21. Like The Third Eye In A Skull

I don’t remember much because my disc was slipping. Because I was out of my mind in pain. Rainbow Gatherings are surreal places at the best of times, an army of people who believe in walking, they collect around the world in barefoot harmony, moved by a prophesy that the People of the Rainbow will make war go away. Everything is shared, there’s a sense of life simplified, a medieval camping trip without the toothache. There are no nations or nationalities, only feathered hippies, their children on their hips, scant possessions fashioned onto homemade toolbelts, a tin cup and wooden utensil, a knife stuffed down the back of loose trousers, a staff you’ve carved yourself, beads swapped for tobacco. That’s the look and premise, anyway, although try separating a Rainbow Warrior from his special stick if you want to see something nearer the truth. Humans are humans the world over. There was a lot of purposeful striding across soft grassland, tipi doors thrown open, shawls readjusted and elders muttering in private circles. A sense of a bunch of people trying to find something more important to talk about other than how sick they were of beans. There was a lot of bowing. And nakedness. Each day an enormous circle was formed of anyone hungry, volunteers ladled offerings into bowls held aloft. More beans. There was a lot of drumming. I teamed up with the renegades who’d made a camp of their own in the woods. Fewer prayers. Less sincerity. I remember the devilishly handsome Frenchman who took Datura and lost his mind, fell in a river and died. I remember the full moon appearing like the third eye in a skull. I’d made it into a tent when the disc between my fourth and fifth vertebrae gave up its efforts like the appendix and fallopian tube before it. When a sound came out of my mouth that I didn’t recognise, I thought I was channelling a demon. But it must have been screaming because three women amassed like angels above me, then the face of someone I knew. A friend from the West Country, who one day would die but not that day, appeared out of nowhere. I didn’t know he was there. He gathered me in his arms and carried me to France, to the house I’d trashed when I was fresh out of school, where my parents were on holiday. We arrived dirty from the road, unexpected and unannounced. Amongst palm trees and clean sheets, he laid me down.The Literary Obsessive is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit eleanoranstruther.substack.com/subscribe