Goya

Clay

I like to get lost in a book sometimes, to drift away from reality, feel the warmth oozing from the pages, drink the musky scent. At least I used to...

Before this place, where the protectors were (we don't have them here, the protectors, we just have a couple of olds who check up on us, who I first thought of as a different kind of protector, but no they're just olds) there was an extensive library, filled with millennium old books, which we were encouraged to read. But here it's not seen as something you do.

Because I was longing to feel a weighted book between my fingers, today, I had searched for both a place to read, that was out of the way, and a decent novel, not just a battered cookbook. I'd found the perfect place, an old cupboard underneath a flight of stairs, which was just big enough to fit a small girl inside. Which is where I was perched now.

As if there is a sharp flow of electricity passing through my veins, my hand contracts aggressively and slams into the wall, splintering the plasterboard viciously.

I don't know why these bouts of anger happen to me or whether they happen to anyone else here. Maybe that is why we are here.

I pause my train of thought to continue reading this book I found. Pandora's box is what is inscribed on the front cover, and as I prise open the cover I see pictures of humans dancing and feasting. I realise this isn't a novel but a picture book. I read the first line,

"In ancient Greece there were two brothers named Epimetheus and Prometheus."

As I continued reading I realised that these humans were being given a word that they were referred to by,

"Zeus came up with a very cunning plan to punish the two brothers. With the help of Hephaestos, he created a woman from clay. The goddess Athene then breathed life into the clay, Aphrodite made her very beautiful and Hermes taught her how to be both charming and deceitful. Zeus called her Pandora and sent her as a gift to Epimetheus."

So this was how a human was made - clay, what an odd material to use. As I pondered about this I decided that I needed to be referred to as something - Pandora, after the woman made from clay.

Was I made from clay?