by Mark Ulyseas
From The Seductive Avatars of Maya – Anthology of Dystopian Lives – book available HERE
Monday and the full moon, not a good combination, happened to fall on the same day, albeit over a washed out version of paradise.
The restaurant overlooking the Arabian sea was reverberating with benign decadence that was comforting and sometimes irritating with children playing hide and seek between the white upholstered cane furniture. The music seriously lacking in taste, you know like that played in hotel lobbies and doctors’ waiting rooms.
We sat in silence till a waitress condescended to acknowledge our existence. The large printed menu sheets, paper and a bit cumbersome, folded in the cool evening breeze as we wrestled with it to decipher the words and pretend the prices were reasonable.
Food, an essential ingredient for dinner, was ordered by my companion who knew her onions, beef and pork. And this was frightening because I don’t eat beef. Anyways when the necessary corrigenda were made to the order I relaxed knowing fully well that the evening would probably end in an argument or worse still in horizontal recreation, both of which were not my agenda, at least for the evening if you get the drift (even men need time out).
Then the drinks arrived, cringing celery dumped in a glass of bloody Mary, I suspect a bit viciously for it lacked the comeuppance.
Two drinks later when inhibitions were washed down, we decided that there was a distinct lack of absinthe. Hence, 60ml each arrived in reservoir glasses by a waiter beaming like a lobotomized toad.
The full moon shown on debauchery with a benign glow. Images danced between the flames of the emaciated candle that dripped molten wax on the table cloth to the chatter of feathered hoi poli at the next table. The leathers and feathers we call them here. They wear lots of leather and some wear feathers in their matted hair (Rastafarian wannabes). Punks out of Sherwood. Robin would have a fit he if he saw them and his lass would probably defeather them in an instance.
The bovine of a hostess with excess moistest arrived glowing like she was in heat. A sloppy wet kiss on the cheek is disenchanting when one is lost in the reverie of refined indulgence. But then vanity has its plus points and politeness gets a discount on the bill.
And as the night wore on a few more rounds of absinthe disentangled the lasciviousness that lay strangled beneath the table, you know that urge that prompts one to play footsy, the kind that explores the nether regions with the Hallux.
Absinthe has a magic feel in the cerebral cortex. It tickles the ancillaries of sensualism and massages the masculine and feminine appendages.
As the moon languidly looped across the sky and chatter died down to burps and wind elimination from another table we sat transfixed by the enunciation of absinthe expressing itself through our senses.
The silver sea, palm fronds dancing in moonlight and the sound of plates hitting the floor as a waiter tripped over his own importance, made up the evening in absinthe.
When the bill arrived with much fanfare, we had lost the will to depart into the night and ordered yet another round of absinthe.
It was a night in absinthe, absinthe of malice.
I shall leave you now with a quote from The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam
Dreaming when Dawn’s left Hand was in the Sky
I heard a voice within the tavern cry,
“Awake, my little ones and fill the Cup
Before Life’s Liquor in its Cup be dry”.
And, as the Cock crew, those who stood before
The Tavern shouted – “Open then the Door!
You know how little while we have to stay,
And, once departed, may return no more”.
