Chapter 3: You Get What You Give

Gregg's recovery was slow. First the surreal visions faded, replaced by a flowing mix of colours like a chromatic tide. Then the colours in their turn became paler merging into a monochromatic glow which slowly gave way to a fuzzily perceived view of the room about him.

Eventually he became aware once more of his ability to move his own limbs. Stiff and aching from being sat in one place for, he didn't know how long, it took him all his effort to lever himself, unsteadily, to his feet.

His primary feeling was hunger, an overwhelming need to eat, almost anything. Looking for something fast, hot and bulky, he found a pack of pre-prepared spaghetti and meat balls in the freezer. It was the work of minutes in the microwave to deliver a steaming plateful.

He sat down opposite it and picked up a fork. As he sat struggling with the decision to pursue meat or pasta first he became aware that the pasta was moving. Not in any random, purposeless way, you understand but deliberately as though possessed of a collective intelligence. Slowly the strands began to rearrange themselves from the tangled knot that the bowl had contained to a series of neat coils. Gradually the plate took on the look of a ship's tomato-ey sauced foc'sl, its ropes coiled neatly in readiness for use.

Gregg shook his head; uncertain as to whether or not this meant that the spaghetti was good to eat and equally unsure if it meant that the effects of the spliff had not, in fact, quite worn off yet. His attempt to push the thoughts of the obsessively neat pasta from his mind were interrupted by a curious sensation from his feet.

He looked down. His shoelaces were unravelling themselves from his shoe in the same way that the spaghetti had uncoiled itself. Now two lengths of pale cord had laid themselves out in straight lines beside his feet.

Disbelieving, he shook his head, trying to clear his mind of whatever residual hallucinogen remained. As he did so the end of one of the laces picked itself up from the floor, pointed its end at Gregg for a moment before slowly threading itself back into his shoes. With a similar show of reluctance the other lace followed.

It was impossible Gregg, thought to himself. Of course it was; but so was the obsessively neatly coiled spaghetti. And that was still where it had left itself, on his plate.

There had to be, Gregg felt, a rational explanation. He stared across at the knot of cables below the television. Now there, he said to himself, is a muddle that needs to be sorted out.

No sooner had the thought crossed his mind than the wires began to move unplugging themselves from the wall sockets, twisting and fretting until they were free of each other, obeying his will but not needing specific instruction as though each had a Gregg-given-goal to achieve, slipping past each other like snakes.

Snakes. Was that what this was about? The vision of the snakes?

He shook his head still feeling as though this must be a drug driven delusion. He looked once more at the symbols on the paper wrapping, they still meant nothing to him but from between the two layers of brown paper slipped a third, white piece. On it was a sketch, two snakes wound around one another surrounding a geometric symbol that looked like something he knew. He recognised the symbol; it was the deep red stone set in the centre of the old turban. Underneath the drawing, in English, it said, 'Swami Pradesh'.

The words meant nothing to Gregg and his usual. He turned to his usual sources of information, Google and Wikipedia, but even they failed to help beyond identifying it as a term first used by the English of the leader of an Indian sect given to magical practices. Both appeared to point to the one source, Hiram B. Heron's 'Treading The Raj - Travels In A Far Country', published in 1833 as the only documentary evidence. The only other fact that he was able to discover was that the Swami Pradesh whatever else he or they did, were rumoured to be the originators of snake charming and the Indian rope trick and that the Swami possessed a jewel of deep red that had hypnotic powers.

It wasn't hard for Gregg to link it all together in his mind. Drug fuelled delusion or not, there had to be some sort of link and he really had to follow up the clues. The one good thing was that when he checked the College's on-line index, much to his surprise, Heron's book was available in the College's library.