Serotonin

When you read this story you get the affects of using drugs/drinking without even touching anything. The structural techniques that Russell Smith employed were ingenious. It allows the readers to "feel" what the characters feel.

The whole story spans one night in the life of a teen who, along with his girlfriend and friends, take illegal drugs and drink as they get ready to go out to a bar. The setting is as follows;

-First they are at a bar
- Next it's before the bar and they are on their way to Doke's (drug dealer)
-They are all back at the bar and it's 2am
-Flashes back to when they were all in Doke's apartment
-Back at the bar and it's now 5:45am
-Then we see Jason talking to Sherry (his girlfriend)
-Then they are finally leaving the bar at 6:23am

The author probably wrote it this way to symbolize blacking out for periods of time. I believe this because we don't have an account for what happened for all the night, we are only allowed to see bits and pieces, just like someone who took the drugs would remember the night.

During the course of the story we are allowed an inside view of what is going on in Jason's mind as he battles his feelings for Emily, all the while his girlfriend is on the sidelines watching it all happen. Jason has an attraction to Emily but he justifies this by saying "This is just serotonin". He is trying to blame his indiscretions on the drugs, which could probably produce this effect. Yet after his "wild" night he calls it quits because the night has "transformed" him. He doesn't want to feel conflicting emotions anymore and this solidifies his reason for "quitting" drugs.

So the structural techniques employed plus being able to "see into" Jason's mind allows us to piece together how drugs alter our perception as well as play tricks on our short term memory. I must admit, at first, I didn't like the story but when I realized that the structure was purposely made to mimic black outs, I found a new respect for it. Not everyone can create a story like this and actually be successful with it. So altogether I learned to like this story