Day 154 - Fallen Story

Fallen Story

Matthew Ryan Fischer

Olympos was an indescribable thing, although that didn’t stop the poets and the painters from trying. It was regarded as a place of beauty, high above and white like a snow-capped mountain, and home to the gods. The homes to the gods are always described as clear with bright white lights. But these were the words of people, the thoughts and perceptions of men and women. In reality, Olympos was an indiscernible thing. Man did not and could not possess the abilities to perceive or comprehend it, and they certainly didn’t have the words or ideas to properly convey and describe a home to gods and the deities that inhabited it. Man made legends and stories and told them in the only way they could understand, through personification, by making the gods like them. And in a small way, the gods were like them.

Zeus was no longer Zeus. He was a shell, a broken and wasted thing. At one time he had been everything – a king, a father, the sky and the supreme ruler of them all. He had been so many things. And in the blink of an eye it had all been forgotten.

As legendary figures go, Zeus had been seriously shortchanged and reduced in stature by the bards of history, turned into a sort of drunk womanizer, always cheating and having more children. He was the leader of the gods and the father of man, and yet most of the memorable stories started with him tricking some woman into bed. To tell the truth, Zeus was a bit of an alcoholic and was certainly an inveterate womanizer. But that was only when he was in human form and only when he chose to be, and really, it was just a recent behavior when considered from the perspective of all time. From a human perspective it seemed like that was all Zeus was, but a few thousand years is nothing when it comes to the immortal demigodery. A blink of eye for an immortal and a hundred years could slip by on Earth.

In modern times Zeus had discovered he had a real appreciation for beaches, lazy day lifestyles, and really couldn’t bring himself to care or interfere in human trivialities anymore. At one point it had been his thing to command the world and affect the facts of the average and ordinary. But it just seemed like too much work anymore. And it was pretty boring. There weren’t that many new things being invented by man. All the emotions were pretty much the same emotions and the interactions were essential alike. There were always a lot of fight-or-flight instincts and hunger and the drive for sex. It just got repetitive after awhile.

Zeus had gotten bored and closed up early and took off. He left his children behind and gave them a shot at running things for awhile. He embraced what could only be called a beach bum lifestyle. He let his graying beard grow long, put his hair in a ponytail, got a set of Hawaiian shirts, cut off shorts and flip flops for shoes. He had quite the tan. And he learned the pleasure of frozen tropical blender drinks. Suddenly, Zeus had become the walking epitome of a Jimmy Buffet song. He didn’t care. None of his new friends realized who he was and none of his old family was around to judge him. Still, it was a bit of an unbecoming life for the former head of Mount Olympus.

Most recently Zeus had been island hopping in Hawaii. There was something about volcanoes that reminded him of his former mountain home. He didn’t miss the Mediterranean, but did still have an appreciation for the rocking terrain. He had been awake for three weeks straight – sleep was pretty much a luxury activity anyway, and he had gotten into a running habit of not wanting to miss the sunrise or sunset. It was such a simple thing, and yet so beautiful against the water. He could have set an alarm, but found it easier to just sit on the beach all day and wait for the splendiferous skyline transitions to begin.

The sun was setting and a group of thirty-somethings had been on the beach all day. There had been surfing and parasailing and playing frisbee and volleyball. Zeus had watched them all day. They looked like very fun-loving people. Zeus could have gone to talk to them and maybe invited himself into their activities if he had wanted. He could be very charming when necessary. But he was also very happy to be by himself and be left to his own thoughts.

But there was one young woman Zeus found to be particularly interesting. She must have felt the same way, because right around the time the sun was going below the horizon she came over and invited him to their bonfire cookout. He thanked her and introduced himself. She chuckled at his name, but he swore he really was named Zeus, understanding fully that short of him throwing a lightning bolt or transforming into a bull, there was little chance that she would believe he was Zeus the deity from all the stories. He didn’t care. He didn’t need people’s faith anymore for him to get enjoyment out of life. He smiled and took her hand and let her lead him back towards her group. He told himself that it was about to become a very good night. Some habits, he found, did die hard.