The Ultimate Beer Experience

There is a place just south of town. I love going there because it brings in beers from all over the world. Some of them even have so much alcohol that the state would consider them whiskeys but they are beer. I have gotten drunk from bears from Turkey, China and even a beer from Wales that would knock you out cold if you drank more than two of them within a 24 hour period.

One evening me and a friend of mine named Julio went out there to try a new beer that we heard that they just received. All we knew was that it was from Marrakesh Morocco and that it was so much stronger than any other beer in the world...and that we had to try!

When we got there we asked to see that miracle beer. The bartender showed us a little bottle filled with a thick black liquid. We were in shock especially when we found out that a four ounce bottle would cost us $15. Now, I thought that I have paid the price for beer. Sometimes $25 for a 32 ounce bottle when I was in Montreal but never any where near that high in the states...until now.

Julio and I both ordered one but before the bartender would give them to us he handed us a liability waiver to sign. This was something else neither Julio nor I had ever experienced but of course we both signed...we had done a lot of stupid things in our lives. Oftentimes we missed death by a matter of millimeters or seconds but hey...that was our lives. So we whipped out $60 and ordered two of the beers each.

I will tell you the first drink nearly knocked me on my ass, It actually did Julio and he took a good five minutes to get back up on the bar stool. Man, that stuff had a kick to it.

We looked up to where the mirror was...why there is usually a mirror in bars I'll never know...but there was a sign that said, “Only two Moroccan beer sold per person during any one day.” That was a warning but Julio and I took it as a challenge...just as we always did! Our wives, more than once, said that we were little boys in men's bodies. I guess they were right. We had to drink three of them damn drinks.

It took us a while but we managed to finish them and man, we had a buzz on you would not believe unless you experienced it but we weren't drunk enough not to figure out a plan to get a third bottle for each of us.

The plan was that Julio was going to go to the other end of the bar and pick a fight with the biggest guy he could find and when the bartender went down to break it up I would sneak behind the bar and get the beers. It pretty much worked as planned and I did get out of the place with the beers but poor Julio got his ass royally kicked. He was so bad that when we met down the street a few minutes later he was laughing and pouring blood out of his mouth from several teeth being knocked out but that didn't phase him so we went back to my place to finish off those two last beers.

We sat on the couch and I reached over for the bottle opener that I always kept on the table next to the couch. They opened rather easily and we didn't take small drinks this time, we just chugged down every drop we had.

Now, from now on in this story I am telling you what happed to me since Julio disappeared and was found down at the corner of Main and Fifth Streets doing an Irish jig, naked and standing on a mail box. To this day we never did find his clothes.

I just laid back on the couch...at least I thought I did but when I closed my eyes I saw the most amazing place. It was brightly colored with multicolored trees, bright orange grass and birds that glowed and left a trail when they flew by.

I walked down a path that took me past a small stream. Well, at least the water was the same color. I looked and for some reason I was dressed as an Indian. I have no idea why...I am of German/Welsh decent and there has never been an Indian in my family ever. I was wearing a loincloth, a deerskin vest with brightly colored designs and a headband with just one feather. In my hand was a spear with a couple dozen scalps tied to it. A look at my face showed that I was painted up but it was not the Indian paint I always seen on TV. Rather, this paint kinda looked like the kind the amusement park artists paint on a kid's face when they want to look like cat.

“What in the Hell,” I asked even though I did not see anyone around to answer the question. “Where am I,” I yelled as I started moving down a path the seemed to glow a bright iridescent green. Look around that was a strange color since nothing else was green.

I was walking down the path but I noticed that I wasn't moving. The ground, the trees, the bushes and the grass were kinda flowing around me as I moved but I was not going anywhere. Even any animals I scared up were running down the trail but they were not moving anywhere either. Believe me, I wasn't drunk anymore but I sure as hell wished I was.

Down the way I saw what looked like a house. Maybe I could talk to the person who lived there and ask them what was going on. It was a nice looking cottage, kind of like the ones I saw in Lord Of The Rings. It was huge for a cottage. I was thinking if they had an extra bedroom I could crash there for the night but a strange thing happened...the closer I walked toward it the smaller it got until it was no more than three inches tall. There was someone home since I saw smoke coming out of the chimney. I knelt down and used my pinky to knock on the door. I heard some scampering and the door opened.

“Who are you and what do you want,” the little man asked. He was holding a musket which I assumed was loaded. Now, I knew it wouldn't hurt mt me but I was cautious just in case. “I asked who are you and what do you want,” he yelled. I saw that he was getting pissed so I gave him my name and explained that I have no idea what I wanted and that I didn't even know where I was.

“All I know is that I was at home and then I was here,” I said as I was still kneeling. “Can you tell me where I am?”

“How in the Hell would I know where you are,” he yelled as he started pointing the musket at me.

“But you were the first person I have seen since I got here,” I said.

“Well, you got here didn't you,” he asked but before I could answer he continued. “I am sure that you will find your way down the right path.”

“Let me guess...follow the yellow brick road,” I said sarcastically. He didn't laugh or even respond. He just turned and went back into his house. Again I asked out loud...”Where in the Hell am I?” He shouted something in the house but I couldn't make it out so I just found the path again and started walking.

It wasn't far down the path when I noticed that there were two men standing. Blocking the road. I knew from their dress that they were Egyptian guards. “Halt,” the bigger of the two said. “You must be judged.”

“Judged,” I ask.

The smaller of the guards walked over to me and placed his hand on my chest. “Oisirrus told us that you would be coming,” as he reached his hand in my chest he said and pulled my beating heart heart from my chest and held it in the air.

I felt no pain and I was still alive but confused. “What in the...,” I started to ask but I remembered that part of entering the underworld was that you had to pass several tests.

The larger of the two brought out a scale and feather. “The weight of your heart must weight equal to this feather for you to pass,” he said as he set the feather onto the scale. “If you have not lived with honor in your life your heart will be too heavy for the scale.” He took my heart from the other guard and placed it on the scale and then placed the feather on the other side.

I don't know why but I was scared. “What is going on,” I asked as the scale swung back and forth. “I am not dead. My heart is in my chest. I can feel it beating. You are nothing but an illusion.” By now I was screaming my head off but the guards were not listening to me. They were watching the scale. “I do not want to be here.” The scale stopped moving and, yes my heart was heavier than the feather. “That cannot be,” I yelled. “I have never done anything wrong!”

They looked at the scalps and then at the spear I was carrying. “What about those,” one of them asked. “I am sure that you had to kill someone to get those.”

“I never killed anyone,” I yelled. “You can ask anyone who knows me. I am a very peaceful person” By now the fear My feelings had turned to pure panic. I had no idea what these two were going to do or what the punishment was for failing the test.

“You may not pass to the land of those who lived with honor,” they said in unison. “You are condemned...”

“Here it goes,” I said under by breath.

“...to continue on this path so that you may purify your soul and then return to us for judgment,” he said without paying any attention to my mumblings. “You will have one more chance and then your soul will be vanquished to wander the void for all eternity.” They parted and opened the path for me to continue but before I left they grabbed me and shoved my heart back into my chest. I thank them...yes, I am a sarcastic ass...and once again started on my way.

I walked about 10 minutes before I looked at my chest, There was no pain, no wound and no blood. I wasn't far so I turned around and looked. The soldiers was gone and so was the parts of the path I had just walked.

I still hadn't figured out what was going on. Was I dead? I hoped not but I do have to say that if I was this place had some possibilities...if I could find someone who didn't want to kill me or take my soul but now there was a question that I couldn't answer or even take a guess at...what was coming next? “How much of this am I going to have to do,” I asked knowing that I most likely not going to get an answer.

“You have to prove yourself before you can relax,” a voice said from behind me. “At the end of your journey you will learn the truth of life that you must always keep with you.”

I turned and saw what I guessed was an old man standing in front of me wearing a tattered robe with a golden collar and belt and no shoes. He looked like an old hippie I knew when I lived in San Francisco. “Who the hell are you,” I asked.

“You don't remember me,” he asked and he looked like I hurt his feelings. “You passed by my shop everyday for nearly ten years. Everyday I would give you a cup of special tea but you never came in the store so we just talked on the street.”

Oh my God, I thought. That was the old hippie....I knew he looked familiar but I heard he died years ago.

“Remember all those times I told you about the region between life and death,” he asked. I was shaking but not enough to keep me from telling him that I remembered some of it but I really never paid much attention. “This is one of those regions,” he continued. You will meet someone on this journey who will help you find the truth.”

“That isn't you,” I asked.

“No, I am not the one. Just continue down this path and make the right decisions and he will appear,” he said.

One question please....why am..I,” I started to ask but he faded into nothingness before I could finish asking him any more questions. It was then that I looked around...all of the bright colors. The trees, the clouds and everything else was gone. Everything was the same as it was in my normal reality except that it was dark, very dark but I could still see everything.

I stood there for it seemed to be an hour when I looked into a star filled sky. As I watched a large meteor shot across the sky. It was close and bright enough to make enough light so that the night turned into day and the tops of the trees swayed in the breeze as the meteor passed by. The thing I noticed was that it was flying directly over the path I was traveling. A couple of seconds later I saw a bright flash from just over the hill and then the blast wave hit me and send me flying at least twenty feet back down the path I had just covered.

The entire area was burning and the air was filling with a thick black smoke. I could see the heat in the air but I could not feel it and, despite the smoke, I was still able to breathe easily. As I started down the trail again the smoke parted for me and closed again and the closed once I passed. Yeah, it was strange but wherever I was strange seemed to be the norm so I just accepted it.

I got up to the top of the hill and there was a burning crater on the other side. It was big and the heat must have been incredible because most of the rocks as well as the ground was molten. It was bright red with yellow flames shooting into the sky but the path wasn't affected. I stepped between the flames. The ground was bubbling around me and I could feel the boiling just inches beneath my feet. I could smell the sulfur from the liquid but it wasn't making me feel sick and I still had no trouble breathing.

I kept walking. Despite of everything it was more like a walk in the town's square than it was walking through Hell...at least the Hell that all those preacher men always talked about.

As I reached the crest of the crater I was shocked. The inside of the crater was burning more fiercely than anywhere in the area. The flames were no longer the red/yellow I had walked through. They were blue/white and the smoke coming from them wasn't much cooler.

The path led into the crater so I did what I was told...I followed it. I could not believe the damage inside there. I had been to the crater in Arizona but, despite the sheer mass of it, I could never visualize this type of anything ever happening on Earth.

I walked over the final ridge and saw something I never expected to see...a cool spot in the middle of all that fire. There were trees, bushes and everything that had been destroyed when the meteor hit the ground. I walked into the middle and looked around. It was...normal...at least more normal than anything else I had seen or felt for the last two hours.

“Young man, drop your spear,” a figure said as it stepped from the flames. It, rather he, walked from the flames followed by two other men. They were dressed is robes that were actually beyond any description I could ever write but one thing I saw plain as day was that each of the men were wearing Indian war bonnets and they were grander than anything any chief ever wore. Even the feathers which covered the bonnets were fantastic. They were every color in the spectrum but brighter and more vibrant than any colors I had ever seen. It almost looked as if they were granted to those three men but the sun god himself.

I looked at them with a mixture of awe and confusion. “Where did you come from,” I asked.

“We have been with you from the second you were born,” one of them said. “We are your guardian angels sent to protect you and guide you through your life.”

I was even more confused than I was before. “But I am not an Indi...Native American,” I said. “My blood is European.”

“That does not matter,” another of them said. “All being on the planet are children of Mother Earth and are all seen as equal by us. Humans are the same as the lowly slug that crawls through the gardens. Every one of them deserve and receive guidance and protection from us.” I just nodded as he continued. “We have watched as you made mistakes in your life by not listening to that hidden voice in your head such as drinking something that you have no idea what it was made from.

I thought back and remembered that I was told that I could only drink two of them beers but I took a third one. “I am sorry that I did not listen to you,” I said as humility flowed through my veins. Then I asked them a question as I lowered my head. “Am I dead,” I asked. I know that it was blunt but I had to know.

“No, you are not dead,” they said. “This was a warning to you that your life is worth something and that the behavior you take part in does not show the respect that Mother Earth’s creation deserves. We will be watching you from now on. When you see a hawk circling above it will be us. When you see a sparrow looking for seeds that will be us and when you see a cat sitting on a window sill that will be us so remember what we have said on this day and you will be allowed to live a full life.

I swore right then and there that I would change and they must have believed me because there was a flash of light and I found myself awake and standing up. The problem was I was naked in the middle of Times Square having my arms pulled behind and handcuffs locked so I couldn't move I was arrested for public nudity and fined $300 which I happily paid so I was released.

I have straightened my life out....somewhat. I still chase women and I do still drink beer but now I never try anything I have never heard of. My main drink now is good old Coors and maybe a Jack and Coke once in a while but no matter what I remember what I was told...that I was being watched and protected by everything on Earth and that kept me going through the next 50 years.