Chapter 8 - Sober (Scholar)

I think I must have been drunk. Ah, but there is a falsehood. I know I was drunk, inescapably intoxicated. But such was my life: a studious professor and scholar by day, a blundering, drunken cad by night. And what of it? There is none in my acquaintance who has not been thrown into delightful debauchery on a regular basis. There is no pleasure in a perfect life unless you can have an imperfect one to indulge in as a hobby.
But regardless, I was very drunk. I had no inclination as to where my shirt and shoes were. Perhaps I had gambled them away. I stood, if you could call my wavering stance standing, beneath one of the torches that brightened the performers' stage. Not many remain there after the entertainment ends, but I was too drunk and had become cocky enough to believe myself appealing to the many dancers that enchanted the crowd night after night. I reeled unsteadily, conscious of people on the black stage, but uncaring. The only one I really noticed wad the lone woman. She was not in the costume or garb of a dancer- but she moved like she could fly. As if she could fly better than a swallow. Even in my slow stupor I was struck by her apparent grace and fluid movement.
A thick drum beat made me jump and I cursed as I lost my footing, landing heavily on my hip. They drums continued on keeping time with the beat in my temple. God, my head ached. My attempts to rise again were interrupted by a string of notes from some other instrument. It was beautiful, but annoying. I was drunk and everything that make me think was annoying. This enchanting music made me think, but I tried to push it back in order to prop myself up again. I concentrated on planting my feet as firmly as I could on the ground and then pulling myself up by the pole of the torch. My head swirled with the dust, the music, and the alcohol. I cursed again. Another sound wrapped itself in my head, or in the music, I couldn't differentiate the two. This new sound made me raise my head. In the center of the stage danced the girl that could fly. At least, I'm almost positive she was dancing, but I had never seen, heard, or felt anything like that one moment. I am not sure what happened. The unearthly music, the dancing girl - together it flew to my head and knocked something loose. In less than a moment I was sober. As a sober as sober can get. I saw myself. I saw my bare dirty chest and feet and I was repulsed by It. Whatever It was. I turned and retched. My body had experienced something unhuman and it shuddered and quivered in it's rapid attempt to rid itself of that sick, twisted part of myself. It recoiled at its very being because it could not match up to the beauty before it.
I raised my head once more. Because, although the supernatural tearing of my soul had wounded me beyond anything I had ever know, although it had rent me into two and I was raw with newborn separation, it was the most gorgeous, glorious feeling that has existence. At that moment in time, I doubted heaven. Nothing could become better than this performance, it was higher than perfection, better than holy. It was after this revelation that I felt my limbs go weak - this time not from intoxication, but from pure pain of the beauty all around me. I fell to the ground and drifted off into an intense black sleep.

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