Dan WeckesserDionysusEvery life has a night worth forgetting, but tonight, there is a life worth forgetting. Having gathered the other followers, we make our way to the temple of Dionysus. The priest wipes down the wooden alter, the glassware behind him holding the poison to kill the mind that shackles the soul. “True freedom lurks at the bottom of one of these bottles,” he assures us with a wink. “It may just take you a few tries to find it.” And so the ritual begins, and we pound out beer after beer, shot after shot, filling our veins with fire and life, searching for passion long lost at our desks, and forgotten in our homes. And passion we find. Legs assumed to have forgotten such things find the will and compulsion to dance. The mind's inhibition loses jurisdiction over desire, and the unattainable seems well within our grasp. The hours pass, and the revelry peaks with ecstasy. The last strands of consciousness fade with more holy water in our left arm, and the object of our desire serving as half-angel, half-crutch under the right. From this climax comes blackness, a void, the mindless nirvana from which tales of legend and deepest infamy emerge. The morning after, the body and brain wracked with the pain of so much passion and life leaving it, I take count of my surroundings. The angel is gone, and before me on the coffee table lie two piles of chicken strips, one half eaten, the other half digested. Pain and disgust leave me to wonder why I so often find this ceremony necessary, but then, despite the sickness of the body purging itself of the blessing of a god, I remember the climax. That one moment of unfettered pleasure and freedom, the poisoned mind absent from the body and the soul. Once more, I long to return to the temple of Dionysus. |