Plunging deeper into my alphabetically-deranged memory, the second chapter of Twisted Times.

Chapter Two
Opium Lover

I’m shaking rattling at the cubicle door, flop down to rest and realize that the cubicle door is shaking rattling banging on it’s own. I step back away from the anthropomorphic door, step back into and through and pass right through the cubicle wall. A gold feather boa drifts down and settles on the floor. I turn and look out into a dark courtyard at midnight, entirely enclosed by derelict warehouses, now lit up and gleaming with fairy lights, pink satin and works of art. A neon sign blinks on and off “The Cavern Of The Dead Machines”, and up on the roof, brilliant against the night sky a tonsured monk leers down on the growing crowds, he’s swinging a cauldron of flames on a scaffolding pole tripod. He calls to me “Bella! Bella!” waving.
I’m shaking rattling at the door at the bottom of stairs, crashing through suddenly into Dr. Gordon Tripp’s cluttered consulting room – The Laboratorium – a large-lavatory sized single solitary cell. A bed, A window, a medicine cabinet and three tight walls closely covered by bookshelves. “Sit down” He soothes in his familiar deep hypnotic voice “Make yourself at home, this may take some time, there’re food and books, help yourself, feed your head” He trails off into a mutter. He was measuring out nano-micro-milli-grams onto perforated blotting paper, so I began to browse the bookshelves, nibbling at his drug-soaked canapés…more…