Glasses of Merlot

Cole Davies

Glasses of Merlot

Dolor was a well-kept man—kept to himself that is. He spent virtually all his time perfecting his craft. After 14 intense years of training, considering, and testing, he earned the title of Doctor—Doctor of Literature—a lofty goal he set for himself at the ripe age of 14, following the completion of a required reading book in the 9th grade, a fantasy about a boy named Milo. But now, he was a teacher.

In the past, Dr. Amor suffered incessant worry from his peers, constantly concerned with his lack of social life and his countless hours in the library, as he had become comfortably accustomed to sleeping there.

They warned him, “Dolor, if you keep spending all your time reading and writing, you’re never going to get the chance to live!”

His mother would often cry to her husband and to Dolor’s friends: “My boy! oh, my boy! If only he knew what he was missing! The beauties of the real world, the feeling of true love! He won’t even acknowledge my pleas, it’s as if I’m speaking to a brick wall.”

Tears streamed down her face; tears always streamed down her face. Dolor laughed internally; Dolor always laughed internally.

At the reading of the last word of that book, he knew—without hesitation, without doubt—that the world of the past far outweighed the world of the present.

‘The plethora of knowledge,’ he thought, ‘the innumerable pages that could never be read in a lifetime. A 100 lifetimes. A 1,000 even. What more noble pursuit than to interpret and understand the voices of those who came before?’

Yet, every time he tried to explain, citing magnificent examples from his readings and carefully articulated texts of his own, the audience treated him as unnatural, not normal.

‘They,’ he thought, ‘they simply have not understood my point of view. They just don’t realize the value.’

So, he dove deeper and deeper, spending more of his time desperately reaching for a goal he never realized was unattainable. He stopped watching TV, he stopped playing the piano, he stopped exercising, he stopped talking to friends, and he almost stopped eating too. He spent years trying to find the perfect examples, the proper quotations, develop the perfect analysis, the most elegant hypothesis, to express the importance of the past.

Although Dolor might sound irrational, or even unreasonable perhaps, his logic was quite sound.

He proposed: “Out of all the centuries, millennia, eons of the past, the recorded data must—somewhere—contain the solution for ALL ailments. If millions of beings—whether a single celled organism or a human—have existed and left their imprint on the world—whether a fossil or a book—history must (must!) contain the knowledge necessary to survive, thrive, be happy, and love each moment of life.” He was sure of it. And, well, as you can probably tell by now, his actions reflected it too. Dolor took this great burden onto his shoulders at his own request, striving to answer a question that nobody had asked. So, with such an unshakeable opinion, Dolor fended off all petitions to slow down, equipped with the defense of thousands of dead voices, and anytime he reached a block in the road, he equipped himself with 1,000 more. He truly became unshakeable (or so he thought (logically so, after all successes)).

So, years passed by, and he studied, content as a peach. The reason others could not relate with him was truly because of this: he was content as a peach. He spent those hours designing, fabricating, imagining, and wandering in a fictional world of vast expanse, strictly in his mind, because, well, he thought it was fun. He fell asleep each night reflecting on the magnificent discoveries of the day, only to drift off in delight, looking forward to another wonderland.

After these years, he was finally capable of teaching a class of his own. Now instead of training, considering, and testing, he trained, considered, and tested. He was quite happy with his now quiet life, feeling as though he had answered the question he asked himself long before, and his students quite seemed to like him too. Life was good.

One day on a swift stroll to the grocery to get a satisfactory number of calories, he saw a splendid woman; splendid! She donned exquisite legs, a curving figure, and a face that appeared to have seen 1,000 sunrises, followed first by 1,000 sunsets. He felt a drop of cold sweat form on his forehead. However, he did not know why, which confusedly startled him. Dr. Amor had seen millions of women, both in real life and in his research. He contemplated countless times the dynamics of gender and the implications of biology. Yet, this feeling quite reminded him of the one he had had years ago. He began to walk with an out of tune rhythm, not quite sure how to position his arms.

‘Stupid,’ he thought, ‘you have many papers to grade and research to do after that! Get your food and get on with it!’

He paced with a newfound pep but slowed again once he realized she was headed for the grocery too. She vanished through the sliding glass doors. That drop of sweat trickled down his face. He crossed the street with determination, having battled much more complicated mental obstacles in the past, to get his cup of yogurt and pastry from the bakery. He entered cautiously. However, feeling flustered in his disarray, he had a sudden urge to grab a bottle of wine.

Now, one important trait about Mr. Dolor that I have yet to mention was his obsession with fine wine. It became a companion to him during his late nights of reflection, so he felt it was only just to treat it with respect. Some even called him a connoisseur. After he hastily selected his sustenance, he cruised over to the alcohol aisle to select a bottle of white wine to distract him from the sweat of the day. As he perused the bottles on the shelves, the woman from earlier walked directly beside him, squatted down, and took her glasses off. She set them down on an empty space near her gaze. She selected a bottle, stood up, and nonchalantly walked away. Without a moment’s hesitation, Dolor grabbed the glasses and nearly hit her as he extended his arm, and exclaimed “Hey, wait, you forgot your glasses!”

The refrigerator whirred. She turned around and looked at him, composed, and smiled. She genuinely smiled. He stood motionless, like a deer in headlights.

She giggled, “Thank you, kind sir, I would have been blind without them!”

She plucked them from his hand.

“And who do I have the pleasure of thanking?” She asked, with a flirty tone.

“Dr. Amor,” he said, “but you can call me Dolor. And you?”

“Merlot, but you can call me Merlot” she replied with a wink. “Are they the right prescription doctor?” she inquired with a smirk.

Dr. Dolor Amor stood starstruck, lost in a familiar trance.

“Would you perhaps like to see my office,” he finally squeaked out.

“Isn’t the hospital quite far away?”

“Oh, no, I’m not a doctor like that. I have a doctorate in literature. I write and teach. Like, books and stuff. My office is basically a library.”

“Oh,” she stated, no clear change of expressions on her face, “well, you know what, yes, that does sound nice!”

They ironically grabbed a bottle of Merlot and headed towards campus.

After an evening of drinking and pondering the quandaries of the past, present, and future—Merlot was quite the scholar as well—the two parted ways for the night, with plans for a formal first date at a nice restaurant the following weekend.

Dolor could hardly wait. He booked a nice hotel near the restaurant—just in case—and bought the nicest bottle of Merlot he could recall, with the hypothesis that even if the night did not go well, at least he had a nice bottle of wine to kill the pain. The evening rolled around, and both arrived at the agreed upon time. They spent the night laughing and chatting about each other’s experiences, with an apparent sexual tension rising in the air. Finally, they paid the bill and stepped outside to call a cab. As soon as they stepped out of the restaurant, Merlot grabbed Dolor by the lapels and kissed him. He embraced her at first touch, and they kissed passionately. He leaned back and looked deeply into her eyes.

“I bought a hotel room for tonight because I figured it would be almost the same price as a cab.”

She smiled knowingly.

“Well, if I could save the money, I don’t see why I wouldn’t.”

The second they stepped into the hotel room, they pulled at each other’s clothes. They stumbled into the bathroom and Dolor reached for the tub facet to draw a bath. They stumbled around the room, clamoring about, until they finally rested in each other’s arms on the bed. Dolor lit a candle.

“Would you like to soak in that bath?” he suggested, indifferently.

So, they slid into the tub, squirming about until they got comfortable.

Dolor exclaimed, “I almost forgot, the bottle of Merlot!”

Dolor hopped out of the tub and sped into the room, leaving a trail of soap and water behind him. He grabbed the bottle and two glasses and poured an aroma maximizing amount of wine into each glass. Merlot giggled at the reused pun, as Dolor sat triumphantly in the water and she set the glasses on the brim. They soaked in silence for what seemed like an eternity, slowly sipping their wine as if each drop were the last. Suddenly, Merlot’s ears perked up.

“Do you smell smoke?”

“Yes,” he replied with an alarmed look.

Remembering the candle, Merlot started toward the source. Unfortunately, she did not make it far. As she stood up, she knocked the glasses and the bottle onto the floor, covering the ground in shards. Her skin turned pale. Tears began to stream down her face, a memory Dolor had long forgotten. She slumped back into the water and looked at Dr. Amor with a terrified look. They were both naked and neither had their phone.

The scent became more potent.

Knowing that he could either stifle the fire before it set the building ablaze or die along with many because of his mistake, Dolor calmly rose and stepped onto the glass. Naturally, his feet began to bleed. As he tried his best to minimize the damage to himself, he failed to notice the puddle of soap he had left behind earlier. He stepped, slipped, and his backside fell onto the glass. Blood trickled out of his body like honey from a comb. He rolled onto his hands and knees, delirious from pain, delirious from alcohol. He stood up, trudged into the room, and covered the burning blinds with the comforter to smother the flames. The fire died out in his arms.

Silence.

He stood there for a moment, grew dizzy, and then collapsed onto the ground. At the sound of the thud, Merlot rushed out into the room, bleeding herself, and shouted in horror looking upon Dolor. She held him in her arms, covering his lifeless face in tears, flowing down his neck, shoulders, and puddling in his limp palm, which lightly clutched her glasses.

Dolor died that night; he lost too much blood. His family and friends wept like children at his funeral. The doctors couldn’t save him.

In the aftermath of the proceedings, his closest friend searched through his most personal belongings. While examining his desk, he found a notebook he kept in his main drawer. Not hidden, but rather, in plain sight. This friend read that book and shared it with everyone.

“Oh Dolor, oh Dolor, if only we had known,” they moaned.