Paradise Lot: Interludes (Dionysus's Story)

Chapter 6 - The Mother of All Parties

I woke to see Dionysus leaning over my chest, a straw sticking out of the hole Tamter had made. Dionysus was—far too literally for comfort—sucking the poison out of my chest. "Ow," I said.

The god looked up from the straw and smiled, "Mortal—you're awake!"

"I am," I said, trying to sit up. My chest still burned with the holy blue flames of Tartarus, but at least my body wasn't stiff anymore. I moved my arms.

"What ... what happened?"

Penemue put a hand on my shoulder, "It seems your little trick worked."

"Indeed," Dionysus clapped. "You caused the vile thing to lose concentration, which freed me. Then it ran." He snapped his fingers and pointed across the street where half a nasnas body was tied to a store front grating, "At least half of it ran."

"I see. Will that hold it?"

"For as long as I breathe," Dionysus confirmed.

"Don't you mean for as long as all of us breathe?" I said.

"Oh that," he gave me a dismissive gesture. "That was just a joke. You know—the whole party like the world is going to end and all that malarkey. It was just hype. Besides the angel gave me a reason not to end Paradise Lot's miserable existence."

"He did?"

"Yes," Dionysus said. "Seems he wouldn't mind for it all to end—for him. But what he couldn't stand for was watching his friends die. And based on how valiantly you fought for the angel, I suspect the same holds true for you."

"Yes, that is true for me, too," I met Penemue's gaze with a smile.

"So the world continues because friendship does not allow it to end," Dionysus helped me up. "Come. The night is still young and there is much celebration to be had. It is, after all, my last party."

"Your last? So you're still going through with it."

"Human Jean-Luc ..." he looked around the streets of Paradise Lot. "What life can I have here? You saw what happened today. Olympus has many, many enemies. And let us not forget all those who want to know where the gods went? That is knowledge I do not have ...

"No, this will happen again and again, and the alternative is to hide in obscurity. That is a life I cannot abide. I am the once-upon-a-time god of wine and excess, of celebration and joy. Tonight shall be my tribute. Let me die as I lived. Throwing the biggest party this world or any other has ever seen."

A lost, now-mortal god wanted to die, and who was I to stand in the way. I nodded, "No one gets hurt."

He smiled. "No, human Jean-Luc. No one gets hurt." Then raising his hands in the air in triumphant, he wore the smile of a one who did not dwell in the past nor worry about the future. Dionysus only lived for the moment.

The god dipped once again into the divine-depth wells of time and burned it. All of it.

Lights danced across the night sky as music played throughout the street. I heard old ballads my PopPop used to play when I was a kid. Dream a Little Dream of Me, Summertime, Dancing Cheek to Cheek. The music Bella and I would play when we cooked in the little kitchen of the One Spire Hotel all those years ago. Those were happy days.

Penemue swayed to a rhythm that did not complement the songs I heard and I realized that he was not hearing to the same music I heard. He heard something personal to him. Heavenly hymns, I guessed, but did not ask. He looked so happy and the last thing I wanted to do was break his spell.

So this was what happened when gods die...

Fireworks shot up, bursting not in one spot in the sky, but all round. "Wait a minute," Penemue said, "I know a place—" and then taking us up in his arms, he took to the sky and flew to the top of the Millennium Hotel where we could watch over the celebrations in Paradise Lot, unhindered and together, three beings on top of the world.

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That night dwarves danced to the beat of heavy base as fairies swayed to the harmony of lutes. Pixies buzzed and centaurs galloped. Giants pounded and yetis lumbered. Each swaying—quite literally—to the beat of their own drums. And no one fought, no one bickered. No one hated.

What I saw that night is what Bella believed Heaven to be ... and what a heavenly night it was.

I looked over at Dionysus who guided the party like a conductor does an orchestra and seeing him sway, I knew that the world was never under threat of ending. Not really. This was just a being in pain, crying for help. And what's more—Dionysus had finally accepted what was true of everyone ... he was going to die. But death for Dionysus was never meant to be the gradual fade away like it is for so many of us. He was a god and he wanted to cease his existence the way he lived his life—with a bang, surrounded with joy and laughter.

That night was his eulogy and as the celebration marched on into the wee hours of the morning, it seemed—for a little while at least—that the party would last forever.

But eventually, the night was chased away with the breaking dawn. As the sky began to fill with first light, Dionysus pulled out his iridescent green bottle from his overcoat and said, "One more for the road?"

"For the road," Penemue agreed.

Dionysus, who looked like a very old man instead of the youthful but impossibly fat fellow he was only hours before, burned a bit more time to create three glasses out of thin air. He poured from his bottle and handed us a full tumbler. "Ambrosia—bottled at the dawn of time." He raised his glass in salutations. "To the end."

"To the end," Penemue and I echoed.

And with that last drink the sounds of celebration filled the air—songs of joy welcoming the morning.

Dionysus did not so much die as his body was absorbed by the early morning light. He became one with the dawn.

"To the end," I repeated.

This was a good end for the god. A good end for anyone, really. For when our time comes, all we can ever hope for is that we are surrounded by the joy and laughter of those we love.

For my father

1937 to 2004

THE END