The Drunkard
Chnue
©
By noon everyday
Chnue was drunk. He would stagger to the walls of the adobe houses and paint
the most beautiful pictures. The paint that Chnue used was made from the elements
found in various berries, tree bark, flowers and parts of animals, in general,
the things of life and death. At times some of his tears and blood would fall
into the pigment when his hands became raw and bruised from the grinding of
the elements. Fire and the night dew were used to soften and blend the paints.
What made the paint special was Chnue's ability to use things like the parts
of attitudes in different degrees to create a pallet equal to the evening
sunset. He would paint even when it got dark and he could not see. He painted
till he was exhausted and fell asleep. The people of the Village would carry
Chnue to his bed. In the morning Chnue would awake refreshed, eat and look
with absolute wonder at what he had done the night before. Chnue had no memory
of any of it. At first Chnue thought the people in the Village were having
fun and fooling him into thinking he had done those beautiful pictures. He
had to believe, when the Chief said it was true. Sober any child in the Village
could draw an paint better than Chnue.
Now, I said Chnue
was a drunk, this is true but it was more involved and I must explain. There
was no liquor in the the Village, nor did any of the people in the Village
have any knowledge of fermentation. They may have had such knowledge in the
past but the art had been lost for centuries. The business with Chnue always
started the same way. Chnue would look at the painting and think they were
so beautiful and more to the point, interesting in what they portrayed. Each
painting gave knowledge to the Village about how to improve some aspect of
their life. In the end what took complete possession of Chnue was how he had
created the work, all else was secondary. When the desire in Chnue became
an overpowering passion , in one magical moment he found himself at the table
of Creation.
At the table of
Creation, Chnue feasted and drank the most precious of wines. The best wine
however was always the one Chnue had brought to the table. The wine of the
"Passion to Know." It was from this wine Chnue and Creation drank.
Upon the drinking of the wine, Chnue and Creation became one. The wine and
the power of Creation were too powerful for the mere mortal Chnue and brought
about his destruction. Creation who always loved good wine and was always
more that a bit drunk found something in Chnue's wine irresistible. Try as
he would he could not recreate the wine. In Creations blind efforts the best
he could do was recreate Chnue. Unknown to Chnue and the Village was Chnue's
creation of the wine "Passion to Know." and the never ending cycle
of the fermentation of desire into passion and Creation into man.
