought disrupted, opening new ways to consider the things that persistently run through my mind. It was personally empowering, exhilarating and freeing.

As we approached the stretch of University Avenue, the paintings were like mischievous sirens, drawing us to pause and take in every detail. Enjoying the day, our minds still significantly impacted by the LSD molecules clinging to serotonin receptors, we talked extensively about our passions. The works of great poets and playwrights, the secrets and questions of mycology and our own dreams and deepest anxieties. I credit how positive I found the experience to the people I spent it with. Mutual trust gave us freedom to share the art we loved, and have tough conversations while maintaining a spirit of excitement about the trip we were sharing.

Psychedelic drugs are not for everyone and should be treated with a great deal of respect and caution. However, their recreational use can provide unique and perspective-shifting experiences. Experiences that can powerfully impact a person’s life. The ACT Legislative Assembly’s decriminalisation of these substances is not an open invitation for people to seek out and try them without consequence. But it could be the first step towards developing a legal relationship with psychedelics like that of Canada and the Netherlands. Nations in which government measures have effectively allowed for the sale and recreational use of specific hallucinogenic substances, such as psilocybin.

Through my personal experiences dipping my toes into mind-altering substances, I have gained a greater understanding of who I am and want to be as a person. I was allowed visual effects more interesting and believable than anything offered through kaleidoscopes or CGI. I was bestowed a new lens through which to appreciate art. In these days of euphoric joy, LSD has fundamentally pushed me to approach life in a new and exciting way. In this way, I affirmed my belief that psychedelic drugs can have a highly positive impact on the lives of those who chose to use them. Especially when their use is freed from negative stigma and government policy directions aiming to demonise their impact.

Hopefully, the rest of Australia can follow the ACT’s strong example on drug reform and turn our territory’s exciting anomaly into an international standard. And for the intrigued reader at home, I hope that I’ve drawn you a little closer to seeing the eye-opening magic that a mind-bending trip can offer.iv.

Sam Belmore

Fiction is the cornerstone of reality. It’s trite and somewhat obvious to point out that the world is the way we think it is. But if you spend enough time with this truth, it will become too comfortable, too familiar. I had become quite comfortable within it myself. If you were to tell me five days and 12 hours ago that two of the most influential men in my life were in fact stories I invented, I probably would have said “Sorry, I’m running late to a Roald Dahl movie I’m watching with my Mum called To Olivia.” But, if you had told me this fact just two hours later, I probably would have stopped and listened.

The little role my Godfather played in my life counted for a lot. It was a birthday present. A book wrapped in puzzle-piece paper. George’s Marvellous Medicine by Roald Dahl. On my seventh birthday, I was able to read independently, and I decided that I liked it. Compared to corporate author H. I. Larry’s Zac Power, Dahl’s voice felt like it was respectful of its audience. It was tender and understanding, as though the nonsensical story was really the sort of thing grown-ups couldn’t understand. I proceeded to read everything he had ever written. And then I read it all again.

My ninth birthday party was Roald Dahl-themed. I know. Still the coolest party I’ve ever been to. My parents spent money they didn’t have to bring Dahl’s fiction into reality. My Dad has a degree in fine arts, which he used to recreate Blake’s illustrations. Somehow, he found time to do that in-between looking after four kids, studying for his third tertiary qualification, working two jobs, and being married to his one wife. My Mum invented and ran the games, she always brings an indefatigable spark of wonder into everything and everyone she touches. It was her idea to replace party bags with copies of Dahl’s books wrapped in brown paper with string.

Dahl’s melody was the song my childhood sang.

My favourite book was Danny the Champion of the World. Danny lives alone with his father; they fix cars together and live an altogether simple and fulfilling life. Danny believes his life can be improved only with his mother, who died during childbirth. Danny discovers a dark side to his father, an addiction to hunting. He uses his intelligence to invent a pheasant hunting strategy so endlessly humane and ruthlessly efficient as to end the moral dilemmas forever associated with the likes of Robin Hood.

I was desperately envious of Danny. I idolised my dad. If only I could spend time with him as Danny got with his dad. I borrowed an engineering book from the library when I was 10 so that I could talk to my dad about cars. I just assumed that he liked cars, because that’s the sort of thing manly men like him liked. I studied that book and bided my time to flex my newfound automobile-relevant knowledge. I remember sucking up the courage to tap him on the shoulder and pose:

“So…what do you think of split differential systems? Pretty cool right?”

He responded: “…yep.”