Repotia (re-po’-ti-a): 1. The repetition of a phrase with slight differences in style, diction, tone, etc. 2. A discourse celebrating a wedding feast.
A: Who the hell is getting married? I’ll take another gin & tonic, and another pinch on your ass. But I know you can do better than that. Remember the Christmas party last year. You were serving drinks and you let me unwrap your package behind the bar and nobody suspected anything as I gave you the stealth B-hind bomber treatment. Ha ha! Oh, and oh my God—what about New Years this year? We bumped in the new year on the floor under the dining room table. We kept our clothes on, and I made it look like we were dancing. Nobody suspected a thing. How’re we going to do it at this dum ass wedding?
B: It’s your wedding dipshit. Here, have another drink and maybe you’ll forget who you are and go home, cancel the wedding, and save Emily a lot of grief. Oh! Whoops! I forgot, you already got married to Emily.
A: Wah? You’re putting me on. What a sick joke. You’re fired! I’m going to take a nap somewhere. And then maybe have you arrested for serving me too much to drink.
B: You better not. The wedding feast is about to begin. Believe it or not, you got married one hour ago. You fell down twice during the ceremony and vomited on Emily. I have returned you to sobriety.
A: Who the hell is Emily? I don’t know any Emily.
B: Emily is your wife. She is a very special being. Get ready for this: she is 2,500 years old. She has produced numerous eggs in this cycle and is due to be impregnated again. For some reason, she chose you to mate with—you—an inconsiderate, self-centered fool. Emily is a magical creature and deserves far better than you, but she loves only the fool. Her Fool is the Tarot’s Fool, zero in the Tarot’s deck, infinitely empty, and infinitely full of possibilities, brimming with optimism and oblivious to the future: forever poised at the abyss, forever safe, looking up, inspired by the void.
Emily was born on the winds of Western Africa, succored on the sweet-flowing springs beneath Rome’s Palatine Hill, and sustained by ambrosia as she grew into womanhood. Emily is the goddess of Pregnancy. She is immortal, but must mate with a mortal every 100 years, at a wedding in celebration of the profane pursuits that bring pregnancy: joy, pleasure, faith, insemination, and life. Without the wedding, the cycle of her life may be disrupted and she may die a painful death, in a pit of rats, screaming like an owl at dawn’s light.
A: So I’m invited to a wedding that becomes my wedding? My wedding to a friggin’ Goddess? I get married while I’m obliviated on 6 gin and tonics. This sounds like some kind of cheap (and bad) piece of fiction written by a brain-damaged sky diver. But, what have I got to lose? It could be true. Not even I am stupid enough to pass this one up. If I’m married, I’m married. I don’t care if Emily’s a goat, I’m going to give it a shot.
I entered the banquet hall. Everybody cheered and applauded. The bride was easy to spot—she was wearing a wedding dress that looked like it was made of sunlit clouds shifting and moving as though they were rolling across the sky. Emily was a goddess. Her beauty and the warmth of her smile were transformative—without hesitation, I walked toward her slowly with my arms outstretched. She stood and opened her arms, lifted me off the floor, and I glided to her. We embraced and kissed, and I reveled in the taste, like dark maple syrup. It was crazy and totally sane at the same time. She whispered in my ear: “I love you because you are a fool.” For some reason that didn’t make me mad, maybe I was a fool, this Tarot fool the bartender had spoken of. But there was more to it than that. We held hands and our life stories flowed into each other’s consciousness. We feasted on ambrosia and wedding cake, and I asked her who all the guests were. She told me they were her “beloved” minions, except for the bartender who was her scout, who had found me, and who brought me here with the wedding invitation.
Suddenly, the guests started yelling at me: “Speech, speech, speech. I stood up.
A: I am standing here at hope’s abyss—in the bright light of a shining mystery called “The Future.” I was summoned today from the shadows of selfishness, immaturity, and a wasted life. In seconds, Emily brought me to my senses. She has made me feel at home in this world of fading promises and the turbulence of unexpected change. Through the warmth of her smile and the power of her ancient heartfelt embrace, I am redeemed. I am whole. I have found love. I think it was Shakespeare who wrote: “A fool thinks himself to be wise, but a wise man knows himself to be a fool.” I am Emily’s fool.
I did my best with the speech. The guests cheered. I was one with the moment. Emily blew me a kiss and it struck my lips like warm sunlight, and coursed through my soul.
So, we left the wedding and went to a nearby motel where we had sex so many times I lost count. When I woke up, she was gone. She left a note: “When our child is born, we will visit. Maybe we will stay—if you will be my fool.”
Definition courtesy of “Silva Rhetoricae” (rhetoric.byu.edu).
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