On meditation as an alternative to opium, part 3

Let's jump right into the action.

Like a devil with a day-pass to heaven, I burst through the door of what I thought was my favourite opium den and bellowed to all:

"Aesthetes and Deadbeats, lend me your ear: Your prodigal son has returned--more prodigal than ever! Now fill my heart, with Laudenam and Beauty!"

I then saw the most belle dame existing in the corner. But, no, she was more than that... Much more... In strange alternations she was a nymph exhaling pixie dust and a cobra hissing hypnotic sound. Needless to say I was drawn to both her forms and wanted to understand her strange and changing shape with all my senses. I disrobed and approached, unsure whether to creep or pounce. She seemed frightened... so thus I crept. Mesmerized and wild, like Frankenstein's monster upon his moment of conception, I was full of electricity. More than life or death, I wanted to know this protean maid.

I crept and sang to her a melody,

"My girl, have I, a mortal modern, stumbled
Upon the hallowed ground of Xanadu?
Have I, a mortal modern, found a place
Where we can live in song and trance, and you
Will dance, and I shall capture your motion with words?"

Now it must be said that this was truly a cracking entrance and entirely off-the-cuff, as they say. But its brilliance was overshadowed by its lack of propriety. You see, this belle dame was no milk-white nymph but rather a cashier at the Tesco down the street doing her daily yoga practice. She had been striking the pose of the cobra before I burst in. I had killed her Zen. And yet, peculiarly, she did not appear mad.

A voice spoke from behind me:

"Friend. Hello. I have been expecting you."

I was nonplussed.

"Please, friend," said the voice. "Let me help to clear your mind and cure your soul. My name is Myoki."

"Nigel," I said. "Nigel Tewksbury... Opium Fiend... "

"Welcome Nigel." We shook hands. My hands were clammy; his, warm.

Thus it came to be. But that is all for now. More in coming days, my friends. Myoki is cooking dinner and I am famished.