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Klaus loves wine. He loves the taste, he loves the smell. He loves the way it makes it him feel. Well, apart from in the mornings. But then the cure for that is simply to drink more wine. It’s a beautifully circular thing, just like the grape itself. Within a grapevine is carried all the vicissitudes of life: joy, sadness, flavour, inebriation, intoxication and, well, occasionally vomit.
Unfortunately, Klaus has no idea how to grow vines. Nor how to cultivate grapes. Nor how to produce wine by any other means beyond the one he’s practiced for thousands of years now. Not that any of that has stopped him from owning his own vineyard. A successful one, at that.
People travel from far and wide to taste his wines. To sample his earthy, buttery nectars.
“Mmmn, I’m getting elements of oak and blueberry and is that… just a hint of woodsmoke?” the so-called connoisseurs are apt to say, swirling his fruity reds around their glasses.
Klaus likes to nod along. “Sure, sure. You’re the expert, man.”
Some might call it cheating, this little trick of his.
But it’s only fair that his unique position on the face of history should come with at least one advantage. And as far as natural advantages go, this one ain’t half bad.
He still grows the grapes, but they are only for show. He lets birds and hungry children from the nearby village eat them straight off the branches.
By the calendar, it ought to be the end of the harvest. But there was never any harvest, no fruit pickers. Klaus certainly has no intention of picking grapes himself and if he allows too many nosy people onto his land he runs the risk of someone finding out his secret, which simply won’t do.
Secrets like this one are best kept under wraps. He has had to learn that the hard way.
As Klaus heads into the barn, he rubs the inside of his left palm with the fingers of his other hand. He can still feel the phantom wound when the weather is cold. He gets the occasional stitch in his side when he tries to jog after one of the goats in the yard. Little gifts from his former friends. Reminders of the past.
He chases an errant chicken away before dragging one of the barrels out from storage. He’s not sure why he keeps chickens. He’s not a fan of eggs and doesn’t even eat chicken, being a strict pescetarian. It’s for the company, he supposes. Much like the goats and the cat.
He had friends once. He had a dozen friends, not including the women. But these days he prefers to keep himself to himself.
It’s safer that way. A peaceful, quiet life is all that he wants now. No more sermons, no more prophecies. No more bullshit scripture.
He pulls the barrel towards the wall and positions it under the tap. He’s become so accustomed to this now, sometimes he finds it hard to remember not to do it. There’s nothing more unpleasant than accidentally taking a morning shower in Merlot.
He turns the tap, makes the usual gesture and out pours a fine Cabernet. Fruity, but not too sweet. Rich, but not overpowering. The wine buffs will praise it for its perfectly balanced acidity, its silky texture. It’ll easily sell for $600 a bottle. They will clamour for it at the specialist wine stores, queueing down the street to get their hands on a bottle of Paradise Springs reserve. That should keep him in weed and fish tacos until the spring. The rest he’ll donate to a charity for queer kids, just to piss off his dad.
The other vineyard owners in the area hate him and Klaus knows it. It’s a common point of gossip that Klaus’ grapes are all riddled with disease and his irrigation system has long since corroded from lack of maintenance.
And yet, somehow, year after year, Paradise Springs produces some of - if not the - finest non-vintage wine on the planet. The critics rave about it on their blogs. Sommeliers around the world insist on including it on their menus.
They compare him to Martin of Tours, the patron saint of winemakers, the man said to have spread viticulture throughout the Loire Valley during the fourth century. Of course, little do they know, that was him then too.
Occasionally he’s even been invited onto the Food Network to shill his wares - not that his wares need shilling. His product is always in high demand. He likes it that way; the exclusivity and high price bracket ensure a certain kind of customer that Klaus, with his damned moral compass, feels almost (but not entirely) comfortable ripping off. But if he ever feels guilty about it, a bottle or two of his own merchandise has the knack of making those feelings go away.
While he waits for the barrel to fill, Klaus pours himself a glass and lifts it in front of his face. A toast of sorts; today is his 2027th birthday.
Okay, so he can’t be entirely sure of that. The dates have long since been jumbled about and changed. The months are all named after various Roman emperors and Norse Gods now. These days, the years are counted from a singular point in history, but back when Klaus was born they were counted in kings. Thirteen years of Herod. Fourteen years of Herod. Fifteen years of Herod. And so on and so on.
The year he was born, they just called it The Year of the Miracle. An immaculate conception has a certain effect on the psyche of a populace, especially one that barely understands the movements of the earth around the sun.
All he knows is that his birthday used to be sometime at the end of harvest season. And since this is his final barrel of the year, now seems as good a time as any to celebrate.
Not that he has anyone to celebrate with. The young Mexican man from the bottling plant is the closest thing he has to a friend these days. A somewhat prickly fella but affable enough once you get to know him. He doesn’t strike Klaus as much of a wine drinker though.
While the barrel is filling, he strolls back to the porch to finish his wine and watch the sun go down. He takes his usual seat in the hanging chair, kicking off his flip flops and propping his feet up on the deck railing. He lights a joint and watches the crows picking at the last of the dead grapes between the rows of withered vines. He can’t bear the thought of putting up a scarecrow; there’s something triggering about them.
Sometimes, on evenings like these, when the sun begins to dip below the treeline and scatter its golden glow over the vine rows, he is reminded of the old country, its mountains, its olive groves, its narrow valleys.
Klaus lets out a deep sigh and swings his chair a little more vigorously for comfort. There’s nothing there for him now except bad memories. He could attempt a visit, but even these days there’s always a chance that someone might recognise him and then… well, who knows what might happen then. Would he be welcome? Or would he run the risk of repeating the same old mistakes again?
You see, it wasn’t his fault. He hadn’t meant for things to go as far as they did.
One minute you’re catering a picnic and the next they’re following you around everywhere, hundreds of them, calling you ‘guru’ and ‘prophet’ and ‘messiah’. It makes his skin itch just thinking about it.
How was he supposed to know that telling people to be nice to each other would be such a controversial opinion?
A knock at the door disturbs his train of thought. He stands up, leaving his wine on the wooden railing. As he heads towards the door, his cat Peter jumps up to sniff the glass. “Don’t you dare, you little shit,” Klaus warns.
He heads through the house and opens the front door. It’s Diego, the guy who does his bottling. He always has a slightly distressed look about him, but today there’s something else there too - he looks panicked, wide-eyed and frantic. “Oh, thank God, you’re okay.”
Klaus shrugs. “Nothing to thank her for. What’s the dealio, my man? You wanna come in for a spot of cab sav? I’ve just poured-”
“No, no. There’s no time!” Diego glances over his own shoulder at the long drive snaking up to the winery. Behind him, a row of lights bobs in the distance. “You gotta go.”
“What? Go where?” Klaus looks back over Diego’s shoulder. The lights in the distance seem to be getting closer.
“They’re coming, man. They’re coming for you!”
Now he hears it, a low roar of human voices. An angry multitude, bearing closer, tracking a path up the hill to the house.
“For moi? What did I do?”
“I dunno, man. But whatever it was, it must have been bad. They are out for blood. You need to get as far away from here as possible.”
“But-but where the hell am I meant to go? I don’t even have shoes on and I-”
Diego raises his voice now, his panic bubbling over. “Just get out of here, man! I’ll try to hold them off as long as I can, but you gotta go and you gotta go now!”
Finally the realisation dawns on him. It really ought to have happened sooner - he’s been here enough times before.
Klaus gives the man a fast nod and Diego turns to leave, jogging down the path in the direction of the encroaching wave of bodies. Klaus sees what the lights are now - tiki torches, being waved aloft by furious marchers.
Why is it always damn tiki torches?
He skids through the house back to the porch in search of his flip flops. There they are on the floor beneath his hanging chair, soaked now in a pool of red wine and surrounded by broken glass. The cat sits next to the carnage, looking decidedly smug.
“Oh, you little bastard,” says Klaus, scooping the animal into his arm and shoving his feet into the wet sandals. “I should have named you Judas.”