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

know the result—the serpent was asleep in the field, and I stepped upon his back, breaking him—for which he retaliated, and here my soul fled.

For some time I wandered the depths, not quite lost to myself, drinking Lethe little by little, for while the loss was bitter there was a joy in it, for what was sweet in my life was made sweeter by the bitterness. I could regret nothing.

Yet one day there came a great shout and there was Orpheus, singing of his love, his regret, such that I could not be angry at him for breaking his promise. But then he was bartering for me to return to the world above—and I wanted to plead for him to stop, because what good is life returned if we are only going to lose it again? Our lamps refilled and burning again, once more they go out...

But I was not able to speak and be heard, not by the living, and so I followed the command of Hades, trailing after my husband as he walked to the above.

As we walked a great fear began to come over me. I had lived a full life but now I began to worry over all the things that I would experience above again—the sorrows, unfulfilled yearnings, the pains and miseries that even I, on my mountainside with the birds, knew well enough. I thought of a lamp not burning brightly, but musty, sputtering and dim, and I quaked with fear. If I was going back to a different world from the one I came, perhaps I would have felt his joy—but well I know the world I left behind.

So I began to beg, as we walked. Please, my husband, my loving Orpheus, let me not go back up to the world above. Let me return to the calm land below.

On we walked and I knew I was not being heard. I tried to raise my voice, to shout, then tried to sing, then grabbed at his shoulders. On we marched. His limbs were stiff like a soldier. I began to weep. If you truly loved me, you would not do this. If you loved me, you would release me so I can go home.

At last daylight—and I wail with terror. I cry that I want to die again right away. He steps into the sun, pauses. And I knew then that he could hear me, perhaps had been hearing me at least faintly all this time. If he takes one more step, I will be in the world of the living and there will be no turning back—

But he does not. He turns, and looks at me, and I feel the hands of Hades pulling me back under, with only a single moment to tell him, “Thank you.”

The ends of the story falter, halting and broken, and Isme watched Eurydice struggle to finish, Isme’s life within her burning brightly, and quickly, and then Eurydice without so much as a goodbye stumbled away. Yet Isme believed she was pleased somehow at recounting the story, for she heard the shade humming.

Isme stood and gazed out at the shades around her, knowing their names, stories, and began to wonder—for she found within her the welling up of Apollon’s words, from within her well of songs—

Love, he had said. Love is the worst of all. Love is the god-killer...

And that was true here, too, Isme saw. Oedipus had fallen in love with the wrong woman. Agamemnon had loved glory more than his daughter. And Orpheus... that long note, the simplest song of all, echoing above against the sky forever... and Eurydice.

Better to have one day of love, she had said, than a life of regret. And yet, if Eurydice’s mother had only been successful at preventing her from meeting a man, meeting Orpheus, then she would have had neither love nor regret. She could have been happy.

If Orpheus had not loved you enough, Isme wanted to tell the empty shade of Eurydice, then he could have brought you above and lived happily with you. His love caused him to die in sorrow for you. And if I did not love my father so much, I would not feel empty now that he is gone somewhere far away.

Or perhaps she felt empty because she was so light-headed. Lifting her arm, Isme found that the blood still flowed, the asphodel around her blooming, and she pressed her other palm against the wound. She stood, uncertain where to go now, for there were no other souls nearby, and decided to step forward and search—

But something sharp through her ankle, piercing around the tendon of her heel, and a soundless cry from her lips as Isme felt her muscles lax and she tumbled to the ground. The scent of sweet was as strong as honeycomb here, and cedar like she was sticking her head above a cooking fire at full heat. Or perhaps heat was within her—

Between her ankles the creature slid, pausing on its way to observe her face. Only when the tongue emerged, a flicker, did Isme realize it was a snake and not a long piece of asphodel somehow come alive.

“I’m sorry,” the creature said. “I was not fully in control of myself when I bit—you stood on me, as I followed her, and I am nothing if not myself even here and now.”

Sucking in a breath, Isme asked, “How can you speak?”

“Your blood,” said the snake. “All creatures speak in their own way.”

The next question Isme had was, “Will I die from your bite?”

“Not directly,” the serpent said. “I am dead, after all, but when you can move, you should stem the bleeding quick. You’ve already given too much.”

Isme had no idea what a snake should look like when feeling sad, or even if they had different emotions, but there was something in the countenance of the creature that communicated hesitance and sorrow. It remained by her side, quiet and gazing out to where Eurydice was roaming,