Bali High

or: Where do your ideas come from?

One midnight in Ubud, I lay awake in fear.

Why? It didn’t make any sense. Just suddenly, after a pleasant day, now at rest in a lovely resort, I couldn’t sleep for a subtle buzz of indefinite fear. This happens to everyone occasionally, I like to think: we lie awake stewing in some metaphysical terror. But this felt different. This had the mundane feel of a reaction to something I’d eaten. Some Balinese spice. A bad peanut.

Or maybe it's an allergy, I thought—a sensitivity, to be medically correct—to the intense Hindu-animism all around us in Bali; as my body was being harried by mosquitoes, so was my mind being harried by rogue spirits. I wasn’t accustomed to fending them off. In an hour or two it went away & I fell asleep.

So that happened & as one does with minor mysteries, I passively continued to ponder it for the rest of the week. Today, clearly emerging from that unconscious ponder, I woke up from a dream about a Balinese beer that affected its drinkers with a minor sensation of acrophobia: a fear of heights. You didn’t get drunk on it. Rather, the more you drank, the more afraid of heights you got.

E was delighted with this dream, as was I, & we spent breakfast talking about the ways in which this would make a great comic premise to a short story or a play. (It would be an excellent basis for an improv exercise, if nothing else.) Think about it: How would an Animal House party behave under the influence of AcroBrews?

I’m imagining light drinkers doing things like standing on step stools, a seated crowd daring each other another to go one rung higher (drinking songs called “Upseedaisy” & “One More Rung!” & “Falling Off the Wagon”), catching each other when someone balks & hunkers down again, impressed with the bravery of getting to the third & final step; most impressed if they jump. People might fling themselves onto mattresses or into swimming pools, just to feel the exaggerated rush of falling.

A few more drinks & standing up by itself becomes a little crazy, one’s feet being So Far Down. Dude, I was like, Soooo HIGH. Literally. Giggling friends might start on their knees, holding hands for strength, then rise to their feet on the count of 3—each of them ducking a little—and (leaving behind one guy who just can’t do it but waves them on), running across a courtyard screaming & laughing, triumphant when they reach the other side & all sit down again in a rush.

Staircases would become centers of ruthless party games. People would get injured, of course. Take it from someone who has broken her foot jumping for joy (sober): you can hurt yourself falling very short distances.

Near overdose, being on anything but the bare dirt is too high up & when you’re close to passing out you lie there hugging the earth, forehead pressed to the ground, terrified that even that is not solid enough, for what if the ground caves and you fall anyway, right through the earth, all the way through, & then fall & fall & fall forever.

Who would drink such a thing? Lots of people, I think. A buzz is a buzz, & fear is a good buzz. (Anyone remember Louis Wu’s freefall bed in Ringworld?) Teenagers would drink it, of course. Extreme sport enthusiasts who have lost their respect for actual dangers. Maybe a therapy for adrenaline junkies: a way to feel the danger without risking life & limb. A controlled means to challenge & master your fear, used as part of a physical discipline. Depressed people who no longer feel anything, but crave the sensation. A test for mountain climbers & bridge building crews.

If holding your liquor is an accepted test of manhood, I think a tolerance for fear would be even more attractive. It would really mean something to 'Stand Tall'. Or to 'Hold Your Ground'. Biker dudes would sit on cushions on the floor, Japanese style. Bar fights would be spectacular & strange.

Anyway: in answer to Where Do My Ideas Come From—that’s one story.