All Things to All People

by furnaceglow

Summary:

This might be the last story I ever tell. Definitely the last story I will ever type on this laptop, as I plan to chuck this cursed device into the nearest pool of acid the very second I send this draft to Calliope for proofreads and erase this whole episode from my memory. Hermes said it would do nothing to destroy any of the actual content on it, as everything is “stored in the Cloud” nowadays, but go for it man, get it out of your system. Lately, everybody’s been telling me to go for it man, get it out of your system. They’ve also been walking on eggshells and keep giving me their therapists’ contact information.

Wow, Apollo, you may be wondering. What is this tale about? Can it really be more traumatic than your six month road trip across America, bound to a pipsqueak slave-master and fighting off such distinguished enemies as real estate tycoons, giant snakes, horse-fuckers, the specters of all your past regrets and/or mistakes, fungal acne and your toxic ex?

Yes. It can. You can stop trying to hide your glee, reader.

Apollo thought his trials were over. Well, Apollo thought wrong.

Chapter 1: This Law Resounds

 

It appears that it was all a misunderstanding.

What was only a trial run was taken seriously.

The rivers will return to their beginnings.

The wind will cease in its turning about.

Trees instead of budding will tend to their roots.

Old men will chase a ball, a glance in the mirror–

They are children again.

The dead will wake up, not comprehending.

Till everything that happened has unhappened.

What a relief! Breathe freely, you who have suffered much.

 

– The World, Czesław Miłosz

 

I lived as a monster, my only

hope is to die like a child.

In the otherwise vacant

and seemingly ceilingless

 

vastness of a snowlit Boston

 

church, a voice

said: I

can do that—

 

if you ask me, I will do it

for you.

– The Heaven, Franz Wright

 

For word of hate let word of hate be said, cries Justice. Stroke for bloody stroke must be paid. The one who acts must suffer. Three generations long this law resounds.

– The Libation Bearers, Aeschylus