STAIRWAY TO HEAVEN

Lights off. Doors closed. Curtains pulled. Cool wind blowing through the broken window. Trying to block away the noise and commotion going on in the corridor outside. You try to remember when was the last time you did it. How exactly had you done it? How did you feel after you'd done it? But you put those thoughts aside as you're disturbed by the sound of the matchstick striking the phosphoric side of the matchbox. You see that everything's ready. What needs to be crushed is crushed, what needs to be cut is cut, what needs to be rolled is rolled and what needs to be done is being done. There's a bright light which illuminates our dingy room for just a nanosecond, enough time to look at the stern and concentrated look on your mate's face. Looked funny. Eyes open like a slit of wound, nose cringed and lips puckered. The same face you'd make when you'd kiss something or someone disgusting. The only difference is the presence of a thin, long cylidrical thing between his lips. You see the tip of the flame come in contact with the tip of the object. Suddenly, you don't know why, you're applying your school science to know why the flame is orange in color when there's plenty of oxygen around. At this point, your mate says, "Dude, light yours". You clean your mind slate and draw your face towards the flickering flame. Your mate covers the flame with his cupped hands. You suck, you try to suck air through the thing you're holding in your mouth. The air is not only filled with the required amount of oxygen to help you sustain your life but also with nitrogen and other pollutants along with other recently added flavors and chemicals. You know that you're polluting yourself, you're killing yourself. But it doesn't matter because you've chosen not o care. You do it quite a few times until you start to hear the faint grumbling sounds. Before you can realize, you now clearly hear the chord of the guitar, the tap of the snare and the note on the synth. The music starts. But its still not music for you. For you its just a ramble, a coarse jamming of some novice, inexperienced instrument players and obviously out of tune. But slowly, you tend to catch on what's going on. You listen more attentively. Even thought the vocals are just a mumbling of words like they're chanting some African tribe chats in a state of trance, the music starts to make sense. You start to understand the music, what it means. What its trying to tell you, something which you always wanted an answer for. It makes you lose your mind, it makes you forget the world around you. You want to rock your head in tune with the music, but you don't feel like. You just stare and gape at it. You let yourself float. You feel the world around you isn't real everything;s just an illusion. Its all a made up, set up situation of which you're a puppet whose strings are in the control of a greater force than you. you can feel you're weightless body slowly lifting up from the firm ground. Without any hindrances, you reach the zenith of space. You're still sucking on the ignited tube. You float in tune with the music. You fly in and out of the sound holes, ride on the strings hop on the pads. Suddenly the only thing you can hear is the rhythmic and soft tapping on the high hats. You block out all other music. With each tap you're changing your co-ordinates in the vast, open space. The bass hits your heart like the hammer of the gods. You don't see stars, instead you see whole galaxies. Then comes the "only god could;ve done it" lead. This is the closest to heaven you can get. You are climbing the stairway to heaven. This is a moment of bliss for you. you feel like this is what you were craving for all your life. This is what everyone tries to find in everything - peace and happiness. You feel like you're on top of the misty mountain and you're comfortably numb to the materialistic world. You can smell the vivid colors of the music in the whispering wind. And then you stand still. You stand still and the whole space around is flying past you. You're in a starfield and it's just gushing past you with variable velocities according to the notes. Everything;'s on motion blur right now. You start to try to make sense of things again, but you can't. Everything fading away. You feel heavy like lead. You start dropping. Carelessly, you drop into the black hole. You struggle, but you cant get out. You realize, better to fade away than to burn out. You let yourself loose, you be sucked to the epicenter. You realize, life is to rock and not to roll. The last thing you hear is the clanging of the division bell.