ÉNOUEMENT

ALLFATHER

HIS CHILDREN DIE and are reborn in this vicious cycle, and Odin can do nothing but let himself be taken along with them.

This life, though, is perhaps more vicious than the others.

He is born a squalling babe in the heart of Oakland, where stories of kings and glory mean nothing to the people here. They are trying to live in a world that devalues their very being, and Odin believes that if he had known what it was to struggle this way he would have been a better king.

This body's mother is a beaten down woman, hard around the edges but soft as caramel within. She has seven children, Odin the youngest. The father of these children is absent. This is the case, he discovers, with many of his young friends.

His birth giver's name is Aaliyah, and she is one of the greatest women Odin has ever known. You should have been a Valkyrie, he thinks as he watches her work three jobs and still greet them with a laugh and a story. Your strength is unrivaled.

"Your mama ain't never gonna leave you," she comforts each night as she tucks them into bed. "You all my babies and you never forget it."

A long time ago, Odin looked down his nose at those less versed in the ways of the world than he was, those who did not speak with the same eloquence as he. Now he understands that love transcends all levels of education, income, or hardship.

He thinks of his own children and how often he has abandoned them, and weeps under the cover of darkness.

These streets are violent on both sides, gangs wielding blades and police swinging batons. Odin searches for Tyr among the faces of the officers, but soon learns that justice is so loosely defined that it has come to mean nothing at all.

He wonders if Loki is slipping in and out of the shadows somewhere nearby. The trickster god's cunning would thrive here.

But no, he decides. The fates want them to learn something from each life, and Loki would not take away anything of meaning in an environment so fitting.

His mother dies when he is ten, his sister walks the streets to make up for the loss, and Odin marvels at humanity's resilience.

Over his mother's grave he whispers promises of Valhalla. Warrior queen, this woman, who fought for her children and has earned her place among the shining halls.

If only he and his kin could reach that final resting place as well.

But destiny keeps them alive, and even as Odin feels his once mighty power draining out of his soul he knows that his purpose is not yet fulfilled.

Odin grows, learns, mourns, and finds himself humbled.

He works for his food each night. The last born in this life takes the responsibility of his first. If his siblings go to bed with the taste of meat on their tongues he considers himself victorious. He recalls the sweetness of mead, the heaping piles of venison and roast boar. How much precious food did they waste at those great feasts?

His second oldest brother runs with a gang and refuses to listen when his sisters beg for him to stay away from rough boys like them. Odin does not protest at first. It is right that a man should find his own way in the world.

But his brother starts coming home less and less, and one day he does not come home at all.

It as if the bullet that took his life has pierced their whole family, and for a time the house is dark and silent.

Odin prays with his sisters but knows in his heart that his brother will not be welcomed into Valhalla. Helheim awaits a misguided boy, not yet a man. He wishes he were able to tell Loki that Hel should treat this poor soul with as much kindness as she is able.

But he is no fool. Loki cannot reach their daughter, much as Odin cannot reach any of his own children.

He graduates school and longs for Frigg, her steady presence that kept him stable even to the end of Asgard. She is still walking among mortals, he can tell. He feels his twin flame's heartbeat clearly as his own.

He speaks to her each night through the moon. Ever watchful, it never answers.

Odin watches his siblings make their way in the world and die trying, and wishes, not for the first time, that he were the oldest. That he could be the father they never had. He wishes he could have taken some of the burden off of his mother.

Each morning as he leaves for work he tosses crumbs to the crows that gather on his doorstep. He searches their eyes but sees no recognition. Wherever his two loyal birds are, he hopes they are well.

One morning he finds his doorstep empty, and the fountain near his apartment is a bath of death, crows floating with spread wings.

Poisoned, they say. It's what the city does with infestations.

Odin values each new life he is given but wonders what he has done so wrong that he is born into such pain. Why, he wonders, do the fates decree he must suffer, over and over? Why must he lose so much?

Perhaps it is to learn to move on. He has not seen all of his fellow gods together since their first lives.

Perhaps in order to free himself, he must let them go.

But if that is so, Odin know that this cycle will end no time soon. Each birth brings the emptiness back, and the fates are infinitely more patient than he.

The Allfather has been boiled down to ruler of nothing, father of none, and he would give up the throne a thousand times just to lay eyes on his sons and daughters once more.