Zeus's Last Speech

Zeus walks in the rain, trying to talk up joggers or anyone who will listen. They usually bolt, or give him smiles that seem like fence posts too high for even him to jump. He tells them that he is a god, that his father created this world and these humans out of boredom. He tells them tales of his heroic and great deeds. The words echo back to him, usually accompanied by laughter, as though he’s never said them at all. No one believes him.

He picks up his wife from work, thirty minutes late in an old car with a beautiful paint job. Hera works as a marriage counselor, poised and ladylike with an eye for weakness and vulnerability. Her job is only to give advice to the unhappy couple; but more often than not, she tears their marriages apart

She’s one move away from checkmate when the glass windows break and shatter into a million pieces. A round of bullets go off as they scramble away and take cover, both getting ready to fire back. They were enemies before allies and strategists before gangsters, but that doesn’t matter now.

Apollo is singing at some concert with thousands of screaming fans as the audience. He sings a song of tragic love, about a girl who tricked a boy that was so desperately in love with her. The boy grows to hate her after he’s found out what she’s done, and retaliates by doing something very horrible to her which he regrets over time; but now it’s too late. He sings of Cassandra and Hyacinth and Daphne. He sings of all his past lovers and all the hurt he put them through. Now that he is human, he can see how painfully short and obscure this life

The victim knows the face and name of her rapist, probably even has his DNA somewhere on her body. She refuses to alert the authorities and insteads confides in a random woman. Artemis feels her heart pound and blood boil under her skin. She has her mother’s temper and her father’s pride. She wipes away the tears of the crying woman, cradling her to her chest. After Artemis walks the woman home, she gets in a fight with a man catcalling a woman. She knows it’s unnecessary, but she thinks that at least one man should suffer for the things they’ve done. Her wounds reopen and her fingernails are caked with blood. She forgets that she isn’t immortal anymore.

Dionysus drinks away his pain, dealing LSD in dark alleyways and partying until the sun comes up. He is royalty among the teenagers and people his age, he whispers sweet nothings in their ears and they believe him. He was human once, and he knew he would be again. Like wine, nothing sweet could last so long. Icarus meanders through the crowd, asking him if he’s got anything that makes you feel like you can fly. In this life, he’s a junkie; and Daedalus watches him with sad eyes. Icarus is melting and Dionysus is letting