For the first time in my life I was truly alone.  The moment the young bird has to spread his wings and fly or plummet to the ground and die unpleasantly.  My parents and my sister had just driven off leaving me behind in October drizzle in the car park just down the road from the College of St James and St John.  With me were a suitcase and a rucksack.  Manfully, I resisted the temptation to cry and made my way to Block B in the halls of residence.  After unpacking I put on Peter Green's The End of the Game album which best expressed how I was feeling, i.e. mentally unstable.  After the first track, the guy in the room next door came round and introduced himself as Hank from Wisconsin.  He was on an exchange semester.

            "Fancy a doobie?" he said.

            "I'm sorry?"

            "Want to meet Mary Jane?"

            "Sure," I replied, assuming she was one of his friends.

Hank was alone in the room when I entered, however.  He invited me to sit on the bed while he started fiddling around with some stuff at his desk.

            "So, you smoke much, Danny?"

            "I dont smoke at all, actually."

            "Oh right, you dont like tobacco, huh?  I prefer it without, myself."

Hank then removed the Grateful Dead badge he was wearing and placed it upside down on the desk.  He took a dark green substance from a matchbox and held his lighter to it.  He looked like some kind of alchemist.  He then took out a pocket-knife and cut a thin slice of the substance, which he flattened with the badge.  He removed the wafer-like disc and placed it onto the badge's spike, which he had upturned.  He took a pint glass from the shelf, lit the wafer with a match and then placed the glass over the burning green.  The smoke began to mysteriously fill up the pint glass until it was white with cloud.

             "You go first," he said.

"After you, mate," I courteously replied, not having the faintest idea what I was supposed to do.

Hank got down onto one knee in front of the desk and with one hand slid the glass over to its edge.  He then placed his mouth at the intersection of glass and table edge, and, after exhaling deeply, sucked in all the smoke into his lungs.  He stood up and motioned to me to do the same.  He was apparently holding his breath.  The green disc was still burning and the glass was once again filling up with clouds of smoke.  I knelt down in front of the table and mimicked what Hank had done.  After a couple of deep breaths I put my mouth to the edge of the glass and sucked in the smoke.

I stood up holding my breath.  Hank apparently caught me before I hit the floor.  I came round coughing wildly.

            "You didnt let it out, man!"  Hank was laughing.

            "Sorry, I've never done it before," I said.  My head was spinning and I felt very strange.

            "Hey!  I feel great!"

            "Mary Jane my friend!  Want me to cook up another?"

            "I think I must be high, Hank."

            "Toast.  Me, too!"

I joined him on the floor.  After some length of time, he said:

            "You ever heard An American Prayer by The Doors?"

            "No.  Is it any good?"

"This, my friend, is going to blow you away!  The ceremony is about to begin!"