My Whole Life Was a Dream – Dan Celebrates Life with the Guardian on Laenif
From “And the Sun Let Go”: Laenif: Book 2, chapter five: “My Whole Life was a Dream,” which finds the main character, Dan, on top of a mountain after meeting the eternal being, The Guardian – a man-shaped god with wings. In this scene, they celebrate their union and existence with mind altering substances and poetry.
‘Goodbye, Earth!’ I thought to myself loudly. ‘Goodnight to your sweet moon!’
This planet was magical. And if it was to be, it was to be. Laenif was my new home. I embraced all; the soul absorbed otherworldly love like a mop soaking in a bucket. I embraced the beauty for no other reason than that it was beautiful. A deep truth inside blossomed so wide, as wide as my wide-open mind! As wide as the Guardian’s wingspan. The wind flew across my face.
Eventually we landed on the Guardian’s little stretch of land in the mountains. It wasn’t long before I noticed that he exhibited a very sensible and trustworthy spirit. And it was not the wings that had given him his wisdom, but rather his wisdom had bestowed his wings. “Tell me of your own soul, Daniel,” he requested while pouring us each some wine. A big grin leaked between his cheeks.
I shrugged. “There is no time for any of that. Most of the stuff I could tell you about me…” I stopped for a second. “Well, I’m not sure I believe that anymore. And the last thing I wish to do is tell a lie to you, especially since you apparently know everything about me already anyway.”
He handed me a cup and, with a lighthearted tone, told me, “This is Earth wine. We have alcohol on Laenif too, but the fruits cannot compare to the grapes of Earth. I might be lonely on this planet, but I have found means to get wine from yours. It has been a fantastic tool. Nothing to ferment on Laenif comes close to the grape.”
We said cheers and clanged our crude stone goblets together before drinking. And drinking. And drink. Oh, the taste of wine! Enrapturing the throat, I almost wept. Tasting the Earth again reverted sensations back to a very familiar place inside. The Earth had its faults like everything else, but I missed it. It had been my home for so long.
The wine was I, and this wine had escalated every part of my spirit to a very high state. I was very, very high. And so was the Guardian. And nothing seemed more appropriate than to dance and shout and tell poems to each other. A true celebration. We sparked a fire in a pit atop the mountain and then drank down galaxies. The energy between us exploded.
“Dan!” he shouted with a long smile and drunken immortal eyes. “Say a poem!”
Now although I possessed no real idea of what poetry was by scholarly definition, I had always felt poetry in my soul. And from out a cavern in the stomach flowed a poem I shouted at my winged friend: “The wind howls! The beast growls! But the moon doesn’t do a thing! The moon does not say a goddamn thing!”
Laugh with a loud smile, he was happy and I was happy because he was happy and our two worlds were, even if for a brief moment, joyous and one. Empty, but together. He said back to me, “What a poem! Goddamn.”
“You say another! Say another!” I bellowed, taking another heavenly sip of Earth’s wine.
“Let us smoke first.” He obtained a vat that had been stashed away amongst the boulders of the mountain he resided on.
“Is it more mowuri?” I inquired, eyes were now a mile wide.
“Yes.” He pulled out a rolled stick of it to smoke. “While the wine of the Earth may be supreme, your tobacco and marijuana stand no chance of ever surpassing mowuri.”
“Light it already and speak another poem,” I urged.
“Very well.” He lit the tip of the cigarette with the edge of the fire. “Oh, cold flowers in the hot sun wonder if the sun is cold. And there are old trees in the young breeze and they wonder if the breeze is old. But those who know nothing know they are nothing and they know there was no dream begun…” He laughed after boasting these phrases, then inhaled a puff of smoke. We passed it back and forth. I yelled another tornado of words.
We were soon dancing as though there had never been a yesterday and there was never to be a tomorrow. We danced within a dream within a dream of a dance and then we danced it all again to the only music playing: a silent but infinite orchestra of consciousness reverberating betwixt our empty hearts.
And at last, when the whole thing was over, I awoke in my house. It was dark and empty. Ghoid had disappeared. But instead of fretting, I unexpectedly found that I was content with his absence. Some newfound intuition somehow knew he was okay. Whatever I had transformed into knew everything was going to be okay. The mind inside was acutely aware that all of existence was beautiful; in its right place. It was like I could finally understand who I was and where I belonged amongst the cosmos. Doubt had been evicted from the crawlspace in my mind…
The rush of emotions I experienced that night was a rollercoaster of magnificent nonsense punctuated by brief moments of intense remorseful uncertainty; a cocktail of absurd suffering ecstasy.
What was this world truly?
Written by BW Derge, All Rights Reserved 2024
© USA
This was an excerpt from And the Sun Let Go - Laenif: Book Two (2020), chapter five: My Whole Life was a Dream
