Poisons

"It's all the same," said no distillery Tour manager ever, except Ian when speaking philosophically about life choices prior to his his pending retirement.

He interspersed reflections on humanity with riddles searching for truth while serving oversized drams from old barrels in the warehouse.

"No one will ever tell you to stop taking your poisons. How do you suppose things will go if you continue taking your poisons for the next 5 years? 10 years? 20 years?

Will you reach desirable goals and retain your health through consumption, or is it more realistic to expect you will drown in weakness and incapacity?

Everyone rightly knows the obvious answer but is not swayed by truth."

Cancer of the larynx, esophagus, or stomach...a small price to pay for a peated oily palate garnished with tasteful oak, vanilla, and residual sweetness from fermented Pedro Ximenez grapes. You know what you are doing, and what you must pay.

Every man dreams of riches, spent not so much on things as on bountiful high quality progeny. Women dream of companions willing to listen; moderns settling for compliant pets and characters on the screen.

Arrant cells multiply ambitiously from one to two to four to uncountable multitudes seeking infinite new space in restless Faustian urges for expansion.

What folly to be swallowed whole while trying to reach unreachable infinitude! They know they are courting destruction, yet remain unable to resist its luring temptation.

Both men and women find solace in poison that sedates realizations for the moment, allowing projections to the fore so they can be believed all the more intently. We know lies are lies, yet wish to believe the flattering and fantastical promising pleasant deception.

Healthy cells are content steadily exemplifying their nature. Forming internalized feelings about false hopes of multiplication and companionship stir and tug wayward broken cells.