Olympus
Two thousand years ago
Minutes from the meeting affectionately dubbed:
“Oh Us! Will it ever end?”
“Let’s
kill’em all!” yelled Mars, presiding in lieu of Jupiter.
Ahura-Mazda sighed wearily. These young gods were exasperating, and now that the meeting
was in its fiftieth year, there were always a few standing in for their elders.
Mars, always hot under the helmet, was one of the worst.
He
smoothed his long curly beard, rose and rearranged his silken robes. “How many
times must we explain this? We tried that before. Does the Deluge ring a bell?
And now we’re back to square one. There has got to be a better way.”
“Not
to mention how much work it was,” said Vishnu, playing with his nose ring.
“Exhausting! All that rain… and then having to recreate everything.”
“Well,
I for one wouldn’t mind getting a good storm on,” said Thor. “It would be more
interesting than this meeting.”
“You
gods do what you want with your humans.” Inti’s sun-disk crown of feathers was disarrayed
from shaking his head so much. “My
believers are still faithful, and no one is dumping a shitload of water on
their heads.
“How
long do you think that’s going to last?” asked Mwari kindly. “We’re well
isolated, both of us, but sooner or later this plague of disbelief will
spread.”
“Not
to mention that Yahweh fellow,” said Amun with aristocratic disgust. “Telling
people he’s the only real one and that they should renounce us. The gall!”
“Says
the god who tried it a thousand years ago,” retorted Vishnu.
“Hey,
that was a disagreement with my pantheon. I never tried to encroach on any of
yours.”
“What
about that Science gal I keep hearing about?” wondered Thor. “Who is she?”
“I
don’t think she’s a goddess,” said Ahura-Mazda, unable to repress a frown of doubt. “It’s rather a way of explaining things that doesn’t give us any credit.”
“Like
those humans who says the sun would come up no matter what since the earth is
round,” said Athena.
Everyone
turned to look at the tall young woman in armor. She stopped playing with her
long auburn braid and blushed, partly with embarrassment but also with pride (the humans in question were her worshippers).
“What?
Who let them find that out?” said Inti, leaning in and staring up at her with
suspicious eyes.
“So,
what you’re saying is that some humans are studying phenomena and then giving
us the finger?” asked Thor. “A good thunderbolt always puts that to right.”
“It’s
more complicated than that,” said Ahura-Mazda. “They are questioning our power
and so their belief wanes. This in turn weakens us and so reduces our
influence.”
“So
we’ll kill’em all!” repeated Mars. “They’ll believe in us then.”
“Who?”
Athena’s voice dripped with sarcasm. “The dead ones?”
Amun
stood up before Mars could reply. “Talking of death, what about Anubis’s
proposition the other day? That thing about us going back to earth to live with
the humans.”
“Might
not these scientists interpret this
move as one of weakness?” asked Inti.
“Not
if we kill them all!” shrilled Mars with mounting anguish, cheeks now red under
his strawberry blond peach fuzz of a beard.
“Ah
yes, good idea,” said Athena. “Live with humans and piss them off so they
revolt.”
Thor
twirled his hammer. “How can they revolt? We’re gods.”
“Perhaps,”
said Ahura-Mazda. “But we are few and they are many. Personally, I preferred
Mwari’s idea about creating a new dimension, even if it does mean leaving
what’s left of my believers without guidance.”
“Both
ideas have merit,” said Athena, “and their faults: I think the disbelief runs
too deep here for our presence to do any good. What if we tried a combination
of the two?”
“You
mean create a new world AND live with the humans?” Vishnu’s voice became pensive.
“No!” Mars’s
whole face turned vermillion. “Killing them is the solution! A nice little
blood bath… Ah! Come on!”
