Inspiration

I lie on my bed with my fingers poised,

Hovering over a keyboard, waiting for that clicking noise.

But words do not spring to my finger-tips today

And I search all around me for something to say.

Tree leaves flutter against light afternoon wind

And a gray layer of clouds refuses to be thinned.

Engines hum as cars drift on by

And birds chirp faintly as they touch the sky

Bed springs knot and ping as I shift my view

To look at shelves of books whose numbers are not few.

DVDs and movies rest on brown wooden shelves,

Testaments to our attempts to entertain ourselves.

Then, a white doorway leading out to the hall

Followed by a closet, a backpack, and a deflated football.

My desk rests in shambles, debris piled up high.

I can never keep it clean, as much as I might try.

Inspiration is tough to come by, sitting on your bed.

I have a laptop, and keys, but nothing in my head.

The dark enemy is writer’s block, holding me back.

But maybe the answer lies in a folded laundry stack.

We search this wide world, for some new stimulation,

Feeling ourselves lost in some unholy stagnation.

But, inspiration can be found in the glint of window glass

In the heart of a loved one, in the smell of newly cut grass.

We call out for something to unhinge our emotions

But sometimes one only needs the simplest of notions.

I can feel the cool breeze drifting over from the ocean,

A call of inspiration for many a Nova Scotian.

So, good-bye to writer’s block holding me down.

I can find my afternoon muse in what is around.

The rustle of curtains, the dust on the shelf,

These are all I need to inspire myself.

Forgetting

Beneath my fingers and thumbs

the flat keys wait, lifeless and still.

Heaney rode backwards through time, riding

on the memories of father and grand-father,

for the past was his concern, not the future.

But I will look forwards to the times of my children

and my children’s children, to how the world will change

and how the words and the writing will change

as technology advances.

Will my children write essays snug in their beds,

with eye strain caused by hours gazing at their iPads,

breeding a need for prescription eye-glasses?

Will they remember paper and pen

or will those be relics of the ancient world of their father?

You may laugh at the thought, but we have iPhones and Kobo ereaders

and even Bluetooth control for our cars.

Will my grandchildren think their words and watch them

spread across the holographic screen, bringing new meaning

to stream of consciousness writing?  Will they even know

what foolscap is?  Or lead pencils?  Or pink erasers?

Or will writing have passed out of style with a new medium

rising to illustrate the need for story and word

to express the interior thoughts and emotions

of this race of humans, flawed but fixed by tech.

How will my children write?  Will my grand-children write?
By the time my great-grand-children are born will they be a part

of a world that has forgotten the pen and the pencil

that allowed us to express ourselves with this written, divine language?

Beneath my fingers and thumbs

the flat keys wait.

What will I choose to remember with them?

Atlas Tripped

“I think we should stay in Europe but all the politicians who destroyed this country should leave.”

-          Katerine Apostolaki, 20, Student

Fire reflects off of shields held high

as soldiers march like Marathon remembered.

But they grip shields of polycarbonate

instead of ones made of iron and bronze.

They are no Spartans, though valiant they may be,

for there is no glory to be found here.

No Simonides lives now to write an epigram

for the epitaph of a nation.  Besides,

the coffers are too bare to spare

the (useless) coin needed to commission

such a project.  Oh, woe to the west

where anyone can be at the scene

of the dust and the smoke and the rage

simply by turning on their phone

and googling a nightmare half a world

away.  It is possible to look but impossible

to see.  As in an age long past

there are three hundred who stand

against an onslaught numbered

in the billions (of euros).  Three hundred

representatives attempting to preserve

posterity (and posterior) with austerity.



(http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/international-news/amid-flames-greek-parliament-approves-crucial-austerity-bill/article2335517/?utm_medium=Feeds%3A%20RSS%2FAtom&utm_source=World&utm_content=2335517)

Culpa

Hey guys, this is a story I wrote from the perspective of a character mentioned/introduced in another story written by someone else.  It was a writing exercise I did and I decided that I'd share it here!  Enjoy!  Post comments!

Culpa didn’t even remember what Puna’s face looked like.  She couldn’t remember her parents either, or what had happened to them.  They’d been children when the task force attacked the compound where their kidnappers had taken them.  Their kidnappers, but their liberators as well.  The task force ended up becoming the true kidnappers, the separators, the ones that took Puna away from her.  For all that Culpa knew, Puna was dead.  Or worse.  She knew what their rescuers had done, could do, and would do.

                The bomb.  The first one dropped a year after Puna was taken had done untold damage and killed thousands.  It was enough to look on the devastation of that village to turn Culpa’s heart to stone.  She could no longer call herself one of them.  Not after that.

                She stopped being a quasi-prisoner that day and went in for recruitment.  After the bomb, knowing what the enemy could do, she was hardly turned away.  Her liberators became her squad mates.  Veritas, Equitas, and Mendacium became her closest friends as they dove into the trenches together.  They had each other’s back, they had each other’s front, and that bond was closer than anything Culpa had ever known.

                It was a year after the first bomb was dropped that her Commanding Officer told her why the enemy had chosen that particular village for the first bomb drop.  He had told her it was because of its position, not strategically, but geographically.  Situated in a valley surrounded by mountains, it was the perfect location to gather data on the effects of the bomb.  Culpa’s heart had already turned to stone.  It was that day she felt the magma begin to press against it, like the capstone on a volcano.  She didn’t know how long it would hold.

                At present, Culpa found herself looking up from her journal as Veritas entered her tent.  It was the fourth day of the enemiy’s most recent push into the Eastern held territories.  Artillery strikes were hitting almost every hour, but luckily the bulk of her division’s tents were far from the intended targets.  She felt no envy for the soldiers closer to the strategic compounds and command bases.  Though they were heavily bunkered, it would be no picnic, and you could absolutely forget about sleep.

                “Commander says we’re going to try to push on their left flank,” Veritas explained.  “That particular regiment took heavy casualties in an engagement with 9^th platoon a couple hours ago.  Another regiment’s come in to defend them but they’ve been forced back by General Compelo’s tank division up.  If we take this regiment by surprise while they’re weakened we’ll have a significant advantage.  We’ll start pushing them away from the river, their only water source.”

                “Sounds like a plan to me,” Culpa nodded, picking up her rifle.  She was a good shot.  No, screw that, she was a hell of a good shot.  She had outstripped Veritas, Equitas, and Mendacium in every target shooting drill they’d ever been subjected to.  It had earned her the nickname Plink from Mendacium to describe the sound that she made every time she zeroed in on the tin cans that were set up for her.

                Equitas and Mendacium were waiting for her outside the tent.  Their faces were stained with ash that coated their cheeks and made their eyelashes look gray.  She was certain she looked the same, coated in the dust of war.  She tried not to think about how much of it was the remains of people who’d been blasted apart next to her by explosions, or killed by incoming fire.

                Equitas took point as they dipped into the trench and began to work their way towards their target.  Machine gun fire from the 3^rd Platoon was drawing the bulk of the enemy’s fire, distracting them as Culpa’s squad linked up with a  couple of other four man teams.  The machine guns would only work for so long, but it still felt good to be moving through the trenches without the sound of bullets dividing the air over your head.

                Culpa did a quick pop up over the lip of the trench to get an idea of the enemy’s deployment and could already see soldier’s moving into position to intercept them.  The distraction hadn’t lasted long.

                “They’re on to us!” Culpa barked just as the first bullets began to rain dirt and grime down on their heads.

                “Goddamnit I hate this part!” Mendacium barked.  “Plink, give me some covering fire!”

                Culpa nodded and waited until she heard a break before snapping up and putting a bullet into the shoulder of one of the enemy soldiers.  He had been exposing himself too much.  The shot hadn’t been hard.  She tried not to think about his screams as she ducked back down.

                “Again!” Mendacium cried, hefting his light-machine gun.

                Culpa popped up a second time with Veritas at her side.  They both fired a shot.  Culpa’s hit the target, causing a woman to spin out of her machine gun nest.  Culpa never saw if Vertias’ shot hit, she only heard the all-to-familiar sound of a bullet’s buzz before it made contact with skin.  And then Veritas was falling beside her.

                “Mendacium!!” Culpa roared.

                “Equitas!  Cover me!” Mendacium screamed.  He popped up over the side of the trench wall, opening fire so that the sound of his light-machine gun shredded the air in all directions.  Equitas was up beside him, popping off shots like a mad-man.  Culpa knew that only a few would find their targets, but her thoughts were entirely on Veritas.

                She fell to his side, her knee sinking into wet mud, and she quickly located where the bullet had entered.  Right side, between the ribs.  It had passed through as smoothly as a blade, not even breaking any ribs.  But blood was flowing from the wound relentlessly and Veritas was coughing up blood as his lungs began to fill.

                “Veritas!  Veritas, stay with me!  Don’t you die on me you bastard!” Culpa roared at him, putting pressure on the wound.

                “Culpa…Cul…Culpa…” Veritas gasped between coughs.

                “Shut up you idiot!  Hold on, just…MEDIC!”

                “Culpa…your…your parents.”

                “Shut up you stupid fuck!”

                “We…shot them…the day we took you.  Equitas, Mendacium…and me.”

                Culpa sank back against the trench wall and buried her face in her grimy hands.  She had dropped her rifle somewhere.  She couldn’t remember.  When she pulled her hands away, Veritas was dead.

                The magma was coming to a boil.  She could feel the stone quaking, ready to burst, ready to let it all come out.

                And she wanted it to.

                Culpa stood up, unconcerned with her own rifle, and pulled her side-arm from its holster.  She jabbed it point blank against Equitas’ cheek.

                “Culpa, what the fuck are yo-“

                Equitas’ face exploded, the bullet catching Mendacium in the shoulder next to him.  He roared and stumbled to the side, losing his grip on his light-machine gun which sputtered out.  But the buzzing was still in Culpa’s ear and she couldn’t get it to stop.

                “Culpa!! Don’t!!”

                But she didn’t stop.  She emptied her pistol into Mendacium’s stocky frame and grabbed Equitas’ rifle off the ground.  She popped over the trench wall, not caring anymore, not caring about anything.  She saw one of the enemy soldiers racing towards her across the dead zone between them, screaming.  She put him down, his head exploding like a popped grenade.

                She worked the bolt and looked for another target.  She hated the enemy.  She hated them for abandoning her.  For taking her sister from her.  For leaving her alone.  For letting her parent’s die in a splash of blood against the side of the house she dreamed over and over and over.

                Then she saw her.  Puna.  Across the impossible gulf, forever out of reach, with the enemy.  Culpa dropped the rifle.

                “Puna?”

                Then, the buzz of that all-to-familiar bullet before it hits its target.

Committed Epilogue...Sort Of!

Committed Chapter 25

Ariadne sat at the desk, waiting.  She had changed into a blue sun-dress which hugged her frame nicely.  She adjusted the straps for the fourteenth time, wanting to ensure that the dress always cupped her breasts so that they would always been a visual pleasure for Janus.  She knew he would want to enjoy her while she was still in this young body.  She almost shook with anticipation of their first night together.

            She realized that in this life she was a virgin.  That would make Janus extremely happy.

            She heard the window open behind her and stiffened slightly.  Her hands began to sweat.  She bit her bottom lip but didn’t turn around.  She felt so uncomfortable.  She adjusted the folds of her sundress and took in a slow breath.  She could do this.  Her love for Janus was strong enough to get her through this part.

            “Ariadne…?”

            Ariadne stood and turned to face Paris Montague.  He had climbed through the window into Janus’ study, a twenty-by-twenty room with the same red and gold colour scheme to the walls that had been present in the entrance hall.  A desk of dark mahogany, pristinely maintained by Janus’ servants, lay between them.  The walls on either side of them were lined with shelves of rare books, their cold brown and black spines lined up like soldiers.

            “Hello, Paris,” Ariadne said, smiling sadly.  “You shouldn’t have come.”

            “Okay, okay,” Paris nodded, glancing down at her hand.  “So, this is all going as part of the plan, right?”

            “Paris, you need to listen to me…” Ariadne began.  Paris started to walk around the desk and she stumbled back in fear. She caught herself and forced herself to stand still.  She needed to do this.  For Janus.

            “Paris, listen.”

            “I’m supposed to smash the ring,” Paris said, his eyes still locked on her ring hand.  “This isn’t you.”

            “You’re not smashing anything,” Ariadne insisted.  Hearing the words from Paris’ mouth, knowing that he had every intention of following through with this sick, demented plan, was more than Ariadne could bear.  “You won’t do it!  I won’t let you!  I love Janus too much!”

            “No, Ariadne, you don’t,” Paris said, looking up at her now.  He was begging, Ariadne realized.  How pathetic.

            “I do, Paris.  That’s what you need to understand.  I love him completely.”

            “I can’t do this,” Paris said, turning around, forming a tepee with his fingers in front of his mouth as he began to pace.  “I can’t smash the ring.  Not when you’re like this.”

            “Exactly,” Ariadne sighed, feeling that the worst was over now.  “Paris, I understand that you are upset, but what we had was a lie-“

            “You have to smash the ring yourself.”

            Ariadne blinked in surprise.  “That’s never going to happen, Paris.”

            “It has to happen,” Paris said, suddenly rushing forward and grabbing her hands.  How had he made it so close to her?  “Ariadne, you don’t love him.  A few hours ago we were running from him!  You hated him!  You have to remember that!”

            “I wasn’t in my right mind!” Ariadne cried, yanking her hands away from him.  “I was sick!  I love Janus!”

            “No!  Ariadne, no! No, no, no!  You love me!”

            For a moment, Ariadne said nothing.  Then she started to laugh.  She laughed so hard her sides felt like they were splitting.  She felt forward, bracing her hands against her knees, and laughed.  Paris just stood in front of her.  Somehow, the sight of tears rolling down his face only made everything funnier.

            “Why would I ever smash the ring?” Ariadne giggled.  “Why?  It’s the reason I remember every time.  It’s the reason that Janus is able to find me every time and make me remember.  We belong together.”

            “No,” Paris whispered.  “He stole you.  Not from me but from yourself.  You deserve to choose for yourself and he has taken that away from you.  He has used this magic to steal you from me, every time.  He has tricked you into thinking you love him.  But you love me.”

            “I don’t love you,” Ariadne shook her head, wanting to laugh again at his arrogance.  “I don’t understand how you could possibly think that I love you.”

            “Because you told me.”

            “I never said anything like that,” Ariadne said, thinking of Paris’ pathetic declaration of love beneath the city.  How had she ever allowed herself to go down into that filth with him?  It boggled the mind.

            “No, not this time,” Paris shook his head.  “But before.  The other times.  Before he made you forget what your heart really wanted with that ring.  With that stupid, evil, cursed ring!”

            “What are you…” and then Ariadne remembered.  Her eyes widened as the memories came back into focus.  It was tough sometimes, having the memories of thousands of lives in her head.  She found it really hard to deal with them all.  Thus far, she hadn’t.  She did remember that she usually avoided thinking about her past lives.  Why think about those when she had her current one to make new happy memories with Janus?  But now, she remembered what Paris was talking about.

            Names flashed through her mind.  Theseus, Paris, Romeo, Eros, and countless more.

            “You’re…”

            “My brother,” Janus said, stepping into the room, suppressed pistol pointed at Paris.  “Well, not in this life of course.  But back when I was Cain…”

            “I was Abel,” Paris nodded.  He lifted up his left hand so that the light flickered off of the ring there.  Ariadne looked at it as he twisted it around so that the Mark of Cain, the same one on Ariadne’s ring and on Janus’ ring, was pointing upwards.

            “I haven’t really had a chance to tell you how impressed I am,” Janus said.  “I thought I’d gotten rid of you for good in 1945.  Used all of my the money I’d acquired through…what’s the word for it now?  War profiteering?  Anyway, I thought I’d made it so that you’d never find Ariadne.  Moved her to Canada, made sure that nobody in your family knew that her family had moved there.”

            “I tracked down the records when my platoon was storming one of the concentration camps in the Fatherland,” Paris replied.  “I survived, so the ring passed on, and I had the memories of where you’d sent her.”

            “As I said, impressed,” Janus grinned, still pointing the silenced pistol at Paris.  “I also thought you’d die in that war and some eager German officer would pilfer that ring off your corpse and save a lot of trouble.”

            “You wouldn’t have really wanted that.  The whole point of this ring was for me to suffer throughout eternity knowing that you’d enslaved Ariadne, the woman I loved.”

            “She has always deserved to be with me!  Not a weakling like you!” Janus roared.  The pistol shook in his hand.  “Get out here!”

            Paris stepped forward calmly, filing past Janus into the entrance hall.  As he passed, Janus pistol-whipped him over the head.  Ariadne flinched as Paris cried out, falling to the ground.

            Paris kept moving forward into the hall and Janus followed.  Ariadne continued after them, feeling too confused to say anything.  Memories of past lives came to her.  Her life as Juliet, in Italy, with Romeo, now Paris.  She remembered keenly the realization that they’d never be able to escape from Janus, then, in some bizarre irony, known as Count Paris.  She remembered their joint suicide, the only escape they saw from him.  The only chance to avoid the nightmare of another lifetime with him.

            But why had she thought that way?  She loved Janus.  She loved him completely and utterly just like he loved her.

            The man whom Janus had hired to find her, Achilles, was still in the entrance hall.  There was nothing to read on his face as he watched Janus pistol-whip Paris again so that he fell on his knees in the center of the hall.  Also present were the police Officers Seth and Antenor.  Antenor watched the scene with a wicked grin on his face.  Ariadne didn’t like him.

            “You thought you could get her to choose you instead of me!” Janus screamed at Paris.  He pistol-whipped Paris across the jaw and blood flew out, blending into the floor as Paris collapsed onto his hands.  “She’s mine!  She belongs to me!  She has always belonged to me!”

            “She never belonged to you, Cain,” Paris whispered, pulling himself back up onto his knees.  “She never belonged to me either.  You tried to buy her, to own her, and that drove her further and further away.  I loved her, and she returned my love in kind, of her own free-will.”

            “No!” Janus screamed.  He struck Paris in the side of the head this time.  Blood was now running down the side of his face.  Paris groaned, and took longer to pull himself back up, but he managed it.

            “You couldn’t stand it.  Couldn’t stand knowing that Ariadne, the woman you, in your own demented way, loved had chosen me over you.  You had woman falling over each other to be owned by you but of course you wanted the one who refused to be owned.  Refused to give herself to you.”

            “You stole her from me!” Janus screamed.  He struck Paris across the face again.  And again.  Ariadne felt herself flinch with every blow.

            “She loves me, Cain!” Paris roared, forcing himself back up.  One of his eyes was beginning to swell shut and his lip was fat and bleeding.  But he kept talking.  “She loves me, every time.  Thousands of tries, and no matter how hard you try you can’t make her love you for real.  So you slip that ring on her and you make her become this puppet that you can own.  You killed me back then, thinking it would make her love you but she still didn’t.  She hated you even more.  So you cursed us.  You possess her every time Cain, but you know it’s not real.  You feel it in your heart and that’s what kills you.  Because you know that no matter how many times you slip that ring on her finger, if it were up to her, she would reject you.  And she would choose the person she really loves.  Me!”

            Janus roared with rage and began striking.  He landed blow after blow after blow.  Ariadne saw Achilles begin to move but Antenor already has his weapon out and pointed at him, forcing him to stop.  Seth cried out, trying to get Antenor to drop his weapon, but he wouldn’t.  He started yelling at Seth.  Then Seth’s weapon was out, pointed at Antenor.

            Through-out it all Janus just kept hitting Paris.  Blood was coating the butt of the pistol.  He was going to kill Paris at this rate.

            Just like he had killed her mother.

            No, he did that because her mother wasn’t strong enough to get her to him.  He did it because he loved her.  Loved her completely.

            “Janus, please, stop.”

            She wasn’t sure why she said anything.  Maybe just because she couldn’t stand to see Janus kill someone.  That wasn’t necessary.  He had her.  Did Paris really have to die too?

            “You have me, you don’t need to kill him.”

            Janus crossed the room in two strides and struck her across the jaw with the pistol.

            She fell.  She hit the floor.  Her mouth was agape and her eyes were wide.  Achilles began to move towards her but Antenor was yelling again for him to stop.  Everything was fuzzy and the sound seemed to be drowning out of the room.

            Ariadne reached up and wiped her hand across her cheek.  It came away with blood.  But it wasn’t her blood.  It was Paris’.

            “Don’t ever speak to me like that.”

            Janus’ voice came through to her crystal clear.  She turned and looked at him.  She didn’t see Janus though.  She saw a monster.

            He loves me, she told herself as he turned and walked back over to Paris.  He does it because he loves me.

            But then another voice struggle into her mind.  Another voice whispered to her.

            Does he really love you?  He had you kill yourself as Dido rather than leave you for Paris to try and steal from him.

            He loves me.  He loves me.  I love him.

            No, you don’t.  You love Paris.  You love that goofy smile that lights up a room and you love the way his hair falls across his face.  You love looking at him and you love it when he looks at you because you know when his eyes are on you they see you, the real you, and nothing more.  You love him because he asks for nothing and he gives everything.  Love is something you give, not take, and Paris gives all your love to you.  And you want to give all your love back to him, the ring just makes you forget how.

            Janus loves me.  Janus loves me.  I love Janus.  I LOVE JANUS.

            No, Ariadne.  You don’t.

“Make one false move there and I’ll blow your brains out.”

            Officer Antenor continues to point his pistol at Achilles.  Seth, seems uncertain what to do, but still has his gun pointed at his partner and not at Achilles.  That was a good sign.

            “Put it down Han.”

            “You know what, I am sick and tired of this bullshit!” Antenor roars.  He pivots and shoots Seth in the leg.  Seth cries out in agony and falls to the ground. This distracts Janus from Paris, who is now down and not moving.  But only for a moment.

            Achilles takes a few more steps towards Ariadne, who is down on the ground, looking at her hand with the blood on it.  Achilles doesn’t understand what is going on.  All this talk of Cain and a curse and past lives is nonsense to him.  What he does know is that the moment that Janus slipped that ring onto Ariadne’s finger she became someone else.  She stopped being the woman he had chased.  She became someone who was owned.

            “I said stop moving!” Antenor roared.

            Achilles could feel the gun back on him and he stopped.  He was looking down at Ariadne now.  She looked up at him and held his gaze for a moment.

            “Don’t be owned,” Achilles said to her.  He didn’t know what else to say.

            His words seemed to reach Ariadne because a lot of things happened very fast.  First, her eyes solidified into the gaze he had met beneath New Carthage, the gaze that belonged to a woman who belonged to no one.  Then, she lifted her hands and she pulled the ring off of her finger.

            In that moment, Achilles ducked and pivoted, drawing his pistol from its shoulder holster as he did.  Antenor fired, the bullet cutting through the air where Achilles head had been a moment earlier.

            Achilles aimed and fired in one swift movement.  Antenor was rocked off his feet by the force of the bullet hitting him square in the chest.  He hit the floor and did not move.

            “What are you doing!!”

            Janus’ eyes were nearly red with bloodlust as he turned on Achilles.  He raised his pistol and Achilles realized that he wouldn’t be able to avoid the bullet.

            But, in what must have been an incredible feat of strength, Paris hurled himself off the ground and tackled Janus.  The pistol shot went wide, firing over Achilles head.

            Then, without warning, the pistol was gone from his hand.  Ariadne had it.  She flipped it in her hand so she was holding it by the still smoking barrel and slammed the butt of it down on the ring, which she had placed on the floor.

            “NO!!”

            Janus screamed pierced the air as the butt of the pistol hit the ring.  There was a loud crack, like thunder booming in the entrance hall, and the ring shattered, bits of metal flying across the floor.

            Achilles and Ariadne were now moving together, racing towards Janus.  Paris’ body was on top of him, limp, holding Janus down with nothing  but the weight of his body.

            Janus shoved Paris off, trying to get his gun hand around.  But Achilles slammed his foot down, shattering Janus’ hand and causing him to drop the gun.  He roared in pain as Ariadne leapt over him.  His other hand was splayed out on the floor, at a right angle to his body.

            Without hesitation she slammed the pistol home, striking the butt of the pistol against the ring on his finger.

            With another unnaturally loud crack, the ring shattered.  Janus whipped his hand to his chest, crying out in rage and sorrow.  He gaped at the finger, now broken, that had once had the ring on it.

            “No!  No, no, nonononononononono!”

            Janus crawled across the floor, desperately trying to grab the pieces of the ring that had scattered across the ground.  He held bits of them together, trying to put the ring back together.

            “Try some super glue,” Ariadne said, a cold, hard edge to her voice letting Achilles know that the woman he had seen was back.  “Maybe that’ll fix it.”

Committed Chapter 24

The Mercedes pulled into the parking lot of the Menelaus Mansion and Ariadne gazed out the window at it.  It rose up almost like a medieval castle, a full four stories high.  The gates swung open before them on electrical hinges and the Mercedes cruised down the cobblestone driveway as if entering into another world.

            The driveway was flanked by green hedges, narrowing Ariadne’s view to that of the incoming house.  The incoming prison.

            The Mercedes rolled up so that it was directly in front of the entrance and Achilles climbed out.  Ariadne waited for him to come around, her heart beating faster.

            He opened the door and gently pulled her out by her arm.  He held her just above her elbow as he walked her up to the front entrance.  He didn’t pull her along though.  They walked together.

            Once through the doors Ariadne barely took in the lavish entrance hall.  It was like her brain was incapable of registering what she was seeing.  The neurons wouldn’t fire, the impressions wouldn’t take hold.  Instead, she stood there, trying not to shake, waiting to hear his voice.

            Finally, he appeared at the top of the right stairwell that rolled down to the floor like the tongue from some mythological beast.

            “You’ve given me quite a scare, my love.”

            Janus Menelaus strode down the stairs with the speed of someone who has all the time in the universe.  He did not rush to her.  He did not need to.  She was in his domain and she had lost all avenues of escape.

            Achilles released her arm and took a step to the side.

            Ariadne met Janus’ gaze and held it as she approached him.  She felt revulsion roll over her body.  He stepped right up to her and caressed the side of her face, cupping it in his dry hands.  She hated him.

            “Why have you been so difficult about this?” Janus whispered to her.  “Your father must have explained it all to you, must have made you see.  But you took so long to come to me.  Even before, how did you not feel it?  How did the love you hold for me not swarm over you and draw you too me?  Like a moth to flame.”

            “You really need to work on your analogies,” Ariadne wanted to say.  But she didn’t.  Instead, she remained silent.  There was nothing more that needed to be said.

            “Of course, soon you’ll remember everything.  Soon you’ll remember all our lives together.  The countless love stories we’ve told.  Soon you’ll remember them and we’ll write a new one together.”

            Janus moved his hand so that it was behind her head now, just below her pony-tail.  She wanted to strike him.  She wanted to pull back.  She wanted to scream and kick and roar with rage at the countless past lives that this monster had robbed from her in his deluded belief that he loved her and she loved him.

            Instead, she summoned all the self-control she could, and let Janus pull her to him.  He kissed her with a passion that sent waves of nausea up and down Ariadne’s spine.  She hated it, because Janus would probably see those as the tingles of ecstacy running through her.  In fact, he pulled her closer, kissing her deeper and only increasing the disgust that Ariadne felt.

            “Oh God,” Janus breathed, finally breaking away but holding his forehead against hers.  “My love, I have missed you so much.  It has torn my heart apart knowing that you were being kept from me by that monster Paris Montague.  I thought I’d gotten rid of him but…he has proved a resilient cockroach.”

            Ariadne found her silence almost broken by her fierce need to defend Paris.  The nobility of Paris sacrifices for her filled her with a righteous anger at this man who had destroyed his life in his quest to possess her.

            Paris, who truly loved her.  Janus could never hope to understand love the way that Paris understood it, the way Paris expressed it in his every word, gesture, and touch towards her.

            Just thinking about him, and that moment beneath the city that was hunting them relentlessly, made Ariadne almost begin to cry.

            “Shhhh,” Janus hushed her, placing a finger against her lips.  “It’s all going to be okay.  I promise.”

            Suddenly, the ring was in his hand.

            Ariadne felt a cold fear run through her body.  Her heart seemed to shrivel in her chest and press back against her spine.  She felt as if every organ in her body was fighting to get as far away from that ring as was possible.  But that’s exactly what she couldn’t do.

            Janus lifted her hand.  Ariadne refused to tremble.  She held her muscles stiff, demanded a control over them that years of athleticism had given her.  She watched as Janus knelt before her, as though he were performing some sick, demented proposal, and lifted the wedding band like ring to her finger.

            “Ariadne…” he breathed her name like he was whispering the sacred name of a goddess.  Ariadne refused to close her eyes.  Instead, she looked at the mark on the wedding band, the same mark that was on Janus’.  The mark that looked like the shattered glass on a windshield where a baseball had struck it.

            The Mark of Cain.

            Then, with no more delays, with no more stalling, with no more grand escape attempts, Ariadne watched as Janus slipped the ring onto her finger.

            And Ariadne felt herself die.

 The rush was unlike anything she’d experienced before.  Names flew past her like chariots in a Coliseum race.  Psyche, Daphne, Ariadne, Dido, Helen, Juliet, countless names that Ariadne knew from history and countless more that had not been recorded in the annals.  Thousands of lives all rushed at her.  Too much to process all at once.  Only one thing came through loud and clear, as definitively true as anything she had ever thought or known or believed.

            She opened her eyes and looked into the face of Janus Menelaus.  More names raced by, names from history.  Apollo, Cain, Aeneas, Dionysus.

            She felt her heart fill up as though it were preparing to burst out of her chest.  She gazed into Janus eyes and she felt tears flow freely down her face.  She reached out trembling hands and cupped his face in both of them, slowly pulling him upwards until he was standing, looking at her expectantly.

            “Janus…”

            “Yes?” he said.  Ariadne couldn’t believe she had ever once thought that his voice could be anything but magnificent and wonderful and a blessing upon her ears.

            “I love you.”

            Janus began to weep, taking her hands off of his face and holding them tightly in his.  She felt the words she had said with every fibre of her being.  It was so wonderful.  The lights in the entrance hall of the Menelaus Mansion seemed to be surrounded by a fuzzy haze, as though she was intoxicated, but she knew herself to be thinking more clearly than she had ever thought in this life.

            She hated the transition period.  Always the first thing that she felt, after her immense love for Janus resurfaced, was the guilt.  It poured on her like molten lava.  It hit her now with the same force it always did.  Thousands of repetitions of the experience could never quite prepare her for it.

            “Oh, Janus, my love.  Oh I am so sorry.  Will you ever forgive me?  Will you forgive me, I wasn’t me.  I wasn’t in my right mind.”

            Janus hushed her, cradling her face in his hands.  “All is forgiven my love.  You came back to me, of your own free will.  What greater sign can there be that, even in the confused state you always find yourself in at the beginning of each new life, you love me truly deep down?  You came to me yourself.”

            Ariadne nodded.  Janus pulled her in and they kissed passionately.  She felt her whole body succumbing to the taste of his lips.  She poured herself into him.  She was his.  She would give everything that she was to him in every moment of the rest of this life to appease him for the terrible things she had said, done, and thought up until now.

            “Oh, but you don’t understand,” Ariadne wept.  “You don’t understand the plan.  Oh, it was horrid.  I cannot forgive myself for ever having even thought of it.”

            “What was the plan, my dear?” Janus asked.  “It’s all right, my love.  There’s nothing you can tell me that I cannot forgive, in time.”

            Ariadne felt her lower lip trembling.  She was scared.  Not of Janus, he loved her too much.  Not matter what he did she never had to fear him.  He had ensured that they would be together, in love, for ever and throughout eternity.  He had shown her countless ages of man that she would never have seen without him.  He was her soul, her life blood, the reason for her being.  Nothing he did to her matter because in the end he was always there, and he always loved her.

            “I made a plan…I was going to come here and…I was going to get the rings and smash them!  I thought that was the way to end the Curse!  Oh God, I was going to try and break us apart forever!  I was going to make it so that we could never remember and find each other in the next life!  I was going to make it so I could never remember who I truly am!”

            Ariadne felt o her knees, still clutching Janus’ hands, and wept.  He said nothing.  Finally, after a time, he pulled her back up and looked into her eyes.

            “What about Paris?”

            His grip was so tight on her wrists that it stung.  But it was okay.  His voice was harsh.  But it was okay.  His eye bore into her, flames of anger licking out from his pupils.  But it was okay.

            Because he loved her.  And she loved him.