A Spell On Deipnon
With the celebration taking place close to Christmas Eve, Adam sets out to make an offering to The Goddess.
Adam started preparations a day in advance, while listening to “If You Love Me - Melody Gardot“.
He sat at his small table in front of his crystals and tried to figure out a way of making an appropriate offering.
He pulled some cards, he spoke to all his crystals, did his research on ChatGPT, and eventually reached a solution.
He had been advised to clean his home, and pay special attention to the floors and doors, a task that was often not so easily done. He would sometimes get dizzy performing such trivial actions and it seemed like almost every object in his house had something to say that day.
The ritual they decided to perform was the launch of a lantern and ethic disposal of any waste.
Before starting, he was invited to pull a card from a random advice deck that a friend had gifted him.
The card read,
The horoscope said, “Nothing can ruin your day”, The Universe Approves.
He could sense the card was charged, he could feel it through his fingers. Since it sounded like good news, he started his work with a smile. As he began making his way through the house, his statuette of a Cat had something to say,
“When cleaning you should always start from the top.“
He checked the entire house for spiderwebs, this time there were none. Then he started dusting off all of his furniture and the tables, patiently taking each object one by one and placing them in their temporary positions. As he cleaned his mirror, he could hear a part of himself make an incantation,
“May you deflect anything that tries to harm me or acts against my highest good.“
Cleaning his large desk,
“May you keep only that which is good useful, tasteful and never spiteful.“
When passing by his coffee table, his green crystal whispered.
“You need a break.”
”Today it’s best to use salt when cleaning your tables.“, the white crystal chimed in.
In fear of forgetting, he rushed to inspect a small salt jar he had brought from a mine in the Czech Republic a few months back. Looking at it, he asked himself,
“Is this the right salt?“
With the question barely stated, his hand pulled up on the string of the miniature bottle’s quirk and the multicolored salt jar dropped and spread salt across his entire floor.
“Yep, you should use it on the floor as well.“, the salt answered back.
While cleaning the doors an entire conversation took place about how to suitably celebrate the occasion. Eventually reaching the conclusion that he should take his lantern to the park and launch it from a spot that was far enough away from anything that might catch fire. It was cold, wet and seemed unlikely to succeed. That somehow made him feel more inclined to do it, the thought of burning someone’s house down, was a little worrisome. Somewhat perplexed that the spot wasn’t an intersection this time, Adam agreed it was worth trying.
As he salted and cleaned his table and floor, he heard,
”A libation would be appropriate.”
”What’s that?”
There was comfort in them using words he didn’t know, a confirmation of a genuine conversation. After googling it, he realized he knew the gesture, but never before thought of what it was called.
It was hard work, but he was all smiles. The card’s spell was already doing it’s part.
When the time came for him to go, he realized his bottle of wine had already been opened. It was an unexpected gift from someone he liked, so he thought, it had to be that one that he brings. He had a good transport quirk, so he bottled it up as tight as he could, packed up all his things in a backpack and started for the park.
Walking towards it, his feet took the weird turn.
”Why not”, he thought, deciding to take the path less trodden. He figured it would make everything more special that way.
As he walked with thoughts of the lantern on his mind, he missed the first park entrance, and then the second.
Only when he was one kilometer too far in each directions did he realize there was little time before he had to be elsewhere. He needed to handle transport in a better way.
Opening his Bolt app, he got a warning,
”I would advise against using this app today.”
Still in a good mood, he thought.
”How bad could it be?”
”Nothing too bad.”, he heard his guide say.
At least when calling the car, he also found a great place to launch the lantern, far from any fire hazards.
After a few minutes in the car, the smell of red wine started making it’s presence known.
“No drinking in the car please.“ The driver said.
Adam reached for his bag with a start, just then realizing the smell that was right under his nose. With a start he discovered the bag was soaking wet.
”I’m very sorry, my bottle is leaking, please stop somewhere so I can shake it off your carpet.”, he said, his face flushed.
He gave the driver no opportunity to continue his complaints. Seeing the red light, Adam jumped out of the car, getting his bag out as soon as he could, then quickly took out the carpet for a good shake.
It was 9’oclock and the traffic low.
But somehow, all of the cars in town seemed to gather up behind his taxi,
The other lane,
Blocked by something else.
When the green light came,
The entire intersection was there to witness him desperately shaking off the wine.
There were honks and harsh words,
From a very angry crowd.
He quickly placed the carpet back into the car, apologized one more time and began to make his way into the park on foot. The line of cars stuck at their second red light berating him on his relatively short walk of shame.
“Could have happened to anyone… He thought laughing at his own misfortune.“
Since his ride was cut short, he had to walk through the wrong side of the park trying to find a good place to launch. Once found, he sifted through his wet bag to discover the bottle still had a little wine left.
Delighted by the chance to perform his little libation, he thought.
“I hope you won’t think less of me for this. But here I am, not giving up.“
He took a sip of the wine and started laughing by himself, he could almost feel Her amusement in the air.
He poured the last sip on the ground thinking,
”To a great Deipnon, I hope my efforts count for something.”
Getting ready for the next step, he realized,
“The lighter’s most likely wet. I hope I’m lucky.”
This time he was, the lighter worked, there was still hope. But, when trying to light his lantern in the moist winter air, the fire was too low for liftoff.
He looked at the sky in a moment of exasperation,
“At least now I know that this a two person job.“
Laughing again, he realized his lantern had at least reached full size, and he noticed the lovely heart shape that it had.
“I guess you could see this as romantic in a way.“ he caught her words through the soft wind.
He took some time to enjoy the moment, something he seldom had the chance to do.
Once the moment was finished, for fear that the lantern could burn up, he stomped out the fire and began to dispose of the waste. He threw the lantern, the wine bottle and the wet bag.
He had brought a small wine glass with him as well. Not knowing what to do with it now that he had nowhere to put it, he paused looking at it and began remembering the Greek tradition of breaking plates to remove bad luck.
“After the scene in the intersection, I suppose you could say some bad luck was involved.“ he thought.
His solution was to to try breaking the glass so that the shards would fall in the garbage bin. He smacked the glass against the bin three times.
It refused to break.
Looking at the ground, the first thought in his mind was,
“I’m still going for ethical disposal, I won’t be breaking it on the pavement.“
Again he started laughing. And simply threw the glass in the bin, wishing for his luck to improve.
Making his way out of the park, he started to put two and two together.
”I couldn’t even break the glass.”
”Why do I keep laughing?”, was his question.
”It’s because of the spell on the card, isn’t it?”, was his conclusion.
“Yep, I hope you enjoy the rest of the day, that was your ritual this time around.“, She intervened once again.
Laughing once more,
”I suppose nothing could ruin it so far. I would call it a good one. I’m keeping that card active for a while longer, a good laugh is hard to come by.”