Everyone Should Eat His Own Turtle (A Greek Myth Novel) by H.C. Southwark (nonfiction book recommendations TXT) 📕

becoming all the worse for their voices, which rose and echoed across the sea, as though striking the dome of the sky and reverberating—

Isme stood spellbound, her heart beating erratic, hands and feet numb. Her thoughts were a tangle of a bird’s nest, unraveling to let the egg inside fall and crack—

Yet movement at her side, and she glanced to Kleto—

Tears ruptured the sides of Kleto’s eyes, carving into her face, and she moved like someone in a dream, swaying and unsteady yet somehow in a straight line to the side of the ship—and Isme knew if she reached the edge she would be no more.

Seizing Kleto by that golden hair, Isme heaved with every muscle she possessed and brought her down, shoving her thumbs into Kleto’s ears to more fully secure the wax that Kleto thought so disgusting. Yet still the body under hers thrashed, hands scrabbling on the deck in a desperate attempt to reach the side and the sea.

Shouting but deaf, a sailor descended, wresting Kleto from Isme’s arms, yelling about ineffectual boys. Within his grip still Kleto strained—and her tears were unending.

The song carried on. And Isme realized, looking into that weeping face, the truth of the sirens. Those who heard the songs took their message into hearts that broke under the weight and threw themselves overboard, and those who did not hear saw the sunshine bodies and made up stories about what they thought the song was.

This message—it was the same as Apollon, Isme thought. The world had nothing deeper to it than suffering—it was a mirror with no reflection. Apollon had concluded that therefore there should be no reason to weep because there was no reason for anything. But Dionysos operated on a different answer to the same principle: if the world was meaningless and mad, then madness was an appropriate answer. The sirens merely rejected both options for a third: to live in sorrow.

But that is not all, Isme evaluated. Perhaps there is something else that can be said, something we do not know, or something we do not value enough. She recalled her claim to Lord Apollon: There is always hope... and love... even if it is the god-killer...

And so, leaving Kleto behind with the sailor, she charged to the rail and flung herself to stand atop, delving deep into the well of songs—the cavern ceiling cracked from Apollon, the water still over-warm from Dionysos, but still was hers—and sang:

Think of sunlight through the leaves

Of an old olive-tree, branches twisted

Bent by storms but still standing

And how it will remain long past yourself.

Every day Helios rises in the east

Says, Today will be a day of sorrow

And of joy, to each who lives below

And the world turns to greet him anew.

Joy is made bitter by sorrow

But grief is made sweet by love

Around the circle we all turn

And in each the other is contained.

If you were never sad,

How would you know what happiness is?

If you do not question,

You will never reach the heart of life.

Think of those beside you

And within you, hearts beating

Touch warm flesh and know

You are loving and are loved.

And she left off, willing the winds to carry her words on—and they did, but the reaction was nothing she expected.

She had sung her best of joy, some alternative to what they claimed, but rather than anger or a contest of song, or acceptance, or curiosity, or even being ignored, instead Isme heard shrieking—

The ship was at its closest, now, and peering hard toward the rocky outpost, Isme could see that the three sirens were indeed woman-shaped, but covered with pale feathers the colors of lightning, which possibly accounted for their flight—but they could not fly now, for they were rending their own bodies, tearing the feathers from their own backs and sides and arms, broken shafts drifting on the wind like fallen leaves—

And they were ripping at their own faces, gouging their breasts, screaming as though in terror, in pain beyond imagining, though Isme could see nothing wrong with them on the outside. It was as though they had something tormenting inside of them that they were already desperate to release, and encountering one more instance of horror had broken their ability to endure—

They were no longer embracing each other, either—they tore at each other’s bodies much the same, but in lingering shock Isme saw that there was no anger in the deed, more like the three of them were helping each other, like this destruction was the soothing of a wound, all they could manage to do for one another—

And then they were pelting into the sea, hurtling down into the waves with abandon Isme had never seen before—the sirens flung themselves into the water—

—and were no more.

Every throat on the ship caught mid-breath, but when the sirens did not reemerge, all Isme could think to say was, “Forgive me, sisters, I did not know.”

And if she would have said anything else, her own thoughts were drowned out by the cheering of the sailors, their hands slapping their thighs, their feet stomping the decks. Some of them had already plucked the wax from their ears and were howling with joy, relief, that they were alive, others had advanced and caught Isme from behind, hoisting her aloft like she was a gift to the gods.

Among the shouting Isme heard all the congratulations, men calling Thank you, boy, you’ve saved us and generations of sailors from those monsters, and she tried to say, “But they weren’t targeting you, they didn’t even know you were here or what would happen to you, they were minding their own business—” but the noise was too loud.

In all the chaos of the celebration, Isme caught only a glimpse of Kleto: still held back by the one sailor, who was weeping for joy, Kleto’s tear-stained face scanned the horizon, as though waiting. But the sirens never returned to the surface.

~

The winds shifted in the night, and the sailors were still too pleased to notice, until the weight of the