Chapter 4, section 1: Dionysos in Paradise, Nova Scotia

“The long and winding road, ba-dum-pum, takes me ba-ack to your door!”

Since getting off highway 101 (hardly worth calling a highway), Dionysos drove with the window down, breathing in the blessed salt air and letting the Beatles have their way with him. He had still been in the jungles when they conquered the world with their four-piece set and lookalike bobs. Now that he was an up-and-coming star himself, it was his duty to get to know as much of the last few hundred years’ popular music as possible, and to pilfer it liberally. With his band’s pedigree, there was no way they could sound like all the others out there, but they could—and did—take full advantage of any new (or old) sound that came their way.

“Woah!”

He swerved off the road and barely missed tossing the car over a sudden disappearance of land. He shut down the motor and climbed out. Blasts of wind whipped grasses that in turn lashed his stomach and chest eagerly. He waded through them to where the land dropped off. A good ten meters below lay shining, slippery, bright red mud flats. The sky was a steel gray, and the wind sent by Hecate to punish him for millennia of misdeeds. The mud, however, looked warm and soft, and as inviting as a pair of woman’s lips. Nothing to do with a sight so luscious but sit down and soak it in.

The flats were carved like random canyons across the grassy landscape. At the bottom of the now-empty waterways ran a light trickle of water, and directly below him was a tidal pool with some small trapped fish and one angry lobster stomping around and waving its claws at the sky. He sat at the confluence of two inlets carved into the red earth that wended their way behind him on either side. Before him was a vast, squelching, muddy plain dotted with grassy islands. On the farthest shore clustered a gnarled stand of spruce trees with long mats of moss hanging from their branches. They looked like a wizened group of philosophers or poets straight out of some old Chinese dynastic period painting, leaning into walking staffs, beards flopping in the wind. What wonderful esoteric conversations they must have, standing there at the edge of this wildly changeable tidal landscape.

So here were the famous saltwater tidal flats of the Bay of Fundy. Finally. With all the wandering he had done—in the old days some called it incessant—he had never been to this corner of the world and witnessed this miracle.

He was off to make an unannounced visit to an aunt he hadn’t seen in centuries in a forgotten corner of the continent where it was rumored that the fine art of hospitality hadn’t yet been crushed by progress and poverty. The tide looked to be at its lowest ebb. A few hours’ delay wouldn’t hurt.

He grabbed what was left of his travel food stash and a bottle of recent vintage from the cluster he was planning to give to his aunt, and settled in at the muddy land’s end. The grasses gently scratched his back and he absorbed himself completely in the scene.

Slowly at first, then with more confidence, the bay pushed her water back in against the land. A drop of ten muddy meters lessened, until he could swing his legs over in water right up to his knees. In fact, the seat of his pants soaked through. But by then the sentinel wall of clouds had broken and the sun was in full glory of descent. Who cared about a wet butt?

With a bottle of 16-year-old Glen Breton Rare for company, Dionysos sat and watched the tides. A nearly full moon rose from behind the cluster of old Chinese philosopher trees. Crickets competed for who could thrum the loudest. An owl crossed the water in search of food. The yowling of coyotes grew closer and closer, until one sidled through the grass and lay down next to him. Together they watched the moon set, then the bony canine stretched, licked Dionysos’ cheek and slid back through the grass.

He sat transfixed by this restless, fickle landscape. In the dark of night he imagined that he was dead and let the landscape show her illusory aspect. Even though he couldn’t see either the water or the sky, the place where they kissed shimmered slightly. Just as the shimmer seemed ready to go out, a slight solidity of form returned. The sky grayed lightly, then paled to lavender. When the dome of heaven began to show blue, the Girdle of Venus wrapped the horizon in blush.

When Eos finished her morning’s finger painting, he stretched out the kinks, picked up the empty bottle of Nova Scotia highlander and drove on. He followed the crumbling road until he saw the tiny weathered wooden sign declaring that he was welcome to Paradise. It was not the kind of hailing he would expect of a heavenly realm, but perfectly suited to his hermit aunt Demeter. And as he turned off the road onto an unpaved track through the woods, he thought again how perfect a place this was for her.

The track ended abruptly, and became a deer trail out across a meadow. Dionysos smiled and hauled gifts of various vintages from the back seat. According to Persephone, there was still a hike ahead.