The Clucking Bull

The smell of burnt leaves wafted in the air. I shakily took the half burnt blunt from her and smoked it with the gusto of a virgin smoker. The taste of the smoke was, well, smoky. The inhalation passed through the throat and into my lungs, and I held it there for a while. Then I exhaled, leaving a slight stinging sensation in my lungs and a smoky aftertaste in my mouth.

Well, it’s a first time for me I guess. Normal, or chain smokers wouldn’t be so much as bothered as to write such a colourful or a detailed chronology of the first time nicotine touched their veins.
Much less, marijuana.

She was laughing in front of me, in that restaurant. I passed the blunt back to her, feeling somewhat disconcerted. Must’ve been the calming effect that I am not really used to, or maybe it’s me well, being me. It’s a habit of being anal over small things, minor details and such.

Two other friends of mine, guys, sitting on the side, stared at me. They’re probably waiting for something to happen. Waiting for me to say something stupid or just looking at how long until it took for my eyes to be glazed – an indication that I am already, high.

“Damn, it was… not unpleasant. Tasted like burnt lalang though,” I ventured.
The two dudes were staring at me, nodding their heads in agreement.
The guy on my left, dark skin and of Negeri Malay descent, reached for the glass cup of iced tea and sipped a sliver of the brown liquid, smiling. “ No one said it smelled of roses, you know.”

His gifted talent for sarcasm, starting to peek it’s way through the cracks of his tired exterior.

“It is grass in a sense.” He said, making a reference to the tall, sharp bladed grass that’s referred as a plant pest, a weed – the lalang – as locals call it in the native Malay language.
“Why do you think we call it weed, then?” He tabled the glass. “Names like that don’t invent themselves.”

Bald guy on my right, born and raised in the metropolitan life of Kuala Lumpur, Malay descent as well, cut in. “Well, how are you feeling right now?”
He seemed to be more interested on how I, a virgin smoker, would feel after popping my breathing cherry after the first time I took in smoke to my lungs. Willingly.
I gave a confused look. “I feel… nothing. Or I just haven’t felt it yet. How long would it take for it to work?”

The girl, a hybrid of Chinese and Indian; answered from across the table. “Not so loud, dumbass.”
She took another puff of the blunt, now burnt to a quarter in her fingers.
“This is your first time smoking, right?”
I nodded.
“Then it wouldn’t take too long. Your lungs would do the job of passing the chemicals to your head pretty quick. You’d start feeling everything’s starting to progress more slowly now.”
She tossed the blunt aside and grabbed an idle cigarette box for a cigarette.
“Also don’t think too much about well, getting high. You are not supposed to think. Just relax.”

As soon as the words escaped her lips, my mind is beginning to experience something that is completely unusual. I looked at the iced coffee in front of me and stared at it.

Dark skin dude started to chuckle. “There you go. Look at his eyes, he’s blazed.”
My eyes swiveled to him. “Sam, you know I…” I couldn’t get my mind to think of what I was supposed to say as I would’ve wanted to.
Samir, my roommate, my friend, partner in crime, just stared at me and reached for the iced tea and began nursing it. 

The Chinese Indian girl across me also managed a wide smile as she looked at me. Maybe she’s somewhat stoned by the blunt she’s smoked and feeling the inclination to smile, I don’t know.
The bald dude on my right also was looking at me, in a curious manner.

I am apparently being quite the show.

“Han, hey…” I started to say something towards the bald dude but I couldn’t. I just somewhat forgot what to say.
Han, or Farhan Aziz, a mutual friend of mine and Samir, a musician in the underground clubbing scene of Kuala Lumpur, continued to stare at me.
He waved a hand in front of my face. “Babe, you getting any of this?”