The Wasteland

I pretty much emptied the house of whiskey a few weeks ago and consequently found myself thrust into the wasteland of sobriety.  I looked inside cupboards and behind the piano.  I searched high and low, all of my hiding places: the attic, the fake hollowed-books on the bookshelf, the fireplace, and the ceramic garden gnomes on the lawn.  Nothing but cobwebs and empty bottles greeted me.  Inside the gnome I found a crumpled-up note: “Need to replenish soon.”  Damn it.  What have I done to deserve this?  Consciousness, sobriety, clarity—these demons beckon me from the pit.  They seek to lead me down the desolate road of depression, but I won’t let that happen.  I made a mad dash for my pills, but the plastic bottles were also empty.  Suddenly, as if a campfire flickering in a dark valley, a light goes on in my mind.  The flask!  You see, I had forgotten—lo these many dry days!—that I had tucked away my leatherette Jack Daniels flask inside the spare tire well of my trunk.  It contains a portion of the Yeni raki that a Turkish friend of mine graciously sent over from Istanbul last year.  My weeks of wandering in the wasteland are over…for now.