THE DEER GODESS

 I always had my redlines concerning drugs. I don't like the whole concept behind them because, contrary to some people, I don't want to get loose. I want to be rational, sharp, fit, aware. But Aleksandra, by means of either sheer charm or polish witchcraft, convinced me to do drugs. I hesitated and accepted reluctantly, more because of her than because of the drugs themselves. We promissed to take them together one night, summer of 2021 -- the day I defended my doctoral dissertation and became a Philosophiae Doctor. Pacta sunt servanda, and 26th february of 2022, she showed me the extasi she had gotten for us. She told me many things about the chemistry, things she was indeed very much knowledgeable of. I listened indifferent. She did something though. She hugged me right after we took the pills, and asked me to remember that feeling, because that would be kind of my mood or my feeling throughout the whole experience. Our bodies remained together some seconds, our cheeks were tight together and so were our chests and hips. Could that drug make the impossible? Could extasi capture lightning in a bottle? Could make my mind enjoy for once, and not just have a glimpse of pleasure amidst my train of well organaised rational thoughts? I didn't want her out of my arms, and wanted to remain there, but we had to go to the techno party. I was thinking so many things when she hugged me that I didn't have time to just enjoy feeling her body so close to mine. It was not fair.

The pills use to take 30 minutes to make some effect on your body. I kept the count: 25' to landing. We were getting in the car. 15' to landing. We gazed at the city from the car, already late at night, almost midnight. 5' minutes to landing. We leave our jackets and personal effects at the reception and there, finally, I met her: The Deer Godess. The huge hall had large central stairs leading up to a floor from which you could go, right or left, to the main dancing hall. In the middle of this floor there was a large sculpture: a woman, with a tight, sexy black dress, was sitting or rather leaning on the base, but her head was that of a deer, a huge male deer with glorious horns. It was ambiguous, dionysian, primitive. We went up the dancing area along with a nice and cute silesian girl eager to partake in this archaic ritual.

Aleksandra asked me whether I was feeling anything unsual or not. I told her I wasn't, which was true: I was expecting a different feeling maybe, or was my body strong enough as to beat the drug? All the people around me were dancing. I, on the other hand, was static. It was going to be a long night and the drugs were nowhere to be noticed. Aleksandra and the silesian girl were already moving along the techno music, operated by some distant DJ hidden among the legions of Dionysus, quite likely high themselves. I yielded my body to the Deer Godess, my mind being still fully in my possession. I must recogize that, although clumsy in the begining, I improved quickly, meeting the demands of the jealous pagan deities. Techno music helps: it is like a blunt weapon so basic and barbaric, that drags you back to the caves were first homo sapiens were painting visons, deers and horses under the dim light of torches and candles. My muscles felt great, like never before, and the music reminded my of the Mortal Kombat theme song. Maybe it was not the Deer Godess the one destined for me that night after all, but a less mystical deity, fiercer and more destructive, and somehow, more innocent to my eyes than the ancient Dionysos. I starting jumping like we jump in boxing while fighting, keeping a defensive stance and raising my guard, moving my arms freely. The praying mantis, an old jung-fu technique that I had been practicing for some time, came to my muscles so naturally that I barely had to conciously move. How much did I dance until I was first interrupted I don't know.

Aleksandra took my hand and we went outside the dancing floor, where a man filling balloons with nitro was providing his customers diligently. Aleksandra asked for a couple of balloons and we sat on a sofa near the stairs. Sweaty and ecstatic, she showed me how ballons are to be breathed in. We did it together. I felt the dizzy the first time, but she had a huge smile on her face, beautiful and divine. I didn't care much about the effects of the balloons really. We smiled at eachother and held hands, breathing in for the second time. This time, I must admit, it was different. I closed my eyes, and opened my mouth. A fire within me made his way through my throat and I felt like God-zilla, I had to let all that energy out, I had to let all the fire out. I rested my head on Aleksandra's shoulders and she started caressing my neck, my face. We then stared at eachother and gently kissed. Just our lips touching, no toungue, it didn't even seemed sexual at the time. Look ale, she said, look at the lights, it's beautiful, I can see the particles all over the lamps. I stared at the light as well, but the lights were silent to me. No big revelation for me. But dear God, I wanted to see so much. If we could just shared this deep experience, if the gods would just talk to me. If I could just meet Aleksandra beyond space and time in realm wherein her bones are my bones and my blood is hers. If she could just touch something beyond my body. But the everything was silent. The music was silent, the red lights were silent. I was there for Aleksandra and on her account only, because I really wanted to get closer to her world, and in that I succeeded. Her skin, her smile, her eyes... For me it was only us.

We returned to the dancing floor and we danced, stopping at times for more balloons (none of them, by the way, had the same effect as the first one, as if a spell was somehow broken by the unmasking of the unbeliever). At times Aleksandra and I would stare at eachother and move together, synchronized. We would hold hands, raise them together up, wave along the music. Our bodies would join in a single motion, light and happy. I can see my synapsis ale, I can see the lights. She would tell me, amidst the effect of some cathartic revelation that must have slipped through my fingers. I definitely could not see my synapsis. But I had my arms around her waist, and her hands would join my arms, encouraging them to hold her tighter. I did not care much about the synapsis, nor the particles, nor the Deer Godess, nor the dancing. I came to that dionysiac ritual out of love for Aleksandra, whose prophecy somehow was fulfilled: just after we took the pills we had hugged. I remember the emotion, even now, days after. I guess I had all I expected and really wanted (lightning in a bottle). And yet somehow I felt excluded from the ritual, wherein I couln't really partake. I felt like a witness. Maybe I spoiled a ritual meant for true believers, not skeptics looking desperately for some sign of upper realms. The love I experienced was all too human: rich, fulfilling and imperfect, and I'll have to keep sticking to insufficient evidence.