Dropped
Bright light illuminates the night and I stalk like a stray cat through the empty roads, I feel the thirst which so long ago brought me crashing down. I can remember that night as though it was yesterday, the familiar smell; the sweet tang of whisky in the air. Subconsciously my trembling hands reach for my bottle, I look in and stare desperately at the emptiness. My bottle is my heart and at the moment both are empty. I feel the desperation which sometimes takes me as I see people walking by, carefully avoiding the place I occupy. None care to spare a pound for a man who looks like he has drunk his life away. They don't know the truth; oh what I’d give to be able to lie down and die. I drink and drink and hope that one day it’ll be enough, but I wake up with a splitting headache cracking my head open like a fresh melon whilst I i lay on the floor, pitiful and sick to the sinews of my immortal heart.
Walking through this maze of unknown familiarity, I am again shocked and horrified by how humanity insists on living in such a hellhole. Whereas the rich live in the pure, white manors I have seen on the hills far away, cheap imitations of my old home; the poor struggle to survive in this man made jungle where the strongest prevail. I pull a knife from my damp boot as I hear voices ushering in the darkness. I see their gleaming eyes, eagle-like; convinced they are the predators, that they are the ones watching me. I smile, a grim smile; my only entertainment seems to come from this, killing off the destructive mortals prepared to feed off another’s misery. My acute hearing picks up their whispering.
“Look at the drunk, let’s jump him bruv. Teach the drunk a little lesson”
“You wanna shank him? That’s murder though...”
“So? No one’s going to miss a tramp.”
Even in my sordid state, I am more than a match for a band of children playing with lives; unprepared to fight an old man who looks decrepit and weak. They run out at me, three lie on the floor before they realise what has happened. My knife sits snugly in the leader’s stomach, one’s nose smashed by my elbow, the other’s arm broken and twisted in a morbid cross. In a pitiful bundle he lies weeping and bawling as he stares at his mangled arm. The last one runs and I let him go, dusting myself off as I walk my accursed path. I almost smile: I still have power.
I find myself in a side-road; littered rubbish decorates the grey pavement and old tattered posters hang from the walls advertising long-dead circus acts and now past-politicians; corny slogans sitting on their snobby faces. I shuffle on picking a path through the waste, I find myself in a more familiar road. Cheap lights hang from shops sparkling and blinking in a tumultuous storm of colours. I run my fingers through my matted beard; black and white posters adorn curtained windows and girl’s frozen faces smile out icily. Fat men in business suits enter, lust visible on their faces, they check over their shoulders conspicuously. I sit, eyeing a muscled bouncer warily.
I sit back and think of the person I was and the person I should be. Yet, what am I here on this hell? Nothing more than an immortal rat catcher, a poor drunkard in the land of the blind where the one eyed man is king yet I appear to have two eyes… I am superior to these humans yet never have tried to succeed; all I can think of is how to break through to my old home. It is an addiction worse than my drinking, for it poisons my heart and soul. All I can do is sit and, like an old man, dream of my past glory and my past life.
Now though I’m different, I feel determined. Adrenaline pumps up through my veins mingling with old wine and other chemicals. I stare at passing cars as they whir by; lights flashing in a city where none care for those who die, in a city where faces are unknown and people are so easily forgotten. I have lived here so long and know no-one. I remember but one face. She was beautiful, and she visited me long before I had fallen into this state of utter desperation. No name comes to mind but the first letter of the first name of my first love. Ironic isn’t it? Her name began with ‘P’ and she, my sweet love, led me to my downfall. She betrayed me, yet I dream of her still. My sons betrayed me! All have betrayed me... I have no-one left. I cry sometimes alone with nothing but immortal ghosts of memories to keep me company. I can remember so little, just a picture in my head of my true home as I stare into the puddles of piss and the charred cigarette butts which litter my new house.
I tried so many times to return, so many times that I’ve lost count. I sometimes tell myself it was all a dream yet they won’t let me rest; hallucinations come back every night to haunt me. In my dreams I see their faces smiling, waving, and welcoming me back amongst their ranks. But then I awake, screaming my hate silently into a dirty sheet. My only peace comes in the form of alcohol, when I’m knocked out in a suburb station, in a puddle of vomit; I sleep like a baby… Yet when I wake the truth comes back: they dropped me from the sky like the dirty pennies drop into my greedy hands.
How they would laugh if they could see me now; begging, starving, drinking; the irony of it all. I laugh, if I didn't I would weep. The father of the gods now has become the very lowest of human beings, shunned even by the mortals who live here. I pull a soggy cigarette from my pocket and light it, grey smoke invading my lungs. In the smoke I exhale I can almost see the shape of my kingdom formed yet ephemeral, unattainable and dreamlike.
I have sat, degenerating in Tartarus for an eternity and yet I still cannot comprehend the ways of the world. All my powers are gone, all but the worse: my curse. I am stuck here forever; no form of death can free me from my suffering. I am still walking now, getting closer and closer to my goal. I can almost feel them, my old friends and my old foes, their presences seeming to grow. I feel convinced that I will make it this time. I discard my bottle, throwing it into a heap of rubbish and charge towards the wall from which I was once kicked out of my realm.
I go towards the wall, the same excitement I feel every time as I reach towards it. I expect a click, a light, some form of recognition, but I get nothing. Just a bare wall into which I stare eyes downcast, heart weeping. I beat it with my hands, anger previously bottled up now unleashed. I have asked myself over the years if this is the exit. Maybe I am mistaken. But, a god, no matter how far he is fallen, makes no mistakes. Besides, I can normally feel them on the other side laughing at me at my vain attempts to escape. But today, I feel nothing. In fact there is no-one. I feel out with my mind’s tendrils reaching beyond the wall and am answered by silence, the cry of the dead. I back away hesitantly; when was my last dream? I’ve forgotten, it could have been a hundred years ago. Time is sickening, so much has happened here; yet I never felt any changes from the realm of the gods. I resolve to sleep without drink tonight; in my desperation I practically wish for the hallucinations to come…
They do not, and I awake to the dull lights of the city, the Sun hidden behind a cloud. Yet to my surprise after an hour, the Sun does not appear anywhere though the clouds have dispersed. I think back to Apollo, he was always good to me. Even when I was chucked down into this hell, he brought me light; I think too of Prometheus and the efforts which he had taken to assure that I would be as comfortable as possible in this waste. My only true friend, Prometheus, the gods caught him, tortured him and broke him. We never spoke again I never even had the chance to thank him for his small yet precious kindness; he brought me fire. Yet if I do nothing his sacrifice and the suffering which he has no doubt been through since are in vain. The new gods are cruel, their punishments lasting an immortal’s lifetime. I resolve to get up and to act, for Prometheus.
For the first time in centuries I get up at a normal time, legs stiff and arms sore. I begin to stretch, anxious to understand what is going on. The world seems to have stopped, no cars drive down the roads, lights flicker and people have gathered in a square near the tall bell tower. I stare open-mouthed; Apollo’s Chariot had been destroyed in the sky. It burns, flames sparkling off its fiery wheels as the Sun sits stagnating in the blood red sky. His horses lay bleeding their hearts onto the clouds. I cry out: “Apollo!" My voice hoarse and dry, unused and rough; silence. People begin to back away from me and I realise that my voice has come back. Not my meagre mortal voice, but the voice which I once had, the voice of a god. It booms and I hear echoes rebounding off the buildings which surround me, Big Ben’s Bell thunders. That signifies one thing; there is another immortal near…
Suddenly, someone grabs me and pulls me towards a backstreet, his strength is surprising. In fact, no mortal could hold such strength. I look into the darkness of his eyes and recognize Hermes, winged messenger of the gods. He looks at me, smiling and he light-heartedly says:
“Grown a beard? I would say it suits you, but that would be lying.”
Cunning bastard, I chuckle; we both know he is a liar but he's also the messenger of the gods. Like all good diplomats, he knows how to hide the truth. Even though he was one of my foes in past ages, just seeing him reassures me of my sanity. I hug him.
He begins to speak now of the danger and the trouble in which my homeland existed, a new war rages but it is not between the gods and the titans but between the gods themselves. Zeus, my treacherous son, is dead. Poseidon and Hades did war for Zeus’s power. Hermes wants to bring me back to Olympus. Hope comes gushing back into my heart like wine poured from an amphora. I understand that they need my help; I am the father of the gods. I am Cronus. I feel the wind pepper against my face and remember what it is like to be a King, to be God. I smile.
Word count: 1913
Impressum
Texte: Typhen Brouillet-Lee
Bildmaterialien: Laszlo Kugler
Tag der Veröffentlichung: 21.07.2012
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