Thanks for the kind review and the helpful input, I’ll definitely try to watch myself with those adjectives when I write the next installment.
Humor/Satire / Drama on the Mount, Ch. 3 - "Felines, Fireballs & Facial Treatments"
Downstairs, Zeus walked down the long, torch-lit hallway and knocked on the cobblestone bathroom door.
“Uh, Hekate? You, uh…you open up in there ” Zeus attempted to sound authoritative.
“Why bother?” came the disinterested response from behind the door.
“Hekate, are you cutting yourself?” Zeus asked.
“…Yes,” came Hekate’s response after a brief pause.
“Well, er…stop that ” Zeus then sighed and in a flash of lightning appeared in the bathroom with Hekate.
She sat on the edge of the black marble bathtub, garbed in black, with her long, straight raven tresses strewn over half of her face, contrasting sharply with her porcelain skin. Zeus walked over to her, his long white toga trailing behind him. He sat down next to her on the edge of the bathtub.
“Now, why are you doing that?” Zeus asked as Hekate dragged a silver ritual dagger against her forearm, causing a crimson line of blood to appear and then vanish as her wound automatically closed itself.
“To kill the pain,” Hekate responded in her usual emotionless tone.
“Hoo boy,” responded Zeus as he rolled his eyes.
“Hekate,” he continued in a somber voice, “are you doing drugs?”
Hekate merely looked over at him and stared indifferently.
“Hekate, how many times have you been told? Dayquil and Nyquil do not make ‘Afternoonquil ’ ”
Hekate ignored him and resumed slicing her arm open and watching as it healed itself closed again.
“Oh Hekate, can’t you try to be somewhat less…creepy? It doesn’t look good for the family,” Zeus advised.
“Neither did you boinking that goat behind Mom’s back the other day in the shed,” Hekate retorted sharply.
“Uh…well, that’s neither here nor there,” Zeus replied nervously, at a loss for words.
“Dad…do you have anything significant to say to me?” Hekate asked glacially.
“Um…buck up kiddo? ” he said with a goofy smile on his face as he playfully punched her shoulder and chuckled a little.
Hekate just stared ruefully at him, unimpressed.
“No, I guess not,” he continued, clearly defeated.
As he turned to walk away though, he heard the sound of animals growling nearby. Zeus turned to look and saw a group of about five or six unusually large black cats locked in a vicious struggle over some unseen object in the corner of the room. Curious, he walked over to take a closer look.
“Uh, Hekate? What are those things?” he asked intently.
“My cats,” responded Hekate matter-of-factly.
Zeus’ eyes widened as he noticed that they were voraciously chomping on what appeared to be the remains of a human skull.
“WHAT IS THAT? ” he exclaimed.
“Cat food.”
“It looks like…a mortal’s head. Hekate are you feeding mortals to your cats?”
Hekate merely stared at him silently.
“Do they eat that all the time? ”
“Only when they’re hungry.”
“But why…that…of all things? ” Zeus demanded.
“They’re picky eaters,” Hekate answered monotonously.
As the group of hellcats picked the skull clean they all looked at Zeus in unison and proceeded to slink towards him silently.
As they gathered around him, they began to flick their tongues lightly on his exposed shins.
“Ok. I’m uh…gonna go now,” Zeus declared nervously as he quickly made his way out of there.
Feeling like a failure as the head of his household and realizing he had more trouble communicating with his kids than he’d first thought, Zeus went to his study to smoke his pipe. As he walked in, however, he found Hephaestus holding his lighter in one hand and an aerosol spray can in the other.
“Hephaestus, put that down ” Zeus commanded.
Startled at the sound of Zeus’ voice, Hephaestus jumped and inadvertently pushed the button on top of the aerosol can down, sending a huge fireball flying at Zeus’ face and instantly singing both his eyebrows off.
“DAMMIT ” Zeus screamed.
Hephaestus just sat there, with a glazed look on his face as he stated in a low quiet voice, “Awesome.”
“What is wrong with you?” asked Zeus, exasperated as he felt around for his eyebrows.
Hephaestus was the God of the forge and arguably Zeus’ most cantankerous son. He was fascinated by fire and this had resulted in the burning down and consequent rebuilding of Olympus numerous times over the millennia.
Aphrodite, by now, had finished primping and had spotted her father walking out of his study, sans eyebrows.
“Oh Daddy, what happened to your eyebrows?” shrieked the platinum-haired princess of Olympus.
“Not now,” Zeus said succinctly, trying desperately to avert another episode with one of his screwy kids.
“Daddy, I was just trying to help you out, I mean jeez…you didn’t have to yell at me.”
“Oh no,” Zeus thought as he recognized the look of forthcoming hysterics in his daughter’s reddening face.
As Goddess of everything related to emotions, Aphrodite herself had the tendency to get very emotional over the tiniest things.
“Uh pumpkin? Daddy didn’t mean it…he was, uh, joking.”
An outburst from Aphrodite right now was the last thing he needed but he’d reached the point of no return and any attempts to pacify her now would prove fruitless. Zeus knew it, he’d seen her pull this before. Usually, however, it was with Hera. What he’d give to see her right now
“Well it didn’t sound like a joke Daddy, and if you’re trying to tell me that just because you think it’s what I want to hear, then I really have to tell you that I think it’s an assault to my intelligence and I don’t like having my intelligence assaulted. So Daddy, is that what you’re doing? Assaulting my intelligence? Is it? ” Aphrodite asked, finally coming up for air.
“No dear, of course I’m not. That’s clearly taken too much abuse already,” Zeus said to himself quietly as he hugged Aphrodite who by now was crying uncontrollably.
Zeus quickly grew tired of this and grabbed Aphrodite by the shoulders.
“I’m sorry sweetie, Daddy wasn’t thinking,” Zeus attempted to explain.
After having been beyond consolation just a moment ago, Aphrodite now looked up at her father and flashed a smile at him, seemingly all better after Zeus’ apology.
“Oh Daddy, it’s okay…I know what that’s like, not thinking and all,” Aphrodite responded.
“I’m sure you do dear,” Zeus muttered as he again hugged his daughter and patted her on the back.
“Well, hee-hee, I forgive you Daddy But…if you want to make me really happy, you’ll let me…”
“Yes?” Zeus asked, curious.
Aphrodite merely smiled and twirled one of her golden curls around in her finger.
Now Zeus knew his daughter was kind of slow, but he was wondering why she was dragging this out so much.
“Must be something big, but I may as well try to please one of them,” thought Zeus to himself, as he did what he knew he probably shouldn’t.
“Go ahead dear, ask me anything you want.”
“Yay I’m going to give you a makeover and fix those eyebrows,” beamed Aphrodite.
“Oh no,” Zeus said nervously as his eyes widened in fear.
“But you just said anything ” reminded Aphrodite, looking like she might start crying a second time.
“Goddamn,” Zeus muttered as he resigned himself to his fate.
“Prepare to be beautified by the Goddess of Beauty ” exclaimed Aphrodite gleefully.
“Ahem,” chimed in Apollo, as he walked in behind Aphrodite, dressed in a gold lamé knee-length mini-toga accented with gold sequins. A golden laurel matched his expertly-coiffed curls perfectly.
“Oh, and by her amazing assistant, Apollo ” Aphrodite cheerfully announced.
She then took Zeus by the hand and the three Gods walked to her chamber. Once there, Zeus couldn’t help but realize that he’d never before seen so much pink in one place.
He was terrified.
Aphrodite snapped her fingers and some upbeat 80’s pop music started playing.
“Oh my gawd I love this song ” exclaimed Apollo as he started dancing in place.
“Me too It’s like my favorite ” seconded Aphrodite.
Zeus merely furrowed his brow nervously.
Aphrodite then lightly clapped her hands twice and in a flurry of pink sparks, a pink heart-shaped chair appeared directly behind Zeus. Aphrodite and Apollo each gripped one of his shoulders and together forced him to sit down. As soon as Zeus hit the chair, thick gold chains jumped out of the armrests and legs of the chair, wrapping around Zeus’ wrists and ankles, each chain topped by a large pink heart-shaped lock.
“What the? ” Zeus shouted.
“Now Daddy, don’t get all worked up It’s just a security measure, you know, so you can’t like…escape, tee-hee ” Aphrodite said in a disturbingly cheerful voice.
She then turned to face Apollo, “What do you think?” she asked, still beaming vacantly ahead.
“Should we give him the works?”
“Oh definitely,” Apollo answered in a grave tone while still smiling just as vacantly as Aphrodite.
“Um, what is ‘the works?’ ” asked Zeus timidly
“Oh Daddy, hee-hee, shut up,” answered Aphrodite in the same disturbingly cheerful voice as she summoned a pair of pink scissors in one hand and a pink heart-shaped cosmetics case in the other.
“Amazing assistant?” asked Aphrodite as she faced Apollo.
“Ready, willing and fabulous ” answered Apollo as he rallied behind Aphrodite.
“Good. Operation: Doll Up Daddy, GO ” Aphrodite exclaimed as Zeus sat restrained in the pink heart-chair silently awaiting his fate.
A few hours later, Zeus emerged, sporting a platinum blonde bob-hairstyle, pink lipgloss, a short zebra-print toga, a matching beret, platform sandals and copious amounts of body glitter.
Zeus was now at his wit’s end, which was odd considering his usually easy-going nature. But being emasculated by one daughter, nearly eaten by the another’s man-eating cats, having his wife walk out on him and his son singe his eyebrows off his face coupled with a general feeling of inadequacy had finally served to send him over the edge. Zeus sat in his study, head in his hands with one hell of a migraine. “Clearly,” he thought to himself, “running the household single-handedly was not as simple a task as I thought it was. Oh Hera…please come back.”
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faydiablo reviewed Version 1 -
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VeeLee reviewed Version 1 -
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It’s an amusing idea, examining the “family life” of the Greek gods in a modern context, but the execution of the idea isn’t completely working for me. I think the characterizations are somehow too predictable. What if Aphrodite is the cutter and Hephaestus is the fey one? I also think that opening with a description that suits the characters as we traditionally know them (i.e. high stakes business on Mt. Olympus) would give the piece something to play off of when it moved into Zeus as Mr. Mom territory. Good luck!
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regmusty reviewed Version 1 -
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How did you think of this shit?just joking it’s very good i like the spin you have put on all these medievil characters and made them real given them all the problems of todays society, that is very clever.It flows well the storyline is great i don’t know that i can give you much criticism i can only encourage you to keep at it, well done.
Reaper reviewed Version 1 -
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This is the third piece of yours I have reviewed. I can’t get enough! I love how you have portrayed the children of Zeus. Hekate feeding her cats mortals and Apollo resembling a gay fashion adviser. It’s great! The only criticism I have is on your overuse of adjectives. You have Hekate’s ‘long’ hair and Zeus’s ‘long’ toga trailing behind him. Readers should be able to tell that his toga is long when you tell them that it’s trailing behind him. You should be able to eliminate the few unnecessary adjectives by taking out what readers should be able to assume. Overall though, I thought this was a great piece. Nice work!
Midwest_Writer reviewed Version 1 -
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I found this piece funny. Their are points within the piece that I could not help but laugh. Are you trying to convey some underlining message; such as trying to draw a real life situation and use people like Zeus as a representation? Also, I like how to put these characters into a contemporary tense.
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