Immanentizing the Eschaton

It was the beer that finally immanentized the Eschaton. Thanks to some fellow workers from Woking beer festival I’d finally got my mits on a can of Heady Topper, a beer made by John fucking Kimmich himself.

After a week spent on a mountain top retreat, drinking nothing but water and mediating on the structure of iso-humulones I felt ready to drink this elixir. I'd saved the can for my birthday and invited people round to take part in this joyous occasion. Wanting to get the beer to the right temperature I went to get it out of the fridge and got the shock of my life. It was gone. 

You can imagine the panic I felt. It was like losing a winning lottery ticket, only worse. Had I been burgled by a jealous beer geek? Had one of my friends nabbed it and necked it without me noticing? In fact it was nothing of the sort, my lupulophobic brother had simply moved it to make space for a bottle of an inferior fruit based beverage.

Panic over I let the can warm a little until it was cold but not ice cold whilst getting in a quick final meditate to try and calm my nerves about whether I was worthy not. Then at last the moment arrived. As the great man himself instructs I drank directly from the can and that moment I learnt that everything they said about the beer was true. I would even say I felt angels dancing on my tongue, except my fellow beer nerds would only start arguing about how many angels can fit on a tongue. 

I turned to the friend I was with to describe the wonder I had just drunk and was shocked to see him some way below me. I had actually started levitating! His startled face was squinting at me and I realised I had also started glowing with divine light. I lowered him the can for a sip and soon he was floating beside me, a look of ecstasy upon his now luminous face. 

We wafted from the kitchen to the living room where the can was passed round. "This tastes like grapefruit" said my brother*. "It's beer" said my sister in law. But whatever their tastes the power of the beer was unstoppable and before long we were all bobbing around the ceiling. "Turn the lights off" I said. Seeing as we were now all glowing with divine light I didn't see any reason to waste electricity. How I wondered could this state of bliss be improved? It was after that I made a mistake I know I will regret for the rest of my days."I could do with another pint" I thought. After all one can doesn't go very far between ten people. 

So I wafted back into the kitchen and helped myself to some home brew. All it took was one sip, and I came crashing down to earth. And my divine light went out. From the thumps and groans in the living room, not to mention the sudden darkness, I could tell I'd wrecked it for everyone else too.

"Someone turn a bleedin' light on" I heard someone shout. I flicked a light switch to see a heap of my family and friends glowering at me. "Anyone want a home brew?" I said hopefully, but I knew nothing could make up for the mistake I'd made. Without a word they untangled themselves and left. Abandoned, I spent the rest of the evening knocking back the pints, but the beer tasted like ashes in my mouth. I've been to paradise but I've never been to...Actually I'll stop there, there are depths to which even I won't sink.

*This bit's actually true