by Cat Bruno
If you are guessing that my illness was a punishment or penance, then I cannot offer a rebuttal, and I must agree. A plague or pestilence had fallen across me, as if Apollo’s arrow struck me with its poisoned tip. Or perhaps it was the work of the Nosoi, the demons of sickness and disease that escaped from Pandora’s box. Do you know that tale, my readers? Her story is one of the more famous ones from those forgotten days. For those of you who do not know of her, let me offer a brief retelling. She was the first mortal woman created by the Titan gods and crafted from clay to be both beautiful and wise.
But her story does not end there. Let me unwind the wheels of time even further, to tell you of brothers, the minor gods Epimetheus and Prometheus.
One had been tasked with creating mankind (Prometheus) and the other responsible for the formation of animals. Prometheus was the wiser of the two, by far, while Epimetheus was known to be the god of excuses and afterthoughts. The god of good counsel succeeded in his job and produced man, but Epimetheus struggled with his own and constructed several animals with too much strength and skill. As he watched them next to his brother’s race of mankind, Epimetheus realized that mankind would not fare well next to the hoofed, furred, and hair-covered animals. These new mortals were naked and unskilled, easy prey for his overpowered beasts.
He begged his brother for help, and Prometheus, not wanting to see his masterpieces suffer, stole fire from the heavens to save his children. The flame, hidden inside a stalk of fennel, would allow man to be warmed and to consume the flesh of Epimetheus’s creations. It would grant them the means to survive.
However, the god of gods grew angry when he learned of the trickery. As punishment, he ordered Hephaestus, the craftiest of the gods, to make Pandora, and he bade Athena to garb her in silvery veils and crowns of flowers. Beautiful and tempting, Pandora entered the world, created from earth itself and designed for vengeance. As punishment for the brothers’ theft, Pandora was given to Epimetheus to marry. Such a fool was he that he did not understand the trap that Zeus had set. Prometheus was captured and tethered atop a mountain, where, for generations, an eagle devoured his ever-generating liver. Many years later, Heracles saved the god by releasing him from this fate. You will learn more of Heracles later.
Epimetheus, believing he had received the better judgment, accepted Pandora as wife.
Her beauty shone, as a beacon of welcome, but it hid what lay underneath.
Once her jar (that ill-designed, ill-fated wedding gift from Zeus) was opened, evil spirits escaped, spreading illness and misfortune across the mortal race to forever threaten mankind. A single blessing remained to ease man’s pains: Hope, which had hidden beneath the lip of the jar and stayed to offer solace.
Some of you may be familiar with other such tales from lands near and far, all sharing that similar trait of woman being the downfall of man. The beautiful and evil temptress, whose existence causes sorrow and woe.
But I do not think that to be the truth. From Ovid to Hesiod to Aesop and beyond, only men have been the recorders and narrators of history. Do you not suspect that they have manipulated our shared stories and cast us as the villains? What had we done to deserve such infamy? Perhaps that is what prompted me to write this tale, so you would hear from my own lips what occurred. If I am to be a villain, let it be of my own making.
You, my friends, have allowed me to tell my own story. Of the old gods and the new, of men and of women. Of plagues and pain, of crime and of justice. When the time comes for you to tell your own story, I hope that I am around to hear it.
My suffering ended about a week later.
By then, I had lost a few pounds and missed several important interviews and meetings. William guessed it to be food poisoning and urged me to go to the hospital. But I dared not, for fear that some curious doctor would discover the true source of my illness and question how I carried such an ancient viral strain. Instead, I slept often and had William deliver a case of water to my bedside. Yet I survived, paler and thinner than before. To make up for that, I spent my lunch breaks for the next week seated outside, sipping at high-calorie milkshakes and soaking up as much sunlight as I could. Both helped, and, by the end of the week, I glowed with the blessings of Helios. The golden sheen across my arms and chest confirmed that my punishment had ceased and my penance had been accepted, which is usually the way of the gods.
Although, I must admit that I feared I would not recover when the worst of the plague was upon me. It was only when I promised the gods that I had not forgotten my duty that my recovery began. I had been chosen to lift the scepter of justice. If I did not, my own life would be taken. Such had been decided, and only after days of illness did I understand fully what the gods intended. They had believed that Nemesis no longer wanted to mete out justice. And so, the gods reminded me how they handled defiance.
I could not escape who I was, not even as Dandelion fought for control.
By the time I met with Toby, my skin shined once more and the mist that had covered my eyes evaporated.
With a kiss of my cheek, he said, “I hate you sometimes, Dandelion. Those texts you sent of your milkshake diet had me expecting to see you looking like a plump sausage. Yet you seem the same.”
“I had some sort of stomach bug for a week. Trust me, Toby, I was a wreck.”
“Well, you look totally fine now,” he concluded with a crooked smile and a wink.
The day would be spent searching for some final pieces for the wedding tables. In addition, Toby made me promise that I would let him pick me out some outfits for the coming months, from the bachelorette party to the honeymoon and beyond.
“This guy will not let you become one of those trophy wife types,” he hissed as we began our day.
To be honest, I already looked the part, or near enough, which made walking by a silver and black accented salon quite difficult. Only Toby’s disapproving glance caused me to move on. There is little that I remember from our hours spent at the mall, but the evening after is one that I will not forget.
Toby and I parted ways after he helped stuff my trunk with several bags of clothing and shoes. William had texted that he was going to dinner with some colleagues so I decided to stop by the Gazette’s office. Nearly everyone had left and the parking lot was mostly empty when I arrived, except for a few scattered cars that dotted the pavement.
Looking back, I wonder why I did not know he had come. For months, I had expected something of the sort. Yet, in the seconds when I watched him approach me, I could not move. Outside of the Gazette’s side entrance, Mickey glided up to me as if he had borrowed the messenger god’s sandals. Nothing made sense, as if the skies had been shaken and toppled.
My gaze shifted, the fog filling my eyes once more until I stood atop Olympus and amid the clouds. This is not right! I screamed silently, as I tried to blink away the spreading mist. Only when his fingers interlaced with my own did the vertigo lessen.
“Can we talk?” he asked.
I do not know if I answered in English or Latin or Greek. I do not know if I answered at all. My next memory is slipping behind him as the heavy doors of a nearby diner closed.
Over coffee, in a booth in the far corner, we talked.
He talked. I said little and did not know why I had come.
“There is time, Dandelion,” Mickey had begun. “You do not need to marry him. Spend some time with me, wherever you’d like it to be. I have a few months off after this tour. We can go to DC or to Europe or stay here. I don’t care; I just want to be with you.”
As I listened to him, I thought of our past. We had seen Europe, or parts of it, centuries before, and I imagined what it might be like to revisit the same areas now, after so much had changed. The world was different now, even more than the two of us. Was he not the one who preached as much?
“Glory to those who let the old gods die,” I mumbled as if in a dream.
Only then did Mickey quiet.
“You have said it yourself,” I explained i
n hushed tones. “There is no place in this new world for the old gods.”
When he opened his mouth to interject, I uttered, “Do not say my name here. Not now.”
Each sip of coffee wakened me further until I was able to look upon him as I must. Why had it taken me so long to see him as he once had been, in the skin and form he had been born with first?
“Do you know who you once were?” I asked as my recognition woke.
“A rich kid from Virginia?” he laughed uneasily.
“That is who you are now,” I told him with a half-smile. “Go deeper. You must forget all that you have learned in this life. And the many that have come before. How strange that one so powerful has fallen so far.”
“I’m not using,” he hurriedly interjected.
“You do not understand.”
My own understanding, however, blossomed.
“There is one more thing that I can try. Come with me.”
On the way out of the diner, I noticed the camera hidden behind an arching and black screen. By then it was too late to care.
“Where is your car?”
“Near the Gazette building,” he admitted.
Nodding, I said, “Go back and get it. And meet me at Goodale Park in a half hour. It’s not far from here, maybe a mile. There’s a pond in the northeast corner; you’ll find me there.”
His gaze told me what his lips could not. Mickey doubted that he would ever see me again.
Ascension
The park was located in North Columbus and too near to Elizabeth’s house for me to ignore my curiosity. Short North, the area where all the young and beautiful lived or entertained, had experienced a spectacular urban revitalization. Now, it was home to what was artistic and exciting, with happy hours each day and sidewalk sales colorfully lining the streets. Galleries and salons, music venues and boutique hotels: all things up and coming could be found in the Short North District. So of course his whore would live there.
In the past, when I had visited by bus, I stared at the booming district through eyes grayed with bitterness. Years before, I knew, the area had been home to vacant buildings and weed-infected parking lots. Now it hummed with vibrancy and renewal, alive with the nectar of the new gods.
I hated Short North, which will come as no surprise.
Goodale Park, however, bloomed at its edges, nestled inside the Victorian Village. As Columbus’s oldest park, it had long been my retreat. A bronze sculpture of the park’s namesake – Lincoln Goodale – elegantly welcomes you to the park’s southern entrance, and his gaze is one of the gentlest you will find. Even before I met William, I would roam the park’s paved sidewalks and circle the pond, often pausing to take pictures. However, my camera bag remained closed as I drove toward Elizabeth’s street.
Often, I have told myself that it does not matter if he visits her. On a few occasions, some time spent in the reflective silence of the bus ride allowed me to skip over the stop nearest her house altogether. But that night did not end with me traveling the higher road, so to speak. I turned right onto her street and spotted his car before I had time to think of turning back. I will not lie to you, my friends, just as I have not throughout this retelling. Many times I wanted nothing more than to confront them both. Oh how I imagined it: the two of them entwined and peaceful as they laughed after an hour of lovemaking. Her bedroom was at the back (floor plans of her newly constructed townhouse were easy to find), and I heard the tapping of my heels against hardwood as I slowly strode toward them. Would they hear me coming or would their sounds of pleasure play over my approach?
Would William respond with anger or surprise once he knew who had come? Perhaps he would beg for forgiveness and promise to never see her again. I could not kill them. Not at her place, anyway. Cameras edged the property and each unit had its own near the door. Even my carefully chosen disguise would do me no good with such new equipment present.
Their joint deaths only existed in my imagination. Even a confrontation would never jump over the walls of my own mind. Her death had never been etched upon my stone tablet; the gods did not seek it.
That risk was far too high. I drove on moments after discovering his car parked in her driveway. The night was warm; maybe they had walked to get drinks; although I hardly think William to be so foolish weeks before our wedding. Unlike myself, who parked alongside Goodale’s borders and walked to meet Mickey.
He was there, leaning against the back of a bench, with his hat low across his brow despite the rising moon. Since he could not see me approach, I slowed. With each step I attempted to memorize how he looked and what a photograph might have found in those moments. Mickey dressed all in black, although his t-shirt had been intentionally distressed and muted. His jeans fitted snug against his legs, but not in the too-tight style that some rockers prefer. Half-laced boots covered the bottoms of his jeans, and one foot trembled as he waited for me to arrive. At the corner of his hat, a tiny crescent moon waned, and I recognized the logo of the Moon Kings. Both of his wrists were ringed with leather; black and gray strips of varying widths masqueraded in place of the armor he once wore.
The curling smoke from his cigarette clung to him, as the night’s humid air prevented escape.
But what I will remember most is how he smiled when he saw that I had come. That memory is mine only, my friends. But, for a moment, I thought he might have remembered who we had been.
“I had not expected Columbus to be such a cool city,” he stated a bit nervously as I stepped toward him.
Had it been cloudy or overcast that night, I might have cried. Whose blessing swept whatever clouds had streaked the sky away from the park? Ninety miles south of Columbus there is an ancient earthwork – Serpent Mound. Atop a small hill, the effigy mound slithers; its circular head at the edge of the hill, overlooking the valley below and its tail waving until it spirals into a coil at the far end of the mound. The effigy has existed for over 1000 years and is the work of the Adena tribes. I do not know their gods, but they are shamanistic ones and can move from animal to human form with a graceful ease. Birds were sacred to them, and I half-guessed that the Adena gods ordered them to pull those clouds aside with their talons and beaks.
With a bowed head, I offered the nameless gods tribute and gratitude, knowing that we all once stood tall together.
“Come,” I whispered to Mickey. “There is something I need to show you.”
This time, he followed as I walked toward the darkest section of the park. There, away from the orbs of the city skyline, I lay down on the grass and beckoned him to join. Mickey could not shield the distrust in his eyes, but he sat beside me and waited.
“Do you remember Ladon who had a hundred heads and once guarded the golden apples of the Hesperides?”
The sun had long set, and, around us, dusk dimmed and the shadows of night rose. Uncertainty causing his voice to pitch high, Mickey explained that he did not know the tale.
“Only a few of us truly remember those days, Mickey,” I sighed. “Thousands of years have gone by and, in that time, our identities have evolved and melted until we forget who we once were.”
I did not glance at him, and, instead, pointed toward the sky’s northern edge.
“There! Ladon, or, as he is called now, Draco.”
Some gods, like the Adena ones who honored the serpent, use earth and soil. Some, like my own, use stone and star.
“See how he descends, with his head low and his narrow tail high and to the right? Dragon or serpent, both suit him I think.”
“The constellation, you mean?”
He had finally inched backward to lie next to me, and I nudged him with my elbow gently as I once more pointed toward the sky.
“There, below him, just outside reach of his gaping mouth, Heracles waits. Look how he lifts his right arm so that his club is ready to strike should Ladon attack.”
“I don’t see it,” Mickey stuttered.
After shifting my arm lower so that my fingers pointed to
the rectangular torso of the Greek hero, I said, “His body can be traced by those four bright stars, and he kneels upon his bent leg, while his front one is bent to steady him.”
Three times over, I traced Heracles, who, here in modernity, is more known by the Roman Hercules. Finally, Mickey laughed.
“Yes, I see it now!”
“Do you remember him?” I hurriedly asked, not wanting the moment awakening dawned to pass.
The smile that caused his cheeks to thicken and blush weakened as he heard my words.
“I’m not one for astronomy, Dandelion. But being here and listening as you so passionately teach me of the stars will make this a night that I won’t forget.”
Still he did not remember.
Hiding my frustration, I asked if he could see Draco.
When he nodded and painted the outline of the dragon with his fingers, I rolled closer to him until my lips brushed against his cheek.
“Heracles defeated the Hesperian Dragon in battle so that he could recover the golden apples. What a battle it was, even for Heracles, who has been named as the greatest of all the heroes, although he was more of a demi-god than mortal. Twelve labors he completed, and defeating Draco was but one of them.”
Mickey kissed me swiftly in between sentences. That night, I did not try to stop him.
“Tell me more of his labors, Dandelion,” he asked with smoky-scented words.
How strange that he could not recall any history, even his own.