| The Wine Comedy | | | | By: Alder Yarrow |  Page 1 of 4 next >> |
This afternoon I poured myself the last of a bottle that had been opened earlier in the week, and wandered to the back yard to relax a little. I must not have slept well the night before, because after a few sips and a few moments in the sun, my eyes became heavy, and their lids fell.
I awoke with a start, and found myself alone on a level plain of grey concrete stretching far and away into the distance. Alarmed, I gulped what was left of my tepid wine, presumably warmed by the sun which now seemed to recede high beyond a veil of haze.
I rubbed my eyes. I stood in a massive empty parking lot, hemmed in on all its distant sides by featureless buildings leaning at crazy angles away from the grainy expanse.
When I finally managed to turn away from this terrifying vista, I found myself nearly in the shadow of the largest superstore I could ever imagine, deserted as the parking lot I stood in, but emblazoned with four-story letters proclaiming “WINE-MART. Always Low Prices. Always.” I could make out through the glare of the windows that the store was stocked to the brim. My footsteps echoed dry and flat against the façade as I approached the doors.
Standing by the entrance, so still he had escaped my roving eye from a distance, stood a man clothed in medieval grey robes, over which he wore a blue vest festooned with various buttons of all shapes and sizes, which proclaimed pithy sayings like “Life is Cabernet,” and “Wine, madam, is God's next best gift to man,” and which was also emblazoned with a smaller version of the sign towering overhead and a nametag, replete with a bright yellow smiley face and the letters to spell out this apparition’s purpose: Greeter: Dante Alighieri.
Knowing his name loosed my tongue from terror and I cried out: “Dire ghost, have pity on me. I am frightened, and know not how I have come to this place.”
“Yes, a ghost I am indeed,” he replied, “summoned forth to accompany you on a path down which alone you dare not go. A poet was I, but also a lover of the fruits of the vine, and now I bear witness for all eternity to the crimes committed against the soul of that ambrosia we call wine.”
And as he spoke the word “crimes,” his dark eyes flashed from underneath the thick mat of his black hair, and I shuddered as if a cold wind had struck me.
“Poet,” I said, “I hope you are not here to punish me for transgressions I have made. I have tried to love and learn about wine with an open heart and mind, yet I am sure I have scoffed too often at White Zinfandel.”
“That remains to be seen,” he said, and turned to enter the building, beckoning me to follow, which I could not help but do in terror.
Inside the massive edifice, I saw that it was not deserted as I first thought, but populated and thriving with apparitions and shades of varying substance, moving with alacrity through the aisles. Some pushed rickety carts burdened with large gallon jugs of Blue Nun, Thunderbird, and Night Train. Others labored on their feet, nearly crippled with stacks of the heavy boxes that I recognized from my grandfather’s refrigerator, each bearing insignias like Franzia, Sutter Home, and Carlo Rossi, while yet more similarly-burdened crowds waited on checkout lines stretching far into the distance. From each of their lips emerged such sounds of wailing torment, cries of woe, and gnashing of teeth that I cowered close to the grey robes of my guide.
“Master, who are these pitiable souls who rush here and there or stand interminably in torment?” I asked.
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