3. Pseudo-Blood
— Parasomnia —
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E X S A N G U I N A T E D
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❈
La Perle d’Aquitaine
Bordeaux
Though a pearl among cities, I did not see much of it. Continuing the metaphorical theme, Bordeaux, called also the Sleeping Beauty, would be a metaphor for that time following birth which we do not remember, the post-larva pupa but no butterfly-period.
Me and my fellows, pupa and pups, went to a restaurant for grown-up pupas and pups, drank Sangria, which would perhaps not have been the choice of a grand tourist.
- For, firstly, sangria is Iberian, not French.
Bordeaux is in France, if close still safely on the non-Iberian side of the Pyrenees.
- For, secondly, Bordeaux is, well, Bordeaux.
As in Bordeaux. As Bordeaux was the place we were visiting. To go to a place without visiting it, without getting to know it, is nothing. Only in Bordeaux could Bordeaux be consumed in context, related to context, understood in context.
The terroir of Bordeaux sensed while surrounded by the Bordeaux qua territory can not be had elsewhere. A beauty lost on the pups and me, I have to confess. A Bordeaux cast before swine.
- For, thirdly, a wine named after the color of blood — sanguis — is not a good omen.
The pups got all sanguine with the sangria, the pupa less sanguine, however. That pupas are carnivores is well known, they will not be hurt by a drop of blood or two in their meal, but butterflies-to-be are not, and red wine never agreed with me. On anything.
Among wines the sparkly one filled with stars would be, will be, is my first and always fireworks love. Still, to have a first love — not yet discovered by the young one — is no excuse for not kissing the hostess hand. And in Aquitaine of all places. No wonder I was struck with terror, for that I was. As the twins got ruddy and vibrant, I turned a whiter shade of pale, started feeling kind of seasick. Pale as a pearl.
I lived to tell the tale, even lived to learn, but I did not immediately learn.
- Today I know that though I may be no butterfly, I am also no wolf.
- My mother was Leda, who loved God.
- I was born from an egg.
Perhaps I am a chicken?
Well, assuming the egg precedes the chicken, not universally agreed upon at all. Those of us who are neither mortal, nor immortal, the chicken or egg-mortals, we may perhaps be pseudo-mortal, knock-knock-knocking on Heaven’s door?
