Trainspotting

filming Trainspotting toilet scene

Remember the iconic scene in Trainspotting (1995) when the drugs disappear down the toilet. The moment sets off a hallucination as iconic as the horrified nurse in the Odessa Steps sequence of Einstein's Potemkin. Cataclysmic discombobulation that sets one's life in a tailspin is something you know if you've ever fallen asleep at the wheel, waking up suddenly to screams at the terror of the incipient path of destruction that you've wreaked. Have you hit or even killed someone? "Down the tubes." That's where you're headed is something you've undoubtedly felt. One door closes and another opens is dispelled by the reality that when one door closes another likely closes too. In fact, if you are like the bag of junk in the Danny Boyle film, you are just another domino  falling.

read "Double Reverse Midas Touch" by Francis Levy, The East Hampton Star