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

A world of order and reason, Apollon says. Consequences flow logically from actions, justice is upheld and served, and sweet songs and poetry throughout the land. A world where no mortals cry over their fates, knowing logic only without sentiments.

Or, Dionysos cuts in, A world of passion and wildness—where everyone can enjoy, and there is freedom to do whatever one wishes, and the sorrows of life are drowned out by ecstasy. Free from boundaries people will dance consumed with delight, and never even notice if they or others die around them. Free of every pain.

And Isme knew: if either of these gods becomes king, those are the only options. Each generation of gods narrowed down the worlds—

The decision—all this time, them quarreling over her, trying to secure an advantage in—stands cold in Isme’s mind, her vision narrowing, and something in her draws tight and breaks.

And Isme rages:

“You—you killed my father, didn’t you? You sent men to steal me away and dragged me to that temple, and you didn’t care whether I wanted to go, then you told me all these horrible things about the world meaning nothing, and I don’t care if that’s logic or whatever, I reject it, I will find some other way, and you hurt my father—I still don’t know where he is, and I’ll never forgive you!”

A mere turn of her head:

“And you! You gave all these lies about being merciful, but when the time came that I needed just a little understanding of my surroundings, I killed my friend! What good is your talk of freedom and passions when all it does is break things and hurt people—how can the world survive that? You pushed me out of myself, you watched me kill Lycander—and I won’t forgive that, either!”

Behind Isme, there was a small sound, like that of an animal choking—and she knew Kleto had heard everything, including of Lycander...

Bowed over by her outbursts, throat feeling like she had swallowed sand and then vomited it back with acid, Isme heaved with nausea. Spots in her vision cleared, and so did her thoughts, anger melting away and understanding coming.

“But how can I condemn you,” she gasps, each word hurting. “You are gods—logic and passion. I can’t use logic to condemn logic, or passion to condemn passion...”

I am after all this still a mortal, she thought, unable to speak more. I live as a little shadow that fades when the sun goes down, and every move I make is at the behest of those powers that rule the world—justice, order, logic, passion, wisdom, knowledge. I rail against them only because I overlook who and what I am, my place in this world... but why should they care about little me?

If you are quite finished, says Dionysos, This is the fate of the new world we are talking about, here. You still must decide, girl. Unfair to us and you, that a mortal should have such power, but the Fates deal what hand they wish. Which of us?

How is it that I am the one who will know the end of the world? Isme thought, but complaining was useless. It seemed like prophecy was older than the gods—older than the Titans, for Prometheus used it after the primordial fates, older perhaps than Gaea. Asking why was pointless—she was caught in a trap regardless.

And yet this is more than I can decide, she thought, and with certainty tagging along Isme knew that no matter which son of Zeus she chose, she would choose wrong. In her mind’s eye she could see herself in the past, straining to understand even the simplest of concepts from the priestess of Delphi, who was describing the wheel—the connection between all things, the one spot on the rim of the wheel needing all the others to continue turning, lest the entire wheel break into pieces.

At last she said, “Logic, passion—you both contain good and bad, and the world needs both.” Then, her voice breaking so that she could only whisper, forcing both gods to lean in to hear—“It is a shame that there cannot be one god who is both.”

Something in her throat twisted, overburdened, and she was coughing—first air, then phlegm, and then the taste of blood—and there were hands on her back, a voice in her ear saying, “What is wrong? You—did you sing too much—” and behind that the sound of her own heart slamming against her breastbone, and behind that the sound of two melodic voices quarrelling—

No, not quarrelling—arguing. No—worse than that.

Isme looked up just in time to see Apollon raise his bow, string pulled, without an arrow—and yet still the twang resulted in one of the bronze men behind Dionysos falling, dead in an instant, to the cave floor. His expression was twisted, lines carved deep like the legs of a spider, like his face had shattered from some unnamable pain.

Isme opened her mouth to scream, but only air escaped.

There was a rush of bodies and howling, bronze men surging like arrows loosed from Apollon’s bow, and if Ares had appeared then Isme thought nothing could have been any worse. It was as though the wild men had recalled what they were—the men of the age of bronze, the warriors whose fighting had brought destruction upon the entire Earth—and now were ecstatic for war.

Clubs impacted—axes slashed—javelins stabbed or were flung, and hands and feet and teeth, blood everywhere, noises that started human but quickly became something else. If they transformed into wolves Isme would not have been surprised. Nothing seemed sacred—men, women, children, all gouging each other, and when only one was left perhaps he would turn on himself.

Among them moved tall Apollon and Dionysos, snarling at each other, but not coming to blows—instead they struck at the allies of their brother, or guided the blows of their own allies, and Isme knew they would not stop until everyone in the room