Nanoparticles are aimless and at the mercy of their surroundings; many of their governing rules of physics are outside of what we perceive to be ordinary behaviour. When suspended in gas or liquid, nanoparticles of any kind of material are subject to the physical phenomenon called Brownian motion – which means they constantly move around randomly, jiggled and jostled by atoms and other, smaller, particles in their environment. They are not responsive to the forces familiar to us they are too insubstantial for gravity, too minuscule to make a noise, incapable of self-propulsion. The constant random movement makes nanoparticle behaviours hard to predict and control – if they had a mind they would quite literally be out of it.
I swallow, knowing the irreversible effects to come. Surrendering feels demonic, my eyes squint, mouth curls up, this is my chemically-assisted resistance to the real world. A momentary deviance – action is purposeful, reaction will be out of control. I wait for waves that come and swell. Hilarity. Nausea. Passes. Hilarity again. Fear. Emotional undulations. I am gone. I am in the scene, pushing, jostling. Them, not me. I am moving with the crowd, fragments of control splinter and fall from me while their bodies urge me along, gently, roughly, quickly, slowly. Jarringly fluid. I am moving with the sound, the music is everywhere, I see it bouncing from the floor, hitting my limbs and shuddering against my joints. Physically fighting sounds. I lurch, involuntarily joining the dance of the pack, sniffing, nudging, smiling. The room joins in, leaning on us switching perspectives, teasing assumptions, rolling and pitching, lilting and tilting. Laughter. Hilarity. I am lying down. Rolling. I am upside down. Falling. I am the right way up. All of them the right way round. The right way.