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

even now, that there would be no song of this—after all, this was the beginning of their world, the world of iron and stone. “You’re the lady Pyrrha, so you don’t need to say anything, you’ll be silent. I’ll be Deucalion, all right? I do all the action and you follow.”

Kleto muttered about nonsense, and Isme thought she heard the name of Lycander, but though her pulse skipped she did not say more. Focus, she told herself. Oh Grandmother Kalliope, lend me the song of the last world, the world long gone. And someday may I sing a song of this world, in the world to come...

Drawing herself higher, Isme pulled air into her lungs, held it, reaching down and down and down, and there was the well of songs, and there the cracks in the ceiling toward her soul, and there the water warm with the emphasis on her body, but still entire, still a well from which she could draw the songs of her grandmother.

Later, she could not recall much of what she had sung. It was not a song for her, she realized—nor any other man of iron. It was a song only for the bronze men.

I am Deucalion, she sang. The last of the men of bronze, though I don’t know it. Every day I go to the temples and honor the gods, seeking peace, a way out of this war. O Mother Gaia, please endure just a little longer, there will come an end to blood.

But among the mountains lies my father, Great Prometheus, carrier of fire and one of the two fathers of us all. Through Hesione daughter of Okeanos, he bore me, and I among my fellow men—I alone—seek him to thank him for his deed of fire.

Up the mountain I climb to his broken body. I pull the chains but they hold fast, the decree of Zeus unbreakable. On my way down he proclaims: my son, get wood, get pitch, build a boat—for Zeus will rain destruction on the world next moon. Save yourself! I, forethought, Prometheus, have seen the end of this world.

Isme remembers gesturing to Kleto, but receiving the briefest shake of Kleto’s head—realizing that Kleto does not know this tale, or did not know it well enough to pretend to Pyrrha’s part. Even though the wild men cannot understand them—and yet, by how their eyes are rapt, the way there are little droplets in the corners, maybe the wild men do hear the story somehow.

And so she sings Kleto’s part. Pyrrha, daughter of Epimetheus and Pandora. The faithful wife who tends the fire. Without fire, we are nothing, Pyrrha sings. Without fire, we will all die. Fire is life. My husband, I will go with you to bring fire to the new world.

She skips the building of the boat. She sings something about war—some kind of great war before this world, which she cannot recall ever learning about even from her father’s stories, and later cannot remember details. She does remember the way the watching faces in the cavern grew pained, and then how the people wept.

Of course they weep, Isme thought. This is the end of their world.

Isme describes the water coming from the sky. The men at war killing each other and not noticing. Water to their ankles, their knees, waists. Still on they fight. When the water rises beyond their heads, as they drown they are tearing at each other, each warrior hoping to kill his enemy first, to make the other man his last victory.

And Isme sings:

Everything dies—

Every tree, branch, root.

All the creatures of the forest,

Of the plain, of the mountain.

The whole earth screams

And falls silent.

The ocean groans,

So full of the dead

That it has become

A second underworld,

And the dead drown forever.

Now the song trails out of her like a string pulled from her throat, leaving tissue enflamed, lungs heaving, and she wonders just how long she has been singing, how much longer she will be able to endure. The bronze men look like they could watch, spellbound, forever. But she cannot keep up much further. When she pauses to breathe, her tongue is raw.

Then she sees them.

They stand among the wild men, shoulders taller than human, their shapes far fairer, bronzed like the sun and flushed red like blushing with wine. Two of the Olympians.

A fair performance, says Apollon, nude except the cloth thrown over his left shoulder. His right has the golden bow strung over it, but again there are no arrows.

Indeed, responds Dionysos, nude except for the vines strung up his arm. He is dark colored around the edges, his hair and eyes, compared to Apollon’s sunbaked golden tones. He carries the thyrsus, the grape-cluster tipped club, which he holds like a weapon. I am pleased with good theatre, as you well know.

As I am with song, says Apollon, with bite to those words.

“Is this about me?” Isme says, hoarse, pausing her song—and though she wants to yell at them, demand answers on why Lycander died, or where her father is, she can hardly speak for the need of air, and besides that would surely bring their wrath upon her.

She begins to suspect the wild men know they are there at least a little, for the assembly is no longer looking at her or Kleto, but instead are turning as though drawn to one god or the other, moving restlessly across the room as though in a trance.

Perhaps it is just that Isme has been singing of war, but the way these people move—drawing to each side slowly—they look to her like what battle lines must be like.

The two gods take a moment to evaluate each other, and then they belatedly turn their attention to her. Apollon says, You were given to me as a small child.

Nonsense, says Dionysos. She was conceived in my revels—she belongs to me.

Conceived by whom? says Apollon. By my son, and therefore also mine.

We’re all related, Dionysos replies. If you go by closeness, Kalliope also has claim.

Apollon snarls,