Requiem for a cocktail

Today, we gather to remember the cocktail.

 

 

She had a short life.  Brevity, however, did not steal her desire to make fate play by the rules.

 

Her life started far away, as a tiny seed, solitary and serene, basking in warm rain showers and glimpses of sun.

 

Plucked from the vine at just the right time, she was whisked away to a destiny yet to be announced to her.

 

In a cavernous distillery, full of metal and steam and heat and machine, she arrived only to be created into something else.

 

She sat quiet with her brethren, looking on, almost completely inaudible except for the occasional resettling.

 

Then her day came.  She could not explain what happened, really, but it was as if her essence were being changed, as if she was being manipulated over time into something that she was originally not.

 

 

After suns and moons had travelled many times over, what was left of her - the excellent, the good, the essence of the tiny pure seed she had started to be - was bottled, labeled, sealed, stamped, boxed, and shipped.

 

She arrived in yet another strange land, this time looking through thick glass at the world around her She was ripped from her carton and flung on a metal shelf painted white  An old woman with a thickly creased face put a small marking on her glass, which inconveniently blocked the view of a row of beautiful blue bottles filled with pinot grigio.

 

She was taken home by a stranger in short order.  He jostled her about, put her in a paper bag and tossed her in the trunk of a car that smelt of spare-tire rubber and sand.

 

Getting used to sitting for long periods of time staring at darkness was nothing new, after the distillery experience.  So she was just a bit surprised when not too many days later, she was snatched from the trunk and heartily shoved into the hands of another stranger.  That wasn't all so uncomfortable, as she was beginning to find contentedness in the company of strangers.  What was uncomfortable was the leers, the hands, the passing around, the fondling of her beautiful gold-edged label and red metal seal.

 

Rather suddenly, her world turned upside down once again.  As her new home was torn apart, she first panicked, and then realized that she was meant to leave the glass prison.  She breathed a sigh of relief, and the sweet aroma from her lips brought a cheer from the mates looking at her from the outside in.

 

She was falling then, splashing amongst cold mountains of ice, crashing against smooth sides of glass, mingling and dancing with others just like her.

 

Finally free, finally ready to go home, she became one with her final place in life. 

 

 

As ruby lips sparkling with anticipation and desire met her cool, moist touch, she knew she had finally met her destiny.