Sober Drunk

In a long obscure and forlorn route, haunted by fallen leaves and passing winds.  A wind that is murmuring and blowing in a strange city. An inclement and murky vision dominated the miles ahead and the bushes were covered by plastic waste and only thistles are gazing at the soiled asphalt. Atreus was like a wandering sheep in this city, with no one to take his hand or keep him company. Suddenly, untypical things happened on this Saturday night. His head felt unsteady, a huge wave of dizziness swept over him so violently, and the street began to spin in a zigzagged way. In the next minute, his heart started to beat and leap-up like a soccer ball bouncing on the floor. Almost immediately he struggled to get his breath as he placed his hands over his eyes and pressed his forehead feebly and continuously. His mind was clouded in a swirl of different images like a whirling eddy. Sweat seemed to engulf and overwhelm him from everywhere and every gaze was like a touch of torment or a godly punishment for a late walk.  It was exactly 10 o'clock in the evening . He felt hot and cold at the same time. Everything around looked bleak and indistinguishable like a gathered somberness. Atreus spent those days on the surf-tormented shore alone in a little cracked canoe beneath the sea rocks. Watching the clouds, gazing at the starry night, listening to the rippling of the waves with self-possession and imperturbability. Looking where the melancholy water is in harmony and resignedly beneath the sky. Holding grains of the gleaming sand and saying: "The pain of the transience of life, we cannot hold on to anything but gather memories and catch a moment of joy. But in this world it passes away like a flying kite, Or maybe there is much more to life and we just haven't yet seen or encountered so far. But what is a dream? It seems like it is something you can't analyze or catch easily or even take apart, it lives so close to all of us, young and old, dead and alive, and yet fleeting, we all dream day and night and even between. And what we dare to dream belongs to our past, our daily routine, and the future's projection. I am this, I remember this, I relate myself to this, I have lived this and I did greatly with no human support but with a godly hand leading me from weary paths and whacked miles. It is like a symphony of love and tears, weakness and strength, isolation and resistance.

Two minutes later, dizziness seemed interminable like the Milky Way galaxy.

 Atreus could barely breathe and understand what was happening around him. 

He put a hand out against the traffic light to keep his balance. His strength ebbed away and he fell into a swoon, gasping for air as he did, He was in no mood to speak or remember the journey of destruction that he has traveled where no other did or get solidity to do so. He felt cornered and caged as if the traffic light and the street were closing in and he is merely a poor mouse passing near the smokestack. Then his breath came promptly and unevenly after a hellish agony moment. He stood outside the whole day, shivering in the frosty bitter biting-cold Tunisian winter. Shopping for images in his hungry fatigue. Eyeing the pomegranate and the strawberry. Listening to different questions; How much is the meat? What is the price of avocado? What is the price of pineapple? Are there two kilos of blueberry and cherry? And a shop-assistant wearing a blue apron with no badge or name on it, encouraging people to consume in fear of a coming curfew. 

 Atreus was staring in and out the windows… from the covers of magazines and daily newspaper titles. Some pictures of nude females waving from the magazines and some holy books in the opposite shelf. The till was stuck with different goods and items as if the world is going to close forever. As time passed slowly in this heavenly mall of delicacy and luxury. He stood there watching inside and outside the mall windows. All around him was a whole bunch of different activities; little boys throwing soccer ball at each other. Young girls playing hide and seek next to the yogurt shelf. People flying kites and playing fireworks in the windy night from under a Sycamore tree with a big trunk and long branches around. Lovers walking hand in hand laughing and uncaring about the whole world. Teenagers lying down in the grass drinking coke cans, smoking cigarettes and insulting each other. Another group of street children hiding in a tall tree and throwing marshmallows and empty bottles at people walking by. A mother yelling at her kids for the chaos they have made everywhere. A boy sneaking into the mall display window, stand really still and pretend to be a mannequin. A small child introducing himself to every animal at the pet store corner while his brother is filming him and laughing-out-loud. A short young girl with a brown hair and a black trousers carrying a rubber-ducky and talking with her sister.  Two boys hiding in the clothing racks saying “Pick me, ladies.” An old lady complaining about the prices. Another middle-aged woman pushing a shopping-trolley full of toilet and tissue papers placed at one another like a micro-mountain…

 He crossed the streets in a leisurely walk and suddenly he met with "Abu Nawas."

He was drunk, totally drink. Lurching from wall to wall like a creepy ghost. He was out of control, just swerving from one wall to the next without any apparent idea of where he was going or inching. He was dragging his feet and moving in a staggering walk. He was fumbling his forehead and about to topple or fall down in any second. His eyes are low like the sparrow's eyes in the evening. He was blanketed in sweat and his cheeks were totally red due to the holy cup as he says unconsciously, for him, it is not a normal cup but a divine cup, with an antidote inside it, a powerful antidote that tears off misery and gives jubilation. It protects the drinker from the spells of hate and cleans the heart from the negative vibes. It is a marvelous invention for the betterment of soul. His tongue and every atom of his blood are mingled with the divine cup's drops. He could breathe the fragrance of red wine and beers chasing him like a daily perfume. When he doesn't put his daily perfume the atmosphere is odorless and the mood is non-flammable. The beating of his heart, the passing of blood and air through his lungs is in a lifelong romance with his daily perfume. Even his respiration and inspiration brought up since the first drop fell in his blood. The eddies of spells and spin circles in his thickened blood and mind are in a never-ending whirl. Then swiftly arose and spread around his veins to create the beginning of the trip. Every drop gives an uphold of felicity and a bandage to a wound that cannot be healed by doctors. For him, it is the preferable remedy and the best doctor. It beautifies the faces, reduces the wrinkles and straightens the mood. No need for a pill to cure each ill, the divine cup is the ultimate solution and the key for riddance. Dose by dose his throat became a cascade and his stomach a river. Drop by drop his mind became as soft as cheese and functions in a way full of freeze. Night by night his eyes became as low as a dried leaf in a deserted cottage garden.

Yet in the night's end, the mood of exhilaration and festivity could restore Bacchus to life.

 Every gaze could give an icy thought and a laughing hysteria that could stay for a decent amount of time. For him, the holy cup makes fun of  "Asclepius" and the philosophers of ethics.

He lived a life in which laughter is a daily bread and in the lap of mother cheerfulness who keeps breast-feeding and nurturing each time you ask for. What a gleeful mood and what a rapturous life! He could hold the glass in a slightly tipsy way and whisper to the pictures and solitary walls in a slightly slurred voice. Then rove and ramble in the streets and crack jokes hither and thither. Neither responsibilities he has nor a heavy burden on his shoulder. Always roaming in his immortal spheres. He dropped his cigarette and asked it to come back. Saying:" Come back, I am not here to get into a quarrel with you, respect yourself and come back or I have to use violence with you." Ah! He threw two other cigarettes and ordered them to get the other cigarette back and said to the shepherd: "So... raise your glass of wine, Life is about how much happiness we combine." 

Atreus replied in a low voice: "When in disgrace and absent of boon neither a gift could bring delight nor a president could restore life, from bad to worse it remains and continues. As the whole nation carry developed ideas and act in a Bedouin way. No inner thoughts can trouble and change the deaf solid rocks or clean the mind's accumulated water pools. The sleepers will keep dreaming and the dreams will remain powder. Everyone can be a sonorous phenomenon but that is merely an empty vessel or a piper's song somewhere in the Cliffs of Mohor. I see lots of people like "Abu Nawas", not in his poems, but only in his hobbies.