In Worship of Gluttony

At midnight the embryonic feast was sputtering hot oil onto the cooks clad in their ritual attire, colored brilliantly with the shades of ripened fruit, so conspicuous and appealing to the eyes of primates whose existence depended for eons on discerning those hues among the monotonous green of forest and grassland. Though passers-by might not realize it, the sharp pain of the boiling oil searing their bare skin was the provenance of their glory, for they exulted in the pain which would produce pleasure within the souls of those who would feast. Yes, their garb functioned only for pomp and, by design, encouraged the oil's sting, which was made all the more painful by the musky ganja smoke they had inhaled in private from a dragon carved pipe handmade by an expert craftsman, a man unsung except by his patrons who saw in his work the faces of gods as yet unnamed by the meticulous cataloging of their shamen. The pipe was of such intricate and lifelike design that as it made its final circuit about the ring of smokers several of them later swore that they had seen it wink at them knowingly, or that when the bowl was cached it took a deep breath and audibly sighed thin clouds as if exasperated by the goings-on. It was after this ceremony that they entered the temple trailing a bluish miasma and began to prepare the food with solemn grace, forgetting the omens they had witnessed as easily as their fire starters.

It was a holy day among holy days, one where pilgrims and common tribesmen alike would commune together in the temple to accept the sacrament of the animal flesh now searing on the grill, its scent emanating slowly as the rings around pebbles gently dropped on a quiet pond, catching the attention of the nomadic crowds and causing their pert nostrils to flare and their salivary glands to ripen and swell with warm spit, tongues swiveling in their mouths to coat their interiors with the viscous fluids sliding down their gullets into empty stomaches contorting and relaxing rhythmically in anticipatory paroxysms of absence and desire. These are the sensations accompanying that basic emotion of hunger that permeated the believers and heretics alike as they passed with rapt attention through the forecourt of the temple, flickering with dead filtered light. The cooks and acolytes understood that their worshipers, were irritable with fasting and as such would not offer them any outward indications of respect but their empty plates and vessels, which would attest to the efficacy of the food's precise preparation and spiritual-sedative effects.

And as the eyes of the cooks glazed over and their hands faltered with fatigue they caught one more sign of overheard gratitude from a particularly voluble devotee, spoken to his comrades with the supernal glee of a truly zealous follower whose innocent, yet sincere observation might one day make him a prophet of his motherland, distilling his tribe and culture for ages yet to pass into this canonical statement, “Wow dude, that game was so motherfucking awesome and shit, it was like whoa! I thought we were going to lose and then it was like whooooooooohooo, hell yeah! We fuckin' did it! and then the only thing I was thinkin' after that was I was just burgin' so fucking hard, just had to get something in mah belly, ya know, so I was all like, dudes we're going to Micydee's and then ya'll were just so totally down with that and I was like... I mean... I just fuckin' love the shit out of you bitches, you know?”