Complex Numbers

Twist In My Sobriety

PROMPT January 25

CREATION SATURDAY! Put on your creative thinking caps

You're headed down to Imagination Station to pick up your imaginary friend.

Tell us about the friend - is it human? Humanoid? Animal? Talking banana? Three-headed monster who's afraid of heating blankets? What's their story? Likes/Dislikes? What name do they answer to? Why are they in your life?

Don't forget to tell us how your friend ended up at the station in the first place!

Obviously, Imagination Station is a bar, and my imaginary friend is a beer.

Not just any beer, of course; that would be silly, because then it wouldn't be imaginary. No, this one is magical -- well, more magical than usual, if that's even possible -- so it never runs out, or away.

Beer has been around since the dawn of civilization. Arguments have been made, compelling ones, that there was a causal link there, that beer is what kick-started civilization. There were probably other factors, notably cats, but the manufacturing of beer required a level of cooperation that only cities could provide. That's what civilization is, you know: cooperation and specialization.

So Beer didn't "end up" at Imagination Station. Imagination Station was built around Beer.

Incidentally, as similar as the names are, there doesn't seem to be an etymological connection between "bar" and "beer." The former is named for the counter where drinks are poured, which in turn was named for the metal rod or bar it traditionally sported, in an example of nested synechdoche (Nested Synechdoche would be an awesome name for a band). The latter is derived from the Latin verb for "drink." "Imbibe" is another derivative thereof.

As old as Beer is -- and it is old, by human standards -- it spent much of its history ignorant of its own provenance. It wasn't until the microscope came into being that we discovered what made Beer beer instead of malted barley soup: yeast. Until then, the process of fermentation was, at best, obscured; it might as well have been magic.

Here I was setting out to craft a story and I got bogged down in history. It happens. It's all fascinating to me, though: both the history and the science, of course, but also the creative spark that I'm just not feeling tonight. Maybe someday we'll invent a tool to examine creativity and find its source, the way the microscope enabled us to discover yeast. That wouldn't end creativity, I think, just as discovering that alcohol is essentially yeast piss didn't end Beer.

For now, though, I'll just raise a glass to science, which may not always make everything better, but certainly increases our understanding -- if not our creativity. And to Beer, which made it all possible.

All God's children need traveling shoes
Drive your problems from here
All good people read good books
Now your conscience is clear
I hear you talk girl
Now your conscience is clear

In the morning I wipe my brow
Wipe the miles away
I like to think I can be so willed
And never do what you say
I'll never hear you
And never do what you say

Look my eyes are just holograms
Look your love has drawn red from my hands
From my hands you know you'll never be
More than twist in my sobriety
More than twist in my sobriety
More than twist in my sobriety