BATTLEFIELD

The Gift

David grabbed the gift from Clifford and the immense weight of the gift made him drop it onto the bed, where it bounced slightly up and down on the mattress. Now David was super curious and began ripping open the thick gold paper and there appeared before him a box. Not an ordinary plain looking box, but a box composed of stone.

"Wow, what is this!" David exclaimed with great excitement.

"It's History," Clifford answered in an all knowing response.

"I thought you said this is my destiny." David said totally perplexed.

"To Father Time, History and Destiny are one in the same. Time you see David is ever flowing, like water, it is formless and shapeless, you can change the form of water into ice cubes or steam, you can pour water into a cup or bottle to give it shape, but you can never eliminate nor stop the flowing of water, time as with water, is ever flowing as one." Clifford smiled as if he had just given David another gift, the gift of wisdom. David has no understanding of what Clifford just said, but he knew they were wise words, though words connected together that flew right over his head. David decided to ignore the significance of the wise words and began studying the details of the stone box.

The box looked like it was made of marble, the entire box was of a blood red color with white fissions all over it. On the top of the box are intricate carvings of twelve differing figures, who to David, all looked like kings and queens.

"Who are these twelve people on top?" David asked wanting knowledge about his new gift.

"They are the Twelve Olympians of the Ancient Greek Pantheon. Aphrodite, Apollo, Ares, Artemis, Athena, Demeter, Dionysus, Hephaestus, Hera, Hermes, Poseidon, and Zeus. The twelve Ancient Greek Gods, who resided on Mount Olympus," Clifford stated like it was second nature to remember all twelve olympian gods in alphabetical order.

David noticed above the twelve Olympians was what appeared to be ancient greek writing.

"What is this writing here," David pointed to the funny looking charactes on the top of the box.

"It's Ancient Greek and it warns about the dangers of war. The exact translation is, Beware the toils of war, the mesh of the huge dragnet sweeping up the world," Clifford said acting like he was some great scholar and maybe he was?

Once again, David did not understand what the Ancient Greek phrase meant, but he thought it was super cool!

David studied the four sides of the box and all around the box were two armies in opposing armor styles fighting each other to the death. On the front side panel at the head of each army was a commander. One army on the right side was a great king like warrior and one army on the left side was a great queen like warrior.

"What about these two armies and their commanders," David asked wanting to know the details of the soldiers battling away on his box.

"These are the two armies of Slaughter and Strategy. Slaughter is being led by Ares, the god of war. Strategy is being led by Athena, the goddess of intelligence. The two are always fighting, fighting inside of us. It is a never ending battle of animalism versus humanism. Ares and Athena, the brother and sister of the human soul," Clifford was usually a quiet philosopher, who was roaring like a vocal philosopher tonight, with his green eyes burning with intensity.

"David, open the box and see your destiny," with these words from Clifford, David did not hesitate, he lifted the heavy marble lid off onto the bed and there inside the box gleamed a golden piece of jewelry, a medallion connected to a thick chain.

"What is that?" David asked, hoping Clifford would not answer again with his normal response so far, destiny.

"This is a gift from the Gods, The Pedio Machis Medallion. They first gave the medallion to the Oracle of Delphi, who then presented it to Lycurgus, the Spartan Lawgiver, who devised the militarized communal system to govern Sparta, embedded into every fighting Spartan's Heart. For over twenty-six centuries, thats two thousand six hundred years-ago, the powers of Ares and Athena were shared with Humanity, so mankind could reflect upon its decisions, actions, and direction for future generations to follow," Clifford was now trying to get away from being so intense and was starting to transfer himself into story mode.