ChrisGibson
JUB Addict
A MYSTERIOUS SHIP ARRIVES ON THE COASTS OF ELLIX, VISIONS AND DREAMS HERALD THE ARRIVAL OF THE GOD IN THEBES AND A COMPLETE CHANGE OF GUARD....
All night there had been a storm. The people in the villages by the sea had not feared, and that was strange. Lightning riddled the sky and clouds boiled, the waves slowly rolled onto the sand and washed off of the shore, and now and again, some people came out to watch the water. Husbands came out with their wives, and the wives put their heads on their husbands shoulders. The children and some adults danced about in excited circles, linking hands at the approach of the weather. The wind whipped up was not cold. It was just cool enough. All that afternoon, as the sky had gotten ready for the night, it was the purple color of wine, and the sun on the sea turned it the color of rose wine. An old man, blind for years, turned his head to the water, and his daughter said, “If only you could see that sky.”
He said, “I can. I almost can. I can feel it.”
And so they had not feared as the weather grew strong. One woman, inspired, gathered dead wood and began to build and altar. Some of the people sang as they set fires blazing.
“Eko! Eko! Samilak!
Eko! Eko! Assarak!
Eko! Eko! Iacchus, O!
Eko! Dionysio!”
Fires burned across the night, and meat was roasted, and all up and down the coast, villagers, always close, were closer than ever. They remained until the rain washed away some fires, but other fires burnt long, and still they remained. They remained while it rained until the rain was too much and then, slowly, with only a little regret, they returned to their houses. On a night like this, when one looked out onto the water, she might think of the east, of the long isle of Evio, where the poet Hesiod had come from, or the Isles, or of Phrygia, and the lands beyond. On a night like this one thought of the east.
The storm ended before sunrise, and the sky was a rich wine color, the sun coming through purple clouds. It was in this wine soaked light that a ship came into the harbor. It’s sails were purple, and it was more like a building than a ship, because vines and tendrils hung from it. The sweet drunken smell of grapes could be inhaled all along the beach, and women and men ran out to meet the boat. With no anchor, with no danger, gently, the long ship, sails purple and soaked with rain, resinous with wine, crowded with strange laughing women and yes, gentle tigers, lions like kittens, jaguars, slowly crashed into the beach, and more in desire and love than fear, the people of the shore went to their knees.
For once, Mykon woke before Manaen. As lovely as his strong thick body looked, Mykon parted himself from his father and, naked, went to the altar room. He stretched himself out across the cool ground and then rose, lighting the candles of the altar, holding his palms out to the flame and feeling the heat, stretching out on the ground again, filled with the memory of last night’s dream and the lovemaking with Manaen that had occurred before it, the lovemaking which, accompanied by the devotion, would happen again.
Oh Lord, I love you. It is not that I do not revere you, but I did not love you, for I did not know you. I had never seen you. Now I have seen you and you have touched me, and I am in love with the glory of you. You came to me, and I never expected that you would to one such as I. What am I, a soldier? I am one who assist my father in his duties and his devotions. I have seen the devout others, but never though the devotion would come to me, that you could come to me.
When you came I felt like a boy again, like a little child dancing on the beach or in a field of flowers before the battle ax went to my hand, before I had to think of strategies. I do not feel like I have never killed a man though I have killed too many. I feel as if everything I’ve done, I am pure from. It is as if everything I’ve ever done is done in your love. You came to me and said, “I am the word that spoke and light was made.”
I was so afraid of losing, so terrified because for such a time we have come up and up and up, saving ourselves from the old disgrace, growing in might and power. Only in Manaen’s arms have I let myself be completely vulnerable. I have loved Pyrs and Maro, but only in the arms of the one who cradled me when I was a child has all the strength I exercise given way to weakness, to being protected.
Lord, when I saw you it was like that again. I was naked again, not naked as in the gymnasium when the hardness of my body is a warning to men, a reminder that these arms hold the sword, these thighs squeeze the horse, this chest wields the ax in battle. I was naked the way I was the first time I gave myself to my father, almost weeping when we held each other. It was so with you. And there you were, like me, not like the great gods I have seen, but vulnerable, a boy, and I loved you, all of my body yearned for you. I ached for you, and was it a dream or not? You took me in your arms. Whispering over and over and over again.
“I am the seed that died to be reborn.
I am the grain scattered in violence
over the hillsides,
gathered into one loaf to feed all.
I am the grape, crushed and crushed
under men’s feet.
Buried in the earth unseen to become
the wine of life.”
We lay together, as together as I’ve ever been with a lover, and you whispeed to me while I wept, “I am coming for everyone and everything.” I cried again because, all of my life I had loved one thing and hated another, and in your presence I knew it was time to love all things.
“How can I love all things and slay some things? A warrior is still what I am?”
And you said, “Give yourself to me.” You said, “Give all to me.”
Now, I am afraid. Now I think of Pentheos of old, that second king of the city, so proud, who did not welcome the Lord when he came. I am not King, but I am almost a ca king. I am as Creon was when he made himself king. Teiresias tried him and found him wanting. Lord, when you come, find me humble. Find me open to you. I had thought the reason we had come through all this, that our family had built ourselves up in such a way was for our own benefit, to recover from our own shame. But it was for this moment. It was for this.
That night. Jocasta dreamed a dream of unbearable light. In the dream, it was as if she could not turn her face from the light or shut her eyes. It pierced her eyelids. But when she ceased struggling, her only desire was to be in that brilliance. She thought, “How long can I stand it? Could I try and stand it? Could I bear it. She thought, I cannot leave this light, to turn from it would be darkness, and I could not live in darkness again.”
And here is the thing, until she had voiced this, she never knew there had been any darkness. The light burned. It burned all of her, and she knew now that she could leave it, but she chose not to. She let herself be consumed in flames until the suffering became a pleasure, until she almost moaned as the light lessened, as she opened her eyes to a golden glow, rich and thick as honey.
Now that she did not suffer, she smelled the sweetness of honey, and the different, sharper sweetness of lavender. And there was thyme, thick on the air, and rosemary and basil and the smell of bread. Where was she? She felt she was possibly back in her room in Manaen’s house. She turned to look at the figure in the window. From the corner of her eye she could see him, a young, lithesome boy, like Mykon had been only a few years back, but when she looked fully on him, the lines and shapes of him disintegrated and her focus left her.
“Welcome, sister,” he spoke to her.
She bowed her head, for only in bowing could she see him. She said, “Hail, Lord.”
“How is it with you?”
Jocasta thought.
“It is well. It is more well than it is has ever been.”
She looked up at him now, and thought sometimes he was Mykon, sometimes he had the head of a tiger. His forms kept shifting, and she was terrified and delighted, like the very first time she’d lain in Marophon’s arms.
“I cannot explain it. I have never felt like this before.”
Then she said, “Lord, why have you come to me?”
“Because you are mine.”
“I do not even know who you are.”
“You do.”
Jocasta found herself saying, “You are the word that spoke and light was made. You are the seed that died to be reborn.”
“I am the grain scattered in violence over the hillsides, gathered into one loaf to feed all. I am the grape, crushed and crushed under men’s feet. Buried in the earth unseen to become the wine of life.”
“Yes, Lord.”
“And what else have you learned?”
“That so am I,” Jocasta said, breathlessly.
“Men call themselves Gods when they refuse to fall. They do not understand the Gods,” the Voice said. “They make Gods who are ever young and unsuffering, unyielding. Rapacious. They have made the Gods in their own image, but in the very beginning the Gods made men to be like them.”
“The Gods are always dying,” Jocasta heard herself saying, and along with the God she said, “And rising again.”
“Sister,” she heard him say, “Do not stay gone too long, for I am returning to my homeland and your homeland. Long has it been since last I was there, and men have forgotten me. Now it is time to be remembered. Now it is time for much that has been forgotten to be remembered.”
For the first time she saw him now, a beautiful young man, and he was golden and brown like a field in August. But as she gazed on him, he fell away, spreading all across the ground like wheat, and she heard only his voice:
“In the end my love will conquer all.”
She blinked in the semi darkness, a darkness much more intense for the light she had dreamed. She turned to see Marophon’s back, and she was glad that he was here, that she was his wife and they had loved each other in this bed. She shook him and he shook himself, turning over and blinking at him.
“Oh, Maro!” she began, but she stopped talking because his face was alight.
“You had it too!” Marophon whispered to her. “The Dream. Of Him?”
“Yes, and now I do not want to go to Attika.”
“We will turn back. We will go back to the city,” he said. “We will wait to see what happens.”
MORE TOMORROW....
