He was on the balcony of his room, smoking a hand-turned tobacco cigarette butt left there the previous day. It was a habit of his, starting a cigarette by smoking less than half of it and leaving it wherever he happened to be ( along with asking for a few "cigarette puffs" from friends who just didn't understand him and offered him a whole one). He didn't like to finish a whole one, it weighed him down too much, but he loved the first 4-5 puffs that you can take after eating your fill and having a full belly or having a glass of wine. And what he enjoyed even more was littering the house with butts, forgetting about them and then rediscovering them who knows how long later. And that mixed moment of tobacco addiction and amazement of rediscovery always made him cheerful and enthusiastic. And in his own words " the cigarette from the day before is tastier, it's like those dishes that have to be rested for a while." Sometimes misfortunes had also happened, that those butts had gotten wet after a rain and dried up again in the sun, then they acquired a really awful taste, but they were little mishaps that were worth suffering every now and then.
He looked up at the few and dim shimmers of stars that were dimmed by the light pollution of the neighborhood. The sky was dull blue and the clouds were acquiring an orange luminescence due to some strange physical phenomenon of reflection.
"The stars" he thought " in the horoscope are the houses of the Gods, certainly not a bad habitation, they could have the books shipped to them by Amazon and in the address write " Milky Way, northern constellation Cassiopeia, to the billionth star on the left round the corner after the black hole" He smiled " It would take them at least three light weeks even with fast shipping. They never get to me before twenty days."
Between teasing, he guessed that he might question about art and its function a deity. After all, since ancient times, people had been resorting if not to deities at least to the help of muses to start writing a great poem, no one forbade him to do so, and the idea excited him greatly.
"Where do the gods meet?" "On Olympus," he answered himself and smiled as he recalled episodes from a cartoon called Pollon.
Pollon was a curly-haired, blond little girl who went frolicking on Mount Olympus, surrounded by many little white clouds. She wanted to become a goddess at all costs, had made a pact with Zeus, and was up to all sorts of mischief in the Greek pantheon, even though she had the best possible intentions.
But the phrase that generated great hilarity for him was the refrain of the opening theme song : " It looks like talcum powder but it's not, it's meant to give you cheerfulness! If you taste it or breathe it, it immediately gives you cheerfulness."
" That the solution to meeting the gods was right in that enigmatic phrase? One had to find a white powder similar to talcum powder, which you breathe and taste and immediately gives you the right cheerfulness to enter the Olympus! Everyone in the Olympus is then very cheerful!"
Perhaps that all the North African drug dealers who trafficked under his house and throughout the neighborhood had always had the solution to the 'unattainability of the divine in their pockets.
And how stupid and rude he had been every time they stopped him to sell him that magical product, he would walk away stymied and bored by their insistence. What a fool!
He even began to use pro-racist jokes to downplay the situation in which those poor individuals were forced to survive.
That evening, however, he had no great desire to pipe a line or two of cocaine, just to have a chat about Olympus in glee with a deity. It had taken him too much effort and time to stop using drugs and blow it all.
He then decided to symbolically read the key to opening the heavens that such a wacky cartoon grafted into the heads of young children.
"First of all, one must enter an altered state, be cheerful after all! To give a lash to the monotonous daily routine that always repeats itself.
I'm great at getting high just with my body."
He had learned this from watching children play turn-around-turn-around, when their parents are not around, whirling so fast following their imaginary circle, until they fall to the ground with their heads confused and their hearts beating wildly in a non-ordinary state of consciousness.
In those instants really "the world falls and the earth falls" hitherto known, and they all find themselves "down on the ground" having visions, in who knows what other dimensions. These are rituals that go unnoticed by the adult world and are hidden in games and nursery rhymes of the youngest children. They come from very ancient oral traditions whose memory we have lost and only traces of them remain in everything we think is silly, childish, and for which we never ask why.
I. threw several pillows on the floor along with the mattress trying to create a soft barrier where he could fall without hurting himself.
He took a deep breath and began to whirl uncontrollably, shaking himself from head to toe, turning over and over convulsively. In his right hand he clutched a stone; it would serve as his anchor.
Quickly the world around him became more and more schizophrenic, the limits of things blurred into each other, colors blended brilliantly without losing their character, and space and form cracked into dreamlike malleability. It was time not to give up and push the body even more fiercely beyond its limits.
He began to make senseless sounds.
He fell to the floor. He hit the floor with his head right in one of the spaces carved out between pillows. It was a complete blackout.
The grip of his hand loosened, letting the stone slide slightly.
He found himself in an almost empty space; it seemed to him that he had a 360-degree view. He was hiding something in his right hand. He opened his hand.
" It is a seven-sided die with unexplained symbols. I am no longer in the everyday world," he realized he was in a trans state and became aware that he was in a dream space, "the anchor worked; I'd better hold on to it, tightly." In those non-places, the danger of losing one's attention and falling into a deep sleep is just around the corner; that's what the anchor is for. To constantly remind oneself.
"What did I come here to do? I forgot the purpose" it often happens that we lose so much information during these transitions both outgoing and incoming. We are always traveling in worlds, but the very difficult thing is to be bridged by them.
Fortunately, he was met by his guide animal. At that time it was a tiger. After the first few encounters she had become very gentle and affectionate. The first few times, however, it did nothing but roar at him, showing its saber teeth in defiance. She was heartbroken that I. had denied her more violent and feral side for so long. Now, however, they got along very well.
And he dedicated a poem to her:
Dances the tiger
under the starry sky
the pines
and the enchanted forest
crushes the limbs
Of the imagined man.
In the world below
every fair
in the midst shows itself
silent master
and reveals
dormant fiercenesses
in lukewarm spirits
and in the gaze cries out
attack life
He jumped on her back, felt her soft, flowing fur between his thighs and allowed himself to be cradled in that endless hair of yellow-orange silk. He lay belly-down on her back and vigorously squeezed that being's neck without being able to close the circumference of her arms. She almost lost herself in its fur. A wide-open throttle ride on a Ducati Monster down a straight stretch of a highway, by comparison was being a child again and being cradled in Mom's arms and soft breasts.
The tiger leaped, but never touched the ground again. He didn't give a damn about Newtonian limits. He began to fly. In no time (I. had made a habit of it) the space all around became indigo-colored with all the bright filaments turning on and off. They were very rapid journeys lasting half a blink of an eye that would take him to the place designated by his guide.
He placed his feet on a very hot almost scalding sand, to the left was a sea barely touched by the wind, which rippled its surface creating shapes and patterns. From a distance they were geometric floral shapes, but the more his gaze peered into them, the more asymmetrical, messy and chaotic they became until they disappeared altogether.
To the right of the ruins. White columns. They had the flavor of Greece.
An " A- ah" went through his head. At last he remembered everything. He went back to look at his still now had turned into a yellow " Smile."
" I am here to meet a deity..."
Dirty, lumpy feet appeared. All crooked and protected by an unimaginable bark of calluses. They were definitely feet of a great walker. They had imprinted in the flesh, in every scratch, wrinkle, stain, ridge of bone and deformity, the description of a mythical journey.
They had traveled the length and breadth of the world.
A white tunic left their faces and ankles uncovered. It was made of a very thick cotton, that of sacks. Creased and grimy.
The hands as big as two palanquins.
And the face that I. will never forget for the rest of his life.
The face of Madness.
It might have looked like a pitocco if not for the fact that it gave off such a strong radiance that made it annoying to the eye. Almost as if it were a sun of madness. From which one had to shield his eyes with his hand.
And behind that deity could be glimpsed a retinue of the most freakish possible. Animals, beasts, monsters, dwarves, lame, mythical beasts, deformed, insects, fat, rolling women and men. Full, clowns , satyrs, idiots, skinny, upwardly slender musicians. Naked and hairy women.
A jumble of grimaces, ugliness and nonsense.
It was in front of Dionysus.
The tiger went and crouched at the god's feet.
I. brimming with iubris, not letting the opportunity pass him by:
"What is art Dionysus?"
She stared at him too long into those indescribable eyes.
"ahahahahhahahahahahhahahahahahahaahahahahah"
The god burst into laughter so thunderous and guttural that it contained within itself the sounds of the entrails of the earth.
I. burst out laughing.
And from then on he never stopped.
The madness had blinded him forever.
They drank and feasted and joined in orgies, he the god and his retinue.
He came back breathless and all sweaty in his room.
He had a stone in his hand.
A stabbing pain split his head. He did not understand what had happened and could not remember anything.
But he could not stop laughing.