As I walked into the bar there were already tears in my eyes. So much stress. Was I meandering or chasing my tail? I wasn't finding answers, that's for sure. I glanced around, struck with a subtle sense of irony. A few sorry souls sat speckled throughout the dimly lit confines of this stuffy, run down establishment. You'd think they'd have the means to keep a place like this in ship shape, here, considering the nature of spirit. Anything you could imagine, freely given, when the soul should rise... Maybe it was just a load of ****. I took a seat in a corner at the far side of the room. I didn't know how I'd arrived here, but I had no intention of leaving. I was too exhausted. Life had had a tendency to beat me down. I felt battered and bruised. I felt as if I'd been flattened by a steam roller. I always used to say I was tired to my soul; I hadn't realized I was speaking literally. It wasn't long before I was approached by a waiter. All dressed in white, save for a black tie. An amorphous effusion of light and shadow erupting from the place where one's neck should be. A piercing whisper, vibrating through my skull.
"Can I get you a drink?" it.. said.
I was a bit dumbfounded. It hadn't occurred to me until now that this place may actually serve alcohol. Did I even have a body? Regardless, I don't drink.
"I don't drink."
The haze blobbed and bobbed, and ebbed in mirrored tension, as if shaking its head from side to side.
"I think you'll want to try this one." It echoed, sing-songing slow motion distortions directly into the depths of my consciousness.
It was becoming hard to focus. The lines here were, or, are gray. Things bleed between. Every soft, dim light consumed the room. Every noise resounded throughout time. This ideal of a bar, this place where people drink their woes away, stowed away in the afterlife? What must people be trying to forget?
"I don't want to forget." I said. "I learned so much in life. Still, I know nothing. Still I don't understand, but I want to hold onto those lessons. I've left everything else behind."
"I think you'll want to try this one," it reiterated. "Daniel."
It hit me, then. This thing knew all there was to know about me. Not only could it speak into my mind, it could see. This was no ordinary drink, and after all, what did I have to lose?
"**** it," I took the glass from the tray. "I guess I could use a drink."
It looked like nothing more than a shot glass full of water, but as it went down my throat, an unearthly warmth and peace spread through my chest cavity and into my heart. It was the ultimate feeling of pure joy, as if I'd consumed a liquified sun. With my first breath, it made its way into my brain. Stark white, endless plains of emptiness and light. Everything dissolved before my eyes. Cascading was illusion: is illusion. I hovered in the pulse of the everflow.
"How was the drink?"
I needn't even respond. I was awake.
"Ahhh!" I released relief, and let the spirit seep.
I merged with this, the Infinite. The song of Heaven, I could hear it. Vibrations of eternity surrounding me, and written throughout everything, the lyrics. All different pitch of perfect wave, resounding to fragment the quintessence of this presence to which I now belonged. Yet, this energy condenses. Readministered, from essence to presence. A blip within the static of magic. Eye could not exist, in reminiscent wishes, avasting existence. The depth within the deep of endless ocean called to me: to stimulate emotion in the impartation of separation from Infinity. The pull of gravity consumed me. Here, again, within the fill of fragrant, illusory "being," I live to speak of bleeding into everything and nothing.
a strange peace...
a strange piece....