Dearest Zeus

Written pre deletion day. January 2008. This is my take on a old story.

 

Dearest Zeus,

 

Almighty Zeus, son of Cronus, ruler of Mount Olympus, god of sky and thunder, Zeus the powerful, …… how foolish you are. You yield the power of the gods, but it took only a simple woman, a woman of your own creation, to bring your demise.

 

Pandora, made of flesh and blood, gifted with beauty by Hephaestus and born from your revenge, her road was to do your bidding, spread your wrath, but she failed.  To err is too human and there lies your mistake.

 

Your child, your slave, she did your bidding and released the jar of all evils on mankind.  Out of the jar in desperate torment flowed your evil henchmen of greed, vanity, slander, envy and pining.  Vengeful Zeus! Your plan has such an obvious flaw.  Your weakness? The simple instruction to leave hope temporarily inside ….. you didn’t tell Pandora for how long.

 

For many months Pandora wandered the earth, jar in hand with its single inhabitant, but as her days on earth grew so did her level of consciousness.   She could see the progression of man kind, feel his weakness and enjoy his strengths, and above all love.  She grew to love mankind; she was bore of flesh after all.  She learned of what she had done, how much punishment had been inflicted upon the world …. How this punishment was also inflicted on her, for she was human.

 

In despair and with heavy shoulders Pandora fled, she took your jar of evils and ran ran ran away from you, her master, her king, her god, her father!

 

Now she was not stupid, she knew eventually she would be found, but what she did do is buy us time.  When I say us, I mean us/we/humans/mankind.  She knew that there was enough evil in the world already, but she also knew that man would eventually overcome these evils; and that they would need a clear and strong mind if they were to overcome the last and most powerful evil of “hope”. 

 

You took her life eventually, but by then it was already too late, man had outgrown any expectations, poor Zeus (do you hear the mirth in my voice powerful one).  Before her death, the jar was passed on to another.  For sometime this man (a good man) carried his charge and fought the ugly onslaught of sin, but he was human born of Earth, not human born of heaven or blessed with Godly gifts.  Infected with greed and vanity the man opened Pandora’s jar (more familiar to us now as Pandora’s Box) and set free into the world was hope.

 

I bet you laughed.

 

But all the time hope was contained man had learned to live with your evils, he curbed his greed and forgot his vanity.  Better than that he learned to care for his fellow man, oh and he loved (there is that word again), he loved so very much.

 

Unwise Zeus, you wanted man to receive hope because it would prolongs man’s torment driving us in never-ending circles only to be kicked down again and again ….. but you underestimated humanity.  We learned, we grew, we adapted, and we evolved.  We eventually accepted hope (as we did all evils), hope is no longer tortment; hope is a wish, a prayer, a goodness that no-one can take away.  Your strongest weapon turned out to be our greatest emotion.

 

Foolish Zeus, you really should have thought this though, hope is the greatest gift mankind has ever received, and for this I thank you.

 

Regards

Faith

 

 

Reviews

[fireblossom]

Very well done. This peace uses the depth of myth to teach modern 'man'. I love it.

You are a fantastic writer sweetness.

I did find this edit. One you will find anyhow I know - she knew eventually she would be eventually be found,

All the best good writer friend.

[poddar kushal]

i love the way you experiment with forms and contents.

[Zane Mathias]

Great write M- Really enjoyed reading this one. and the story really draws you in!

[.]

Omg, u were brilliant in this! I thought of this like that one Norse Myth of Odin casting everyone out of Asgard during Ragnarok lol. Very descriptive work, and such a great message at the end! I love Faith!! :) Good job with this.

Mikey

[Dezaraye]

This is an awesome spin on this story. I love all of the details and the HOPE that comes through your words. This is really a brilliantly done piece.

[Emily B]

That idea of hope as evil, as torment intrigued me so much. I like your re-telling of the ageless story. I especially like the tone, the gentle rebuke to the unkind god. Faith must be a woman.

[Jennifer Ryan]

The adding of Faith at the end really pulled it together. I like it. Also if you ever wanted to look into there is a software you can buy that will find a lot of grammatical errors we look over. I recently bought it myself due to I have this problem myself. It's called Whitesmoke and it was rated well on the Preditors&Editors site.

[Raef C. Boylan]

A pretty intense read, myth or not.
I liked how this got me thinking differently about 'hope' as an evil concept. I also enjoyed the narrative voice you used for your letter: scathing, mocking, triumphant.

Did the story really feature a jar instead of a box initially? That's interesting to know, especially when we consider all the word play and metaphors that orbit around the idea of a box.

Great story-telling. It works well as a letter.
Thanks for posting this.

p.s. a few to help you out:

"To er is too human and there lies your mistake" (er = err?)
"hope was contained man had learned to lived with your evils" (live)
"hope is no longer tortment, hope is a wish, a prayer" (suggest changing first comma to a semi colon)

[Just Manoosh]

Jennifer ........ thats brilliant! I know who it is too.

[Jennifer Ryan]

I really, really liked this. You could hear the contempt and pity the writer had for the old Greek god. It would have been interesting to see some slight hints as to who the writer is.