Author’s Note:
When you think about red wine, you imagine blood and the deep and dark tragedy it can bring, so of course I had to incorporate that into my stories. However, it is important to also consider the origin of red wine, a red grape. I explore this idea in “The Journey Through My Change in Form” and continue that story throughout the rest of the chapters. In “A Small Happy Moment You Can Die Thinking About,” one half of the grape that became wine experiences seeing happiness but doesn’t experience it for itself. This half of the grape is younger, opinionated, and yet weak to love. The other half of the grape is fermented for decades, gaining no knowledge, only anger. In their story that half of the grape does not mention their other half, they forget they are “Only One Half of the Story.” All of these stories are tied together with the purpose of raising your adrenaline levels, so high to the point where you cannot drive, since the only way to truly visualize reality is through the eyes of a grape. In contrast, the last chapter is different, in which the old and hateful half of the grape shows you, the reader, what its blood can do to you. But it’s not the grape’s fault; it is you who chose to drink it and you who brought the tragedy to everyone around you. All because you couldn’t tell “The Distinct Difference Between the Taste of Wine and Blood.”
The Journey Through My Change in Form
I awoke. The sun was bright, as bright as something I had never seen before, as I had just been born. At first, I was fascinated by… this, whatever it’s called that I was doing. Maybe living. But I came to realize that it’s an endless repetition, day to night, sunrise to sunset.
However, my life soon changed forever. One day I was hanging, as usual, and suddenly, Ouch! Someone had plucked me from Mother Figure! I was taken to a place far away from home, somewhere dark and cold. They tortured me! Drowned me and my fellow prisoners, placed us on the chopping block and then, it all went black.
I awoke again, I awoke again, I awoke again. I was scattered inside a ginormous cylinder with everyone else. My body to the left, my mind to the right, and my soul sank to the bottom. I know I thought that my life was boring, but that didn’t mean that I wanted it to end. We floated for days, months, or years, I don’t really know time. All I know is that I stopped counting after I stopped believing that I would see the light again. However, that wasn’t the only turning point in my life. They eventually let us out of the container. As soon as we were let out, we had to say goodbye to some of our comrades, as well as parts of our own selves. After much movement between different containers, losing more and more friends, I was poured into a glass bottle. It was wide with a thin stem at the top. I could see myself and my friends through the glass in the other bottles surrounding us. Suddenly we were shaking, and then smoothly gliding, like when I was free, on a windy day.
A Small Happy Moment You Can Die Thinking About
We start shaking, it ends with a thud. I assume we are halfway around the world because as we moved I felt the bond with my other half weaken. When we stop moving, my mind begins to drift and I fall asleep. Bright lights and loud music wake me up. The world is so colorful, I think, so colorful that the people living in it have probably never thought about how dark it is what they did to us. Someone places our bottle on a table.
From where we’re floating, I guess, we can see people dancing, chatting, and drinking. They all look happy, careless, like how we used to be. I wonder how my other half is doing. We’re poured out from the bottle into cups, an even measure in each one. We look at each other and wave by swaying in our cups, saying goodbye. A person picks us up and we start to sway uncontrollably, it is the person who is in control.
Someone with short hair picks up two cups of us and hands one of us to another person with long hair. They swirl us around like it’s a game, a joke. I hate them, or I at least want to. But they are genuinely oblivious to how they hurt us. The couple laughs, smiles, and gazes in each other’s eyes. I sink, I forget, and I begin to smile as well. Just then the long haired person raises the glass we’re in and pours us into a deep, dark hole. Deep and dark like the place my other self and I were kept in. Suddenly, it gets hot, boiling hot. We scream and try to swim towards each other. However, it’s of no use. I watch my friends drown and dissolve. But I stay calm. I close my eyes and remember the few seconds of happiness I had while watching that couple. I hope they have a better ending than I will. I hope my other half won’t have to experience something like this, a death so cruel you have to dig for a small happy moment you can die thinking about.
Only One Half of the Story
After we landed, I was put in another dark room for a long time, aging. Looking back, I feel like I was supposed to gain knowledge about life, become wise and ready to tell my tale. But I didn’t learn anything there, just what it’s like to sit still, and think about everything when you know nothing. My imagination ran wild. At some point, I didn’t know if I was still imagining in my mind or if I had finally reached insanity and actually thought the things that I saw were real. One especially room temperature day, we were taken out of storage and sent to a fortress with a sign that said “Safeway.” Normally I would have found that ironic, but I honestly hadn’t felt safe in so long that I had let go of any sense of security a long time ago. We were placed in an aisle, and lights from the ceiling bounced off us illuminating our deep maroon color. When I looked around, I could see thousands of other grapes, condensed into a smooth liquid, oblivious to what awaited them, though what we’d been through already wasn’t that great either. People would walk by, examining us, judging us for who would be their next victim. One day when the lights were flickering, a young woman picked up the bottle we were in and took us home. As we drove there, I observed that she was shaking and her eyes were blinking and twitching a bit. She looked crazy. Somehow I got the feeling that the girl was going to do something to us, little did I know that we would be the reason why she does something horrific. The next day, a few of us woke up on her tongue, along with another flavor. It reminded me of the dark room all those years ago, a metallic taste. Some of us were curious what it could be but I didn’t half to wonder, I could smell the fragrance of death in the air. Something even darker and deeper than red wine.
The Distinct Difference Between the Taste of Wine and Blood
It was only one glass. A glass of red wine. No more than five ounces, and there was barely any alcohol in it. You’d kept control for 5 months now, and one glass wasn’t going to break you. You’re with your friends, hanging out on your balcony. You take one sip and notice the concerned look on your friends’ faces. You tell them it’s fine and that you only plan to drink one glass. As the night goes on, the sky gets darker and the moon rises high above the streetlights. You reach for your cup and everything goes black. Suddenly there’s crashing and screaming. But you didn’t hear it, you didn’t see it, you weren’t there. You awaken to a shining lamp, blinding your eyes. The sun. First you remember who you are and then where you are. Your senses kick in. Inside your mouth you taste the red wine from last night, but there’s another taste, copper. You open your eyes wide and you finally see. You see your friends, covered in red wine and their own blood. What did you do?
