Ironically, the vault filled with excess fat i.e. secrets of the world, was the one thing that got him laid, on a fateful day with a gorgeous archaeologist that seemingly refused to be seduced by his wits and wealth. A vault filled with unseen archaic artifacts on the other hand was the precise lubricant required to conquer her, so Arturo promptly took her home to the vault and undressed her on the same Persian carpet that millions of would be kings and bastard heirs had ended up unborn.
It seems her attention was elsewhere even upon the act, because it is said that immediately afterwards she went straight to the reinforced glass display containing the text, the one we call egersis, and asked Arturo to bring her an X-ray machine from the university. Arturo begrudged and denied her request, not because of the cost of the machine, (that was insignificant to him) but because she shifted her attention from him so soon after making love.
Then, the cunning woman began explaining to him what the word ichor means (the ethereal golden fluid that is the blood of the gods and/or immortals), what egersis means (rising up/resurrection) and what may lie hidden on the ancient text. Arturo’s megalomania was no secret and the sly woman knew exactly which buttons of the powerful and momentarily satiated man to push. He stood naked next to her and the text, his eyes growing wide with the realisation of the meanings she opened up to him and his penis growing hard with the sort of erection that flips over pages in history books.
No-one knows exactly what clicked right that day. Sure, Arturo’s ego was as big as they come, the text would be sold and someone could have eventually uncovered the secrets within, the woman might not have seen the exact metaphorical huge glowing red button she needed to press to become a billionaire’s wife in a single night, her knowledge of Greek might not have been enough to recognise the (admittedly inflated at that point to suit her goals) potential of the text and lastly, the text might have been just that, some fragmented words from a semi-dead language of two long-dead people debating mythologies.
But none of that happened. Instead, she filled his mind with a clear path he could follow to satisfy his ego and the path required him to bring her along. A huge diamond ring and a very public wedding would sure help things move forward and he could have all the extra-marital sports activity he wanted.
We know all that from eye-witnesses, people who worked at Eagler and from shifting through the corporation’s public releases and connecting the dots. What happens afterward is pure speculation because everything after that point is kept a secret worth killing for. We only know of the actions of Arturo Eagler after that day and can only speculate on the meaning.
We have a good reason to believe that the examination of the egersis text uncovered a definition of ichor, the divine golden like essence of the gods. It is said that in his debate, the older speaker defines ichor as the meeting of the name, the myth and the place in a process he called theopoiesis. I am positive the explanation of that particular word lit up the eyes of Arturo (it means godmaking).
OK now, I know that it all sounds like bullshit and it might even be just that. The divine essence is the combination of the name, the myth and the place? It sounds like naive superstition, and even then, it sounds so simple. Too simple, one might say!
The irony is that the older speaker actually defines this theory to disprove it, he clearly says that this is wrong in the text, he talks down on the younger member and tells him to chill the fuck out (loose translation).
It matters not what the old dead guy believes, what I believe or what you believe. It only matters that Arturo Eagler of Eagler Gas and Oil, a billionaire with the power to test the theory and the megalomania to attempt it, believes that this is the way to turn him into a god.
I know it sounds crazy, I know it is completely and utterly nuts. But the fact is that the man moved his American company’s headquarters for no good reason whatsoever, to Athens Greece area code. And renamed it Zeus Electric. Its nuts. It sounds crazy to me, I who have been born into this world and I can only imagine what it sounds like to older people when they listen to this theory and were raised before the Greek firesale.
The fact is that Eagler was renamed to Zeus. The fact is that Zeus returned to Athens (in corporate form). The fact is that this sparked the Greek firesale of 2016, and other corporations immediately followed suit, merging with others, renaming themselves and headquartering in Athens all the while buying everything and anything, claiming this is just good business.
If you have a better explanation for all this, I am all ears.
Prodromos
The End
Speaking in Bubbles
It was hard, getting drowned the first time.
The second, not so much.
His implants acted like gills, filtering oxygen from the water and pumping it straight into his bloodstream. But he had to fight the instinct every time.
He had to drown, every time.
Willingly.
It was one of the few jobs Clytos could do. He wasn’t qualified for anything. Grunts like him just had menial labour to do these days, and menial labour meant heavy body mods for tasks such as this.
He was building the new oil drilling platforms in the Aegean sea. The oil had been located decades ago, but instead of Greece actually drilling a hole for it and putting it to use, they waited till their loans defaulted and sold it off for peanuts to foreign interests. As in, corps.
So, a corp now owned the Aegean oil and was drilling for it.
Clytos drowned himself properly according to protocol. He had to make sure no bubbles were left in his lungs so that pressure was equalised and he could swim deep. When he did so, he grabbed the seadrone and it pulled him down into the blue darkness.
Once he got there, the seadrone projected instructions into his field of view. He was seeing normally in the water, all they had to do was add a layer over his eyes, like a permanent contact lens. It refocused light, or something like that, and he could see just fine, as long as there was light.
The drone shone at where the job was.
Clytos picked up a mechanical screwdriver from his toolbelt and started taking out rivets. One by one, the seadrone pointed out the next thing to do, the next tool to use, the exact movement and body positioning he should take.
He wasn’t a very smart man. But he found himself wondering, if the seadrone knew so much about doing the job, why wasn’t it doing it? It had a plasma torch like he did, it had manipulator arms, it had everything.
Nevermind. Clytos would be out of a job if that were the case, so he didn’t want to look under that particular rock.
The Aegean sea was seismically active. So, when they brought the oil rigs out here and sank them in place, they sometimes went out of place. The sea floor literally shifted underneath them.
It wasn’t something they couldn’t fix, but it took some elbow grease.
Clytos spoke, breathing out water. The mic in his throat picked up his distorted voice. It was funny, he could say pretty much anything, but the sounds with the lips didn’t work.
Aaa.
Ooo.
Mmm.
But he couldn’t say ‘b.’
So his report was, “Jo done. Whir to next?”
“Await instructions, Oceanid 3.” The seadrone went silent after that.
So he waited. They must have done something to his body heat too. Oh, he wore a thick diver’s suit, but he felt just fine, twenty metres down. He knew if he took his gloves off he’d lose all feeling in his fingers within minutes.
As he held himself on the oil rig handles, the undersea currents swept him around. He had gotten used to all the underwater effects. It was one thing that he was good at, being underwater. He knew that not all of the guys from his training went through with it, even after taking the mods.
He liked being alone down there, it was quiet.
As he moved with the current, he disturbed something. The rusted metal of the rig’s leg lashed out and swam into his face. It touched him and it was sleek an
d wet, if you could call wet something that was already in water.
It was an octopus that had camouflaged itself, becoming one with the texture below. Now it was swimming around his head.
He knew that if he was a scuba diver like people used to do, he’d be very scared of the octopus right now. They tended to stick their suckers on the diving mask’s glass, or tangle themselves in the air hose. Some scuba divers would panic and drown.
His father had lost a friend that way. So the warning was etched deep inside him.
But he needn’t worry. So he played around with the octopus. He pushed it to one side and it let him manipulate it with the water wake. It became a sentient ball. Squishy and bouncy and tons of fun.
Now that the octopus had taken its normal, light brown colour, he could see it clearly.
He noticed that it had a stump. So it was a septapod.
“How should I nane you, little shurvivor?”
He played with it. It wrapped one leg around his fingers, then slid away. Clytos chased it and played some more. It had survived an attack, either a fisherman with a speargun or a bigger fish. He had lost a leg, but had lived to tell the tale.
“I’ll call you Rusty. Yeah, that fits. Rusty.”
Rusty swam around his head.
The seadrone whirred and caught up with him. “Oceanid 3, follow me for your next task assignment.”
Clytos waved at Rusty. “Hafe to go to whork. Nye-nye.”
The seadrone’s side flashed and Clytos covered his eyes. When he looked again, the octopus was cut in half, burned and dead. The current swept Rusty away.
“Next assignment, Oceanid 3.”
Clytos gripped his own plasma cutter. He turned his back to the seadrone and swam back to the rig. It’s not like anyone could see his tears underwater.
The End
Author's Note
A Story Inspired by Medusa’s Sister and a Piece of Unplayable Piano Music
To gorgonise. An old English word based on Greek. Means to have a paralysing effect on someone.
Taken to the extreme, as I always do. Evryali is a music piece for solo piano that cannot physically be played, composed by Iannis Xenakis in 1973. That means the piano player has to choose which notes to play and which not to, resulting in a performance that transcends form and function. Evryali is also a Gorgon, (Yes, Medusa’s sister.) Noted for her petrifying gaze, of course, but also for her bellowing cries. Contrary to Medusa who was a mortal that was cursed, Evryali was immortal.
Here is a dark story inspired by her. I suggest you listen to the Evryali piece as you read. This will make it a sort of multimedia experience.
https://mythographystudios.com/books/gorgonise-me/
Gorgonise Me
The first time I met her I thought my heart had stopped.
That’s simply because it had.
I was a plain old work hand on the Paros estates. She came to the island to spend her summer days, bathing in the sun and taunting the males.
Miss Evryali was famous, you see. A pianist of the finest calibre. She had performed in Opera houses in New Yorks and Italies and Moscows.
That was no laughing matter, you see. Not that there ever was any laughter inside these walls. Oh, we sometimes laughed, the staff. In secret, amongst us, about the master’s eccentricities and something funny we might have read. But it was all done in hiding.
A dour mist fell upon the estate whenever one of the masters was around, either he or the lady. No children, of course, they never wanted children. It was the new thing among the rich and the famous, to go against social structure and neither marry not get pregnant, no matter how many years a couple might stick together and no matter how indistinguishable their relationship might be from marriage itself.
It was the posh thing, you see. Being barren and thin. Thin and perfect. Perfect and famous. Famous and rich. Rich and desired.
If only the fans knew of the things I knew about my master and my mistress, they would never desire her so.
It is the screams, you see.
First of all, Evryali wasn’t her real name. She was discovered by my master when she performed the impossible piano composition by the same name. The piece of music contains passages that are physically impossible to play because you can’t reach the notes, so the pianist has to create a reduction of the piece and omit some notes, transpose others in order to make it playable.
It is in those choices where the pianist keeps the essential aspects of the piece and sacrifices others that one’s soul is bared.
Evryali can perform the Evryali solo piano composition. She can perform it so well that it mesmerises men to their knees. Experts and critics and composers have praised her for her impossible performance, equating it to the experience of a lifetime. They have analysed it, coming to a dozen conclusions in a dozen academic papers, discussed every keystroke, every movement of her hands, every passion impressed upon the magnificent organ, every emotion.
But I know the real reason she can play it.
It is because she lacks a soul.
Only such a person could cleave at a body of music without abandon, carve it down to her will, make it the same but dead, a mockery of a person, a mockery of a life.
The best psychopaths are never caught, you see. They wriggle through life like chameleons, expertly showing a mask of human emotions but having none themselves.
So they present a human face, smiling, made of cut out cheeks and cut out lips and cut out eyes. All in the proper configuration, easy to fool the masses, never cracking under the pressure of the limelight. But always dead inside.
Why, might you ask me then, do you still serve her?
The answer to that is quite simple. I am in love with her. Even though I know she could never truly love me back.
A fool, I know. But have you met a man in love that is any less of a fool? Show me if you have.
I carried a piece of her inside me, always.
Isn’t it supposed to be the other way around, one might ask with a lewd smile?
Yes, but in this case everyone in the house carried a piece of her.
It was out of the blue that the master gathered us all and asked us to write new Non-Disclosure Agreements. It was nothing unusual, those became standard and taller each year that passed. The standard stuff, say nothing, see nothing, hear nothing. The walls have ears, and in this age, so did the trees, and the sky, and the beach.
I carelessly picked up the thick stack of papers and started signing it. “Wait, Ortego,” my master said. “This time there are new clauses. I need you all to read them and be certain you agree. If you do not, it is fine. We will part ways amicably with the best letters of recommendation, I assure you.”
“Yes, master,” I said and actually read the thing. The language was thick and to be honest, beyond me. How could that be true, you might ask because of my eloquence? Oh, that came afterwards, for this was decades ago. I was but a peasant back then. Still a peasant now, but an educated one at least.
The document said of a procedure. An invasive procedure that we had to accept or be employed no more. It was weird of our master, for even though he was not without his quirks, they had never come anywhere near something like this.
He saw our faces, so he explained. “I have to repeat that you can all deny doing this. The procedure will be an implanted device over your heart, that will make you empathetic to your master’s wants and desires. It is a cutting edge application, but it has been tested before and it remains harmless, as procedures go.”
The staff stared at one another. We all knew what would happen. What would really happen.
Back then, you see, none of us really had a choice. We had the illusion of a choice, yes, but not the choice itself. Can a mother abandon the job that keeps her child fed with insulin? Can a father quit when his own father had left him with an insurmountable debt that he can never hope to pay off? Can a young workhand like me with no education and no skills really turn his back to the only passa
bly good employer he’s ever had?
No. We would all agree and sign, no matter what the new demands were. The alternative was…
Well, nobody wanted to even think of that.
So we signed. The full household. And we were taken to a clinic, one so fine we hadn’t even hoped to ever set foot in, and we underwent the procedure. A tiny cut above the heart. We could opt for plastic surgery to remove the scar, but it had to be taken out of our pay. Naturally, we all left it there. The surgeon was deeply disappointed about that.
So we signed and agreed and went under the scalpel.
And we soon found out what it all meant.
The first time I met her, my heart stopped. Literally. Moments before that, we heard music in the main hall. Key notes. Piano keys, rabid, hungry, insane. Like jazz if it suddenly decided to become a herald of the gods.
It was she, and she was glorious. Tuning the master’s piano, she hammered her delicate fingers on the schizophrenic tempo of Evryali. She and the music piece, the music piece and she. It was all one and the same.
The curtain fell and we gazed upon her and our hearts stopped.
The pieces of herself that we had agreed to be implanted with granted her access to our body’s very foundations.
We all clutched our chest and our knees bent, supporting on chairs and walls and columns. A vase fell and crashed.
Apparently, it was the desired effect. My master, and my new mistress as it seemed, were extremely pleased. She played the titular melody and our hearts skipped a beat, then another, then another.
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