Author's Note: This was essentially written in one sitting, with the premise very simple. Inspiration came from parts of other stories I have written, my own views of society, and, yes, a line from an Incubus song. Read, review, and maybe I will reveal more.

Disclaimer: I did not write this to condemn alcohol use.

The Savage Vineyard

A vagrant soul was walking the road that follows the river when he took a detour, which led him to a very slatternly vineyard. Vines grew and were not pruned. Others did not grow at all. Many bore fruit which was not being harvested, while some bore fruit which would not ripen. Most alarming of all was what grew from the center of the yard: two vines, twisted as tightly as the vagrant could imagine possible. One vine was beautiful, its mellow fruit well suited for a seductive wine. Tangled in itself was a grey and rugged trunk, which branched off and traveled to choke the neighboring vines. To solve this mystery, the vagrant sought out the owner of the vineyard.

The house was humble, but more affluent than the vagrant would have judged from the condition of the crop. He knocked on the door and was met by a very drunken man of middle age. “What brings you here?”

“Sir,” the vagrant spoke with an urgency. “I was traveling the road that follows the river, and when I looked to the side, there it was. Please tell me the secrets of the vine. Why does it twist in such an awful shape? And why does it bind and choke its neighbor?”

The man let out a throaty laugh that made the vagrant recoil, and his bloodshot eyes stared ahead into infinite void. “Boy, I know nothing of twisted vines. Come inside, we will drink.”

With great suspicion, the boy was led into the cellar of the man’s house, which was full with large casks and beautifully ornate bottles. This man must do nothing but drink, the vagrant thought to himself. Perhaps I would do the same. He loosed his eyes to admire the bottles until they were seized by the most beautiful of them all. Surely this held the vineyard’s secret. “Sir, we should drink from this bottle.”

“You have a fine eye,” the man said as he uncorked a bottle and poured it haphazardly into two stone chalices. “But that is to be taken slowly, with great respect, and never too soon.” He drank greedily and the chalice was soon empty.

The vagrant took the other chalice and raised it hesitantly to his lips. Thoughts of his journey clawed at the surface and demanded his attention, but he appealed to the flavor of the wine, to the fullness of the crop, and finally to the twisted vine, which appeared more beautiful in his memory with each sip he took. When the bottle was empty, his journey was as distant of a memory as sobriety. When he slept, he dreamt deeply of the twisted vine.

When the sun roused the vagrant from a drunken slumber, he saw the man at the winepress, working through his inebriation to produce more of the mysterious substance. After pouring another glass of wine, he asked the man, “Please, tell me the secret of the vine. Why does it twist?”

“I know nothing of twisted vines,” the man replied, unmoved by the question as he continued to work. “Stay here, drink, be at ease...”

The image of the vineyard haunted him, the wine coursing through his veins like his ever thinning blood. It seemed no longer to bind, to choke, and he no longer saw the grey, with its gnarled trunk entangled with the true vine. The last drink from the bottle seemed to lure him into the vineyard once more. His eyes were sedated and his steps unsteady, but the call remained clear in his mind.

What stood before him was the fullest harvest he could ever have dreamt of. In the center, where the twisted vine had once grown uninvited, stood the most beautiful vine of all. Without a gnarl or a bend, it seemed to be rising to meet the sun in the sky, unburdened by the weight of the fruit that hung from every inch of its vertical shaft. Devouring the fruit with a greed unmatched by any tyrant king, the vagrant felt he was merging with the vine itself.

As the strange man came to tend to the crop, the vagrant once again inquired about the vine, which did not seem so twisted now. “Tell me the secret of the vine.”

“When you drink from this...” the man said. He held what appeared to the vagrant’s hazy eyes as the bottle he wished to drink from the previous night, “...you will know the secret of the vine.”

With trembling hands, the vagrant took the bottle and sipped hesitantly. He tasted nothing, but still felt the magic of the vine which he leaned clumsily against.

He took another sip, slowly, as the man had warned him. “I see nothing.”

“Patience, young one.” The man put laid aside his tools and stood before the vine.

Another sip was taken, the bottle nearing its bottom. As the sun began to set, the young man’s eyes slowly began to focus. He rose unsteadily to his feet, sober but slumberous and malnourished as he clumsily kicked the bottle.

Water poured out from its slender neck.

Water.

Anger filled the boy’s eyes, veins burning with a clean blood. “You deceived me!”

The man was sober as well, and looked many years more wise than the slovenly man who greeted him the previous night. “You deceived yourself, you fool! Turn your opiate eyes to the vine! The vine twists!”

The vagrant turned to the vine. Horror replaced anger as it gnarled and twisted, the fruit withering and falling around it. The beautiful vine was soon lost in the jagged skin of the other. There was nothing the boy could say to alleviate his revulsion.

“It twists!”

The boy turned at the sound, only to see the man running towards him to pull him away. Less than a moment later, smaller vines began shooting out from the base and tangling everything they could reach.

When both the vagrant and the strange man were safe in the cellar, the boy took a breath and exclaimed, “What happened? What is the matter with these vines?”

“Are you still so drunk?” The strange man took a bottle from the shelf. The vagrant shuddered but the man continued, “Do you still not know the secret of the vines?”

The vagrant sighed with relief as the man poured water from the bottle. “The vines kill.”

The man shook his head and passed a full chalice to the boy. “We are all vines. We are all the same when we sprout from the earth. But then something happens. We grow apart. We grow in strange ways. Some of us bear fruit, and some of us do not. What you saw from the road was a savage vine indeed.”

“It was not always so,” the boy protested. “I saw something beautiful. Something I would live for.”

“You chose the deception. You chose wine over water. You wanted something beautiful, did you not?”

The boy nodded.

“You are the secret of the vine. You walk through a land of illusion every time the sun rises in the sky. And with each new day, you must once again choose water over wine. Remember this when you return to the road that follows the river. You may once again find yourself in a savage vineyard.”

When the boy had understood this mystery, he rose to meet his journey once again. He stood at the bottom of the staircase when he heard glass clattering behind him. Turning around, he saw the man smiling back at him with arms open. Every bottle in the vineyard shattered in unison and promptly poured their capacity onto the floor, gathering in a pool around the man’s feet.

Water.