“The most radical hypothesis that [Christopher Columbus] would ever make—more extreme, even, than his misguided belief that he had sailed to India [was that] he believed that he had discovered the entrance to paradise.” —Laurence Bergreen, Columbus: The Four Voyages, 1492-1504
Many people have said that I, Christopher Columbus, The Admiral of the Ocean Sea, and the greatest explorer there ever was or ever will be, started to lose my mind during my third voyage, they said the realization that I may have discovered a New World instead of Asia, which I swore to King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella that I had found in my first and second voyages, made my mind play a trick on me, that the cognitive dissonance made me delusionally believe I had discovered a third place, not Asia, and not a New World, but the entrance to paradise, but those people are wrong, because it wasn’t a delusion, I was, indeed, the first to discover Heaven!
One thing that you have to know about Heaven is that it’s not a place, like Asia or the New World, whichever I found (I basically found both), what you have to understand is that it is a state, a state in the sense of a state of mind, and you also have to understand that I was the first European to find it, that’s the big thing, more than finding that state of mind for yourself, I hope you find out that I found it first, via this piece of writing, which should be widely read, and from there, yes, I do hope you find the state of mind of Heaven as well, and that when you are there, you have fun, but also that you pay your respects to me for getting you there, preferably in gold.
So here’s how you get there, I’ll give you the map to Heaven, for free right now, first time is free, OK, it’s pretty simple, first you have to sail to Asia or the New World (whichever, I’m sick of that debate), and then you need to get some beans from the people there, then you need to brew them into a beverage called “coffee,” then drink it, and by God, you will start to feel Heaven!
I remember my first cup of Heaven, the natives, when I would wake them up every morning to ask them why they weren’t getting me more gold yet, they would say, “ugh, Columbus, you’re still here, don’t talk to us until we’ve had our coffee first, you fool,” and they would go out and get their coffee first, and after they had it, they still didn’t like me, but they got the work done, and laughed a little while doing it, or at least I thought they got the work done, but it turned out they were actually getting me fool’s gold, because the island had very little real gold, and that’s partly why they were laughing—they were laughing at fooling me.
But when I found out, they said, “cool out, Columbus, you fool, coffee is way more valuable than fool’s gold or even real gold, as both are just pretty much useless, shiny rocks,” and so I tried their mysterious, bitter, murky coffee-water, which I first thought must be poison, that the natives must be fooling me again, into drinking, in order to kill me for making them find me gold every day, but then I imbibed it, with a bit of sugar from this cane they brought me to sweeten it after I complained about the bitterness, and it was quite tasty, by God, I felt the Heaven, I’m talking about the boundless energies, the expansive enthusiasm, the exquisite focus, which is the state of mind I call Heaven!
The only problem with Heaven is that it doesn’t last long, in fact, no longer than an hour or two depending on how strong your beans are, and so the key here is to keep drinking more of it, because if you stop, then you don’t just go back to the regular world, you crash into a new state of mind, Hell, which curses you with a really bad headache, and irritability, and jitteriness, and sometimes the runs, and most of the time it keeps you up at night, because you can’t sleep from the after-effects, and it’s pretty rough, I’m not going to lie, and sometimes after some of that Hell, you say, I’m going to give it up, I’m done with it, Heaven isn’t worth it, nothing is, but the next morning, you wake up, and you’re usually pretty tired from not sleeping due to all the Heaven you had too late in the day before, and so when you wake up you’re like, I just gotta get it, I’ll feel so much better, so you just gotta get it, you just gotta do whatever it takes to get some of that Heaven, and it’s so good again after you get it, even better than you remembered somehow, and I’m on it right now, can’t you tell, don’t you just feel my enthusiasm, and my energies, and my exquisite focus, my exalted state of mind, and isn’t it so great and real, that’s how I wrote this piece of writing that you’re reading, in Heaven!
And you can have it right now, too, you can have Heaven, Heaven, Heaven, you don’t even need to go to Asia or the New World, (whichever, I’m tired of that ceaseless argument, it is so irritating to me, it makes me so irritable, listen, shut up!), you can get to Heaven right now, no sailing, just go buy some of the beans I’ve started having shipped over, it’s roasted and artisanal, and it has a very good price, though it’s not fair trade via the natives, which some people have complained about, which gives me a very bad headache, their progressive complaining, just thinking about their progressive complaining right now gives me a very bad headache, but that’s why it has such a good price, the fact that its trade via the natives is not fair at all, and no one has complained about its very fair price, I can tell you that, and so it’s called Columbian Coffee, and it’s the best, so go buy some with your hard-earned gold from the markets where good foods and beverages are sold.
And, if there is ever a holiday named in my honor, which I’m sure there will be, because I discovered so many things, Asia, and the New World, and Heaven, let’s see if they still tell me I have “delusions of grandeur” on my very own holiday someday, be sure to drink some Columbian Coffee in celebration, and, ugh, I do not feel so good, I feel suuper jitttttery, maybe it’s because I’m on the toilet with the runs, or maybe the natives finally did poison me for all that I’ve done, I dunno, I cann barley skrawl this piecee any longre tho, I bettr gett somme mooore of that Heavennnnnnn!