Sophia's Fables

The Old Gods

In the days of my youth, I was tasked with finding the Old Gods and returning them to the Heavens. 
The only help I was given was an old book and a golden box bearing the heptagram; the gateway to the Heavens of Old.  I was told never to open it unless I was in the presence of a God. 
I studied and I trained hard, having unwittingly accepted the task while knowing nothing of the Old Gods.  Hopping libraries around the world, I gathered all the information I could, trying to best prepare myself for the unpreparable. 
Fresh into adulthood, I managed to track down the most malevolent of the Gods, Nilima.  She was an angry God, bearing the same form as a shadow.
I was driving down a lonesome highway in Kansas when I saw an abandoned, rundown McDonald's on the side of the road. 
I slowed down and looked at the advertisement sign.  In cryptic black writing, the sign read:
"We have it."
I recognized this shadow as one of my Old Gods, so I swerved off the highway into the parking lot.  I slowed my car and pulled into the drive thru, stopping at the menu and microphone. 
"Can I have it?" I asked, my voice wavering. 
The voice on the other end fizzed and crackled with static.  "Are you ready?"
The voice on the other end of the line matched my own. Knowing it was Nilima, I snatched up my book and the heptagram box, and ran into the establishment. 
The restaurant was drenched in black, seeping in liquid shadow dripping down the walls.  The shadows seemed dormant in a way, a calm before the storm. 
I stepped around the restaurant, bouncing into the balls of my feet.  I swiveled around to make sure I hadn't woken the Goddess.  My eyes darted between the kitchen and the door; she had not woken up. 
I padded around the restaurant, swimming, tangling myself deeper into her shadowy tentacles.  The spires wisped around my arms as her sleepy body reached for my hands and spun me like clockwork. 
I didn't wish to capture her just yet.  She was not as I had imagined.  I always envisioned that she was some kind of shadow monster.  But, truly, I was stunned silent.  I needn't send her away just yet. 
I continued walking around McDonald's trying to find the heart of the Goddess.  I waded around in the shadows, trying to sense a surplus in her ethereal energy. 
A hunk of metal caught my eye.  The ice cream machine, constantly broken in one way or another.  While I, of course, was no expert, anyone could feel the tingling like lightning coursing from your chest to your fingers, the dizzying feeling of constellations penetrating through your mind. 
I slunk over to the middle of the restaurant, dragging my feet, barely able to breathe. 
I held my breath and reached out to the vanilla ice cream lever.  Before my hand even grazed the cold hard metal, the shadows woke. 
She danced around the restaurant, tossing me around with her.  I flailed, windmilling and bicycling in the air.  Falling onto the checkerboard floor and sliding into queasy yellow chairs, I rolled onto my back and watched Nilima fly around the room, mouth agape. 
Far too late, I removed my golden tinted glasses of naivete, and saw what the books referred to.  Claws.  Fangs.  Monster. 
I scrambled onto my feet and raced to the nearest wall.  The ice cream machine sat just at the other end of this very wall.  I crept parallel to the grimy red and white tiles and latched onto the lever to the vanilla ice cream. 
Quickly, I reached into my pocket and grasped the heptagram box.  As if I were trying to untie knots, I fumbled opening the golden clasp, but once I had my fingering, I threw the black lid open.  Nilima screeched the most ungodly sound that sent a wind throwing my hair out of my face and drying my eyes.  The seven sided box sucked away the Goddess and all her surrounding shadows.  
The second God I managed to track down was Erlantz.  He was an unpredictable aquatic God.  Many claimed he was a sea snake.  I could not be so sure. 
I sauntered down the streets of downtown Michigan, in a snazzy suit, feeling confident in my God finding abilities.  I walked into a real estate firm, preparing to completely blend in. 
But when I entered the glassy building, I needn't the disguise at all. 
The inside of the building was completely void of people and completely dark, every light was out and I couldn't be sure if there were any to begin with.  The place was completely empty, no furniture, windows, or even a discernible ceiling. 
I was the only person trapped in this onyx crystalline flask, anxiety filling me up.  Part of me wanted to bang on the sides of this cage, to run away and never return to this place that gave me chills. 
I did not do that; I pressed on, half expecting to see a Loch Ness Monster sneak attack me at any second.  As I moved farther into the building, a dull pink glow caught my eye not far off.  I followed it, and was led to a floating fishbowl. 
The water in the bowl lay stagnant, harboring an iridescent pink fish.  He seemed to be asleep, floating in the middle of the bowl, eyes closed, emitting a fuschia rose glow to the surrounding space. 
I walked closer, my strides gaining in confidence.  This time I was prepared.  I knew how to send a God back to the heavens.  Surely, this would hardly differ from Nilima. 
I had learned from my mistake last time, and wasted none of it.  While he was beautiful, I would not admire him, I would send him away immediately. The heptagram box lay in my hand, and I gently unclasped the golden embellishments. 
I took one last look at the fish.  He opened his bulbous white eyes and stared right at me.  I balked, wearing the perfect shocked grimace of disgust. 
His clammy fish mouth widened into a grin, revealing horrifying long fangs. 
We stared at each other in silence.  He floated in his tank and I stood rooted to my spot on the ground. 
It confused me that he made no effort to hide from me.  This was not like Nilima.  Perhaps he wanted to return to the heavens. 
Erlantz began to glow an ominous pink light, not enough to illuminate the room, but just enough to appear translucent and neon.  The fish's smile widened so much, his face contorted as if it were melting wax. 
He spoke, his voice a thick dark syrup. 
"You'd better wake up before you forget how to."
Stunned and confused to my core, I opened the heptagram box, wishing away he and his vague wisdoms.
The glowing pink light was gone and I was left in the building, completely in the dark. 
The third God I found was the time traveling Viking God, Zaman. 
He was the one I was most ill prepared for.  The books never gave specifics about what he looked like and  I was unsure of his temperament.  The only thing I was sure of was that he could be anywhere and anytime, and given that I was not a time traveler, I doubted I would ever find him.
Searching for the Gods, I had developed mild insomnia.  That particular night, I was especially sleep deprived, so I took the equivalent of a horse tranquilizer in melatonin. 
In mere moments, I found myself in a life-like dream. 
I had been spirited into a green clearing surrounded by a thicket of spiny trees.  I spun, receiving a soft kiss on each cheek from father sun.
My momentary bliss was disturbed as a fierce wind rocked my balance and multitudes of Danes charged into the forest.  Primal battle cries surrounded me on all sides, axes and buckskins grazed my sides. 
I stood frozen until an ax came hurtling straight for my head.  I dodged right, the throw missing me by hardly an inch.  I pivoted, trying to avoid the Vikings, my senses heightened from being tossed around by the raging mob. 
"Are you afraid?"
I whirled around.  A fellow Viking bjorn now stood unmoving at my side, eyes fixated on the forest.  He was a grizzled man, had a hard face covered by a tangled dark beard and he wore a red cap with two horns. 
"Yes," I answered truthfully, staring at the man.   
He finally looked me in the eye.  "How about now?"
The screams of battle gradually faded away.  I spun around looking at the now empty clearing, all the Viking warriors gone.  The two of us were alone. 
"Zaman."
He nodded.  We walked toward the forest together, constants, a dam amongst the void of the clearing surrounding us. 
"You are the one who was sent to bring me back."
"I am."  I spoke the truth.  "I didn't think you would speak with me, let alone as civilly as you are."
Zaman didn't respond to this.  He only eyed my heptagram box. 
"I have roamed the earth for a thousand lifetimes.  I have traveled to millions of different centuries.  Yet I find myself longing for only one reality."
"Which one is that?" I asked him, catching myself before I broke into a hopeful smile. 
He scowled at me.  "The reality of the Heavens, with my family, you fool."
I tentatively opened the box, while frantically mumbling, "yessir".
"Good."  He clasped my shoulder, and waved an arm for me to follow him. 
"Now run with me."
I did as he said, and broke into a sprint, following Zaman into the green abyss of the forest.  I had never felt freer even as the wind sliced at my cheeks and dried my eyes. 
I could not say how long I ran for, but soon, yes, soon, I was back in my bed and Zaman had returned to the Heavens of old. 
It was many long years before I found another God.  I searched without sleep, desperate to find something, anything. 
I often felt useless and horribly like a failure.  These feelings led me to delve into bad habits; alcohol, drugs, depression. 
My life had fallen apart. 
At one point, I lay passed out in the forest, unsure of how I got there.  The ground quivered, the tremor waking me from my detoxifying sleep.  My head pounded as I blearily opened my eyes. 
The trees rustled, shaking a dainty snowfall of their pine leaves.  I stumbled to my feet, hungover into the next century. 
A gentle being parted the trees, her face covered by mist.   My vision was blurred, but if I trusted myself, I believed she was Oihana, an earthen Goddess.  She looked down on my pitiful existence. 
"I created you, you know," she said.  Her voice was sweet, a light treat, something that wrapped me in a hug, Oihana became mother earth.  
"Why must you harm my creation?"  The skies opened and the entire forest was drenched in rain.  She was crying. 
"You mustn't hurt yourself like this again!" she wailed.  "If you promise me this, I will return to the heavens."
"I promise!" I yelled up at her.  I opened the box.  Even in my disaster years, I always carried it with me in my left pocket. 
The rain stopped, the mist cleared, and the Goddess was gone.  I left that forest and never went back. 
I never went down that bad road again and I became reinvested in finding the Gods. 
I traveled to the thick wooded hills of Germany to find Jaron. 
Jaron was a God whom I had the intention of finding earlier because he is known for being unpredictable and volatile.  He often appeared as various mythical creatures, determined to play tricks on the common folk. 
I walked through the dark German forest, trees snaking around the path like claws.  Black talons crosshatched across my path, I knocked them away with my lantern.  My book was tucked under my arm and the heptagram box sat in my pocket. 
The vibrato hoot of an owl rang like a siren.  I turned around, my lantern swinging in front of me. 
And there was a red wendigo crouching in a tree. 
I had never seen a wendigo before, so I was struck silent, jaw slack, gawking.
He was a long, slender figure, feathers dusting his arms, antlers poised on his head like a jackalope.  His eyes were like nothing I had ever seen before; two glowing deadlights stared at me from behind a skull, trying poorly to conceal the infinite bounds of knowledge Jaron possessed. 
I wielded the heptagram box in front of me like a weapon. 
Jaron glanced down at it, hardly phased.  He could knock it out of my grip if he wished. 
He took his eyes off the box and turned his orbs to mine. 
"Your anger keeps you warm now, but it will leave you cold in your grave."
He said nothing else, and promptly leapt into the sky, the red wings on his arms keeping him graced in the air. 
I took my cue and flipped open the heptagram box.  He vaporized into the box, shedding all his feathers as he left.   
The sixth God I found took me many years to track down; Minali.  He was always depicted as the fisherman God, so I looked in fishing towns all over the world. 
I finally found him in Nantucket.  He was working as a crabber, and had completely disguised himself as a local. 
Not even disguised.  He was one of them. 
I walked down to the docks under skies of grey, fisherman grunted as they hauled up nets and yelled as they tossed fish to each other. 
The crab pots caught my eye.  An old man in yellow waders and sea salt in his beard attended them.  I planned to civilly convince him to rejoin the pantheon.  Minali was also a trader God.  I felt my pockets, realizing I had nothing to trade but an orange. 
He was rugged, yet kind.  Surely, he would not turn me down. 
I tapped him on the shoulder.  "Would you trade an orange for a meaningful conversation?" I asked him. 
"Gladly."
He took his leave and led me to a bench lining the docks.  We split the orange. 
"Look at your life," he told me.  "The more you wheel a cart the same path, the harder it is to break from that path and create a new one."
I considered this.  He certainly had a point.  I had been doing one thing my whole life. 
He placed a chubby grizzled hand on the heptagram box.  "I can't wait to see them all again."
I smiled and opened the box and he misted into the morning. 
I neared the end of my search and I was close on the trail for the last of my Gods, Izar. 
He was often referred to as the God of history, a fount of wisdom.  I found him in the royal blue night of London.  He sat atop a hill on a park bench. 
The God appeared to me as an old man in plaid pants and a brown argyle sweater, admiring the stars. 
"Am I the last one here?" he asked in a wavering voice.  I sat next to him, but his gaze was fixed on the stars.  I looked to the sky as well, eyes on Cassiopeia. 
"You are . . ."  We waited in silence for a few moments. 
"The stars are beautiful," he said.  I agreed. 
"You know," he stated, not looking away from the sky.  "That's not how the night sky really looks."
"Really?" I asked him.  "What does it look like?"
He looked at me, a twinkle in his eye and a smirk playing on his lips.  "Like this."
I looked up.  The sky had brightened indefinitely.  It seemed as if every inch of darkness was now covered by a different star. 
Indefinitely many more constellations. Indefinitely many more lights.  Indefinitely many more possibilities. 
I was unsettled.  This wasn't my night sky.  This wasn't my world. 
I couldn't force a single word out of my mouth. 
I cleared my throat.  "Can you put them back now?"
He side eyed me, and then once again gazed up at the stars.  I followed his gaze to find that all the stars had disappeared. 
"What do I do with this information?" I asked. 
Izar looked at me, his wrinkled face contorting into a grin. 
"Be very careful."  I turned to look at him once more, but like the new stars, he was gone. 
All seven of them were gone. 
I sat on the bench, considering my world, my reality for only a moment longer, and then, so was I.