Cough Syrup and the Music of Pink Floyd

 

“I don’t need no arms around me

And I don’t need no drugs to calm me

I have seen the writing on the wall

Don’t think I need anything at all…”

               Pink Floyd, "Another Brick In The Wall Part 3"

 

     Cough medicines are prone to abuse. When I was in college, which was five centuries ago, a classmate told me that listening to rock music, especially Pink Floyd, would be greatly enhanced while you’re high. “I listened to The Wall for 12 hours straight while high with cough syrup and it was freakin’ awesome, all the songs in that album just got better,” he told me, sounding very convincing, so one day, I brought home a bottle of cough syrup (which brand he advised), drank all of it and listened to Pink Floyd.

     Nope, nothing was enhanced. I mean, I enjoyed the music like I enjoyed it before, which was without the drug. But I remember feeling nauseous and a little lightheaded at that time. My classmate told me to consume a bigger bottle for the much-needed effect. I emptied a 90 ml bottle so I should make it 120 ml, he advised. He was probably trying to get me addicted like him. I personally knew a few drug addicts back then, and I knew how unappealing their lives were, so it was a strong no for me. This classmate of mine wasn’t really a good role model, too, as he’d come to school a bit disheveled, and I was not surprised that he disappeared after a semester.

     I presently have cough and I am taking a cough medicine, in syrup form, and cough medicines, if you’d abuse it, are a downer, meaning, it’d give you a trip but would make you sad, depressed, confused and paranoid. I’m taking just the right amount, but somehow, I am depressed and confused.

     Maybe, it’s the terrible lack of sleep. For the past few days, the urge to cough nonstop always bothered me in my sleep. And these short slumbers would even be bothered by terrible dreams. Like last night, I dreamt of that classmate, he was inside a coffin, his corpse wearing headphones, on top of the coffin were some weeds and a few bottles of cough syrup. There were no people in the wake except his two siblings as he had no friends, except for the drugs and the music of Pink Floyd.

    “He’d been listening to The Wall for thirty six hours straight before he died,” said his sibling.

    And I thought, what a way to die. Then I woke up, took my cough syrup, just the right amount, and started listening to The Wall.