Η αγγλική μετάφραση του A’ Μέρους της ΤΡΙΛΟΓΙΑΣ της ΤΙΤΑΝΟΜΑΧΙΑΣ του ΣΤΑΜΑΤΗ ΓΙΑΚΟΥΜΗ Προέδρου Εφετών Δ.Δ., Δρ. Φιλοσοφίας, L L. M. Γερμανίας, με τίτλο: “PROTITAN. UK”.

THE FIRST TERRORIST 

By Stamatis Giakoumis

Dedicated to the offspring of Creta Antonis Giannaris, the greatest Greek language’s erudite of all times. α

«Ουκ έστιν ουδέν κρείσσον ή νόμοι πόλει καλώς τιθέντες. Ότε γαρ ασθενέστερος, ο πλούσιος τε την δίκην ίσην έχει, νικά δε ο μείων τον μέγαν δίκαιον έχων»[1] (Ευριπίδης)

«Σωκράτης έλεγεν, εί τις εν θεάτρω υποκηρύττοι ανίστασθαι στους σκυτοτόμους, εκείνους μόνους αναστήσεσθαι, ομοίως εί τους χαλκοτύπους, τους υφάντας, τους άλλους κατά γένος. Εί δε τους φρονίμους ή δικαίους, πάντας αναστήσεσθαι. Και έστιν εν βίω βλάπτον μάλιστα το ανοήτους όντας τους πολλούς οίεσθαι φρονίμους είναι». [2]

CHAPTER 1:

UPANISHAD OR SYMPANTIS EX HADES OR OCCIDENT EXPRESS

MNEMOSYNE: Athene = Ahana 

Axon = axa

Asty (polis) = austa

Bous (ox) = gaus

Domos (house) = damas

Hermes = Saram

Zygos (libra) = juga

Theos (God) = Dyaus

Thyra (door) = duara

Ois = (sheep) auis

Uranus (heaven) = Varuna

Ploion (ship) = plava

Poseidon = Idaspati

Prometheus = Pramantha

Taurus (bull) = stura

Chen (goose) = hansa

METIETA (Mindful): It is an exercise in futility, my dear Mnemosyne. Whatever you do, you will never be able to put a stop to the continually increasing diversion of the two languages which used to be one. It is true that the legendary V-eno- V-inda were once a united nation and inhabited the mythical Aryavartha of the Pamir mesas. And it is also true that we, the Eno or Eco or Elo (followers of the One – Ekagrammati, i.e. literates attentive to the cause, grammar scholars devoted to the object – Hellenes), got weary of the Hindu’s fatalism and made a historical Exodus. We have been wandering on the inhospitable steppes for many years, fighting with copper bows and arrows against various barbarians, searching for the blue aura of a new uncontaminated world beyond the yellow and gray of mud and wet soil.

That’s why our mission, as you very well know, is called “Sympantis ex Hades” (universe ex Hades), a word with which I granted to substitute the miserable “Upanishad” meaning the whispers of the lazy wise men among themselves, puritan doctrines and obsolete teachings, which henceforth inspire no one. So, I urge you, instead of recording insignificant trivia like a petty pusillanimous accountant without ambition, sing the proper hymns for our great exploits and contests, by which we changed not only fate but also the very appearance of humankind.

MNEMOSYNE: Now, divine muse and goddess, praise the greatest expedition of all times, which departed from the high mountains and directed a mighty army of heroes to where the sun dusk and nightfall reigns. Sing glorious songs about the most successful immigration, the most meaningful enterprise, the only one, which took place out of love for man and science. In this unconceivable eventful campaign, in this unrepeatable series of achievements our leader Metieta as undisputable sovereign and ruler of humankind has shown all his gifts and tremendous abilities. Above all with the magic power of words, which he possesses, he managed to shape the humans accordingly, interfering drastically not only in the development of the spirit (here we are talking specifically, not in vague terms), but also in the evolution of the body itself, manipulating the process through the proper word or the suitable change of meaning. But do me a favor, Eurynome, it’s your turn to continue and explain to the world how you contributed to the first great fight of human race.

EURYNOME:  In our travels we faced in rapid temporal succession the Cyclops, the Ellops and the Hecatonchires.  As commanding general appointed for the cosmic confrontation against the first, I have to say the following: It is well known that the first manifestation of the human mind is the conquest of property, the regulation of limits and boundaries among fields or real estates, circumference through geodesic lines, possession and pasture.  In this activity excelled above all the Cyclops but at the cost of grave exaggeration. They built defensive fences in a circle around their domains, where they hid and protected their sheep. In result they lived separated from one another, having their one and lonely eye pointing without any distraction to the interior of their property without any concern or compassion whatsoever for the fellow human beings. But my name is Eurynome and I am relating to surrounding space, I am enlarging and expanding the frontier tending to encompass and embrace the whole world. So, at Metieta’s request I set the fences on fire, so that the Cyclops were forced to abandon their headquarters and requisites handing over control to society. Please, Metieta, speak for yourself, narrate how you helped me in that endeavor, so that everybody might know. 

METIETA: From the word “advaita” , which means verbally “no differentiation, no division” and symbolized the impassable or pathless of every human quest, I pleased to create the word “advent”, which is an important event, invention or situation starting or coming into existence (also related: adventure)  and the word “adverse”, which are initially adversary,  unfavorable conditions as fundament of society leading inexorably through struggle of the classes to institutions and state establishment. I also combined the word “maya”, which represents the illusion of the material disassociation, divergence or diversity of things, with the word “raja” (kingdom) and I composed the word “maja-raja” or “moira” (fate). But “moira” means “share” or “proportion” in my book meaning the exact consequence of our actions, the filaments resulting from our acts, a material regulation, which presupposes conscientious activity. That is even more apparent in the transformation of the word “praktiti” (matter) into “praxis, practice”.  Independent matter alone is inert, only via elaboration and specialization acquires shape and intrinsic value. Development, evolution, shapeshifting of the thing through history and its partial disposition in the service of others constitutes its social dimension and the parallel social responsibility of the possessor. With those changes I influenced the Cyclops, which acquired another vision, another view-angle, turning henceforth a second eye to public affairs in addition to the old unique eye towards privacy. 

MNEMOSYNE: It’s my turn now, because I played an essential protagonist role in the next historical phase of the expedition. When the fences and wires were abolished and exiled from the fields, savage and bloody wars unfortunately were waged.  Men have ceased to be indifferent Cyclops, but still they remained Ellops, that is in absence or eclipse of speech, in lack of communication. Conducting diligently my mission, which was to keep and guard the words of mankind in my huge archive, I turned myself against them and I defeated them with the help of my nine charming daughters, the muses, who spread and introduced the fine arts throughout the globe. Through immersion in a world of pain I spurred and obliged them to articulate human sounds; to speak and shout and cry; I forced them to communicate. Afterwards I guided them to seek out and specify the proper beneficial principles and maxims, upon which a peaceful coexistence can rely and flourish. Of course, the great Metieta was always directing and coordinating our common efforts.

METIETA: It was the period, where I reversed the consequences of the thunder strike, which had rendered the Ellops speechless, and I declared that the bright light spreading on their faces (Abhasa) was not something positive, but on the contrary it was aphasia, a humiliating senseless coma, which needed to be replaced and bridged by speech, extensive talk and communication. I also said that the Ellops should stop worshipping idols like rocks and other… hard places or brackets (Greek: brachos, Hindu = Brahma) and should extend their faith to their own individual (atomon, atom), which is their soul (Atman) inhabiting and inhaling the general atmosphere. We, Hellenes, are also originating from the land of labyrinths and lakes and lagoons but we don’t idolize them.  To make a long story short I explained that the free wandering spirit (Hindu: purusha) must evolve to “parousia” (presence) to be preserved. So, due to my efforts the Ellops opened their mouths and talked. 

          THEMIS: Yes, yes, but it was I, who waged the most demanding and devastating war against the mighty Hecatonchires who believed themselves to be self-sufficient and indestructible because of their hundred hands. I showed them vividly that their assumed as independence and self-sufficiency is fraud and a hoax. There is no need to be equipped with a hundred hands to succeed. It is sufficient to be organized within great social formations and living- breathing organic apparatus. I preached and revealed to them the value of family, of interacting society of contracts and transactions, of justice for all before courts of law, of firms, companies, associations or corporations, of syndicates, unions and police, of administration, parliament, government and state. Of course, in this great adventure I was encouraged and received valuable guidance and intelligence in many ways by Metieta, I was familiarized by him with the pertinent stuff to the last detail, to the molecular level.

      METIETA: The main recipe of my policy was always action as opposed to fatalism. I sent away packing all the “Karma” and “Dharma” and stuff like that, I blocked the roads and destroyed the passages to destiny and fate and prescription and anticipation of what is written.  Instead, I put “arma” in their place (war chariot, arms, armament), which symbolizes not so much the war as the tendency to take fate into one’s own hands. From the word “mokscha”, which denotes the metaphysical need for redemption I constructed “amaxa” (stagecoach), which is the vehicle escorting our people to magnificent, exotic adventures. I paid homage to the word “soma”, which initially was an olfactory extraction of plant,  a distinct odor and fragrance of a flower, an incense in a defeatist religious ceremony  and I made it really “soma” (body) as the ultimate combination of spirit and matter, which leads us into battle and presents the tool of our success story, whereas we shape it, sculpture it, train it and acerbate its senses with our ideas and judgment. I synthesized the word “eleptheria” (freedom), the most original concept having seen the light of day. This is a slight, infinitesimal but essential divergence in relation to the passive “shila- tirtha” (the indifferent random selection of one’s road, the impasse, the lack of choice).  I always urged the people towards pursuit of happiness, energetic action, creation, composition, synthesis. Themis, do you think that history will remember all that?

THEMIS: Sure, it will, Metieta (mindful) and Nefelegereta (cloud-rising) Zeus pater, Jupiter.  But let us stop now to enjoy for a moment the azure fiords of the promised land, where you delivered us after so many struggles and wanderings. Here in this rocky country with the countless islands all are so small and gracious, proportional, analogous and adapted to the measure of the Man. The waves, the sprouts, the rocks are in the correct and esthetically pleasing proportion and analogy.

EURYNOME: It has just crossed my mind that, while we during our fights exterminated the Cyclops, the Ellops and the Hecatonchires, in India meanwhile they have never ceased to exist (goddess Kali for example).

METIETA: Do not worry. I already prophesize that a descendant of ours, a noble king, will follow the exact opposite itinerary leading once again from the West to East and he will restore their marbles. He will oppose himself once more against the mute, cyclopean gods with the many hands and he will prevail. He will be the great Elixir, the infallible preventive shield, the ultimate protective screen, the lightning rod of mankind, Alex, who will be the quintessence of “andro” (virile behavior).

  (Propaganda leaflet, distributed by the fans of Zeus to the people of the Earth).

          CHAPTER 2:

ILION, TROY, GANYMEDES, EOS, TITHONUS ET CETERA, ET CETERA

If you think that Helen was the only one beauty champion in antiquity, you are gravely wrong. Should Eos be underestimated, a fierce warrior, who was in fact the fear and the terror of all creatures plotting against Creation from other dimensions? She crossed the sly in an open roofless shuttle surrounded by a force field instead of a cover, causing awe with her red-white attire and the constantly shooting ray- gun of her vehicle, which she handled so skillfully that it appeared like a lighted torch in her hand. It is true of course that, being endowed with extensive erotogenic zones, – how else can we express that she was voluptuous? –she had overdone her love affairs. Well known are the orgies she did together with the wiry wide -forehead Orion in Delos. Besides, she had also fallen in love with Ganymedes, this young man of excessive beauty before Zeus managed to capture him and make a satellite out of him. However, the urges of the robust, vigorous and sturdy Eos remained unsatisfied, not easily to quench, and her next target was Tithonus, a promising handsome decent young man, son of Laomedon, king of Troy, and Strymo, daughter of river Scamander, who had the tendency to exit his bed, whenever one busted his … cojones.   

          Of course, starting from the elementary, the mythological datum is known that Paris kidnapped Helen and brought her to Troy. What many don’t know is that the first occupation of Troy was not performed by the Achaians – Danaans (bearing gifts), but by the mighty successful bodybuilder Hercules- Heracles during the Argonautic expedition, when the king of Troy Laomedon did not give him the horses promised by Zeus as a reward for his contribution to kidnap Ganymedes.     

          From the abovementioned, you can understand that it is written for our story to begin with Troy. Where else could a story begin, if not with the archetypic matrix and starting point of every story? «Έπος Τρωικόν ουκ εκ του διδύμου ωού άρχεται, αλλά εν μέσω των πραγμάτων». Which means that we are neither starting from the eggs, where the beautiful Helen and the Dioscuri Castor and Pollux come from, nor from ancient Egypt, where some unacquainted with methodology judges direct the pitiful facts of any case, but from the texture, the plot, the action, the inextricable interweaving with things.

          But what had happened in Troy then – i.e. before the Trojan war? King Laomedon, as it is derived from his name, had devoted all his “medea” – brains to his people, to the extent that he had any (from the same root comes also the “automaton” auto- metis, remember also the Metieta Zeus from the previous chapter). So, he intended to build a huge wall to protect Troy until Kingdom Come, just like the contemporary Greek politicians occupy themselves with the wall of Evros, which is going to protect Greece until the sun becomes a white or a red dwarf – that is what should be called a noble ambition! Ha had assigned the pertinent project to the most acclaimed engineer and architect of the era, Daedalus, who had his son Ikaros as his indispensable helper. Who was Daedalus? We recite the respective excerpt from “Starting from Zero”, which represents the whole Titanomachy. In a few words the sequence of the events is as follows: Poseidon sent to Minos of Creta a most beautiful bull to take him back later as a sacrificed slaughtered animal. Minos, however, had mercy for the beauty of the taurus, so mighty and powerful that he blew steam out of his nose and he hid him to the stables. Therefore, Poseidon in his divine non-wisdom, entirely mean and petty like all the wormhole beings, infuriated the bull and cast to the stout big-sized wife of Minos Pasiphae an invincible nettle rash, as well as an insatiable sexual desire for bull- leaping, if you can grasp my subtle hint. Not knowing all this, Minos assigned Daedalus to construct a big wooden cow, resembling a real one, so that he may consecrate her to Poseidon and appease him for the embezzlement of the real bull. Daedalus, however, who besides being a conspicuous inventor was also very thrifty, built the wooden cow void in the fashion of the Trojan horse and in there the incredible intercourse between the great taurus and the big strong Pasiphae was conducted unbeknownst to the unsuspected husband, who wondered why the wooden cow jumped all over the place on her undeflected unbent kneeless legs, not only as a vivid but also as a frenetic four-legged as well as wooden-legged maenad, just to amuse Poseidon and his present company! From this union between the propelling pushing bull and the susceptible receptible Pasiphae arose Minotaur, but that is an entirely different story. The issue here is that Daedalus was both a negotiator and a travelling vendor, very practical and very businesslike and must be seen under this light. All these factual events, however, were precedent in relation to our present story, if there can be a chronic succession in the universe of titans.

          The noise of the workers, who had the bad habit of fumbling on the walls at dawn, woke up Eos, who as a glorious renowned titan was extended hospitality in the best rooms of the palace, personally invited and accommodated by Laomedon himself under the property of host and patron. Hindered seriously to be lazy on the sheets as she used to, she pondered to curse them from the window, but then she thought what is valid in every era, that there are the privileged and the not privileged and that the former should be magnanimous towards the latter, a self-evident generosity, dear reader, but unfortunately not even that exists in our days.

«Έργου ουδέν τ’ όνειδος, αεργίη τ’ όνειδος»[3], she whispered the words of Epaminondas, who, although he was a great general, never complained, when the municipality of Thebes made him break stones and carry out duties of road construction.

Eos groped the pillows and the wrinkled folded sheets beside her. She realized that Tithonus had gone from dawn before the rooster crows and the servants assumed their duties, as if he had committed something bad, offensive or provocative. He had slipped like a hunted game into the night through the streets and the alleys and the least illuminated at that, where only the reflection of a torch reached, so that nobody could see him. For God’s sake, the prudery of this kid was incredible! His attitude left much to be desired to be able to enjoy love and Eos considered if it was worth teaching him. She concluded that she had had many noisy turbulent and Dionysian orgasms in her life, thus, the Apollonnian pleasure of teaching was more appealing to her – or that the satisfaction of offering knowledge was hedonistic enough, if you prefer.    

Tithonus had the sex appeal of the sad and the defeated; through the need for protection that he emitted, he roused all the mother instincts of Eos. Fortunately, there is also this solution for men, who are not equipped enough by nature and are of no use as sex-workers. Now, her memory through the rudimentary and fundamental gnostic function of comparison went back to Orion, the greatest lover she ever had.   

Orion was a hunter and an experienced sailor. He had a big head, allowing him to impose himself on the women, moving it right and left during the sex act like a male tomcat. In his naïve stupidity he intended to take a woman named Side who thought that she was more beautiful than Hera, so vulnerable was he to the woman charms and so blind to what was bound to come next. Later Orion came to Oenopion in Chios to marry his daughter Merope; Oenopion blinded and dumped him on the beach, but then he was healed by the sun. Then he fell in love with Artemis and had an affair with her etc. In a few words, he had many adventures and crossed many mountains, always searching for another rainbow. To make a long story short and since we are tired of copying previous works of ours and others, you could learn more about Orion in the “Starting from zero”, where the whole Titanomachy is described. Eventually, having from Poseidon the gift of walking on the sea and while he went for a walk on the archipelago around Delos, his head was visible from afar as a contending, vindicated and much desirable trophy of target practice, whereupon Apollo challenged Artemis, if she could aim at that point from Olympus. Not realizing the vicious guile, she aimed at him and killed him. This was the way of a divorce that Apollo chose to interrupt the liaison of his sister making her kill her own companion. Such was, unfortunately, the perversion of the Olympians who claimed to be gods!

Eos dragged herself up to the balcony, sided the cobwebbed curtains and exited into the dim light of the morning (without having to watch the dreadful morning TV shows). A fierce winter dominated, and she got cold feet not metaphorically but literally, as she touched the frozen marbles, so much so that she had the vice of walking barefoot. She looked at the firmament that imprisoned this wretched planet. As in any Creation the titans had built it with repeated catasterisms (star placings) to offer inspiration to the people through the narrations of the constellations’ origins; unfortunately, however, the Olympians used it to trap the world like a zoological and not an Epicurean garden.  

If one watched Earth from some window of the firmament, how would it look like? A blue and grey sphere, where the equators and the meridians crossed not mentally, but through shades of grey, since they corresponded to the plates of the Dionysian sphere (reader, you are rather familiar with the anagrammatism “Dyson”) that surrounded and enveloped the space of Earth. Indeed, this sphere completed all the requirements to be named by the scientists Big Space Anomaly; it consisted of encapsulated plates, nested in one another, creating a tactical pattern of parallelogram like a set of adapted crystal squares and rhombs. If you desire more information, insatiable readers, the sphere had a diameter of ten light seconds; just to grasp a representative image suitable for further conclusions and since geography is the basis of geopolitics, one could contain the sun himself in this structure and have enough space to move also one’s elbows. One could not contain also Earth in this Anomaly, because the distance between Earth and sun is eight light minutes, which equals to fifty times the radius of the sphere. But of course if one put the Earth in the center of this cavity, which was exactly the intended action, there would be plenty of room for the rotation of the moon even in the most distant moments of the future, a little before it untangles itself from the gravity of its bodyguarded guardian and frees itself as an autonomous celestial body in the infinite silence of outer space. But was there any space beyond the crystal spheres of the titans? Yes, there was always that suspicion. So, the Dionysian sphere, as the conqueror Dionysus abusively renamed the firmament of the titanic catasterisms, was the sadful wrapper and prison of the Earth ensuring the absolute dominance of the Olympians who ruled having as allies and acolytes the artificial intelligences plus all their ramifications.

What the Olympians and especially Apollo did to Orion would be called in not politically correct epochs a very low trick, a huge foul play. She searched for a nice expressive word to describe and characterize this hideous trap which Phoebus had set up against her lover, maybe “shamelessness” was the most suitable, even better “bestiality”, because it was an evil act, not only beyond humankind, but also beyond the beast. She remembered the day when Orion decided to take this fatal walk with his long legs that oozed on the sea and with the seven- mile step covering extent areas. He wore his shining armor as an army service uniform reflecting the rays of the sun – my god, how many times has this commonplace expression been written in the history of literature?- but he had not covered his big head with a helmet, not even with a decent hat or with his night sleeping cap, because he liked the wind messing his curly hair. And this hair was so rich and so majestically tufty that it waved from the shoulders like the mane of a stallion. Eos watched him with pride exiting the Dark Gates and heading for the west having the morning sun at his back, a direction forgotten by the Greeks, since the Turks conquered the coast of Asia Minor at some date and in some Creation, so much so that henceforth they prefer to walk like zombies almost mechanically and unquestionably towards the Great and overcrowded East. His quick versatile legs – a bit crooked, from those which help very much the skirmishing side-cutting outflanking wingers of football- carried him airborne in a way that he disappeared instantly, relying on his brightness, splendor and the vigor of his youth. But- alas- Orion was bound to fade away that day, without realizing it, and perhaps this could be a consolation. The darted from an impossible distance arrow of Artemis crushed his skull. Who knows what thoughts crossed his mind at that moment and if he had some sensation of the violent penetration into his brain, of the expulsion of his eyeballs from the sockets and of his bloody end.

  Do you think that he was contemplating his relationship      with the archer Artemis who executed him against her will? Could he possibly have an affair with her? Of course, that was not a petty matter, and it could aggravate Eos substantially. If it was confirmed, maybe her ego would rebel and her love would turn into hate through the well-known electrochemical procedure, of a very low level for the iron discipline of the titans which preaches that love under conditions is no love at all, that the beloved has not changed after the exposure of his illegal liaison, being the same parson that woke up on the pillow next to you in the morning. On the other hand, however, if he had concealed something that you ought to know, doesn’t that mean that he is a completely other person than what you thought? Perhaps the solution lies in keeping loving him but from a distance, hoping that he above all would come to terms with himself, be honest with himself. In any case, the outcome was such that the thoughts above proved to be inconclusive. Death sanctified Orion and he would remain forever in the imagination of Eos as the ideal and worthy lover, as the perfect man, if that along with valor still constitutes a concept in our crazy era – here, the reader should forgive us for not disclosing if we mean the era of the titans or ours. And now he was dead, an extinguished moon broken into pieces, rotting in a grave. His moon-face would now be a desolate castle, a grotesque and mocking smiling skull, his blue eyes had melted into walked over fat and grease, his bones had turned into dust, stripes of toasted wrinkled meat had withdrawn all the way back from his depilated cheekbones, as is often the case in the swollen bodies of the sacrificed animals.

Poor Eos remembered the funeral of Orion, how many people had flown together to mourn for the unjustly perished young man, victim of the women, who did not commit a sin or a misdemeanor except that he had loved too much. Of course, the whole truth is that regardless of his love he was implicated in a higher level of political purposefulness and conspiracies of power, without having the slightest clue, that is why he was pushed over the edge. How gullible men are, especially those gifted by nature concerning the reproductive procedure, a fact sufficient to them, giving them no cause to make more thoughts about their individuality and their position within the society. In any case she had no complaint concerning the participation of the ancient world. All were present, delegates of the Achaians, since we are referring to a period before the Trojan war, before the revisionist invasion had begun, when the diplomatic relations were still unperturbed, Aethra, mother of Theseus, Hercules, always troubled and wavering between Megara and Deianira and many other semi-gods, god-equals and heroes.  

At this point we should mention that the real Troy of the titan era had nothing to do with what we imagine. It may be true that the Greeks, but also the influenced by them Trojans and other Greek- imitating peoples, due to excessive ecological mentality, built and masoned their residences and chapels on a marble fundament, upon which they placed temporary and easily perishable bricks, from which no trace has remained nowadays, but this did not mean that in their universe of the titans ballistic rockets were not shot at the firmament, that sirens did not wail warning the inhabitants to take refuge in the antiaircraft shelters, that there were not biomechanical beings, automata (auto- ‘same’ + metis-‘mind’) that policed the people either under the appearance of land robots or of flying drones, assigned by Zeus to keep the peace. Their armed with hooks arms and their circularly moving searchlights rendered them an astonishing resemblance with black wasps circumspecting the environment with their multifaceted vision. Eos was bored by all these and exclaiming desperately like Costas Kazakos “wars, wars everywhere” went to wash herself and dye her hair, surrounded by an appeasing haze and a sweet anticipation, presaging an interesting new day.  

    CHAPTER 3:

THROUGH THE KEYHOLE INTO THE CHAMBERS OF ZEUS AND HERA

As the morning sun made its first appearance, the mindful and cloud- gatherer found himself in the great hall of the gods (the Greek word for the hall implies that there was also a chimney in there). Behold now Hera entering the scene and keeping a dog on golden luxury leach, evidently bought in an expensive store, not in a discount flea market.

“What have you brought me? What am I looking at right now?” asked Zeus from the height of his throne, evidently ill- tempered, indisposed, frowning and downcast.  

“A hunting dog of excellent pedigree”, said Hera.

“Cut the crap. I am not asking what kind of dog he is, but if he is THE dog.”

“Yes, he is”, said the first lady of the Olympus (flotol) untying the leash.

“You did half a job. I told you to bring also your son with you.” 

“Which one among the many”?

          “What, in the bloody hell, are you suffering of senility or of an Old House syndrome?[4] Which son, my foot, the limp of course.  But I am a fool to expect something from you. ‘Ει χωλώ παροικήσεις, υποσκάζειν μαθήσει[5]’. I mean the practician, the laborer, who flirts Athene so much that he almost hangs himself from her foot like this drooling dog would hook himself from yours, but he seems to have better manners”.

         Hera turned on her heels to go and fetch him, while the dog made preparative movements to follow her.

          “Leave the dog here. He seems too spoilt to obey a ‘fetch’ call[6] You ‘d better do it yourself. The women need always a lesson in humility”.    

          The white- armed Hera gave the sign to the dog. He was trained and rested stiff in his position with a deep sitting and squatting. He was big, «εν χρώ κεκαρμένος»[7] with gentle hazel eyes which despite his education looked a little stupid and terrified, where these two are contradictory in this case, since to fear Jupiter showed a great deal of intelligence. As a dialectic mediation between his fear and his embarrassment obstructing him of finding the proper solution, he chose to run here and there, salivating the floors and going annoyingly around the throne of Zeus, while his nails were scratching the marbles, a fact not particularly encouraging for the evaluation of his intelligence. He sniffed and licked persistently the sandals and the toes of the thunder- striking Cronides. Afterwards, he approached the edge of the panoramic holographic pool, through which the Olympians watched everything unfolding on planet Earth, and on top of that he dived into the warp of cinematographic grains and pixels rising clouds of plasteline material. He messed up everything thinking that with his cute efforts pleased or propitiated his boss, he started to turn around a pillar, as if to make something round even rounder. That is, the dog groped and became a touching harasser and a subway jostler of a pillar.

          “Good dog, adorable little beast, come here to take your reward for your beautiful performance”, ordered Zeus.

        It was as if the dog scented something disquieting at first, but then he decided to play possum and turned away his glance pretending that he smelled the pillar to gather information about the consistency of the marble. But what could a dog perceive about the marble except that it is white, odorless, tasteless and not edible like all the eternal indestructible things?

          Zeus blew with the finger in mouth like a mule guide, a shepherd or a basketball coach.   

          Still the dog hesitated. He moved his ears showing some obedience or submission but did not even amble. He moved slightly but in general was not moved staying in the active and never passing to the passive tense. Surely, he was a smart … man!

          Finally, Zeus clapped his hands in an imperative and sovereign way. Well, enough is enough, there is a limit whereafter a dog cannot afford not to obey. With ambiguous wavering movements, going sideways like a crab, with a hanging tongue and a happy gaze he hurried to enter Zeus’s lap although he was a big-sized son of a bitch, goddammit! 

          Zeus caressed it at first measuring it with his cold azure hardened snake eyes, and then, being knowingly and officially paranoid, schizophrenic, bipolar, psychopath, sociopath or whatever modern science calls such characters, he drew a merciless razorblade and cut his throat with an instant, professional, pulsing and vibrating move. And whereas the head of the poor animal in an era, where zoophilia was still in diapers, hit the ground and rolled to the holographic pool, his body landed from the murderous lap to the floor with his front legs still stretched, as if he was half standing expecting a reward.

          Then Hera and Hephaestus entered, looked at this spectacle and, as they understood what happened, ran even more quickly to the throne crossing the huge ballroom.

          “Oh, the poor thing, such a noble and tall animal, but also pure in soul”, murmured Hera. “You are indeed completely mad, husband. But I should blame myself above all, because I sympathized with you, as you perched in my arms as a cuckoo, for Pete’s sake! Are you a man after all? You invade everywhere as a bird, a cuckoo, a swan, a hoopoe to then show your real cock, you, perverse, disgusting, twisted reek. My hug became a cuckoo’s nest thanks to you. What did the cute defenseless pet to deserve your rage, shame on you!”

          Zeus mumbled something incomprehensive and put the profane audacious both bragging and coward knife in his sheath.

          Hephestus was wronged by nature in the sense that he had a very big chest and very small legs having a monstrous shape, a dwarf for a gods’ standard. Of course, the gods had the ability to lengthen their body willingly, an action that required a lot of energy, but they had also their own normal height, when they were in a tranquil state. But the stature of Hephestus left much to be desired, the poor half-grown fellow! He had a great resemblance with a hairy barrel, if such monstrosity had a chance to see the daylight. Of course, he limped, that is common knowledge. He dragged the left foot as if it were dead, putrid, not blood-fed limb and perhaps that was exactly the case. He had a wild haibun, where God knows how many worms, fleas or moths had found a shelter like in Mrs. Havisham’s ball of twisted hair in “Great Expectations”, even more despondent and untamed beard, whiskers that seemed to stretch and merge with the hair- growth of the chest and the eyes circled perimetrically with a red marker. It was as if he wore an armor, but a more careful look would reveal that in fact he bore like a west a layer of hundred microscopic boxes, sachets, tools and devices, some made out of noble and some out common metals, other from skin or leather, even of intricately interwoven fibers, hanging along and across the stretched crossed belts and stripes of his hairy body. Hephestus, the epitome of blacksmith, since he constructed women out of gold and mechanical virgins, automata layered with gutta- percha or skin imitation providing men with almost living smile and pleasure! The same claimed that he had created in an alchemistic tub of organic saps Pandora, the first woman.  

       “Hallo, working man”, echoed thunderingly and ironically Zeus. “Don’t you think that I have neglected you or that you forfeited my favor, I would have called you earlier if a coffee-pot was damaged or if there was a hole in one of my enemies’ skulls, where I drink my cocktails.”

          Hephestus looked at the decapitated body of the dog, flooded with blood.

          “You didn’t have to do this, Father Zeus, Jupiter. ‘Pan metron ariston’, everything in moderation, said Cleobulus of Rhode and this action of yours exceeds by far both measure and analogy”.   

          “The damned dog enervated me”, said Zeus drinking a sip of an alcoholic beverage from a skull – goblet.

          Hephestus, making a slalom between the cleaning ladies who with their brooms and swept the blood coordinated in a frantic choreography, groped with his stocky, bulky and sturdy hand for the sternum of the animal, as if he wanted to caress or rather tickle it and pressed an inner notch.  A meaty cover opened from within and the horned cuckhold husband of Aphrodite pulled from the entrails a transparent amniotic sac, ostensibly full of rags, tatters, shreds, chops and pieces of meat. From all this mess Hephestus extracted a wet and rosy lump.

      “Here is Dionysus, right in his place, so you didn’t have any reason to slaughter the host”, he said.

     “My favorite son”, said Zeus with a twisted psycho smile. 

          “Should I put this disgusted chop into a resuscitation chamber, so that it may recover, o Cronides?”, the blacksmith dared to ask. 

          “No, we d’ better follow a more dystopic procedure. One of us is ordered to chew and eat him, so that he may be reborn in the way he himself has pointed out, through the method of Zagreus’ swallowing. Such an anthropophagic methexis is perhaps disagreeable and painful for the eater but it is a good lesson for all of you in here to behave in the presence of my son. The fact that I, myself, sew him into my thigh does not mean that you are allowed to shove his yeast down every stinky throat or into the carrion of a dog!”

          Hera treaded on the second step of the throne like a loud-less cat and stretched her hand on the thigh of Cronides, as only the women can do.

          “Do not punish us altogether, supreme and paramount hegemon. Responsibility is never collective but always individual.    So let everyone assume his/her own according to what Demosthenes declared: ‘Τοις ελευθέροις μεγίστη ανάγκη η υπέρ των πραγμάτων ευθύνη’ (To the free people the responsibility for the common causes is a great obligation)”.

          “So, what do you propose?”, said Zeus, always open to suggestions, especially to those of the sexual kind. 

          “Let Aphrodite devour him”, said Hera without to hesitate, in the name of women’ rivalry, “who is used to fill her mouth with male limbs”.

        “Let Aphrodite be. Recently she had done nothing to annoy me. She is a beautiful presence who benefits all men and harms no one, just like the golden women of Hephestus. ‘Διος παις ο χρυσός – κείνον ου σης ου κις δάπτει, δάμναται δε βροτέαν φράν, κάρτιστον κτεάνων’,[8] as Pindar says.

        “If this is the case, let us mobilize Athene who presents herself as the goddess of wisdom and communicates with the mortals through official channels. She is to blame for imposing upon us through her affectations and predilections this ridiculous war against the humans and their hot-shot flashy showy aristocracy, the titans”.

        “Now, listen, this administration will not condescend to deal with your low level and petty small talk, since your only intention is to put out of commission your main antagonists, so that you alone would earn the favor of the nobleman, gentleman and dandy Paris. As I hear, you intend to award him a gold apple or a commemorative plaque or the prize of a classy copulation in a luxurious resort, but this is your affair and cannot burden this administration which stands above women’ rivalries. Only the clashes and the duels between men are my concern. So, I ‘ll give you a last chance to decide who is going to ruminate my son or else the devil should hold you for all the intrigues that you fabricate”.       

          “Then… then, it should be Demeter”, whispered Hera who always had some escape goats as aces in her sleeve, ready to be sacrificed for the common or more accurately her own good.

          “Demeter? Gaia -mater? Your sister? My sister? The mother of my beloved Persephone? Don’t you hold anything dear ‘ώ προσφιλές μου ήτορ’[9]? Are you going to harass our relatives now?”

          “You, ungodly god, is there anyone in this mountain, in urbi et orbi who is not your relative, since you are penetrating everywhere as an intrusive viscous sperm, just like you did with Danae? We all know your burlesque causes. Am I not also your sister besides a wife, you incestuous Olympus? At the least, Demeter as a goddess of agriculture is experienced in birth and production. Especially this time of the year she has a lot of lazy days and no work, since the goddamned Terrans, instead of cultivating the earth, gathering the crops and produce fruits, only prepare wars against each other”

          “Let it be my beautiful spouse”. He turned to Hephestus who in the meantime fretted with the tongue outside replacing the murdered dog after a fashion. “Give Demeter the meat of my son and tell her that it is the will of her lord to eat Dionysus and drink his blood, so that he may live again. Further, I assign her the task to remain sleepless and draconian guardian until this predesigned birth is completed. I need urgently allies and people who I can trust, because the unrepenting titans guide mankind for the umpteenth time to the path of war”.     

           Murmuring, Hephestus lifted the poor dog from his pointed raised ears, gathered his other remains as well and walked limping to the exit, showing towards Zeus the only resistance left to him, that is, no matter how much Cronides urged, he seemed to be adamant, not to quicken his pace in the slightest but to forward his assignments unwillingly, lazily and reluctantly like a hardened stalwart public servant.   

          CHAPTER 4:

          HERA’s PARTING TO AN UNKNOWN DESTINATION

          Making seven- mile steps Hera went on foot to her chambers, since there nobody could beam up, not even herself. Olympians were obsessed with security, shielding and protection; this was easily explained, not so much because they were beings coming from another dimension, but because they had the well-known insecurity and paranoia of all rulers who were afraid of losing their privileges and felt remorse and reproach by their conscience for their unjust and illegal initial acquisition. So, she commanded Hephestus – not ordered him, because only the titans expressed their wishes ordering, while Olympians were totally satisfied giving commands – to reinforce quantum- mechanically her chamber with the installation of protective forcefields and restructuration of the walls through titanium and warmth -resistant synthetic Kevlar, capable of obstructing the violent entrance even of an enraged Zeus, so that the door could open only manually through the peculiar password “open sesame”.

        So, Hera knocked a knocker, bolted a bolt, knobbed a knob, flattering it simultaneously through the embellishing name “key of a deposit box”, because it resented to be called merely a knob and slipped into her chamber, closing behind the heavy metallic diaphragm and visited the toilette, where she got rid with one fluent move both of her robe and of her filigran, temptingly  scandalizing, delicate see-through undergarments.

          In the beginning the ox-eyed Hera didn’t begrudge herself, but in the contrary she bestowed and offered herself a nice toilet bath, warmed by the thermonuclear boilers of hell, which were kindled to their full capacity by the god of fire for a deep uncorking of the dermal pores, then fed by the most sparkling and icy fountains of Olympus as an appeasing and relaxing rinsing vigorous elixir. With an ambrosia ointment – since ambrosia was not used only as nourishment, but also as a base of various cosmetics – she rubbed the imperceptive stains, the smallest shadows or blots of her impeccable white epidermis.

          Then the white-elbowed Hera coated her multiply praised and seductive body with aromatic oils. The mere scent of this pomade caused a lot of trouble to the male population of Olympus, because it initiated a constant and undiminished, voluminous and unappeasable priapism, and was so powerful that it often reached the Earth and darkened the brains of the unsuspected mortals with seizures of incontrollable passion and lunar moonstruck high tides and floods.

          Afterwards the powerful Cronide arranged her shiny hair, washed it with liquid soap and combed it properly, pushing her braids outwards, so that they may wreath majestically her conspicuous zygomatic bones; finally, she wore an elegant, richly decorated and mercilessly ornated gown, a gift of Athene, with handmade gold-embroidered rose shapes. She supported the gown with a buckle on the raised, stretched cosmetically enhanced and elevated vampire bosom and tithed it in the taille with a belt fringed by a thousand fluffy tufts and tassels. 

    In the cutely perforated earlobes, emerging from her ebony-black hair and the dark perfumed curls as shy animals of the sea, more specifically as proud strutting arched hippocampi, she hung her nice earrings like mulberries or sycamores or pearls or whatever could irritate the erectile imagination of men. Their silvery reflections would certainly hook themselves like knight spurs on the men’ hearts. Afterwards, she wrapped herself into a discreet fluorescent gold-interwoven veil, she put her sandals into her soft toes, where the external scabs, calluses, crusts and grids had been diligently filed and tied the laces high across the whole length of her divine legs and heels. After she washed, perfumed and prepared herself adequately, she stood in front of her mirror, not to ask who was the most beautiful in the kingdom, but rather to confirm with abundant self- confidence “Immortal Hera, who can compare to you?”. Of course, there was also this goat Aphrodite, but everybody knew that she was a user of illegal, forbidden and demonical technologies to boost her beauty, so that her chairmanship was manipulated, staged, artificial, marked, set up and counterfeited like a falsified wager. But it is also true that unsimilar are healed by unsimilar, while the proverb that “a frock does not make a priest” is verified contrarily and inversely, because unfortunately it is proven that “a frock does make the priest”.

          After that, like Xenophon says, as he continues smoothly and unperturbably the Thucydides history, Hera searched and found Aphrodite somewhere on the green slopes of Olympus, where she ascended- descended with undiminished vehemence and a permanent unsatiated sexual impulse like Solomos’ Unknown and in her passage the pasture became greener and the flowers softer. A little before the sweet sunset, the temple and the diaspora of gods’ houses on the west slope of the cavity wrought in Olympus had been illuminated by an eerie light and Aphrodite admired unfeignedly and erotically the golden shining, stretched on all the surface of the endless shadowy cone. The visage of Olympus was a bit turbid, undefined and clouded due to the forcefields that surrounded it abundantly and served beyond the “gods” phobic psychosis for the people of the mountain to be able to breath, oh, I neglected to mention that the headquarters of the gods were not Olympus of Earth, but Olympus Mons of Mars (Ares in Greek), the highest mountain of the solar system, across a distance of twenty one kilometers from the level of the sea, if Mars were to possess a sea! The forcefield that fortified and shielded Olympus generously was the famous “aegis” that Zeus had raised around what he deemed worth protecting. Hera was forced to yell at Aphrodite, because she knew the latter fooled around and gaped idly.  

           “Hi, my precious child, how is life treating you, you good girl?  Don’t get me wrong but I would like to request that you do something for me. For some unexplained reason you have been anointed goddess of beauty, so inevitably the favor I am going to ask falls into your authority– my foot”.

          “Magnanimous, prominent, excellent and notable goddess”, replied Aphrodite laying it too thick, “Supreme, illustrious and glorious archon and queen”, she said continuing and sharpening the flatteries to an insurmountable point, “you can ask all you want, if I manage to fulfill your wish is an entirely other matter, but I can assure both you and everybody else involved that I will do whatever is humanly or rather divinely possible to assist you”.

      While the sun already set and the goddesses sat in the shadow, Hera noticed that the epidermis of Aphrodite shone with an inexplicable inner flame, whereas the irises of her eyes had become incandescent charcoals. This created a certain sensual response even to Hera. She thought how manipulative and ostentatiously door-to-door selling implying the charms of a companion lady was this deception of light for the poor men, gods, semigods and mortals alike, set in motion precisely at nightfall, when the perspective of potential bedfellows was something tangible in the horizon.  

          Hera took a deep breath sensing that with her next immediate words would initiate the most dangerous plan, the most conspiratory plotting scheme that she ever thought of and there wouldn’t be any chance of backing out.  “So, you little foam-born weasel, I give up guessing. Tell me what is your secret that makes any male crawling between your feet, no matter if he is a bull or a frog or a mosquito. Indeed, objectively I do not fall short in beauty, I think even you would not deny that. Not to mention this cucumberlike deranged mentally unsound Athene, who circulates day and night with the helmet, so that her lengthy cantaloupe-like head may not be seen, been pulled with a forceps from Zeus’ skull”.

      “Well… of course, I will disclose the information, you, alabaster -elbowed goddess. Since you ask it so directly, I have no alternative.  But since you took it from my mouth to mention Zeus, what business has a privileged mistress that shares her bed and eats on the same table with the paramount man of the universe to walk upon my inconspicuous streets?”

          “I will tell you the truth”, sed Hera serving the well-known punchline of those who are about to lie. Of course, lies have short legs and are easily perceived, mainly because they are too elaborate and sophisticated. “Recently, the word is out that titans are going to rise and lead the mortals against Olympus. Surreptitiously I happen to be on good terms with two Methuselahs of them, Oceanus and Tethys, who had extended repeatedly hospitality to me, when I was young. So, I reckon visiting and asking them to intervene and appease the titans. Zeus cannot do that, because he lacks the necessary composure. Upon the slightest reaction he will fall into rage and begin to throw thunder everywhere. He is also too proud to condescend meeting the titans, but neither he lets anybody else to develop a peacemaking or ambassadorial activity”. 

          “Yes, but all these circumstances do not explain why you need my humble overrated charms”.

          Then Hera began to say whatever crossed her mind without discrimination.   

          “I happen to know that these two arch-titans feel alienated from each other and that their conjugal bed has gotten cold. On my visit, I will settle their dispute and smooth their difference urging them to unite again their warm bodies in the fire and coziness of love, whereby ‘warm’ is a figure of speech, since both are doddering old fools. So, disclose, Aphrodite, your secret, so that I may help Tethys win the heart of Oceanus again, and aid Oceanus to pass ‘ad augusta per angusta’ (to high places through narrow streets), if you know what I mean”.                    

          Aphrodite who understandably did not want to betray her secret, tried to escape: “My charms are not only something tangible, a devise, or a spare-part or an indestructible material that can be consumed, it presupposes an art of sex-appealing the men through postponement, suspense and rekindling of their desire via gradual revelation of the human body. As Hippocrates used to say: ‘life is short, craft is long, opportunity fleeting, experience perilous and judgment difficult’”. 

          “Aphrodite do not underestimate me and do not sprinkle me with the supergun of the titans, these profound proverbs that can bore someone instantly to death. These as propositions of an alternative policy and government terrify Zeus more than me who prefers to dwell in the backstage. Since you like the titanic proverbs though, hear another: ‘If one thing is apparent, another is occult’. So, your sex- appeal is evident, but it is obviously based to something hidden, although ‘there is nothing hidden under the sun’ It does not compute for you to shine in the night like a steatopygous firefly or like a resurrection candle of another religion; it is obvious that you hide something and this is what I seek to acquire. Tricks or treats to seduce the men are things that I also know too well, and don’t you dare imply something different. I desire to grasp your real investment, your substantial active and energetic asset”.     

          Aphrodite solved from her swanlike neck a small bag like a talisman which flashed in a curious way, meaning that it included mysterious micro-circuits.

          At that crucial moment the feet of Hera got cold due to hesitation. Should I proceed? she thought. If Aphrodite figures out my plan, she will reveal it to Zeus who will crush me in such a way that no organic resurrection chamber and no healer, neither Asclepius nor Hippocrates would be able to save me. He will cut me to pieces and step on me until I become smithereens, ashes and cinders of charcoals and pulverized shavings.   

          “This miraculous little bag contains all necessary elements of seduction”, explained Aphrodite. “Eros and Cupid, but not only that, nuggets of love from this strange new religion that expanses recently like a plague, plus even maternal affection being often misunderstood as desire, as well as whispering and hissing slipping and rubbing between bodies, orgasmic cries, sighs of relief and satisfaction, as one hits unconscious the hay”.

          “Tell me more, analyze the specifications, provide me with specific guidelines”.

          “It comes from the star system of Aries and is called candy bud or candy flower. One can pour it into the decoction of someone or administer it together with some other solution. Recently, however, it is produced in a new revolutionary package allowing the effect through emission from a distance, hence the microchips.” 

          “Yes, but how does it work, how can I activate it?”

          “How should I know, what am I an engineer of quantum-mechanics using molecular micro-scanners? I am just a user of technology acquired in a black market. You remind me of those who had forgotten how the machines worked and had brought a scientist from the future to handle and explain them. Unfortunately, however, he specialized himself only to monochromatic roots, being totally ignorant about all the rest. How does it work? Shooting of pheromones or orgiastic hormones, transfusion of organic saps, microwaves’ energy aiming directly to the pleasure centers of the brain? No matter the reason, the essential thing is that it is working!”

          Hera wore it immediately around her neck, being slightly covered by her gown. “How do I activate it?”

          “You mean how can mother Tethys activate it”, said Aphrodite smiling ironically.

         “Yes, yes, damn it”.  

          “She can wear it on the neck, activate the nano-trigger, which is here, but instead of picturing a distant location like in the teletransportation, she will rub the tissue with the stitched microchips and emit lustful thoughts. So, proceed unwaveringly and I am sure that you will succeed in implementing your plans”.  

          With this enigmatic statement Athene implied that she suspected Hera for alien purposes, but the latter was already involved in a relentless sequence of events and it was impossible for her to reconsider.

CHAPTER 5:

DIVINE COUPLE

The teleportation through subspace, more accurately through voids in the web of spacetime, which were not exactly voids- since nature abhors them-, but corridors with a thin material arrangement, left trails behind, which especially gods were able to follow, no matter how winding or twisting they were. Hera noticed that the specific corridor led through strings and membranes to the favorite cave of Dikteon, where Zeus kept his store and toolkit and made all kinds of fixes and repairs, when he wanted to knock himself out and free himself from the burden of power and the grimaces of his other Olympian associates whom he disliked them all. He had been born in this cave, the Diktean cave, and was emotionally connected to the place, maybe it was the only thing meaning something to him and made even today his heart leap.

As soon as Hera beamed inside, the first thing she noticed were the hung on the walls quivers full of arrows, the tables with the multicolored ornated goblets, platters, bowls, golden plates. One wondered what business had all this junk in a laboratory, perhaps they were souvenirs.

In any case, on the other walls, also the classic tools were hung, pincers, titanic corkscrews, trepans, rotors – screwdrivers, tourbillons, vises, linear actuators, machine slides, hammers, anvils, springs, gears, dented wheels etc.

Zues, while having the ability to increase or decrease his bulk voluntarily, who knows with what holographic or swelling or mass-adapting tricks, causing both his allies and opponents the greatest of impressions, had limited his height into a reasonable two-meter appearance, allowing him to function within a relatively low- ceiling cave. 

“What are you doing here, master?”, asked Hera. “Occupying yourself with trivial matters again, instead of figuring out how to improve the lives of your subjects?”

“For the time being my basic concern is to resurrect again my son, after I assign the right person to chew him with the final goal of gestation instead of digestion. Of course, the implantation and fruitfulness of the spore requires biological technology, where I lack expertise; however, all those are my own concerns, there is no reason to bother your beautiful head with all that”.

“I believe that all these are lame and poor excuses, a sick procrastination and indecisiveness for lack of a worse expression, a sign that you tremble the titans, these adolescent crescent super-mortals, who occasionally introduce themselves as democrats, in other cases as aristocrats and sometimes present themselves even as leaders, because according to them all three forms of government can be harmonized, adding this conclusion to their other outrageous theories. You who walk and the earth trembles, who release thunders and unleash storms, it is unthinkable to fear these hypertrophic dwarfs, to hesitate and refrain from actions lest enraging them, while the confrontation is inevitable”.  

“You have always been a very austere critic of my work, dear spouse. As if it were not enough that you are a controversialist, you deny me the few moments of solitude and circumspection, which I reserve for myself when I come to my birthplace to relax and think”.     

 “Yes, run and hide under the underpants of Rhea, you degraded dishonored… What did this mother endure to save you from the jaws of your father! She was indeed brave unlike you, who as a genuine power-freak and usurper of foreign rights you’re your own shadow”.

 Zeus turned to his wife in rage, but the talisman of Aphrodite had begun already to function and the irritation had already started to seriously grow and sprout under his robe.

          “It turns me on when you insult me, and you know that. You have a great talent for humiliating someone. Only a wife can talk like that to her husband without being thrown by him out of the window, but there are also other ways to make you respect me”.

     He raised the emblematic mighty hand, turned over and swept the goblets and the plates throwing on the floor precious porcelain platters that cost many drachmas, grabbed from the wall a wide lion’s skin like the one of Heracles and covered with it the rude and rudimentarily timbered table of his.

          In view of the impending intercourse, he grew his bulk instinctively, but then he thought within his dizziness that it was enough to let grow only one crucial limb of his body. He roared:

          “Voyeurism protection- stretch over the cave a cloud of level one privacy, so that no eye can penetrate it and disturb me during my work as a voyeur or a deflower (in a manner of speaking, I use them only because they are nice words). I am not in the mood for some nutcase or looney tick to beam up in here during the sacred sacrament of sexual intercourse”.  

     Zeus waved again the mighty hand, while the whole residence vibrated by his electrically charged animalistic and erotic energy, grabbed Hera by the wrist and brought her towards him tearing her gown with primitive beastly vehemence to expose her tits. Through this abrupt movement the electronic device of Aphrodite was also carried away and catapulted to the floor, but this was of no consequence at all, because the ether was already filled and overflown by pheromones of wild and unsatiated lust and pleasure. The high-stoned Zeus raised her like a stuffed doll in the heavens and then heaped her up on the table, being provisionally constructed, but nevertheless stout, sturdy, built with natural solid materials. Then he melted with his fingers rather than took away the rudimentary underwear leaving her totally naked.

       No matter how often Hera had envisaged the divine phallus of her husband, every time the spectacle took her breath away. All the extradimensional males were particularly gifted, but Zeus had vindicated and kept only for himself some decisive and conclusive elements. This staff with the purple or scarlet column capital that pressed gradually and incessantly her thighs, loyal and unnegotiable to its property of perforating and penetrating, was the only one capable and necessary scepter to inspire envy to the gods and terror to the humans. Although, as it is well-known, this huge limb suffered from overexposure and tended to overconsumption, proportional and corresponding to its size and manhood, Hera continued to lull herself that this great fortune and asset of the mighty hegemon belonged only to her, at least officially, at least institutionally.     

          Given that Hera ran the risk of sustaining bruises and wounds in the impending future, if she did not manage to restrain somehow the primordial urge of the high-thundering cloud- gatherer, she tried to delay and postpone the erotic act, so that the acute phase might smooth and ventilate.

          “Do you desire me husband?”

          Zeus breathed from the mouth because his nose was blocked and congested by various odors, both irritating and stunning.     

          “Desire… this is an understatement …  embellishment, litotes, euphemism like the smart- alecks titans say … I want to violate you, to bite and eat you, to tear you apart to the degree of a felony… Suppose you are running in the Nemea or in the Olympic games and you need to stretch your legs at last …”

          “You have never felt such desire, eh father of the family?” 

          “No never, such a strange thing, I have never noticed in years that you were so beautiful …. If I came to know that in time, I would never sleep in houses of strangers and I would be a decent man”.

          “Admit that you never had such a boner, not even when you slept with the wife of Ixion and ploughed her fertile ground to bear Pirithous, the wise king of the Lapiths, or am I wrong?”

       “The wife of Ixion can’t compare to you … her breasts had blue veins … that was disgusting…”. The penis of Zeus tried to find its way between white fat thighs, intentionally tightened, so that the primal passion may be somehow moderated and tamed.  

          “Admit that you never felt such a pleasure, not even when you flooded like a gold rain the vagina of Danae, daughter of Acrisius…”

          “Not even then… believe it…”, murmured Zeus bending over Hera’s tits as mountaintops of the breasts’ ridge path and licking incessantly, while simultaneously his hand groped for the thighs searching to meet the wet river.

          “And your sperm, master and commander, being a bucket with excellent material is a fertilizing bliss which guarantees robust births to the women. Danae experienced that, since in her womb germinated and grew the flower of Perseus”.

          In the meantime, the capital of the scepter hit and engaged impatiently between the thighs as a battering ram, having already extracted an extremely greasy, satiating urethra- genetic drop, being able to give birth on its own to a warriors’ company, if spilled in the fecund ground like a scattered rosary of dragon-teeth. The father of the gods (and of many mortals) was so horny that he could not guide his piston to the target, but like a dizzied drunk young man during his first love dug, pounded and pecked all around with his scraper and carving chisel the perineum of Hera.

          “Is it possible that you desire me more than Europe, daughter of Phoenix, whom you approached snoring like a buffalo and bellowing like a bull?”, the fair-cheeked Hera with the well-shaped zygomatic bones continued to torture him.

“More than Europe, yes! Although even the mere knee of Europe forced someone to come! Her ankles battered my nape like spurs, as we crossed the archipelago”.

Zeus held his heavy real scepter with both hands, heavy also due to the two magnificent spheres satelliting it like iron- balls of a convict, but as an experienced lover still avoided to enter, just leaning, touching, caressing and groping with his ballpen the inner walls and the surrounding frame of the pudendum.

“Do you like it better to enter inside me as into Semelis, the invincible, hot and incandescent like fire womb of Dionysus?”

“Yes, I like it better than I liked it with Semelis, better than I liked it with Alkmene of Thebes with her untied hair, whom I ploughed like a farmer and planted to her womb the invincible warrior Heracles”.   

“Do you like me better than Demeter with her illuminated curls and her blond hairs on the vindicated spot you know …”

Zeus was at the final stage of mounting, raised the legs of his erotic companion sky- high, pressed and elevated her back to diminish the vital distance between her erotogenic zones, so that the Homeric wife had no other choice but to open herself and welcome between her legs the pillar who could become a fountain.

“Yes, yes, bloody hell, more than Demeter”, murmured Zeus confusing his words, feverish due to the erection.

“I think that you need to spill. Ach, you are the biggest of all without any doubt. It seems that you desire me more, even than Lito   whom you wrapped with the neck of a swan, put her under your wings and fixed her up for a lifetime, satisfied her in an unsurpassable way, after you pulled an even bigger swan from your sac”.

“Yes, yes, whatever you say, just stay still”.

Then, the great bull invaded at last. The dark gates cracked open, and the battering ram rushed with the vehemence of a whole army, itchy, strong, full of heart.

During the next half an hour Hera found herself repeatedly very near to fainting. Zeus was indeed erected to the highest possible degree, but he didn’t forget all the techniques that had proclaimed him the greatest lover of all times. He enjoyed with slow, ceremonial movements the divine paramount procedure as if he sailed on the archipelago, without becoming extremely vehement or violent, restraining himself with the discipline of a coachman and postponing the climax with the paltry avarice of a hedonistic hermit or black-market miser. Even so, however, the goddess felt that she lost consciousness in the bustle and the echo of the vibrations, coming from deep underneath, by the anointed and sweated pushes, the jolts of the trunk, which rooted within her and from this root drew inexhaustible power conveying the impression of eternal duration. As far as the room is concerned, it was the ultimate mayhem, as if the Big Bang had taken place. The table, despite its solid, entirely material construction, groaned under the weight and the intensity of the movements, the legs ambled and stirred, so that the collapse were imminent, which would crash and liquify whoever voyeur would hide underneath, if one dared do so, the chairs and the couches overturned in a prolonged somersault, the integrated into the architecture stalactites broke and fell from the roof along with many kilos of building dust, while the decorative stalagmites were extracted like teeth plucked out by a dentist.

The situation had become saturated, the air turned due to the dust into a fog, Zeus had confined Hera pressing her back and her shoulders in such a degree that he felt her divine loins crack. Unfortunately, as the god approached the orgasm, he had lost every control over his own body, which increased and decreased dangerously, whereby we refer to all limbs of it. The goddess considered very seriously that her plan was imprudent and could result to her death. Why did she do all that? Because her vanity, her greatest flaw, forced her to revenge her enemies and not to settle for anything less than sending them all to kingdom’s come without even an obolus for the boatman…

Since we refer to a boatman, the dynamic powerful palindromic movement of Zeus reached finally the absolute culmination. He exploded within her with the roar of a pack of wolves and bears together. Forcefully and according to necessity he screamed with a sky-high cry, and Hera came to an involuntary unconsciousness of a few minutes despite her effort to stay alert.             

She had anticipated that and had trained herself with various Eastern techniques to wake up quickly. When she flattered her eyelids, she felt on her the inconceivable weight of Zeus, while she endeavored to breathe through the forest of his beard that scratched peevishly her cheek with its archetypic savagery. She should try hard to drag herself beyond the mortal hug of her husband. Ultimately, her decision to tolerate her husband’s infidelity was sensible, since sexual relations with him posed significant risks and should be limited as much as possible.   

With a huge consumption of power, she pushed aside the loose, unfolded, unstretched, languid and sluggish penis and managed to slip away from the voluminous swollen flesh that squashed her. Why God -what God she wondered? – who was above gods had molded woman to be weaker than man? Fortunately, however, whoever this unknown god may be, he foresaw to provide woman with what we call feminine brain and cunning that can compensate for the stupid muscular mass of man. The might of the female lies in the sexual sector; there she holds the male from the testicles and turns him around like a festive ribbon or a pumpkin hung on the wall or she suspends him from the window or from clothe-pins like initially stained and then washed undergarment. So, Hera took the vial with the injection that she had especially prepared for the occasion, which Hephestus had hidden within a false nail, one from the many additional keratin prolongations she had to be able to scratch during the sexual act. Caressing reflectively the nape of Zeus, just as she was trained to do during the years, she raised the nail and proceeded to the injection of the powerful drug, transfused into the inert body with a light discreet hissing, which was not even heard among the heavy breath of the unconscious beast and the agonizing beats of Hera’s heart.

The narcotic was called “sleep- death”. Almost automatically Zeus expelled a piece of saliva and started a rhythmic snoring that would last many days, since this drug brought indeed its victims somewhere between sleep and death, very deep into the domain of the subconscious, where it unites with the other cones of self-awareness.                

          Her dress was rugged, and she was not in better shape. She was strewn with deep-colored blue stains, scratched and shredded both internally as well as externally. As if this were not enough, the godly, thick-fluidic, viscous and abundant sperm flowed on her legs hauntingly, almost mockingly and the goddess, disgusted, wiped it with the shreds of her gown.

“Oh, this abomination”, she said showing beyond doubt the ambiguous doublemindedness of the violated female regarding the sexual procedure.  

          She looked again at the unconscious beast, this huge suntanned naked giant who haunted all her dreams. Now he was defenseless, with the face down snoring incessantly, unsuspectedly. And if I killed him? It crossed her mind like a flash. It was perhaps the thousandth time that her mind nurtured that thought.  Every time after sex, when Zeus snored like an animal, she had that enlightenment. Of course, if she proceeded to the execution of the demon, she would make a favor and an important errand to the countless wronged women, either dead or disgraced or even unborn; it would be an unrepeatable service dedicated to all female sex, which would reach also our era of “me too”.

     But when a man lies defenseless at the mercy of a woman, an easy thing to happen, other mysterious mechanisms take control waking up the maternal instinct, the most noble and precious etheric feeling and indispensable ingredient of every Creation now and ever.  

          So, “sleep and snore freely Cronide”, she said. “Forfeit some days of your life on the outer limits of the two brothers, Sleep and Death. You will not even notice the void in the pool of your eternal obsessive and compulsive life. And let me tell you something: When I finish the job, I will come and wake you up a little earlier. If you are a good kid that is… … I reckon you are happy now, isn’t so my little baby?”      

CHAPTER 6:

 ARGONAUTIC EXPEDITION

          Hera had a basic quality, i.e. she didn’t forgive. Since she was little and remembered herself, she was forced to run and hide, so that Zeus might not find her, the latter being so spoilt, cowardly, pusillanimous, full of complexes to the point, that he learnt all information and techniques concerning reproduction from his sister, experimenting on her, often maltreating, hurting, wile and insensitive to the pain he caused her. Throughout her life, she remembered that she played a kind of hide- and- seek, which -alas- was not a game, but a very serious and painful hunt, just as every fox hunted by the Anglo-saxons riders would confirm, being called “game”, that is both toy and pray, derived according to the etymological theory that every word has its originates in the Greek language from «γαμώ», which entails equally pleasure for the active and pain for the passive part. She recalled that her ghastly brother hunted her everywhere, in the thickets of the Stymphalia lakes, in the grottos of Samos, in the bushes and the woods of Euboea.

          And while Hera endured so much for the sexual education of her brother to be completed, he, not able to overcome the syndrome of Ismene, finally married her, remaining a baby forever. Because he knew that, if some garlic -breathing maid as a candidate lover repelled his love and humiliated him, he could always return to the hospitable parental embrace of her sister. Of course, the historical episode with the cuckoo initiated only one of the infinite erotic hugs and it was not the intercourse leading to the marriage at all, but it was revelatory for Zeus’s deep psychological complexes, who appeared to the women with the features of various animals and birds, addressing at first in a servile and submissive way to their maternal instinct to be sure that they would not reject him.           

       Some would say that whatever is done is done and that the continuous escapades and adultery disturbing the conjugal life of Hera were a will of fate, even if at that excessive level they should be penally persecuted. She was willing to tolerate the infidelities with the women of a certain level of education, daughters of kings or titan aristocratic princesses. They did not offend Hera particularly, because she herself admitted their qualifications and their beauty to be comparable or equivalent to her own charms. But to make love with any female mosquito or any male cat or any transexual dog or anything that flies or swims was unacceptable. What kind of humiliation and steamrolling equalization was all that? It reminded the successful expression of the people “to put them all in the same bag”.  

Not to mention this Alkmene of Amphitryon -God spare us! One cannot imagine a more low-leveled blabbering gossipmonger than her. And it is said that they had an endless night together, as the damn fool Amphitryon was away. And the coitus was supposedly so perfect that it was only logical that a semi-god superhero would be born from that union. So, Hera would exterminate especially this fruit of illegal love. Of course, he was excessively strong and escaped both the snakes that squeezed him when he was little and the various dangers of the twelve great deeds, but the last word had yet to be said. The mother of the gods had also other arrows in her quiver and she would hunt him to the end, because after all she should hunt someone! She should finally react to the humiliations she had suffered, to show both to the immortals and the mortals that she was not someone to play around with. An eventual extension and plethora of targets would not be useful; Heracles was more than enough. There was no other target, Heracles was the target. She wished to be a man to face him in a duel or to live in the twentieth first century to be able to accuse him of sexual harassment or of fascist, racist and sexist behavior. But things being as they were, the only way out was to set traps for him and to watch the pit where he was bound to fall or the mangle where he was going to be caught. She had the will and the way and many means to continue her war against him and she was not a chicken shit like Zeus who feared his own shadow and adopted an impeccable attitude towards the titans. “The boldness begins a deed, but chance governs its completion”, said Democritus.

At that time Heracles participated in the Argonautic expedition to Aeetes the golden fleece. It was a huge mobilization of people and materials in the ancient world, where most interacting heroes and rascals were fathers of the Homeric Iliad’s heroes, Theseus, Peleus,  the Dioscuri Castor and Pollux, Laertes, Idas, Lygaeus and other glorious or putative warmongers, Tiphys, Orpheus, Asterion, Meleager, Iphitus, Mopsus, Admetus, the sons of Boreus and other renowned dudes, please consult the Argonautica of Apollonius of  Rhode if you can make heads or tails who are the fathers and who are the sons, who are the mentors and who the promising young men and the mistresses- protegees, who are the trainers and who are the players. In any case a huge boat like Argo demanded a numerous, but also extremely pretrained crew that could face adversities and hardships. Some keen and guileful guy would file an objection at this point, something to be expected, according to the axiom “quae temporalia ad agendum, perpetua ad excipiendum” (the actions are temporal, the exceptions are perpetual), since every action causes reaction and every act attracts criticism, so much so that an action has a specific window of opportunity within spacetime, while the pertinent objections do not cease in the ages to come, until the agent spits the milk of her/his mother and curse the hour and the day, when he decided to get busy and do something. The hypothetical bearer of an opinion would say, even if his/her input is unsolicited, that in a space era the heroes wouldn’t have to rig a ship to march against Colchis, but they could easily embark a flying vessel and make a vertical charge to their target. Still such an alternative ignores the very sophisticated ana intricate psychology of the ancients. It matters that, if a mighty warlord intends to occupy a country or to grab an asset, his arrival is to be announced, and his reputation proceeds him. If the information confirms that the descent or the ascent of an invincible army is imminent, this inspires terror to the subject of the attack that loses every morale and retreats to misery and defeatism to the degree that one hurries to surrender and concedes without battle and preventively what the mighty and the powerful vindicates.  

   Hera had no objections against the Argonautic expedition, on the contrary she liked Jason, because he was a good kid and above all he hadn’t hurt her. He was indeed a hero, even more he was a saint, because he had already suffered too much, since he was entering at the time into a bad syzygy, facing the consequences of the horrible Ino, responsible for the death of Elli, while he was bound to suffer even more, since in a corner of the future lurked Medeia.

          Hercules, always trapped within the arrogance of his power and his self-restraining ethics, made many efforts to do the right thing, no matter if it was appreciated or not, thinking that this way he should be atoned, but for what? Since he was little, the poor guy, affected by the valid at the time Delphic precept “as a child show decorum, as an adolescent be moderate, as an adult be just, as an old man be reasonable”, he had learnt to apologize for his strength and justify it doing propitious deeds for the people. He may have believed in the back of his head that if he was «καλός κ’ αγαθός» (good and decent), Hera would cease to oppose and undermine him. Here, the eternal “or so you think” or “like hell you will” or “in your dreams” is valid, because all prudent knew that the jealous women don’t think like that and are immune, alias totally indifferent to moral deeds and arguments. Indeed, in the specific moment, faithful to the scout’s mentality that he had attributed to himself without any reason, he had gathered and admonished the going astray men of Argo, who in the previous night had indulged in orgies with the women of Lemnos, advising them to be temperate, to be professionals, or else the expedition would fail. How could Heracles imagine that, according to a particularly bad- tasting irony of chance, Philoctetes would someday rot and get rusty on the same island guarding his weapons.    

 Hera teleported to the local affiliated branch of the Olympians, directed by the priestess of Artemis, Cypris. She possessed a huge magical or rather “magocratic” crystal ball of high definition, wherefrom she watched the movements of all basic players in the area.

“Cypris, what is the status of the unspeakable- despicable right now?”  

“He is admonishing the men of Argo for being late” (“argo” means also “I am late” in Greek), answered the quickly in reply, Cypris. Then with the zeal of an ambitious social climber without any moral scruple, she said: “Supervisor, do not think even for a moment that this episode with Jason who was trapped in the bed of Hypsipyle resulting to the suspension of the Argonautic expedition happened on its own. I was the one who inspired love to Aisonides Jason, so that his march may delay.”

Hera yawned:

“Well, ok. I will deal with your case in due time. There are eyes in the service that see who is working and progressing and who isn’t. Thus, you will be duly rewarded, although I think that based on your post you answer rather to Artemis, so you’d better ask a favor from her. In any case what interests me in the present circumstances is not so much Jason – I have no beef with him- it was Pelias who did not respect me adequately. Heracles is of interest to me, because, although his name implies that he should bestow glory to me, Hera, he had hurt and humiliated me in many ways, especially by proving to me how powerless I am, when I try to annihilate him”. 

“In that regard, Mighty goddess, the plan conceived by me concerning Heracles is my indubitable masterpiece and I believe without false modesty that it will help me significantly to climb substantially on the slopes of Olympus, at least officially.  I will give you the opportunity, glorious matron, to watch it lively”.  

At that moment the “πασιμέλουσα”[10] Argo, made by Pelion wood, moving with main driving power the boldness and the piety of her mates, secondarily propelled through her nuclear – from ecological point of view very dirty – motor of her engine room, was situated somewhere on the shore of Mysia, near the estuary of Rhyndacus  and the great grave of Αigaion, if your steps have led you there, reader. Then the mythical figure- head signified a stop, being constructed by Dodonian oak tree and a dense forest of microchips, allowing it to foresee prophetically the climate conditions of the day and the week, as well as to preannounce the departures and the arrivals of Argo, harboring, mooring, grounding, stranding, proximity alerts due to dangerous approach of objects etc.  

Heracles left aside the “oar”, which was in fact a properly oiled machine piston, since he had above all at his disposal the power of the engines, being primarily an engineer, as it clearly follows from the deed of the Augeas’ stables. Not to disappoint you though, his mechanical knowledge did not oppose his having oversized oil-polished muscles like those of Milon of Croton, who held on his back day and night a young ox until he became a bull, whereby the capture rings sighed and panted, ready to explode. Like a good foreman he took with him all the members of his staff and accepted gracefully the hospitality of the Mysians, who did not spare roasted sheep (the most wanted ewe of the Greek restaurants) and wine to satisfy or grant a desirable service to the half-god. After he suspended with his renowned self-discipline his own hunger, he ordered his companions to feast and revel freely and unrestrainedly, while he ambled towards the woods to gather material with his unique and unrepeated way, identifying and separating the best parts, stones, vine branches and woods, ideal for expert workmanship, artisan stuff and jerry rigs, which regardless of the technological level are always necessary for the operation even of the most sophisticated machine, to the extent that it still contains material parts, especially in areas where there is no technical surveillance or maintenance.      

While the half-god was away, his lover Hylas – self-justifying was of course the sexual freedom of all kinds in the overdeveloped era of the titans- took a copper jug and went to the fountains of the area to fetch him in time fresh water for his meal, because  Heracles himself trained him to have such attentive and kind behavior, since he had taken him from Theiodamas, if you heard of him. 

So, Hylas stood in front of the spring and there he stayed consternate and amazed, because a group of nymphs danced encircling dances praising Artemis. As soon as Cypris saw him gaping like a ninny, since he made probably for the first time contact with what the female species had to offer, she activated a pre-implanted meta- hypnotic signal inside a brainwashed, behaviorally conditioned fairy. As Hylas dived his jug into the spring and the water murmured in it, the mermaid offered him her tender mouth for kissing, pulling him at the same time with her elbow into the lake, which had been formed underneath. Hylas sank in the beginning like being hypnotized, but when he understood that he couldn’t breathe, he started to shout, a very wrong choice of course for someone underwater. The only who heard his muffled bleating was Polyphemus, not the cyclops, but the son of Elatus, jumped like a hunted game, started shouting wildly, without to perceive what was exactly the spot of the cry’s origin, he pulled his sword and began circling it here and there to scare imaginative thieves or predators, but deep within he already knew that he had lost precious time and  Hylas had already drowned.

As is typical for the relentless unavoidable fate which rejoices illuding human things, it happened that Polyphemus may not have found Hylas, but he bumped against Heracles who was returning to the ship loaded with a variety of objects recuperated from nature, having evidently heard the succession of the cries. Right then, the minor hero filed a bitter report towards the major one:

“Magnanimous, it falls upon me to report something terrible. Hylas went to draw water by the fountain and didn’t make it back”.

Heracles threw down what had not already fallen during the tremor and the commotion and began to shake him violently, grabbed him by the collar and lifted him to the air. “What are you saying, you, miserable minion?”

“I don’t know if he was attacked by robbers or beasts, but I did not like his scream at all”

Emitting uncontrolled sweat from his temples, whole his blood got black and boiled Heracles began running around, as if bitten by verve, but it was already too late, and he knew it. All his reflexes roared and asked desperately for an opponent, but – alas- there was no enemy to be seen.

Hera burst out of hedonistic joy and sexual erection seeing through the crystal ball the desperation of Heracles and she giggled, sneered, cackled like a hyena with an eerie bark-like sound, which I cannot identify exactly at this moment.  

“Ha, ha, well done, very well, Cypris, you seem to have a run for your money! Ha, ha, where is your lover now, Hercules, he is making bubbles … If you plunge yourself and follow the road of the bubbles, maybe you will find his carcass nailed on the bottom. How has your renowned strength helped you? You can’t be everywhere; absolute surveillance is an illusion. Even if you are invulnerable, your beloved people are not; on the contrary, they are breakable, mortal and perishable. Let me see you now – it is beyond your power to resurrect the dead, the strength of your muscles is a most primitive, obsolete and antiquated quality, cannot compete with the meanders of my own mind, which create unceasingly. So, take the punch now, Hercules, and shove it and muzzle it. If you sprain your meninges just a little, you will realize that I am your superior, while your charwoman mother Alkmene is only destined and good enough to mop my floor…”        

   The malice of Hera knew no boundaries. If the unconscious and snoring Zeus could commend the events, he would marvel and be amazed about how much energy his mistress devoted to the evil wicked deeds, whereas she could invest it in sex. 

“Since you are an indigent mortal unable to predict the future, I wonder if on the coffin of Oeta, where you are bound to lie, burn and redeem from the unbearable pain of Nessus’ cloak – well, I am disclosing some serious information right now- if at that time Hylas passed by, instead of Philoctetes, and condescended to set himself the kindling in fire, wouldn’t you give your weapons to him? Surely, if Hylas, instead of being kidnapped by the nymphs and become reverberated echo, had the opportunity to be present at that night, in your existential crisis, the painful farewell and your division between Deianeira and Iole, he would be the one to receive the miraculous bow with the poisoned arrows. Then he would be perhaps in Lemnos taking the place of Philoctetes and fighting with the infected putrid wound, the wounded egoism, the trauma for the unjust abandonment and the feeling of incorrected injustice. Hylas would then introduce himself as master of your arms, «όν έρριψαν αισχρώς ώδ’ έρημον, αγρία νόσω  καταφθίνοντα, της ανδροφθόρου  πληγέντ’ εχίδνης  αγρίω  χαράγματι».[11] He would be the one admonishing Neoptolemus «Γαστρί μεν τα σύμφορα τόξον  τόδ’ εξηύρισκε, αποστέρηκας τον βίον τα όπλα ελών, άποδος, ικνούμαί σε, άποδος, ικετεύω τέκνον»[12] and you would justify and alleviate him: «Πάριν  τόξοισι τοις εμοίσι  νοσφιείς βίου, πέρσεις τε Τροίαν, σκύλα τ’ εις μέλαθρα σα πέμψεις, αριστεί’ εκλαβών στρατεύματος»[13]. But all this is not going to happen, because I tore you apart!

          CHAPTER 7:

          THE FIRST FALL

          On that day, while Eos gaped idly and raved from the walls of Troy continuing her lengthy, drawn out and parasitic visit in the palace of Laomedon, overstaying her welcome by far, as the Anglo-Saxons hook-fishers used to say, the light of the communicator flashed.  

          It is too early in the morning, thought Eos. I haven’t acquired operation temperature yet.

          “Who is it?”

          “Eos, it is me, Hercules. Something horrible happened. Hylas has been missing and invisible for three days. Whom am I mocking, myself? He is undoubtedly dead, and I haven’t found even the body.  In any case, besides his intricate subjective special value perceived only by me, he wouldn’t be of any objective use for any kidnaper, so much so that I have neither drachms nor staters nor minas to give them. It’s all over, we lost Hylas, red-white Eros. Why is he to blame, whom did he offend?  He was the lamb of God, as this parallel latent smoldering religion alleges”.

          “What are you saying? Incredible! My Hercules, there are no words for me to express my sorrow and sympathy. May the gods find a word of solace and consolation to ease your pain and …”      “Don’t you dare mention either them or their beliefs! Elementary reason dictates that I detest all gods, said Epicurus. Recount me about a God, preexisting or emerging without even to realize it, but not about gods! What other fundament the gods have than the anointing that they bestow to themselves? What other motive the many self-appointed and putative gods than “πολυκοιρανίη”, i.e. acting all like leaders?”

          “However, they are the only who can find a solution, since they reign over the roads of the unconscious; thus, if they want it, they have the persuasion and the power to violate the walls and the dams of the mind and the soul…

Ζήνα δε τις προφρόνως επινίκια κλάζων τεύξεται φρενών το παν,

Tον φρονείν βροτούς οδώσαντα, τον πάθει μάθος κυρίως έχειν

 Στάζει δ’ ανθ’ ύπνου προ καρδίας μνησιπήμων πόνος…[14]”

“He who rejects the gods of the many is not impious, impious is he, who attributes to the gods the opinions of the many, that is my immediate answer. Besides, their medicines are heavier than the disease and you should always remember that.  You said it yourself, the therapies offered by the sacraments are sadistic and malignant compulsory labor, as if the only solution to self-awareness were the suffering, not logic. ‘The world is decadence, but life is a worldview’, said Democritus, we alone define the course of our life within a perishable world, not the gods. Don’t you mention them again if you want me to speak to you again, this is your only warning”.

“The way you speak puts me to shame, Hercules”.  

          “I would rather put some blame to certain people for whom I am certain that they are involved in this tragedy. I assume with probability that Hera is guilty, this Atis, Nemesis and Tisis of my life and mind you, for a hubris that I did not commit. I tolerated her for years and I pretended not to see her criminal actions against me, trying to adopt an irreproachable conduct and hoping that someday my impeccable posture would pay off. Weren’t the twelve assigned labors – great deeds in essence twelve attempts to murder me? Because of her, I was forced to interrupt my participation in the Argonautic expedition, I left without any notice Jason and the other friends, because I had neither the courage nor the morale to continue. But now my patience had come to an end, the immunity of Hera stops right now. I will come there and with my iron hand I will occupy the base of the gods upon Earth, which is Troy. I shall deliver a strike that the gods will not be able to ignore, I shall force them to begin negotiations. Since you are there, tell that old fool Laomedon to surrender the city’s keys to me, to avoid devastation and destruction. He ‘d better stay out of my radar’s range, because he still owes me the horses that Zeus promised me, when I helped him kidnap Ganymedes. You see, Father Zeus prefers to assign the fulfilment of his promises to his learners and apprentices. I will not be mocked by the gods, I will not spend my precious time throwing rocks to them from Othrys mountain, as the Hecatoncheires do when the fight against the Giants…”  

“To occupy Troy, what peculiar plan is that? You know that it possesses powerful walls …”

“With my power and some other bold rascals, I am in position to conquer it. Powerful walls, big deal! Give me a break!  ‘Έργου συναγαγείν σωρόν εν πολλώ χρόνω, εν ημέρα δε διαφορήναι ράδιον’.”[15]

So, consequently and not only afterwards, Heracles and some other friends, notorious musclemen, gathered outside Troy and began to address Laomedon with oral swears – curses and epithets are the ancient words.

“Laomedon, open the gates, it’s your only selection,   

To avoid the heroes’ potent erection”.  

    (Here the writer pays homage to an alternative Iliad of obscenity, invective mode and foul language that circulated during his student years).

          Laomedon of course burst out and was convulsed with laughter, because notwithstanding the power of the ambitious besiegers, it was simply not possible for five or six rovers to conquest a fortified city.

“‘Inter arma enim silent leges’ (Among arms the laws are silent), so what do you expect by addressing me?”, he answered wrongly believing himself to be superior and in position to talk ironically and sarcastically to others. “Let me be because I have work to do and as you may know ‘a day of a wise man equals a century of an ignorant’”.  

Now, let us follow very carefully the discussion of Heracles’ platoon.

EUMELUS (the Corinthian, whose “Titanomachy”, if it were saved, then the humble writer of this roman would have never had the chance, the opportunity and the serendipity to write it -“Kairos: is the beautiful Greek word): There are two ways of besiegement, either we perform a surprise attack – surprise, my foot, since we have already warned and scared them through our presence – or we proceed to a siege of many months, although, just to be frank, we are not enough to cover all the gates of the city.

TEUCER (The famous archer, half-brother of Aias of Telamon, who fought later also in the Trojan war, he had a psychosis with Toy, what can you do?): If only we had Achilles on our side, dudes. He can catapult his spear with an impossible throw farther than I can shoot an arrow.

MENESTHEUS (A huge Myrmidon, lieutenant of Achilles): “‘Άμμες δε γ’ ειμέν, αι δ’ ελής, πείραν λαβέ”.[16] Me, a big guy, next in importance to Pelides, am I not sizable at all?  

ECHEPOLUS (breeder and tamer of horses): Let’s not fool ourselves, if the main force of the titans does not fall on the balance, if Sirius does not engage in the war, you should never expect us to free ourselves from the gods’ yoke. Prometheus, the Atlantes, Hyperion, all these are the real big agents, with all due respect to you, Hercules. You are also a great player, but they play overseas, and submit to other training methods, other original representations.  

          ARCHILOCHUS (renowned warrior, but a bit cowardly): ‘Τήνελλα καλλίνικε χαίρ’ άναξ Ηράκλεες’[17], let us state something clear. You brought us here to help you conquer Troy as reprisals for what Hera did to you, but also to receive the horses promised to you for the abduction of Ganymedes. Noone of us has any urge to ignite a general confrontation between mankind and gods, because it is a war that we cannot possibly win. Gods are a superpower, they have at their disposal infinite means and technology, imported from the other dimension. Let us be very careful, because the political situation is both fragile and inflammable like a gunpowder magazine and it takes only a spark from a torch or a burning oakum for everything to explode. The mere fact that the gods concede us some liberties, should be more than enough for us. 

          THRASYMEDES (son of Nestor, when the latter was very young and had a bold mind during the intercourse, as the name of his henceforth derived son testifies- thrasys = bold): I agree with the previous orators, let as concentrate to the issue at hand. Since, as Eumelus pointed out, we cannot overrun Troy by a direct attack due to our arithmetic hysteresis, we should choose the solution of the siege. To forbear the objection that the gates of Troy are more than we, the besiegers, are, let us exploit the possibility of hiding our advanced positions from the eyes of the enemy, by camouflaging hundreds of trees and bushes with disguising uniforms and let us make awful noise, as if we were not ten men, but ten times ten thousands!

          PODALEIRIUS (Son of Aesculapius): I concur with that assessment. The only possibly effective tactic is the interruption of the enemy’s supply line resulting in hunger and thirst and leading finally to dysentery and other diseases, as my father has often explained to me. In such circumstance, the Phoebus Apollo does not need to shoot nobody with his silver bow, it is enough that the water begins to get dirty from the urine’s recycling and then the sitting on their own excrements will start dying like flies. My father had submitted a pertinent thesis, but because he was a god and at the same time represented the ultimate culmination in his area of expertise, he had a hard time finding a tutor and…

          THRASYMEDES: Dear Polydarius, eh sorry, Podaleirius what kind of a name is that , who etymologically have the cock crest on the foot, since also the rooster was enlisted to the sacred animals, mobilized by your father to heal his patients and the suffering in the sacraments: his theory is very interesting and thrilling, just as the rest of his work which we admire, but allow me to say that its evaluation is not our priority right now …

          At that moment, while our heroes were puzzled and occupied with their ineffectual plans, being trapped in an impasse, the proverbial rear door of Constantinople’s siege simply opened.

          “Revered and formidable titans, hypertitans and subtitans, just get in and get over with it. Let this procedure come to a reasonable and legitimate end, so that the plot may continue. Both my master EosΤas well as I, her humble servant, send our regards being against the procrastinating tactics of the gods. If there is a dispute or a debate between you and them, let it be settled in an environment of good faith, accepted principles of morality and fair practice”. It was Tithonus.

          But how did Tithonus reach the point of opening the gate to the few besiegers? Needless to say that after that they occupied the city immediately, easy and lax, without any resistance.

          Here we should go back to the previous night, next to the full of sighs and cries, incandescent bed of Eos and Tithonus.

          Let us recount what happened after the intercourse, just as a judge of first instance asked the witness, receiving the answer that “after the intercourse, your honor, hell itself broke loose”. The dominant Eos bent her head on the pillar of Tithonus. Eos was not the beautiful Helen – belle Helen, as the French erudite say -, but she was also good looking beyond doubt. Her hair, falling loose on her shoulders, was rather waving than curled. Her features were regular, clean, painted with a pen or a brush. A straight nose, a small mouth with thin lips, not those contemporary, swollen monstrosities of injected silicon, an emphatically willful jaw, giving the impression of being offended very easily, like a feminist suffragette of ancient times. Her epidermis had a copper color without being a negress – is this term even allowed in our era of political correctness? Her body was tight, slender, graceful and willowy, without cellular degradation, fat or grease, fleshy parts, smearing poultice and corset of buttocks or whatever refers to the laxity and the looseness of the skin.

          A wide copper bone-shaped ring formed a heavy crown over front and hair. She wore four even wider bracelets on the hands and ankles and before the intercourse she wore a curved tight dress, green and silky, open in the neck and adorned with a golden ribbon.  So, she was a golden-green fairy, as if she kept her red-white appearance only for the war struggles. If anyone looked stealthily at her well-postured, curly tufted downward mustaches, he would see that they almost smiled between the strong well- nourished thighs, which through their generous fleshy layers seemed to be far and away from the skeletons and carcasses of death. 

          She was the epitome of archetypic strength and good health, quite opposite to Tithonus, who was sickly with a very undermined constitution, a genuine ancestor of Troilus, son of Priamos, who lived in a slightly posterior era. Indeed, when Tithonus was taken ill, which happened very often, this silky copper green and in battle red-white busy bee took care of him with an unprecedented fanatical devotion that no other suffering person had the blessing of being subjected to. Of course, with her dynamic personality she had penetrated deep inside Tithonus’ psyche and had subjugated him entirely, that goes without saying, because it arises consequently as a logical result. Despite the various treatments and therapies though Tithonus remained always deeply melancholic and sufficed only for someone to look at him, to fall into self-pity and self- depreciation.    

          “My precious Tithonus, white -clayed, wheat-hued, good-mannered, bitter smiling loving thing with bright laughing eyes, rich in gifts and perceptions, I cannot see you so sad. What is the matter? I am treating you as if you were a morning, young and rosy sun, I am petting and cradling you in a peaceful seashore and a leeway anchorage. What is your problem, why are you so pensive and downcast? What else can I do for you, you, sweet and gentle, who have all graces?”    

          “Much loved Eos, now we are in our honeymoon – or to be more accurate- our relationship seems to be cloudless and shiny. But there are also some shadows, not relating to the genuineness of the feelings, but rather expecting eagerly for something in the marginal periphery of light and in the beginning of darkness, quite objectively, without anybody’s fault. You are a mighty warlord, born to boss around, having consumed countless lovers. For you, love has an autonomous, intrinsic value, sails your soul in the hummock of ecstasy, stirs your ocher- colored eyelids in the hour of the orgasm, moves your irises in a state of oceanic consciousness and deep empathy, where one sees both past and future. In this procedure, I am but a circumstantial tool, bound soon to be replaced by others, much more qualified. Every time I am trying to overcome myself in my hopeless effort to meet your demands, that’s why I feel that with every orgasm you take away a small part of me, you extract a lump from my brittle statue. And I am panting and gasping, giving everything, I am huffing and puffing, feeling my deepest essence, my very grey matter being absorbed with the straw or the stovepipe through the spinal column until nothing is left. I feel wasted, I have already gotten bold although being young, my body is full of wounds and scratches, it is obvious that I cannot hold my own, I have but a few sparks and some extinguished ashes and cinders to face your own furnace, your own lava of unsatiated passion.”

          “Tithonus, I am deeply sorry that you see things that way. I assure you; I have no counter to measure sexual performance and, mind you, I have not fallen in love with you just expecting mechanical satisfaction. It seems that you know very little of women, because if you knew them better, you would grasp that for us the axiom ‘I know only that I know nothing’ is valid. You ‘ll never be able to understand the reason why a woman loves you, it may just be your smile or your bright eyes that make her feel better and improve her disposition or your moral strength, helping her to choose in the great dilemmas of life, especially in all matters of the optimal option among many or regarding proportionality, rendering to every wound or suffering its proper dimension or due logic that succors her in the settlement and bringing into line all her thoughts”.

          “My bossy Eos, I fear that all these words of solace are exactly that, i.e. a consolation of the sick man until his soul departs. On the contrary, I know that your soul wind expands beyond spacetime. It is well known that the titans have supervision and insight into previous or future Creations and into stories to come or revisited in the past. As Virgil said ‘There will be another Tiphys and Argo will again carry selected heroes, there will be other wars, and the great Achilles will again be sent to Troy’[18]. So, obviously, since you remember your previous lives, you will also remember the correspondent deaths. So, tell me how death is, because I suspect something bad which seems to be valid at that”.   

      At that point Eos became serious. She remembered that at the time of death or deaths she felt alone, even if she held the hand of someone. At the time where death do us part, one feels lonely, even if he is in good company, and pain confines her/him. There was a moment when the actual companion assured her of his love, whereby she replied: ‘Frankly my dear, I don’t give a damn’.  Alas, can death be without sorrow and grief, even peaceful? To tell the truth, worse than death is to die, because the latter is not a simple boundary or a momentary instantaneous barrier between two domains, but a painful and wasteful procedure, as it contains a last abstract frighted wriggling, an ultimate desperate writhing of life against the end, a final struggling fighting round against the advancement of the darkness. Sometimes the battle of the last breath endures, other times no, but it is always heart-rending and humiliating. And yes, as disillusioning as it may be, it is not important whether you hold the hand of your companion, because dying is always impossible to accept, horrible, often followed by indescribable and unbearable tortures, Because, even if the passage is serene, it still inspires a bland and naked terror. That is why the saying of Pindar is valid “Μη, φίλα ψυχά, βίον αθάνατον σπεύδε, ταν δ’ έμπρακτον άντλει μαχανάν”[19]. Beyond that, Pindar would remind us that “man is a shadow of a dream”, while his/her grandeur is detected, when he rides unstoppably against the wind bearing already a deadly wound on the temples. But how could she convey all this disagreeable to pure Tithonus without embarrassing him? She chose to recite him the “Tetra-pharmakos” (four medicins) of Epicurus.

          «Άφοβον ο θεός, ανύποπτον ο θάνατος, και τ’ αγαθόν μεν εύκτητον, το δε δεινόν ευκαρτέρητον».[20]

          By simply hearing all this Tithonus burst into tears.

          “And what about those who have no strength to endure, no ability to acquire?”

          “Do not cry, Tithonus, I cannot watch you cry, neither I want to burden and load your shoulders with more unbearable freight… A lot of people are like you, are impossible to put up with the inevitability of death and fail to grasp that immortality without oblivion, I repeat without oblivion, is equally terrifying. Because – let us be frank- we, mortals, do not possess the necessary presuppositions for eternal life, since every knowledge is acquired with pain like a screeching voice paralyzing our hearing according to the motto “the adding knowledge will add pain” and whatever we learn is usually evil and tears our heart apart. So, behold a great secret that will warm it again. Here, in this kingdom there are treasures that the gods have accumulated after centuries of wars in the universe; among them are the resuscitation chambers or the regeneration- resurrection- restitution tanks or whatever one wishes to call them. These can provide someone with eternal life, since the physiology of the human body is the simplest thing, one could conceive. Some organs that suffer, can be fixed accordingly through the addition of chemicals or the subtraction of toxins.”

    “I don’t give a horse’s shit, and I couldn’t care less about all this, because it does not concern me”, said the grouchy Tithonus.

          “Listen to me, please. Remember that outside some distinguished heroes keep waiting and drooling over, anxious and eager to invade Troy. You go open the gate, Tithonus, and when they conquer Ilion, the balance of power will change, and we will be the ones spoilt and favored by the government. I have excellent relationship with Heracles, and he will not deny me a favor. We will bust the locks of the regeneration chambers, and we will baptize ourselves in the invigorating saps and will gain eternal life! That is, you will, because I have already received an overdose of life. I will do that for you, so that you are happy and you ‘ll never grumble on me again”. 

          “That is a nice plan, but only on paper or on a blackboard. As Aesopus would say, who will bind the bell to the cat’s neck? Are you expecting me to do that? If you are, then you have lost your marbles.  I am afraid of flies, even of mosquitoes. On the contrary, if you, the great Eos open the gate, who will dare stand before thee?”

        “Tithonus, you have not weighted properly the available options. If I appear on the walls of Troy without jurisdiction and without having stated my purpose, all alarms will sound and all phryctoriae (semaphore towers) will be lighted with torches; Before five seconds pass, all Troyans will flow armed to the teeth. On the contrary, considering that no one pays attention to you, you can slip conveniently between the guards and open the gate. Come on, Tithonus, perform a brave act in your life, sometimes it is worth fighting. Remember and acknowledge: ‘Οικείον ελευθερίας παρρησία, κίνδυνος δε η του καιρού διάγνωσις’[21] according to Democritus, but also ‘the one, who bears the danger, profits from the benefits’”.

          So, that is how Tithonus opened the gate to the followship of Heracles.

          CHAPTER 8:

          REGENERATION CHAMBER

          The regeneration chamber was the opposite of the sarcophagus and was called “sarco- harness”, in the sense that it contained all the needful equipment for the preservation and resuscitation of the human body. It was upright and vertical, not horizontal, it was not covered from a carved stone picturing its inhabitant, but from a glass that switched open making a prolonged whistle or sizzle or woosh. Its operation was similar with that of a cryogenic chamber or a cold incubator, being used for the hibernation of crews during long temporal periods. I think that I have given you already enough technical and factual data to construct one of your own. 

          You remember the big favor- service that Eos intended to ask from Heracles, i.e. to place Tithonus in a regeneration chamber. So, when Heracles completed the conquest of Troy and ascended the throne of Laomedon, the promise of the she- titan to the gravely melancholic Tithonus was due to be fulfilled. So, they shove him in and, when the procedure was over, they pulled him out. Sorry, but I cannot imagine a more literary way that could replace the abovementioned sentence.

          At this point, some clarifications are necessary: Although, as we have pointed out, the physiology of the human body is relatively simple, thus also its repair should be equally simple, it is preferable and more rational to decompose and recompose the ingredients of the body according to some organization principles and blueprints,  minding simultaneously that the pestilential or attritional factor is isolated during the procedure, purged from the floppy memory or the intermediate data- storage buffer, than trying to erase or exterminate retrospectively a damage already done. Thus, in essence, the resuscitation procedure was a beaming up or down, an energetic translation of the body’s elements, a teleportation, but without the ‘tele-‘, rather a new fundamental re-establishment. The operation of the chamber appeared to proceed automatically, since it did not possess external telecontrol. Besides, nobody assumed seriously that Zeus and the other Olympians, who were happy-go-lucky fun lovers, violent and unrestrainable raiders, uncouth, unsharpened, unwhetted, inelegant, aesthetically ignorant, unpolitical and unelaborated, knew how to handle such complicated machines, being obviously simple users of technology overtaken from another dimension. And they assumed correctly, but they underestimated or did not take fully into account the grave immorality, the malicious perversion and the demonic malignance of the out-worldish creatures. In the final analysis, it was this greed and perversion that incited them to leave their own dimension and search for a new field of power and domination and new pastures of exploitation in our world. Consequently, the Olympians had installed a safety ventil to the resurrection chambers, so that they would perform their work only after a previous scan of their own code and their own DNA print and sequence. But the greatest and most vulgar crookedness was that, in case of failure to read the proper code, the device was not hindered to operate, but it functioned -alas – defectively.

          So, during the fatal procedure the first Tithonus felt was a loss of liquids, energy and electrolytes, an unrestrained thirst, but also the simultaneous impression that it could not be satiated with water. He felt a hunger that did not seem to be satisfied with food. He also felt a fatigue in the muscles that seemed to be eternal and could not be dispelled through rest. But did he still possess the proper organs to cure all the occurring deficits? Did he still have a stomach to process the food? Had he intestines – guts, they say- and an anus to get rid of the useless, unexploitable substances? Totally confused, he had the rather deceitful sensation that he had stretched his hand towards his bottom to ascertain if he still had at his disposal a down opening for the draining of excrements and mist. His exploring fingers stroke against something hard: A keratin surface on both buttocks, fat cheeks of the colon, coalesced in the center, where before one distinguished a clear demarcation line, an expected emphatic Cassini division. Even if there were a passage of expediting and processing materials, how could this accumulated stuff penetrate the keratin shield? It was not only a matter of body functions’ degradation, but of their total forfeiture, a constipation and obstructed defecation necessitating eventually the installation of an artificial anus. 

          But the worst of all was not that, but the fact that in the front area did not seem to take shape what should be a “must”, the essential, the vital, the absolutely necessary, the unnegotiable, the “sine qua non”, the substantial, decisive and extremely important, the only organ, which, although it wasn’t much and left a lot to be desired, had rendered good services to Tithonus and helped him conquer the heart of Eos. Here was not the case of providing immortality to a tortured being. At that moment a hermaphroditic   creature was incubated and about to be born, an ambiguous, androgynous, gynandrous, male-female, two-gendered, having two endings, counterfeited, spurious and false, a travesty. 

          The pain was unbearable, insufferable. He felt as if someone knifed his underbelly, cut his bowels to pieces like chopped smoke for chewing, binding his intestines into a knot. Behold, the left knee got swollen into an unbendable and rigid sphere, belonging to, even dominating a deaf and unconscious leg that earlier was neither so fat nor so short. The right leg was longer and thinner, but the calf and the fibula leaned to the front. As if all that were not enough, in his right side a hump protruded, a curve made of fat, gristles and healing tissue. In the upper sector rib-bones had been extended and almost perforated meat and skin. Furthermore, at the position of the left hand there was now a claw of a vulture, a conspicuous pincer, a tool-like plier made of grey little bones. Rejoice for the right hand, where the only distortion was located on the small finger that had been transformed into a crooked thorn. He sensed rather than realized all this, since in fact he had neither ability to move nor a mirror allowing him to diagnose his imperfections. The re- materialization mechanism had disassembled and reassembled erroneously, but – for the better or rather for the worse – not so wrongly, not to the point that it could kill him.                   

          When at last the sarco – harness opened, Tithonus emerged from the cold solution extending his half lung and inhaled the air gasping and panting, while he shivered due to frozenness, slow motion and numbness. 

          “Tithonus, do you hear us?”, said Heracles the strongest man on Earth addressing the weakest.

          It was like a voice carried by the wind, filtered through the sprinkles of a teeming sea with precise, measured and cold stability.  

          “Do you remember your name? How many fingers are these? insisted Heracles. 

          The numbness continued to hang on him, reluctant to abandon him. It surrounded and mangled him like a thorax of ice. The breeze changed direction, as if some weathercock turned around and was consolidated to another voice.

          “What gods did is the most abhorrent, vulgar, despicable and detestable thing I have seen in my life. I could never imagine or foresee such wickedness, such an extreme malice. This will not stand; it is the droplet that caused the beaker to overflow”. This outspokenness derived from Eos.

          “Whatever the circumstances might be” said Podaleirius, “the bio-signs show the end of the genetic modification and the accelerated enhancement. The subject is awake but still disoriented. Let us give him some space to perceive things and time to recover”.  

          “He is not a subject, Podaleirius, he is a man, and we have destroyed him. You, the whole guy, the very son of Aesculapius, did you not figure out that this damned chamber was a trap?”

          “Well, in the strict sense of the term, the chamber did its job. Tithonus is now immortal”.

          “A cripple wretched immortal, a shredded and pathetic abomination and teratogenesis, a dead weight on earth …”

          “Please, Aunt Eos, do not say those things, because they contraindicate to the patient’s situation”, said Podaleirius. “On the other hand, as you know and may guess, – considering that all titans have a scientific degree -, even now the manipulation that the Olympians did to the machine is not detectable”.  

       “What was this craziness with immortality? Doesn’t he know the ascertainment of Pindar that «Ισχύς ζηλωτόν αλλά νόσω ευάλωτον και γήρα, παιδεία δε των εν ημίν μόνον αθάνατον και θείον»;[22] asked Heracles.

          “Well, the man decided to submit himself to a treatment for his own reasons. Will we now question his motives, his beliefs, his morality? Has someone appointed us judges over his convictions?  Unfortunately, though, we all, his friends and relatives, on whom he counted, failed him, didn’t protect him”, insisted Eos, clearly upset.   

          Tithonus felt pain, vibrating and shaking in waves of successive echo, but now he sensed that he had been extracted from the enclosed frozen thorax and was furthermore exposed to the labor’s dust, to the warmth of feverous machines, defective air-conditioning and sterilized test tubes.

          The voice he expelled was not simply distorted by pain, it was pain, a dull hollow cawing of a wild animal, a sigh with sobbing, an inconsolable wailing. He started asking irrelevant questions, afraid of the answers he would get, if he dared to ask the proper ones.

          “How long have I been here?”

          “The procedure of genetic modification lasted three days”, said the always formal Podaleirius. At the same time, he took away one after another the sensors, the cupping glasses and the stethoscopes from the chest of the unlucky guineapig, while simultaneously the buzz of the medical surveillance instrumentation fainted, leaving progressively the active tense and going back to standby modus. 

          “Three days, four hours and seventeen minutes”, said Eos, who had learnt being accurate under the auspice of the pedantic Hyperion. 

          Podaleirius, after he coughed to clear the throat from mucous, got on with the horrible briefing.

          “I understand that something went wrong during your regeneration, that’’ why I kept you in an induced coma for more than two days. In a strange way, the reinvigorating saps operated also as toxins. Perhaps, the gods are not to blame, it could be a matter of biology and physiology, a result of the DNA difference …”

          «Ποδαλείριε, ανέγνων, έγνων κατέγνων.[23] Be grateful, for I am a lenient person, and I am granting you mitigating circumstances or your head wouldn’t stand where it is, arranging bullshit in a row. Still the contact of your head to the neck is not assured, be aware of that. A complete failure of medical science has occurred; We have used a perfect technology and achieved the quite opposite result.  “Ώδινεν όρος και έτεκεν μυν”[24]».  

          “Venerable Eos, please, I have heard enough of you enough comments insulting my professional honor. “Plato is a friend, but friendlier is the truth’, and the truth is that ‘ανέγνως αλλ’ ουκ έγνως. Ειδ’ έγνως, ουκ αν κατέγνως’.[25] I am invoking my studies and my faculty as a scientist and am divulging in every direction the fact that I have no responsibility for what happened, because I couldn’t predict it. Prima facie, no problem seemed to exist. Here it is scientifically valid the saying ‘περί παντός επιστητού και περί άλλων τινών διαλέγεσθαι και το μη νοείν ό πάντες νοούσι’[26]. And self-evident is that ‘errare humanum est’ (to err is human), since in any case ‘nature loves to hide itself’, ‘impossibilium non est obligatio’ (there is no obligation to deliver what is impossible), “πρώτη όψις πολλούς παραπλάζει”[27] and ‘no one can know what chance may reserve’.”

          “So, fellows”, said Eos to all present, “I swear, that if he doesn’t stop aligning ancient proverbs, even I, the student of the erudite Hyperion, will garrote him here and now, so help me God”.

          As the final connections and moorings were extracted, Tithonus stretched his legs and came out from the upright couch, raised to his proud “quasi modo” stature, which was objectively pitiful and half-grown. The first thing that he noticed is that he didn’t wear clothes and with awe he perceived that his body had a mauve or violet coloration. An innated shame took hold of him that characterizes as an acquired instinct every man or woman after the prolonged domination of bashfulness through the centuries.

          “Something is apparently missing”, he said.

          Some despicable guy giggled in the background, which was a great indecency. 

          “Hm, hm”, said the merciful Heracles. “Shame is only for those who can cause it. You have no gender now, which has also a positive side. You can circulate in the agora naked, without to scandalize no one. You harm no one, you embarrass no one. In a sense, even if it sounds curious, I envy you; It is a blessing not to provoke the others…»

           “Yes, yes”, overbid Eos, as if Heracles had thrown her a lifeline. “It is better that the other pity you rather than envy you, this is a basic principle of peaceful coexistence and …»

          At that point Tithonus began to cry woefully and uncontrollably, so all present were forced to stop talking for a while.

          “Furthermore”, coughed later Podaleirius, “we must scientifically point out and objectively observe that you also have no anus. Lucky one, you will not spend time for defecation, leaking and runny mucus, wiping and all other pertinent stuff. This attribute bestows on you a huge advantage in comparison with the other indigent creatures. You need neither drink, nor eat, fancy that! But if you want, you can consume food and drink; After all, the gods aren’t willing to deny themselves the pleasure of revelry and intoxication. Whenever you do that, the incorporated inside you protein and vitamin accumulator, which provides your organism with the required energy, suspends its function automatically, so that the additional materials may be assimilated and exploited. The accumulator recycles fully all residues in a way that there is no reason for bowel evacuation or going to stool. Consequently, I truly believe that the whole enterprise has resulted in a win-win situation for you. You should see facts this way”.      

          CHAPTER 9:

THERE WILL BE ANOTHER TIPHYS AND ANOTHER ARGO…

          Eos marched nervously on the floor of the palace.

          “The gods are going to pay for what they did to Tithonus. The impeccable attitude is over and the attitude problem against authority begins to unfold. We have tolerated enough this miscellaneous wild bunch of bullying molesters and pain-inflicting, sociopathic psychopaths, which came suddenly from outer space along with their technological trinkets[28] and their funny accessories demanding from us earth and water, but also laurel leaves as a symbol of submission. I am tired of waiting for the other titans to join the war, we cannot depend our whole lives on the production rate of the Sirius’ shipyards”.     

          “Yes, but what can you do?”, answered the practical Heracles “They possess both the knife and the melon, water- or not”.

          “I do not fear their energy weapons. We have also ray guns making ‘zap-zap’. And if during the battle you manage to grab their gun, they use to multiply their size to terrify you, and if that doesn’t work either, they have also a million ways of disappearing, dissolving into thin air and ascending to the heavens to avoid facing you”.   

          “This is true, but their technological superiority is a known fact. The artefacts that they carry are the least, their great superweapons are located on Mars and on the mountain Olympus. It is said that they have also bases on the other planets of the solar system. In any case, their mightiest weapon are the unperforated, impenetrable Dionysian spheres, with which they surround all planets. Thus, we are isolated and incarcerated, without any communication to our homologous mates”.

          “That does not mean that we must surrender. In the final analysis, if our ancient ancestors knew something better than us, that is physics. Whatever tools or utensils the gods possess, are not based on magic, but on their technology, whose scientific principles are not unknown to us; we simply do not have at our disposal their inexhaustible sources and pumps to implement such energy -intensive applications. For the fabrication of the heavenly spheres, they use the power of gravity. The base for all these theorems is the axiom: Matter dictates to spacetime how to curve and spacetime dictates to matter how to move. Matter expands on the matrix of spacetime as fluidity and elasticity, as a viscous sap or a sticky pulpy mass. And this pulp is extending, diffusing, warping, condensing, stinging and pricking. This distortion is exactly gravity, due to which the objects attract or repel each other, rotating both the planets and the stars. But among these ramifications and distortions of time there are corridors, both angular and helicoid, but also conductive and conclusive, suffice one manages to identify them”.   

          “For this healthy worldview to be of any use, you need to find an experienced and demonic navigator and helmsman, a guide equivalent to the titans Kreios and Koios; only then, you will be able to locate some fissure or way out among successive and intercrossed membranes, so that you may achieve escape velocity from Earth’s gravity. But even if such a thing were feasible, what would be the benefit for you?”    

          “I would go to Mars, to Olympus Mons and then I would find the crypt with their mythical superweapons. Presumably, you are aware, Heracles- Hercules, that beyond those Dionysian spheres, where these bastards have incarcerated and confined us, in the outer space, where our world belongs like a simple bubble in a hot lava, there is a war raging between the powers of light and the ones of darkness. So, instead of consuming ourselves into petty confrontations of a bird- stealer level, in a distant underwater corner of the galaxy, to which no one pays attention, where the gods had obviously found shelter, refuge and exploitation field, far and away from the main confrontations  and the cardinal wagers of the infinite dimensions, we should find a way to participate in the great war, which extends to the farthest edges of the universe”.

          “But even there, you would be obliged to retrieve the absolute way out of the enclosing sphere surrounding all solar system, the boundaries and the fundaments of which are unknown to us. Besides, you should have already located some, in one way or another, highly guarded weapons, neutralized at least theoretically the guards, figured out a means of transportation. But, previously to all this, you haven’t told us how you can access Mars, bypassing the Dionysian sphere of Earth. So, your whole syllogism is based on unfeasible premises. Aristoteles would tear his hair because of you, potent and valorous Eos.”

          “I have Icarus as helmsman and Dedalus as navigator who according to a serendipity, which I have the readiness and the openness of mind to exploit, have been building until now the walls of Laomedon to protect him from raiders and presumptive conquerors – what an irony! Of course, after the easy and fast conquest of Troy by you, said plan proves to be rather superfluous. For the time being, they have no idea about my intentions, but I will let them know soon enough and I believe that I will persuade them, because they are curious by nature and worshippers of adventure. As far as my expedition on Mars is concerned, I reckon that if I have you at my side, mighty wrestler Heracles, you will put all guards out of commission with precise surgical strikes, as is done in the holographic movies”.          

          Heracles silenced for a while and then said:

          “I do not want to disappoint you, because I have the utmost appreciation for you as a fearful warrior and I know that you have the heart of a fighter, but the space travels and the star treks are not the way fitting to me. I have many interests and pending affairs here on Earth that require diligence and supervision. I think that you have earned the right for a straight answer. I do not act so selflessly, neither I am in the constant service of … sports and civilization as you are. As you know, I lost Hylas in the Argonautic expedition under unclarified circumstances I was forced to quit this undertaking prematurely. In the meantime, I pursued a relationship with Hesione, the daughter of this geek ex-king Laomedon, whom I succeeded so easily through the non- authorized opening of a door. The poor girl has many problems, because she endures and bears extensive bullying by Poseidon, who sends her through hypnotic techniques night tremors and phantastic monsters, trying with this awkward as well as unorthodox and oppressive way to win her over. So, the lottery ticket falls to me to defend her. However, ha-ha, he-he… don’t get me wrong, she is not the only garlic-breathing maid in my harem, you can understand me, we are half-gods with increased needs, and the heaven has innumerous shiny stars, so it is difficult to love only one of them …  There is also Alcestis, who was so stupid to be sacrificed in the stead of her husband Admetus and end up in Hades; my God, Ι am packed with vertigo, when I think what the women are willing to do and how far they can go to protect their own beloved. So, I am planning to recuperate her from the domain of Hades. So, as you see, there are many affairs that require my undivided attention here on Earth. Here, on Earth, my fate is woven; well, perhaps I am only capable of low flights, I really do not know Maybe, the brute primordial force cannot achieve more, it seems that something else is needed, different, more elaborated, more sophisticated, more sublimated for the ascent and the evolvement to the superior space dimensions and planes of existence”.       

          For the first time, Eos looked at Heracles with certain pity. Curious, she thought, even this quintessence of a man, the strongest man, such a huge giant mightier than the giants, has his own issues. Who could expect that even the most gifted people in a specific area, who by exploiting their talents can easily become prominent and distinguished, are also subjected to various predicaments and complications.  

          Heracles understood that by his own accord he had fallen into Eos’ disrepute and tried offhand to save what part of his reputation he could.

         “If I have disappointed you, I am sorry. You know that I do not lack bravery, or should I invoke my twelve labors – great deeds? The truth is, however, that the impending Titanomachy does not concern me much. Beside killing and being killed, there are also other ways to benefit humanity, my dear she -warrior. If you fail to grasp that and have formed a bad impression about me, let it be! I will not lose any or much sleep over it.”

 “I, I, boss, I will follow you. We are going to confront the gods together and punish them”.

Where did this vote of confidence, this voice of courage come from? It’s Occam’s razor. On that moment, the hunchback Tithonus had entered the room both discreetly and noiselessly, suddenly and unexpectedly, shaking his broken taille, with the one almost regular hand and the other like a pincer, with one knee swollen and the other bent, but without a cane or a stick due to some persistent stubbornness, maybe related to dignity. 

Eos managed barely to contain or rather muffle at the last moment a burst of laughter, threatening to ridicule completely her unfortunate former lover, to trample underfoot the last traces of self-estimation that he still felt.      

          “You, Tithonus? My Tithonus, you don’t need to do anything anymore, you have been through a lot. You ‘d better take refuge in a land resort, a house of wellness or a sanatorium in the woods to recover. And perhaps, when I return from my mission, I will bring you the means to become again what you were”.

           “Eos, do not forget that I am immortal now and immortality requires continuous occupation of the body and concentration of the spirit. To crawl into a corner or a hole and just wait is not the best thing for my case. Let me come with you and you will see perhaps for the first time what I am capable of”.      

          “Immortal? What kind of immortality is that? You may be self-fueled with energy like a ‘perpetuum mobile’, but you are submitted to the explosive, corrosive, pressurizing, toxic, impulse- and striking effects of the environment. What will happen if someone perforates you, steps on you, crushes or blows you up, cuts your head or throws acid at you? As you can see, even the gods of Olympus, who are immortal and … without side-effects at that, tremble and fear those confrontations, because they include the element of unpredictability”.      

          “Allow me to do that, dominatrix, I am doing that for myself. I am not in the mood to propose arguments for something that seems to me self-evident. And if I have much to prove to myself, this is my own affair”.   

          “Yes, but it is bad for the mission. Your judgment is clouded, Tithonus, you are too deep involved and sentimentally influenced after what they did to you, and you will probably be a liability to our case”.  

          “My participation is not in question; you can stop me only with violence. But even then, I will find some other ship, and I will follow you.”

          ‘Indeed”, saif Heracles. “It seems that this homunculus gives us lessons of valor today. And since I am feeling the urgent need to piss, an activity that will take place through the renowned porose tool, it is eventually the proper occasion to realize that manhood has nothing to do with the specific organ but connects rather to the bravery of the soul. Today, Tithonus, you are proving through your courage that valor is a concept which is worth to revere through the ages, even in epochs, when people will think that the only human virtue is vindication! I am pleased to have met you, little man!”

          That been said, Heracles departed

CHAPTER 10:

DINO- PTERYGIUM 

          Dino-Pterygium was a space craft, which Icarus had constructed with his own hands without the mechanical equipment of the massive production factories. That is why it did not have the infinite possibilities of the super-modern vessels of the gods and the titans. But it was nevertheless a spaceship with the ability to develop the necessary escape velocity to depart Earth, i.e. 11,2 kms per second, and that was the essential thing in our case.  

          Its kinetic impulse power was based on the successive explosions of its rockets, catapulting it into space. It could accelerate until its mass of fifteen thousand tons reaches the speed of seven hundred klicks per second. In the storage hangars for the propulsion units, well- polished and meticulously oiled chains propagate, and jolts from retardation wheels release bombs of forty- five metric tons, of a tin can size into the appointed chutes, ending to the drives of the repulsion plaque. When the journey is initiated properly, a bomb is thrown every twenty-five seconds, exploding six hundred meters behind Dino- Pterygium. In every ignition of an energy unit, the mouth and the edge of the catapult were sprinkled with antioxidant oil against friction and with the same oil was also the repulsion plaque smeared after the correspondent explosion. The heavy plaque is retracted to the inertial buffers of the ship, returning to the starting point with the help of huge pistons and expecting the next plasma ignition. A little after take-off, Dino-Pterygium accelerated to the speed of one and a half g., but, as we have already said, with constant increasing tension. Icarus as the captain of Dino-Pterygium had taken along in the travel Eos, Tithonus, his father Dedalus and a mechanical helper of the “Ehedorus” type, an anthropomorphous android of low profile, opposed to the ironclad terrifying Talos. Icarus called him Ehedorus, but sometimes also “lamp”, because he often amassed many ideas from their dialogs, which were invaluable for our inventors’ couple. Thus, Icarus said to the robot:

             “Ehedorus, please do not exceed two gravities at most; do not forget that you are carrying a human cargo, and it would be a shame for us to become a raspberry – jelly from one moment to another.”  

          Dino- Pterygium spiraled both dynamically and ideally through the membranes of gravity. With the essential contribution of Eos, who had studied at the side of the mathematician Hyperion of Atlantis, it managed through complicated calculations to outflank the crystalline “Dionysian” sphere that covered Earth.  How could it do that? Just as a mosquito manages to crawl through the oblique jalousie shutters of a pliable window, first pushing one wing, flat and delicate like rice-paper to pass through the planks and the boards, then doing the same thing with the other wing with such a method, inventiveness, persistence and adaptivity that no one would expect from his little brain. Only, dear reader, you should place all this scenery in a space era as result of accurate and demanding mathematical calculations, once the necessary changes have been made, and the proper proportions are preserved.

          Ehedorus goes back and forth from the cockpit to the engineering sector and vice versa. He has the benefit of artificial intelligence in comparison to the human condition, he has power, speed and incredible endurance, but he lacks experience. He has never ached, humiliated, debased, has not suffered torments, has not compromised with different situations, thus he is not a sentient subject. He has no subconscious, so he can’t draw input from a basic fundament and make associations.

          Ehedorus controls the pressure gaugers and the ratio of the lubricant’s distillment, the levels of friction and coolant. Due to the atomic bombs detonating at half minute intervals in the ship’s rear, there is a great need for lubrication, so that the cogwheels will not dry. That’s why in the ship’s hold of Dino-Pterygium there were oil tanks, capable of greasing a whole submarine, so also a … super-marine! On the other side, the engineering room with countless tubes, gaugers, palindromic pistons and pressure ventils looked like a steamboat of other primitive times.

          Another important guideline of Icarus to Ehedorus was the following:

          “Ehedorus, my precious lightbulb- helper, currently the Red Planet Mars is on the other side of the ecliptic, so our only solution is to approach and ride near the sun, if we don’t want to rot waiting in the periphery. If we fly almost scraping the central star, if we crawl on all fours close and under the solar spots and flares, if we dare move tangentially in relation to the photosphere …”

         “Icarus, I have trained you to be an exact scientist, even when the absolute accuracy is not so important”, Dedalus intervened. “Since you were a child, I have taught you the mottos of Euripides ‘Νεανίαν άνδρα χρη τολμείν αεί – ουδείς γαρ ων ράθυμος ευκλεής ανήρ, αλλ’ οι πόνοι τίκτουσιν την ευδοξίαν’[29] and ‘Ουκ αν δύναιο μη καμών ευδαιμονείν, αισχρόν τε μοχθείν μη θέλειν νεανίαν’[30]. But when we talk about diligence, we mean that you ought not to appear lazy even in the slightest detail. Considering that you address laymen, you should not say so superficially that ‘we will move tangentially in relation to the photosphere’. You should explain and clarify in layman’s terms to all people present the scientifical paradox that for some still undetectable reason the sun’s corona has a temperature of ΑΜ degrees (Greek enumeration), where in this case we do not refer to an astronomic union, but to an amount of ten million degrees, approximately so many degrees as the core of the star, this ferocious nuclear reactor. So, the proper tactic to profit from the course’s shortcut through the sun is to pierce a hole in the external halo and cross quickly the paths of the photosphere and chromosphere, where the temperature drops considerably to six down to four million degrees”.

          “Father, who am I to question your teachings, you, who are a veteran of all itineraries? So, given those circumstances, traveling at a speed of two g. at the most, we are expected to reach Mars within thirty-three days, if all goes according to plan”.  

“On the other side I”, said Eos the egoist, whose name was perhaps related to the Anglo-saxon -I- or the Italian -io-, “will undertake what I know to do best, which is to maintain and keep in shape the submarine ‘Dino- Floater’, which you have parked in the spaceship’s hangar, since it is the vessel, with which we will attempt a descent in Mars’s channels. I will particularly control the helm and the other accessories of navigation, mainly the external magnetic rods and the incisions to match the ship’s hold to the catapult’s rails that are going to release Dino-Floater on the Mars’ surface”.

      “What is favorite to us”, Tithonus took in his hands the communication’s thread, “is both the atmosphere of the Red Planet as well as the coordination of its day’s duration with the one of Earth.  We are talking about very sophisticated achievements of the Olympians to facilitate their stay in our universe, which – I fear- will disappear or be neutralized after they are gone, just as it happened to the resuscitation chamber that deformed me”.

          “And the fascinating thing is”, Dedalus took the staff, “that we are not referring to magic, but to hard-core science. Zeus mobilized asteroids to melt the frozen polar regions and to free the carbon dioxide. More meteors were shot towards the vast subterrain tanks of ice water, perforated the crusts, scabs, dust-blankets, scales, bedrocks and regolith[31] of Mars, so that carbon dioxide may flow again after a million years  onto the surface;  It became possible again for moss and lichens to grow and for rain-worms to appear, so that the soil be prepared for broader cultivation. All this became feasible, after the installed thermonuclear factories for oxygen and nitrogen production condensed the atmosphere of Mars up to the tenth potence”.

          “You are talking turkey, architect Dedalus”, said Tithonus,  “but if one considers that a few years ago, according to the data of astronomic cartography, the Red Planet was deprived of air, frozen and lifeless, while now it is equipped with an atmosphere, has been warmed and teems with life, perhaps we should admit that we have to do with real gods, almighty and omnipotent. An undeniable example is the coordination of the day duration between Earth and Mars. It is known that Earth performs a pass around its axis in twenty -three hours and fifty-six minutes, while Mars does it in twenty-four hours and thirty-seven minutes. A slight difference, that being added through the passage of time would disturb the timetable of the gods’ daily occupation, who teleport themselves continually across the two plantes. That is why they coordinated somehow the days’ duration! So, who can doubt their divine power?”

          Tithonus silenced for a while, as the impact of his speech settled down upon the company.

          “Thus, we should not cry over spilled milk’, he continued. “We knew all those things from the beginning. Whoever these creatures are, either coming from another universe or from another dimension, they have proved beyond doubt that they control the quantum structure of the universe and play games with it. These incredible individuals possess also inconceivable resources, and in Greek, the verb ‘I can’ translates to ‘I have the means’. They can easily move planets, change orbits and gravity fields. At that point, I invoke the motto of Parmenides “ου γάρ μήποτε τούτο δαμήι είναι μη εόντα: αλλά σύ τήσδ’ αφ’ οδού διζήσιος είργε νόημα”[32]. Thus, I am not going to lament over our situation, and I will not wonder, what is a vessel like Dino- Pterygium with a joke speed of only hundred eighty klicks per second doing in a place like this, daring to threaten the monstrous gods at that. I will also omit to mention that, in comparison to the deep knowledge of the universal structure, mastered by the enemy, the pitiful and ridiculous firepower of this vessel has the threatening effect of a toothpaste in their eyes”.               

          CHAPTER 11^ο:

          THE LONELINESS IN THE SHIP

          Eos performed track and field events in the corridors of Dino- Pterygium. Given that the vessel had a circular structure, she looked like a guineapig, a hamster, a hunted rodent running on a turning wheel – a moving stairway, remaining constantly in the same position. At the same time, Eos with her well-formed muscular calves minded getting around the stupid robots scattered in the corridors, going up and down the stairs without stumbling or falling, skipping the elevators and all other unidentified objects she found in her way, preserving herself for a future decisive battle.  

          “Zeus, I am a Titanis, and I am not afraid of you”, she monologued. “I showed you disobedience early enough, I objected to your presence and confirmed my independence towards you, because I live by the motto of Isocrates that ‘the decent and ethical man -and woman- should remember the past, act in the presence, and be reserved about the future’, consequently I do not need you.   The only thing you can do for me is to give me the chance to end my life and career, as it is fitting to me, i.e. fighting against you! Allow me the opportunity to die in battle, wherever you choose it to happen, on earth, sea or air. I am appealing to you: grant me this last wish and in exchange, if you are a real god, I concede my soul to you to take it to Hades as your trophy!”

          Of course, as usually, the gods did not answer, no echo, no reverberation. Only the buzz of the inertial dampeners that made the running possible under two g. Eos, daughter of Hyperion and Theia,  sister the Helios and Selene, – and she would definitely ask the favor of her brother, in charge for the operation of the central star during their risky passage-  tightened her fists and bit her own tongue to ease her anger continuing her slalom among the metallic channels of Dino- Pterygium, as it traveled the cosmic Black Sea and another Hellespontus.

          This metallic grave was vast, a labyrinth, from those made easily by Dedalus, but extended also vertically to the direction of height. Sometimes, during the circular course, Eos had the opportunity to encounter transparent surfaces, from where she could see larger spaces, corridors of landing or takeoff or storage areas, but she could find no portholes, see-throughs or skylights, as they called them then – to envisage the firmament and the stars, which were so unreachable that the titanic logic said that were of no importance epistemologically, they were just a simple background, a surrounding inmost part like a scenery, an meaningless deepest recess. The portholes were not located in the central corridor, but in the external hull like bubbles of transparent glass, allowing a limited optical sensation of outer space, since in fact the sensors were the real eyes of the spaceship. There were times when the stars warped and danced circular dances like being drunk. She stood still for a moment to take a breath. She punched with her fists the metallic wall until the calluses and the gristles of the fingers bled, but her attack left neither a trace nor a scratch on the metal. The turning point of adopting the hard callous metal, performed by the Dorians, was unfortunately the first step that led the management of things out of mankind’s hand, because it is incompatible with man’s softness, that is why our organism tolerates and assimilates only trace elements of metal.

          The warrior shook her head in deep concern. The way of war in the era of the Olympian gods showed no honor. If the gods were able to mobilize mechanical Talos, thorny artificial beings, tall, monstrous with integrated machineguns, adapted and screwed razorblades and bayonets, thoraces out of steel, how could moral power distinguish itself on the battlefield? If gods could shoot ground -air, ground-ground or air-air missiles and strike from afar every target to kill defenseless people and noncombatant civilian population, what kind of war was that?

          “This is no war, this is a slaughter of sheep and cattle”, shouted the Titanis. “Even war has its own rules, its own morality. If you want to rule and dominate, o gods, wear your armor and come face us. Not like that, not through intermediates and representatives, not through third parties”.          

          Nostalgically, Eos remembered an era before the ballistic missiles, where bravery counted and the battle was conducted in close quarters, where the face of the enemy was visible and witnessed through the contraction of frontalis muscle[33], if he believed the greater cause, for which he was drafted, or if he fought mechanically with the automatism of a herd or a flock. Eos remembered that she practiced the art of war being still a little girl, how she learned progressively through toil and many tasks the sorts of weaponry, their attributes, their operative manner, and in the end, she could handle them, just as the artist understands and implements her/his tools Back then, before this damned ballistic technique, war was a high art and the weapons were elegant, ergonomic, light in the hand, half a kilo in the palm, artful and not at all heavy, plump, saw-like, mean, malicious, disemboweling, pulverizing, hard to move or to hold, massive, bulky or blunt. They inflicted only the indispensable surgical wound on the opponent, which was needed for the specific military operation, and if it was necessary, they granted him a quick, merciful and honorable death.  

          To whom should Eos speak to appease the boredom of the trip? The twin Icarus – Dedalus had a narrow perception about family, and they had established an autarkic system between them, allowing no further intruder. Tithonus on the other hand was self- absorbed after the accident that deformed him, he licked his wounds, alleged that it was not possible for him to bear the acceleration of two g. despite the inertial dampeners – I don’t care what you say, I am in pain  – he said and remained in his quarters most of the time.

          Eos could not even fathom the inner drama of her friend. The worst thing of all was that she felt inexorable and relentless scruples, an unredeemable guilt for this goddamned surgery, since she had advised and counseled it; Through this operation Tithonus had lost his mediocre manhood, at least as far as the tunneling tube of his penis and the porose urethra was concerned. But the Titanis was not to blame, because the insecurity of Tithonus was always so extreme that the effect of medicine, even a placebo one, was needed for him to acquire self-confidence and inner balance for the first time. Unfortunately, though, things went astray, and Tithonus, being victim of certain people’s malice, partook henceforth of an involuntary attritional immortality -forfeiting simultaneously and paradoxically all the motives that make life attractive. He was humiliated, mutilated, and the qualifications left to him were suitable only for the activity of a clown.

          Only Ehedorus was available for a conversation with Eos, but it was boring and the Titanis suspected that it recycled her own thoughts. It spoke Greek, the language of the civilized and cultivated people, but in a way and a pronunciation that the words reminded more the roaring of the waves on the rocks or the ungracious buzz or whistle of a machine piston that hit and stroke against something, but what was that?

          This A.I. nerved a lot a warlord of the old times, who was trained to do a lot of things manually, both to assemble and to dismember. Ehedorus of course was a mild moderate model, but nevertheless she caught herself revolting against the audacity of these soulless metallic colossuses that wanted to become human, to replace the subjects and the agents of history with databanks, incapable of envisaging themselves through their own eyes and of talking with rotation of their tongues, since behind their eyes hung no consciousness and their speech was hidden in the depths of the cables. She was in the mood to take a club and begin striking all around and beat the daylights out of them, dismantling   this way the conglomeration of all these cogwheels and cables, especially searching for the tongue to uproot it. Should she have studied informatics or PC technician?       

          After she finished jogging, she was headed to a wall bubble, from which she could envision the stars. Especially today, they seemed gloomy and indisposed, did not emit a halo or a shining, they did not scintillate.  

          On that moment –what are those associations? – she identified herself with Pallas Athene. Indeed, she was a worthy opponent, not like that pimp Zeus who engaged others to do his dirty work. With Athene Eos would have been able to communicate in the specific wavelength, reserved only for the women to contact each other So, she prayed with the dignity and collegiality, ensured and secured to her by the “me too” movement.

          “Pallas Athene, glorious daughter, you, who are the only one that I respect and acknowledge, azure-eyed, gentle councilor, brittle, vulnerable, shameful, even prudish, hear my prayer! O diligent, graceful virgin, protector of cities, defender, Tritogenia, born from the head of Jupiter, armed to the teeth, trophy- and torchbearer, gladiator, athletic, shining, bright and flashing, attend what a woman says who is much like you! You, immortal, whereby everybody takes an oath and a sermon in your name, who attack your enemies from the wuthering heights brandishing your sharp spear, without to hide yourself behind the aegis of Zeus, please grant me and the poor Tithonus a honorable death in the battlefield”.    

          “The dawn came” as a figure of speech, the thirteenth day since the takeoff. The south pole of the sun was already visible, magnificent, illuminating, emphatic, unmistakable. To a distant observer who would sit on an asteroid looking through a telescope and eating popcorn to disperse his boredom, Dino- Pterygium would seem like a lance, decorated, surrounded and variegated by spheres, ellipsoids, tanks, multicolored and iridescent corners of unknown utility, truncated motor parts and sets of bell-like fauces like noses in a state of sinusitis, as well as a multitude of braziers, grates, hexagons and hexaeders (not ikosaeders like those that forced Pythagoras to kill Hippasus, because he revealed his secrets) around the main heap of cylindrical salons and residences, all of these rope-walking on steles of the most dazzling nuclear lightnings.

          There were no topics of dialog with the other co- passengers, no matter who would be the reference passenger zero and who would be the “rest” or the “others”.

          However, the boredom was such that often the few present folks worked tentatively on a dialog just to eavesdrop their own voices, knowing that the most basic instinct of mankind is the urge to society; Proof thereof is that, if someone stays alone for four weeks, begins already to slip and slide towards insanity.      

          So, it happened that Eos encountered in the cockpit Icarus, Dedalus and Tithonus. We could also outline the circumstance as follows: It happened that Tithonus encountered Icarus, Dedalus and Eos: it depends on the view-angle, from which the narration unfolds, on which switch rail one changes tracks or on which railway our story trolleys, but let us not overdo it with technical stuff.

          “It did not escape my attention, my dear Icarus”, said Eos “that this ship that carries our wisdom is not unlike a clown with red spots on the cheeks and long shoes. It reminds those laughing men with torn face, whom the twisted kings take in their courtyards to beat them with the whiplash turning their physiognomy into a tragic persona or mask, into a comical freak. Beyond its obvious deficits, it is primitive, unwrought, sluggish and slow”.

          “Well, yes, it is not Argo. It is simply slow, ha, ha”, answered the humorful playful Icarus (“argo” means “I am late” in Greek). “Since I constructed it out of scattered expired cannibalized parts what can you expect?”

“And what is your plan, erudite Icarus? Is it possible that this ragtag ball of thread, this heterogenous conglomeration, this old -timer omnibus, which vibrates by the voices of the football fans and leaves behind spare parts,[34] passes the controls of the flying wasp swarm that patrol the previously Red and now Green due to terraforming and project ‘Genesis’ planet?”

          “You are underestimating the manipulative power of the obvious, archon”, intervened Tithonus. “Known is the motto of Heraclitus that nature loves to hide. And yet nature is also the obvious par excellence. It is also valid that: “Ει και εξαγάγη τις την φύσιν δια δικράνου (ή κρεαγρίδος ή πηρουνίου), αύτη δριμέως επάνεισι”[35]. We are but an awkward penguin, an inelegant pangolin farting gases to propagate. Instead of having a super-modern drive of nuclear ion fusion, we are getting along igniting atomic bombs in a pack of individual refreshment cans. To extend farther your astute observation, bossy matron, all things considering, our brightness becomes constantly brighter, which means that, when we approach Mars with our incandescent outer shell after the transition of the sun, we will be visible through naked eye!”  

          “So, you are confirming that we are a lost case”, whispered Eos perplexed, “it is impossible to escape the planetary defense net of the red-green Mars, where on the other hand the ox tongue mushrooms and on the other hand the leeks dominate. The air -defense will take us down fast and neat, just like the windscreen wiper removes the dirt.”             

“High esteemed lady and heavy matron, you still fail to grasp the essence of our strategy”, επέμεινε ο Τιθωνός. “We do not mind being seen, in fact we want to be seen “O έχων άδειον βαλάντιον, άδει ενώπιον του ληστού”[36]. We have nothing to hide; our conscience is light like a feather. The sentinels of Zeus satelliting Mars even closer and more faithful than Phobos or Deimos themselves, will have at most a good laugh in our passage. But even if they notice us, we will play possum after the first rattle of the machineguns, pretending that we have taken a heavy and irreparable blow and uncurable damage, and will sink to the planet ostensibly collapsing and shouting “mayday, mayday”, causing an even more irresistible laugh to the containment and interception guards. When, however, we reach the surface, then we shall exclaim like Zenon of Citium: I navigated well, as I was shipwrecked (Ευπλόηκα, ότε νεναυάγηκα), and will deploy unrestrained and undistracted the next stages of our plan. After we mumble the motto of Thales ‘earth faithful, sea treacherous, profit greedy’ (Πιστόν γη, άπιστον θάλασσα, άπληστον κέρδος) to trap their tongues and confuse their meanings, we will find a way to enter the channels of Mars and through them, through the wet, liquid and untraceable path we will reach the weapon crypts”.  

          Eos thought for a while:

          “So, you are saying, Tithonus that, opposite to the ratio of crypteia that hardens the youngsters of Sparta teaching them to steal or kill without any consequences, we can win something from the obvious and the open manifestation, revealing our weaknesses no less. We can turn our weaknesses into power; this reminds us of the new parallel religion of the carpenter king with the wooden cup.  But then again ‘unum manifestum, alterum occultum’ (if one thing is manifest, another is hidden), so we go again from the manifest to the hidden etc. Especially, the intricate corridors of Troy provoke suspicion, inspire introversion and lead to inward non-classifiable thoughts of ulterior motive, resulting, as we know from other previous Creations, to the illustrious concept and the trick of the Trojan horse, where the hidden and the manifest intermingle and entangle to each other in such a degree that no one can separate them anymore.”  

          Tithonus looked tormented and miserable, but he still held. And it was not curious that his visage had become paler and weaker, since the environment of the offhand constructed Dino- Pterygium did not favorite a smooth and multitask daily program. Here, it is worth mentioning that the mechanisms of inertial dampening and gravity regulation neither included nor operated twenty- four- seven, moreover did not extend to all the ship’s hull, primarily due to economic reasons. Especially in the night hours one thought that the tenants could rest hovering in the air to economize energy, instead lying on the bed, so during these hours the artificial gravity was off, considering that the stocks of energy were limited and the cold equations of the universe did not allow the slightest waste of resources, not even the least deviation from the daily consumption program. But, for God’s sake, to switch off artificial gravity to the toilettes and the bathtubs was too much. For someone to go to the locus, the spacecraft needed to slow down to one and a half gravity which was also neither comfortable nor convenient, and to have at her/his disposal a vomit bag, so that he could get rid fast of his breakfast along with all other excrements. Tithonus was a very organized person, and all these deficits put him in serious trouble, but he faced them all with the decisiveness of someone who had nothing to lose. Indeed, he had learnt to enjoy the hovering hours in his room, because there he felt less cripple than in the regular circumstances. He propelled himself with his bad knee and was catapulted from one side of his quarters to the other; there, he used his long leg as an anchor, kicked the wall and initiated the reverse course. All this procedure made him forget his monstrous deformed left side, which was not lofty at all.

          The cockpit of their ship was covered by an astrogation dome, where the sea of stars was pictured along with flames that decorated the velvet of space, being like scintillate -embroidered silk. When Dino-Pterygium completed a rotation around its axis, the stars warped in a way rendering also here the vomit bag necessary. Needless to say that loneliness could not be combatted otherwise than partially consuming substances, from which of course the lightest and most harmless was alcohol. The pitchers and the goblets with unmingled wine circulated all around, conversing gradually the thoughtful worry into an unjustified hilariousness.            

          “Eos”, said Tithonus with intimacy, “I have observed clandestinely your monolog and endeavor to communicate with the gods, for example Zeus or Athene. This is astounding for me, because they are supposed to be our enemies”.

          “What is essential for a warrior, dear Tithonus, except to cherish and relish his friends who may also disappoint him, is to believe in his enemies. The latter will never disappoint a warrior; they will find the most hideous and treacherous ways to annihilate him. It is also known that if your opponents are sizable, this conveys worth and valor to you. Even if you sustain some defeats in the beginning, the competition is such and the confrontations are so often that in time you will necessarily deploy your skills to face them: ”Τω μέλλοντι σώζεσθαι δει φίλους αγαθούς ή διάπυρους έχθρούς υπάρχειν”[37], as Diogenes would say”.  

          Now, the interlocutors under the sweet influence of tipsy intoxication begin to analyze the meaning of the word “dolus- guile”. Unfortunately, guile is not located only on the enemies but on the intimates as well, on the colleagues or the supposed allies. Guile, especially in internal affairs, is the main reason that most massive movements fail to achieve the optimal happiness, promised by them not only to their members but to the whole world. When these movements are organized under the assumption that the only virtue of man/woman is to vindicate, no matter if she/he is deprived of needful things or not, then someone must tell Aristotle that he should not bother authoring “Nicomachean Ethics” or “Eudemian Ethics” or “Great Ethics” (Magna Moralia). Even if an organization is composed of two members, usually the real motives of each one are unknown. Collegial behavior can be construed in many ways and often consists in discovery and exposure through a false intimacy of the other’s weakness, until the latter experiences a nervous breakdown, whereafter the mercy and the philanthropy can be manifested in all its splendor and grandeur, especially the pity towards the weak part, according to the immortal motto “better to be pitied than envied”. «Φθόνος δε κάκιστος κ’ αδικώτατος θεός, κακοίς τε χαίρει κ’ αγαθοίς αμβλύνεται»[38], like Stobaeus says.

          Indeed, when the only virtue is vindication without to be moderated by ethical thoughts, i.e. by awareness of the other’s position, the unavoidable consequence will be the individual greed that consumes and destroys everything. «Όστις επί το πλέον έχειν πέφυκε ανήρ ουδέν φρονεί δίκαιον ουδέ βούλεται»[39], says Euripides and «Όστις του μεν αδικείν μη προνοείται, του δε μη δούναι δίκην επιμελείται, κακουργεί»[40], says Lysias. Hey, but what obsolete moldy standpoints are those? Would somebody object. Well, those are the standpoints and there are no others, and when they are not implemented, every endeavor is condemned and every cause is distorted, because it is not the end that justifies the means, but the means define and characterize the end.

The only therapy against unilateral or mutual guile is the evaluation, which if it does not arise automatically, for example no one ever doubted that Achilles was the greatest warrior, then let us discuss what the criteria, the proceedings and the councils for the election of the best will be through the resultant of the substantiated opinions. For those who are not in the position to perform their tasks,  nobody maintains that they should be thrown to Keadas chasm,  on the contrary an official and beneficial, not disciplinary, solution must be found, let them perform less demanding tasks, let them collect subventions or allowances, but they should not remain at their post because they harm themselves and others, exposing and leaving defenseless above all those subjected to their jurisdiction.

Quite expectedly the discussion turned sooner or later versus sports, because there the values arise automatically without questioning and enjoy general recognition, especially in the meritocratic world of the titans that is now our frame of reference.  

          “The narrations about the achievements of the Olympic games’ athletes are very touching”, admitted Icarus.

“The phrase is renowned ‘Νυν κάτθανε ώ Διαγόρα, ουκ ες Όλυμπον αναβήσει’[41], that the raving delirious fans shouted in Rhodus to the old father of the five sons, triumphers in the games. It is also known that Milo from Croton carried a small bull on his shoulders until he … grew up. Of course, I can leave all those behind just with a pair of mechanical wings. What is the value of the individual athletic or chiropractic performance, when we can roam across the universe with spaceships? All these sports and contests, the sprint races, the discus- hammer -or javelin throw, the horse- races, the wrestling, pancratium, boxing etc. excite the crowd and bestow huge financial profits to the sites of the games’ organization, but they are indifferent from the view-angle of science and art. What matters who wins, that is good for him, because he receives the trophy and becomes famous, but the others that identify with him, why are they celebrating? No less, there are various substances in nature like hellebore the fragrant that provide additional strength to some, so that the games can be manipulated …”

 “You consider things from an engineer’s point of view”, Eos replied. “The athletic or even polemic struggle confirms and reminds us of our human nature within this chaos of technology. It matters if I prevail against someone with naked fists or if I wear gloves or leather stripes or soft coverings, just as in the war it matters if I choose to face the enemy with a sword or with a javelin or with rockets and missiles evaporating and volatilizing the civilian population. It matters, if you march out against an enemy as an opponent, to do that with honor and decency”.

“These nuances of savagery that you point out, venerable Eos, are rather funny”, said Icarus. “Take Epeius of Phocis, son of Panopeus, as an example. Last summer I watched as Epeius beat the shot out of twelve men, smashed their ribs and jaws in some daily exhibition and demonstration contests, where he fought whoever dared face him, anytime from the morning until deep in the night. Two men died in the process. What am I supposed to say watching this abominable spectacle? Should I cry ‘O ancient spirit immortal, pure father of beauty, of greatness and of truth’?”

“You have woken up some memories right now”, Eos took the staff again. ”Diomedes trained Euryalus, son of Mecisteus, an Argean big like a mountain. Every day he ran and strengthened his fists boxing buttocks of slaughtered bovine meat, ascending or descending an incredible number of stairs and chopping wood from morning to evening, until he fell unconscious (r.n. with Rocky’s music). Yet, Epeius dropped him unconscious after twenty rounds. Euryalus was so massive that, as Diomedes was dragging him out of the ring, his toes ploughed the ground with wide furrows, which the locals exploited to sow and plant wheat! Be that as it may, now Euryalus has learnt to keep up his guard during the boxing fight, well, at least he figured that out!”

“But what is the meaning of all this?”  Icarus objected again interrupting his father Dedalus, who at last attempted to articulate a sentence. “Let me report to you, virile or rather feminine Eos, that your beloved Epeius never earned a medal of honor, either in the battlefield or in a duel. So, in the final analysis, what was his enviable athletic skill worth?”

“Things are not black or white. Epeius himself admits that he is not a man of war. The courage needed to punch someone with the fists cannot compare to the decisiveness to pierce a spear into the belly of the enemy and then to turn it viciously around, so that his intestines spill into the ground. Of course, there are some that distinguish themselves both in sports and in war, just as the king of Ithaca Odysseus, the most Greek among the Greeks, who earned many contest cups, while even the monstrous Ajax of Telamon usually contented himself with the consolation award of an ox or a mutton. In the run- contest Odysseus was helped by his protector Athene, because he influenced the stupid giant and made him stumble, so that the Ithacan crossed first the finish- line. But also, in wrestling Odysseus managed to defeat Ajax with the kick that he scored on the cavity of the knee, forcing him to fall on his face, then he rushed on his back, so that the giant could not turn his visage upward anymore”.

“So, what? Did this circumstance make him a better person?”

“Of course it did”, Eos thundered with a vengeance. “What would become of the world if there was no fight, the art of war, of the eye- to- eye confrontation, the close quarters combat that enlists people to a cause and links them up to specific tasks or competence, since even two stones differ from each other upon this earth?  How would any mortal recognize what is the highest merit, if the contest and the duel did not show to the whole world who is the excellent and who the mediocre one? All the above does not include a reproach against the mediocre one, it just commits him/her to the most appropriate and enlightened leader, who is such only if she/he is subjected to rational restrictions”.           

Then Dedalus took the floor and said something sagacious.

“As I see it, the relation of athletics and the technological civilization and economy is the following: To begin with, the technological civilization broadens mankind’s capabilities. Nevertheless, due to the progressive integration of originally external tools to the body, comes the result that anyone of us can have an integrated telescope or wings to fly, from those which my son Icarus can cobble together in a jiffy; This on its turn, infers the danger that after continuous additions, ameliorations and various genetic enhancements we will be metamorphosized to another species, if we do not  take care that all these modifications  remain in the service of mankind. Sometimes, the infinite possibilities cause us confusion and doubt about who we are. So, when we see Odysseus passing his arrow through successive holes of hatchet hilts or poor Eurytus from Oechalia, father of Iole, challenging no less a person than Apollo to an archery contest, honoring man’s tradition to clash against phenomena of the vast magnitude, although he knows that he will be eventually crushed and submit sudden death, instead of dying on his bed from the frailty of old age, when we feel compassion for the sweet Iphitus, who although he sided with Heracles and helped him in the issue of Iole, was murdered during one of the latter’s amok times, then we remember what means to be human within this chaos of Ovid’s  metamorphoses. –

– Just as in technology exaggerations take place, turning mankind imperceptibly into something else, the same is valid also for the economy. The invention of zeroes and asymmetrical numbers disturbed the harmony of mutual exchange and healthy commerce. Suddenly, non- human sums began to appear exceeding the measure of ten thousand, since every sum above Μ leads to a distortion of the magnitudes and to the construction of numbers nonexistent in nature, at least on the man’s level, even if such numbers may obviously exist both in the microcosm and in macrocosm. The economy of exchange connected immediately to the rules of morality and fair practice; therefore, it was identified as a science with ethics, directing really from each according to his production ability to each according to his consumption needs.  Just as some people are talking about political economy, let us say that Aristotle established ethical economy and based it on two principles. First: one cannot be a slave according to law but submits to the power of others as an employee only voluntarily, secondly the tax policy or state financial planning should provoke equality and balance of the citizens’ financial ability. So, Aristotle says in the ‘Α; of ‘Politics’:  

     a) Who leads and who follows, so that everything is settled as it should, is determined by the natural character (as a resultant of infinite factors) – the one who manages to foresee and anticipate through his/her intelligence what happens is destined to rule and dominate, while he who may achieve things mechanically with her/his body is destined to be an employee– which is both in the interest of the exercising a competent jurisdiction and of the subjected to power … because it is obvious that some are in the position to assume responsibilities and others are not. It benefits the latter, and it is just for them to offer their work to the competent ones … Because someone is depended either on law or on one’s character – so much so that law (unfortunately) determines that some should be slaves, recognizing that in war the spoils, the territory and the prisoners are kept and ruled by the victor, as they say. However, many orators have maintained that these laws are illegal, because it is unacceptable and unconceivable that the raped and the wronged one should submit to the authority of his/her raper or the mightier or the stronger who caused him so many sufferings… That is why the friendship of the depended ones towards the archon and vice versa is beneficial, just as they are ordained by the circumstances and to the extent that both have been led to be such according to their character, while on the contrary it is not beneficial at all, if they are preordained according to an unjust law.[42]  Aristotle goes on in ‘Politics’: 

b) It is good and wise that the fortunes are justly distributed –that is the main reason, for which the revolutions burst. Phaleas of Chalcedon was the first to propose it – because he says that the acquirements of all citizens should be equal – which is not difficult for the cities (colonies) recently inhabited, while it is more complicated for the already established; However, the discrepancies can be smoothed quickly, if the rich give a part of their assets without to receive, just as the poor should receive without to give.[43] 

-Of course, since then economy has become labyrinthic, (r.n. let us not forget that Dedalus is speaking) with capitalistic and inhuman rules, while employment is rewarded less for the benefit of the rich. That is why from time to time a self-diagnostic is required an interval or pause of self-concentration and self- awareness, a return to the roots and the old values, so that man remains free to offer his/her labor or not to offer it or offer it in the right price and the economy remains economy and does not turn into an inflationary stock market or finances or accumulative obolus- statics, as Aristotle very keenly pointed out”.     

“Just a minute”, intervened Tithonus. “Based on the courage of a man who is not man anymore but has turned into something else and endeavors to reach a compromise with it, opposing to your arguments about the regular immersion of humans into the old values, I am invoking the right of existence and prevail of the new, of the evolutionarily different. You do know that Simonides from Kea ‘την μεν ζωγραφίαν ποίησιν σιωπώσαν, την δε ποίησιν ζωγραφίαν λαλούσαν ώετο είναι’[44]. Quantity turns always into quality and thus introduces us every time into a new species that is envisaging for the first time the light of day. They point out correctly that before the creation of a work of art the world was not the same as what resulted afterwards. The very composition of a painting changes reality and adds a new road to our deep humanity. Our world after the works of Parrhasius of Ephesus and Polygnotus is not the same anymore. For example, imitation takes another meaning when it reaches perfection to the extent that it becomes deception! The painted grapes of Zeuxis are remembered always as the triumph of nature’s imitation, since it is said that the doves picked at them. When we say that a painter is the greatest of his time, we forget how long the world has lived and how it was before he was recognized. To achieve that recognition, an original painter or artist will act like an ophthalmologist, because he must educate the eyes of spectators in new stimuli! The therapy through painting or literature often is not agreeable at all, just as disagreeable are the steroid drops in the cornea. But when the therapy is over, the doctor says: Now, go with Zeus and Hera; and behold the rhythm of the world has changed within us and reality seems entirely different from the previous one, more persuasive, more limpid, because the world changes every time an original artist appears! The women wear new dresses and present a different look than before, because they are new paintings and paintbrushes adding a new differentiation on the ecumene’s canvas. Even the woods, where we are going for our daily walk, alter texture suddenly and become an embroidery with many chromatic tones, where we realize afterwards that some of them were missing for a set of trees to constitute a forest. One has the sensation that the world, where we are moving, is temporary and ramshackle, crumbly, ruined and out of joint, destined to last shortly until the next cosmic destruction, which means that a new painter will take the reins to give us a new reality. Thus, strange new worlds are produced constantly succeeding the previous ones and the nature of the subject is altered on its turn”.  

At that time the motors of Dino- Pterygium switched on again and the big black spaceship made of carbon and steel executed another turn around itself, as if it wanted to refresh itself and irrigate its dehydrated shell. The inertial dampening was furthermore not enough, because the respective energy was channeled elsewhere and the passengers grabbed the handles to avoid being carried away along with diversions and gushes of air, as the ship warped here and there like an acrobat. The blinding light of the sun’s north pole washed everyone, and everyone tried to adapt properly to the visual spectrum the filtering bags, the protection goggles and the polarized drainers to save their eyes from the thermonuclear chorus of space.

Then Eos decided to close the discussion with her unique way.

“Indeed, sweet Tithonus, you dream of many alternative worlds whom you assign to the inspiration of some exotic artists, maybe small gods, you expect the foundation of universes, as soon as the worldwide geniuses concur and concentrate to that. But if it is so, I would like to tell you that I have no particulate mood to meet the creators of our specific present reality, since here is a devil at work. And against diabolus as the opposite of symbol the titans are obliged to fight. If a brave new world is about to come, let it be because it is consistent with our will, because we wish it, not because some inexplorable external factor enforced it. If destiny dictates that the artificial- biotechnological intelligence will accompany us in the future, let us ensure that we will not subject to its mechanical parts, but that the iron leading hand will be ours and will turn its malleable software towards a direction, where if something new is created, it will be through acquiescence, consent and approval, because this is  dictated by the dialectic tradition”.                             

CHAPTER 12.

THE NEWS ARRIVES TO THE GODS

“After the tour within the future of humanity, where it is uncertain if the cunning ape will be able to survive at last”, said Icarus, “maybe we ‘d better … land again on our present situation. At that point we have started on an expedition which tends more to vengeance than to justice, considering that someone should finally teach a lesson to the champions of malice gods, who do not care about nothing, that they can’t play with the lives of people and commit unpunished what they did to Tithonus. The often neglected worth of friendship connects us, as it is delivered by Damon and Pythias, where the one left as a guarantee in the tyrant’s custody, so that the other be granted a leave of absence to farewell his family before he is trialed for some crime, was sure that his friend would return, and so it happened. In other eras people would mock us by saying: ‘Where are you going, you, fools, putting your head in a tiger’s mouth? You will face Laestrygons and Cyclopes who have no moral inhibitions, you will sting thoughtlessly mighty hegemons and powerful chiefs, whose actual nuclear dogma sums up to the sentence: if someone dares resist on the grounds that they have proclaimed dominantly to be theirs constituting a part of their kingdom, Sympantis ex Hades, if someone in general dares enter their skin, they reserve the right to use nuclear missiles. If a nuclear war bursts, so what, big deal. The great leaders will always hide in their luxurious residences with lots of brewed barley pulp, invigorating substances and shapely creatures.’ And it is true; perhaps we should reconsider. Of course, this sober awakening and thoughtful approach would come a little late, since we are already in the middle of our trip to Mars. Despite all this, it would not harm us to search for some allies. So, I reckon, I will mess a little around this compilation of junk, which is our radio, see if I can communicate with Sirius, see what Prometheus has to say about all this; Lads, we cannot ignore Prometheus, when we perform an action against the gods”.     

They all agreed and Icarus fumbled  for a long time or rather according a vulgar barbaric word snogged the radio until eventually the voice of somebody was heard who stoppered and relayed the call to somebody else and she/he to others, who after an eternity – but time was a luxury that our astronauts had- intervened either willingly or reluctantly, wither superficially or thoughtfully  depending on their position within the hierarchy, so that finally the divine Prometheus, the one and only, the greatest titan, the public danger nr. a’ for the gods and the only hope for the humans came to the microphone. During this procedure, the members of the “Dino-Pterygium” expedition mobilized all their acquaintances and all their resources.   

“Tell me folks, are you completely nuts?” said the torchbearer Prometheus. “Why are you communicating on this frequency? Because of your inconsiderateness, you force me to delete, to reject, to throw into the pit of Keadas, demolish and throw down the precipice one of the few communication channels that are not already compromised by the gods. Icarus, I have been informed that you have initiated a precarious, stillborn and very unhealthy mission of extreme idiocy and certain suicide to infiltrate Olympus. That is unacceptable! I have divulged and promulgated to the whole ecumene that I don’t sanction unauthorized actions against these creatures! The titans will join the war at the proper time, when they are ready, not manipulated by affectations and whims of isolated and uncommunicative international not- team players”.    

“With all due respect, venerable Prometheus, when will the titanic domain join the war? When will the Atlantes and the other superheroes condescend to help us?  The population of men groans under the boot, the slipper and the other shoes of the Olympians. As distasteful as it might be, if we are caught, we will assume full responsibility for our actions, since it is obvious that we acted on our own. And you never know – just because we are a bunch of cripples, dudes and individuals with disabilities according to our view or a crowd of trumps and soldiers of fortune according to the view of the masters, we maybe achieve something, exactly because no one   counts on us”.      

“You talk too much, Icarus, and they will locate our transmission”.  

“And what if they do, what is the bid deal, you son of Iapetus and Clymene, you, who are the real Metieta, not Zeus, you ‘Aeolometis’ (versatile like the wind), everybody knows that the titans reside on Sirius, so the spies will rather burst out laughing and archive our footage on some shelf where the comedies are stored.”       

“Icarus, you are incorrigible clowns and teasers. I wonder why Eos has joined you, I held her in a certain respect. Be as it may, you will receive in a few days a not- detectable message of low frequency which you will be able to use. Prometheus out”.

What did the not- detectable message of Prometheus contain, which reached them in a few days? That an independent agent has invaded and infiltrated the palace of the Olympians watching god’s activity and informing accordingly the interested highest bidders. The specific one – a she, if woman can be called the creature that we will describe next – had worked to many ambiguous employers and had created a fame of a very reliable bodyguard, bully and ruffian of the night. It was Demogorgon, a horrible, terrible and hideous woman, if you have grasped the insinuation and the innuendo, who had been born beneath earth, lived her youth in the drainage pipes chasing the crocodiles dwelling there according to the well-known urban myth; her name was so despicable that it was legally forbidden for the mortals to even pronounce it. Demogorgon killed her victims with lumps of burning mud, which grew roots into the capillaries and the intestines of the sustaining the attack and devoured him – teared him to pieces, but also with her deadly poisonous canine teeth, which penetrated the skin of her victims.

She had acquired in the free (contraband) market a magic uniform, called chameleon robe or “kynea”, a cloaking devise, making somebody invisible. This was illegal, but due to the institutionalized protection of personal data, family life and individual privacy, a very spread technological faculty that many used for their purposes despite the explicit interdiction, according to the axiom that if a technological artefact sees the light of day, no one can cancel it retrospectively as if it has never happened. The chameleon robe or kynea was one of the many outlawed, banned and persecuted items, considered disreputable, defamatory, unholy and demonical like e.g. the helmet of Hades, promising immediate disappearance and reappearance at another safer location, very dangerous in violation of all protocols considering safe beaming, alas circulating extensively in the deep internet and in the galactic dens of the criminal organizations, unfortunately without restrictions.

Kynea had a very broad collar, who knows why, and was very warm like the skin of a lizard. Secondly, from a very reliable source we know that the nanites and the nano- mechanisms, through which one was able to see through the transparent uniform, did not have high definition; consequently, whoever used them felt an unbearable headache. God forbid, weren’t these good- for-nothing titans able to construct not even a screen cloak?  Another problem faced by Demogorgon or whoever managed to slip into that cloak, allowing the user to merge with the inmost part of the environment, is that one needed sooner or later to also activate the helmet of Hades to disappear, when things went tough. Thus, it should also fit in the costume and be surrounded by it. That is why the miraculous artisans and tailors of the titanic era invented for the first time the top-side hood or veil, finding even nowadays many applications in society. In its final version of the chameleon robe, the hood was adapted to the broad collar around the neck, which for the first time acquired a plausible explanation, an adequate meaning and an existential reason. As a result, this paragraph ran a complete circle in relation to its beginning and gave an answer to its own initial primordial question.     

So, this despicable, disgusting and detestable creature having already infiltrated Olympus undercover and watching from close quarters the sessions of the gods, had the opportunity to broadcast valid information through her invisible cloak to whom it may concern about where the gods planned future military coups or bombardments or about their other sick, unpredictable and unfathomable projects. Through a close circuit that only by a few privileged potential buyers of information knew, they contacted Demogorgon sending at the same time a remittance to a bank account and received valuable tips and news, short- or long -term projections for their business, as if the monstrous ugliest woman directed some kind of stock exchange market.    

Demogorgon had a thunderous voice like an explosive lightning or catapult, that under normal circumstances would reveal instantly her presence, but, if she managed to serve the words in the way of a squeak or a screech compatible to her mouth shape, she could turn them into supersonic waves, which, although they could not be heard by the presently attending, burst like tsunamis on the interlocutor’s ear, on the other side of the telephone line. Since in the super-modern era of Greek mythology the mere voice communication without picture was considered obsolete and deficient, the countenance of Demogorgon presented an additional problem, being repulsive and emetic to the long -distance conversing counterparts. Her entire body was fat and baggy with her breast tits descending to the navel, while her anus extended so high that the split of the rectum appeared to climb up to back. In general, her body was undefined and slightly trembling like the one of a flabby medusa causing convulsions of irrepressible nausea to those envisaging her. Her miserable look and image had somehow a somatic impact, because the observer felt instantly, as if someone irritated or tickled on purpose the uvula of the pharynx to cause vomit.

As soon as Icarus contacted Demogorgon optically, he vomited instantly for the first time. He swore from within, because he thought of the many times, when he managed to skip vomit the very last moment despite the rotations of the ship and the gravity fluctuations, only to empty his belly in an unsuspected occasion, so much so that they -alas- faced so many important issues that they had not the luxury to consume grey cells also for the repercussions of the eye-contact with Demogorgon. As if that was not enough, the supersonic sound of the monster’s voice washed his ears like a piercing bomb that penetrates an underground shelter.

  “Who calls that number? Only a few know this closed circuit and those are smart enough to have already made the first deposit to my bank account”.

Icarus was not in a position of continuing, since he had been neutralized from the beginning and Tithonus took his place, ready as he would ever be. In any case his entrails were so mixed that, being strangely surprised by themselves, did not know how to react to the internal intestinal changes, let alone to the external emetic effects of Demogorgon.

Tithonus found himself at least optically in the great hall of the gods, where, as the Greek word “aithousa” indicates, a fire was lit in the fireplace. In the middle, on a throne dressed in velvet cloth Zeus increased- decreased voluntarily his size to stress properly a phrase or to elicit undivided attention from the distracted and respect from the circumstantial disputers. All gods are present here in this informal – or perhaps formal- plenary session, in this major council under the dome of the Olympians Foundation Committee. Most of the gods are unknown to Tithonus, although he had as a kid the playful hobby to gather pictures of football players – eh sorry – of various gods possessing a big collection and having almost completed his album. Indeed, here were present not only the twelve well-known first-class celebrities, but a thousand promising youngsters as well as seasoned ones, pursuing a chance to make a breakthrough, to participate in the most prominent championships, excel in the most important battles and find a way to be included in the line up of the GOAT Olympian team.   

The tower-tall Demogorgon with her undefined mass was visible through her choking osmotic uniform, the biomimetic derma -thermic membrane, while she secreted acid instead of sweat and had also a sword emitting disturbing flashes, aggravating even more the abominable spectacle of her presence, miserable in the eye of the beholder, able to astonish by the saying. 

“Demogorgon, as you may understand, we are your friends, since we happen to know your communication codes. Can you see me?”

“I see a cripple, an amputated dwarf. You are so ugly”, said Demogorgon with aversion. 

“Thank you for being so kind to remind me of my situation. On out part, we have high references, and we are entitled to ask your help”.

          “You, impotent ludicrous Thersites, Demogorgon does not help miserable, pitiful and unlucky mortals, not even lesser gods, because even that is not lucrative. So, if you have failed in your life, I couldn’t care less: ‘τύχη δίδει πλείστα πολλοίς, ουδενί αρκετά’.[45]”

          Dedalus, disturbed by his son’s unstoppable vomit, told Tithnus.

          “What are we doing here, I wonder what we aim to achieve. Tithonus, talking to that thing is like talking to your own ass. You ‘d better switch your head to the back, irregularly and with an impossible angle and negotiate freely having your own farting rear end as an interlocutor, which is trying diligently to utter a word through the rhythmic release of gases. Then, you will succeed and make better deals”. 

          “Well, you ‘ve got my attention, continued Demogorgon thunderously, “but how can I know that you are not a spy of the gods?”

 “If I were a spy of the gods, you would have already been arrested, you stupid cow”.

“Please, whoever you are, refrain from offending my external presence, because this is primarily rude. Where are your manners towards a lady? Are you going to ask me about my age too, you, moron? I need something more to be convinced that you are not Jove’s ruffians, since you may have left me free only temporarily until you get access to my associates”.

“How can I convince you?” thought Tithonus. “Let us examine our epistemology a bit. Do you consider Zeus, son of Cronus and Rhea, who gathered around him all this populace of ambitious oligarchs, as a God? Do you think that he is the God of Creation, of this world or of this universe if many worlds constitute a universe or of all universes, if there are a lot of them?”

“God, my foot. If ‘Theus’ (Deus) derives from ‘theo’ which means ‘I run”, then it does not designate something more than the food-gathering hunter, who persecuted persistently day and night his games, faster than him, to be able to eventually trap them. He has simply subjugated whoever is inferior to him on the hierarchic ladder of power. He is a greedy, unsatiated, gluttonous, covetous and unsatisfied son of a bitch, although, mind you, I have no reason to offend Rhea, who is probably hearing my words perched now and ever under a shadow. He is cowardly molester of women, a bully and an infamous tyrant.”

“Then, who is the real God?”

“Cripple one, I must interrupt communication here and now, because you are disturbing my current spying activity. Nevertheless, you have aroused my curiosity. Since ages I haven’t had an interesting discussion with all those shameful bastards surrounding and degrading me. Is it possible that you are a member of this new monotheistic religion, which adds to the well-known pantheon yet another god, who claims to conclude all others? Well, if only the abyss could spell its mysteries! Unfortunately, it lacks voice, whereby depth and background remain without picture and without labor, and the primordial zero insists on being silent. That is why I prefer to embrace the faith of the titans about fate, destiny, serendipity, opportunity, chance, coincidence and evolution. Because everything submits to the above concepts; from the way of man’s reaction to these calamities, her/his value, measure and worth emerge, just as the principle of tragedy teaches us”.

“Yes, Demogorgon, but you omitted to refer to the eternal love and the perfection of calmness, the tranquility of the ideal, the quintessence of beauty which survives…”

“Tithonus, let us not overdo it”, intervened Dedalus. “This is not the right time to start a dialog with the monster about love, beauty, ideals and the tranquility of the ideal. Since you discovered that she embraces the values of the titans, let us exploit this circumstance to maximize our gain”.

Tithonus nodded that he had received the message.

“Yes, that is correct. So, behold Demogorgon, we represent the titans. We are leaving gradually our hiding places, the fissures, the crevices, the rifts, the caves, the precipices to resist the false immoral gods. We are asking you to help us, even without something to gain. You have so many money, you mistress of the monsters – sorry, of the immortals. From a certain point, the zeroes of your bank account mean nothing, and the titans are right counting only up to ten thousand. Whatever is superior of the ten thousand is a hubris.”

A merciful silence intervened, during which the supersonic caws and craws of Demogorgon were muffled. Then, the camera objective moved away from her repelling presence and focused on the scenes, unfolding and being dramatized in the hall.

Here, Tithonus and the other passengers of Dino- Pterygium witnessed how a god jolts, loses his mind, becomes paranoid, weird, wacko, in a nutshell a nutcase. The minor lesser gods around him are contemplating him, wide- eyed, goggle-eyed, not able to close their eyelids, voyeurs, hedonists. Their immortal jaws are hanging pitifully from their joints and locks, and their divine mouths are gaping and swallowing flies, while the saliva is moving downwards like a waterfall – cataract in slow motion.          

Zeus directs his dark vicious gaze with indescribable patience to each of the present, throwing burning coal into their psyche, locating each’s weakness, an art he knows very well, and is his great might.  

“What don’t you understand?”, he huffs and puffs like his own lightnings and thunders. “I will crush whoever plots against my throne; It is beneath my value to fear these homunculi, the titans.   I will trample on them as if they were ants or worms, I will freeze them in my polar prisons and I will smash their chest with a sledgehammer or else with a simple vicious punch!  Those who dream of holy sanctums, saints and angels, shrines, sacrificial sanctuaries, pulpits and thrones will inherit prison, jail, brigs, confinement, new and old dungeons, hookah and opium smoking rooms, caves of scruples and illusions, ghastly dunghills and cesspools, wild and alien things. Somebody in the future with a name like milt, i.e. red ocher, reddish lead acid or blood of magic items, speaking on behalf of Lucifer or the devil will say: “I will position my holy headquarters over the Acherusia lake, over the stars themselves.” 

It was impossible for the rage of Zeus to be contained or restrained. He turned to Hera, who as opposed to the self-conceiting and inflationary enlargement of Zeus had shrunk and become small like a mosquito out of fear and shame.

“Damn your shrewdness, ox-eyed Hera, unfortunate and miserable weed that I mistakenly chose over the wheat (‘hera’ is also darnel and tare in Greek), i.e. over the other wheat-white sylphs, and made my wife. You exploited and at the same time humiliated the holiest means, which is the warm conjugal embrace, to do your thing, you put me to sleep with guile, just to plot, to extend your hideous, vicious and meaningless schemes, you twisted, twisted, twisted, that is the only adjective fitting to you, you slanderer, you calumniator. How did you dare oppose my will, how did you even consider putting your own low mean petty worthless plans over my own strategic and long- term projects? To achieve what? To avenge Heracles? This obsession has been haunting you for years. Now, thanks to you, Heracles has occupied Troy, and the people have gained access to technologies forbidden for them, even to chambers of immortality, being so meticulously sealed and encrypted by Laomedon. We lost one of our main bases on Earth along with numerous resuscitation pools and therapeutic sarcophaguses, each one thereof costs a fortune.”

“Heracles may be furious, but we haven’t lost our influence on him yet”, Hera dared articulate. “I have an ambiguous, ambivalent relationship with him leaning on both sides, either to the hatred as a consequence of the tortures and the predicaments to which I submit him, or to an unconditional surrender and obedience to me…’

“Shut the fuck up, I don’t care about your sadomasochistic games, whereby either you sodomize beating the hell out of others or you are the one beaten. I have a new world to rule, which we acquired through the right of conquest, and you have the nerve to lead me astray with all this insignificant stuff, embracing the alien and neglecting your own? What the fuck are you doing with Heracles, are you sleeping together or just patting one another on the back?”

Then Zeus enlarged himself to five meters and continued:

“I possess the power to exterminate you with one thunderbolt, to melt the gold of your clothes and the steel of your armor, to scatter you to the four edges of the horizon, so that your pieces may arise to the atmosphere and then sprinkle the ground like confetti and your fat meat become ribbons or multicolored hovering stripes of a frontier fiesta, burnt rags and flying chops, smoking cinders and dust. I may even bury you in the Tartarus, catapult and ostracize you deep into Hades, to the steepest ditch and sewer, to a black  pitch or a black hole of forgetfulness, where Cronus and Iapetus have served inconceivable sentences  on a desert bed and a hard bench of tortures and sufferings, where no sunbeam of Phaethon can warm a frozen heart!”

Hera understood that she had exceeded by far the boundaries, and her only hope was the most well-known and effective method to flatter and boost Zeus’s egoism, licking his feet, even reaching higher than this under certain circumstances. So, she declared with an optical, material and absolute manner her full allegiance to the king of the gods, to be heard by all present. There, Zeus sustained an insanity of grandeur, from those often occurring and rightly defaming the male sex, so that the concept “man” ends up inspiring no one, especially the youth, having no place whatsoever in our brave new world.

“Yes, I am Zeus, Jove, father of the gods, cloud-gatherer, raining and thundering from above, I am a super- powerful being who has crossed many dimensions to escape… that is to find a world and benefit it with my know-how, virtues and abilities, finally my magnetic personality. I have been the emperor of the black holes and the probability space even before the titans make their first steps in the science sector, where they lull and deceive themselves to sleep with the fairy-tale that they are distinguished”.  

After the public and ceremonial burlesquing of Hera, who was obliged for the nth time in her marital life to swallow the bitter pill of offences as wild notions of the male egoism, there should be found some other issues to complete the agenda of the gods’ council.

    Before Zeus appears Hephestus, the greatest cuckold of antiquity, since he had the luminous idea to marry Aphrodite with the unavoidable consequence that, instead of eating boiled ewe alone, he ended up consuming suckling lamb with a company. The poor lad was forced to watch the robust vigorous Mars deflowering the multiply deflowered Aphrodite in every way and in all conceivable sex positions, just as Demosthenes spoke the already spoken, multiply orated “r” in all possible fashions. There was a time, when he imprisoned them with a net and protested to the gods, who paradoxically took greater interest in the evidence and crime exhibits themselves as an occasion of mockery and laughter that in the very crime that these proofs constituted. Hephestus compared with Tithonus regarding the corporeal deficit, indigence and inadequacy.  He was a beardy, ugly dwarf – with a height not even one meter eighty, half-grown, stocky, stubby, squatty, a real pygmy for Olympic criteria- crooked, stooping, bent down, humpback and hunchback. Yes, he was Hephestus, God of fire, chief mechanic, highest artisan, chiropractor, handicraftsman, a real laborer of the gods.  

Since, as we have already said, his external physic did not flatter him at the bast of times, he had an intensive tendency to invent uniforms and armors bestowing on their possessor the power that he himself was denied as a natural and scenic presence. On the particulate moment, as he came for audience in front of Zeus’ throne, he wore a set that turned him into a living train, emitting smoke and “chuf- chuf” from an integrated exhaust pipe and chimney. His garment was composed of iron spheres adapted in each other, iron -clad shoes and gloves dragging chains like those of the ghosts, who inhabit medieval castles and hermitages of monasteries. On his back he carried a vaporous saddlebag or bladder ventilating continuous belching, while his repulsive face was surrounded by a transparent helmet that despite the refraction and the diffusion of the fluorescent light rendered his features -alas- evident. Hephestus elaborated his case:

“Zeus, father, Jove and Jupiter, look what a nice panoply I made that can also be used as a shuttle. Do not forget that such muscular conceited warmongers, pumped up strongmen and arrogant bodybuilders like Heracles fear only the technological superiority of the opponents. Every propelling punch of this supernatural baby can be repelled easily by my ironclad coats of arms, whereas every strife of my gigantic, incorporated machinegun can cut him to slices, suitable only for animal victuals. But I would like to ask of you, considering all those scientific achievements that each time I humbly submit to your service, to grant me finally a higher status in the yearbook and the hierarchy of the gods. You have seriously wronged me. It is not just, just because I had a lower score in the initial competition for the occupation of the divine positions thirty years ago, to be pushed into an early retirement, when I have yet so much to offer!”

“Whatever you say, Hephestus, you do not possess the required qualifications in the superlative degree, so that you may   claim a position of a trusted councilor in my side, and that cannot change even with your nth comical invention. A relentless bug of ambition has invaded deep inside you and threatens to consume you from inside out. Please understand that there are also other precious things in life besides your career. You have a wonderful wife who preserves her youth and her charms with anthocyanins and collagens  and… deep inside she loves you, you have also a lot of kids, among whom Ethiop shows that you have also philandered a bit, so, when you feel like accusing Aphrodite, remember that the motto of the new religion ‘he who has no sin cast the first stone’ is valid also for you”. 

“Well, I did not … What you are saying is very nice and I know from my experience that real life lies elsewhere, not in career, but we will see how you are going to react when your time of retirement comes; the three short years from sixty-five up to sixty- seven will pass in a jiffy and then I will challenge you to tell me if the withdrawal into a naphthalin chest is something nice or not”. It was obvious that Hephestus boiled and bubbled, just as his name witnessed, sighing and sulking about the injustice.

Suddenly, he is turning towards Demogorgon, who was so sure about her invisible status, and revealing her, grabbing her by the collar!      

“You should think twice before you call me decommissioned and useless, you drooling cloud-gatherer, since you owe even your ability to arise clouds to my technical support. You are just a technology user, and it is my technology that allows you to step up as a mighty emperor! Here, behold, envision your plight, the independent agent Demogorgon has been watching you a long time ago, and you are entirely unsuspecting, unaware!”

An extensive confusion and disorder took place, a messed-up situation without heads or tails, Zeus remained open-mouthed, while from all directions exclamations of surprise were heard. The guards hurried to surround from everywhere the ostensibly invisible monster and prodigy[46] to curtail all his possible escape routes.

“How did you spot me?”, roared Demogorgon thunderously leaving aside the supersonic ululations and releasing again her deafening barks and bellows. Her invisibility cloak had no further meaning, so she showed her repulsive appearance collecting a new round of exclaims, signifying this time embarrassment, abhorrence and detestation.

“Demogorgon, you shitted yourself, you stained your underpants, you reek. What is this stench? Obviously, you relied on nanites and nanotechnology, but I spit on all this. Did you think that ‘kynea’ would make you invisible? Where do you live, in the Middle Ages? Are you forgetting that we are beings from another dimension, consequently having a different quantum signature?  To make it clear to you, our matter is in a different phase from yours, how simpler can I talk? Therefore, what appears invisible in an environment of your dimension, shines like a lighthouse in ours. When the Olympians established themselves in this dimension, they imitated your own quantum signature and concealed their own. But I possess a program of my own, where the two quantum signatures run parallelly, hence, my dear Demogorgon, you are like a fly in the ointment to my sensors!”        

 Note of redaction to the reader: What happened afterwards to Demogorgon and Zeus does not concern us for the time being. It is valid, though, for the freelancer in question that the weed does not perish. She would find some way to come to terms with Zeus to ensure the continuation of her wretched existence, since there is honor among thieves and scoundrels or rather utilitarian cynicism. Maybe she betrayed Tithonus and his associates to elicit Zeus’ favor, although no one would consider seriously the … threat that a group of cripples and abominations are making a move against him.  On the other hand, as we have seen, the worth of espionage and counterespionage is only relative. What more Tithonus and Co have learnt about the company of Zeus through tracking of Demogorgon moves? Did they not already know that the Olympians were vicious bastards, immoral and cynical scoundrels, perverse and power -mongering tyrants? So, spying upon Jupiter and his bunch was vain, just as useless as the motives’ analysis of all the supposed great leaders in general, who throw humanity into a bloodbath without even to flinch, perhaps though in the old age, when they retire, they will go back and forth to their confessor asking for forgiveness and still searching the reason for the bloodsheds they caused.

CHAPTER 13:

          ICARUS’ EXCEPTION

First, let us commit and indulge ourselves in a generous long-term view of the red planet Mars, as it appears from many thousand kilometers. It is red of course, no surprise there, but it is embroidered by azure and green stains, canyons like deep cracks and considerably more valleys and canals, as we picture it in our imagination.

Canals and channels everywhere. When the distance of the gaze reaches the height of both the natural satellites Demos and Phobos and the pertinent artificial ones, one begins already to feel  the sprinkles and the warping whirling dew and coolness of the water vapors, the liquid composition and breath of the surrounding atmospheric layers and the sketched, scratched and fissured image of the harboring life and the creative intelligence (s.s. Schiaparelli, you are too late).

If the descending surveillance dives into a further enhancement of the depth, it will envisage trails of artificial origin, even if they appear organic at first sight. Above all, a black starfish is impressive, reminding melanoma or carcinoma or an unusual tanning or undeletable stain on a brown-green, gray-shaded, walnut-colored, scarlet reddish geophysical map, which is obviously a big city, barely visible amid the thermal waves and the flaming tongues of the desultory entrance into the atmosphere.

And now a new snapshot within a sober frame of flying perspective, where we are cradling and hovering over the monstrosity of the city, according to the actiniform geometrical symmetry of which five axes are distinguished, full of black filaments, roads and channels, arachnoid piping tubes and cablings of any kind.     

          Dino- Pterygium landed on the most distant and neglected part of the red planet one could imagine. Who would care for the singled-out and finger-pointed ship of the handicapped, mentioned just for laughs? To tell the truth, as it descended to Mars like a flaming asteroid, was hit with a rattling machinegun by a patrol vessel, but the dead cannot be killed, and some more bumps and bruises played no essential role to its structural hull integrity. Dino-pterygium was forced to an emergency landing, as it is usually the case in such adventurous stories, and needed extensive repairs. The strains, the adversities, the relentless sufferings and continuous hardships, privations and calamities of the protagonists are necessary and indispensable ingredients for the unfolding of the plot.  

          From the intestines of Dino-Pterygium emerged the Dino- Pleustus (fearful navigator), a submarine, luckily intact, with which they would invade deeper into the central channels and the ports of Mars. It was doubtful if the skill of Dino- Pleustus to dive would be of any use, since the channels were sallow in general, so presumably the tower of the submarine would be conspicuous during the route, in the tradition of the Greek undersea vessels, the fate of which dictates that they exceed the, by definition, treacherous character of their kind and emerge into the light of the surface. Within this frame, one should include subcommander Vassilis Liaskos, who was killed heroically in the Second World War shooting the German raiders from the tower of the submarine “Katsonis” and defending the invincibleness of the Greek Navy.  

      The start channel was twenty meters wide and bordered the slope of a hill. The banks of the canal were wreathed by the usual bushes, fresh and dry moss, thickets and low branches, which were also red on Mars instead of green due to the red dust and the hematite; this facilitates perhaps the scenographers who would like to occupy themselves with the present work and embroider the scenery with a touch of alien exotism.  The valley extended from one edge to another, connecting the lines of the horizons, a blue line amid an encompassing stripe of a drained creek, dividing in two the red circle beneath the celestial firmament. On the point of zenith, a meager pale sun was shining.

Inside the stone walls of the channel, the ellipsoid capsule, the strange spermatotheca, the insectoid husk, which was Dino-Pleustus, was ready to depart. But before that, a last issue would have to be addressed.

          “Warlord Eos”, said Dedalus. “You know very well that this mission is with no return. It is one way ticket, a certain suicide. At most we can hope to find sone super weapon of the gods, detonating it on site sewing destruction and dragging many along to the gates of Hades, or to track that other road that the gods followed to enter our solar system and counter-cross it, so that we leave out of the surrounding shell- dome and participate in or contribute to the cosmic confrontation that is conducted in the extremities of the universe between good and evil. You know very well that there is no win scenario in our case and that we are eventually going to end up dead. We will confront an invincible sea- wood and black coral expanse, because we have learnt since our childhood the phrase of Pythagoras that ‘prudence is power and weapon for the wise man’ but also that ‘near the lungs the sword passes through, for justice cannot be trampled as true; if Zeus violates the statute, Dike must take deeper root, because the gunsmith fate forges it to sprout and shoot’[47].” 

          “Dedalus, give me a break! When we started the mission, we all knew the risks. I don’t follow you, you ‘d better come to the point.”

          “Venerable Eos, no father can accept or acquiesce the certain death of his child. Please, I am begging you, yield Icarus to life. He who brought us here with his navigational skills should leave, should save his soul! He did already enough for people who didn’t even know, for example Tithonus. My child should be saved, continue, has a whole life to live, a boulevard of unbroken dreams to walk. Let him continue his journey!”   

“So, what are you saying, you devil? To let the only young and strong among you walk and continue the mission with one cripple and one old man like you?”

 “Why not? For the better or for the worse, the success of this expedition is based on concealment and underestimation of our mettle by our opponents, not on an open reckoning. You have the strategic mind and muscles equivalent to ten men, Tithonus has the great advantage that he has nothing to lose; as far as I am concerned, you have at your service the absolute specialist in escapes, labyrinths, crypts, underground dungeons and dark prisons. It was I who escaped from the labyrinth of Minotaur, gone airborne at that, without even bothering to remember the corners, niches, turns and impasses that I have constructed myself. After my escape Minos persecuted me up to Sicily. To locate me, he asked everybody to solve the following riddle: He asked the kings to pass a thread from a big cockle like a cochlea. He knew that only my humble self, in other words yours truly could provide a solution to this problem. So, when he presented it to Cocalus, he brought the cockle to me and urged me to pass the thread inside. After giving it some thought, I put some honey on the edge of the cockle and an ant in his opening, tied to the thread. The ant passed through the spiral itinerary of the inner conch and reached the edge carrying the end of the thread through the entire inner side. Minos, seeing the solution, realized that I was hiding behind it and demanded Cocalus to surrender me. Cocalus, who was on my side, offered Minos to rest until he would allegedly carry me before him with a mandatory presentation. Minos, unsuspected, went for a bath and my ally Cocalus drowned him in the tub with the help of his devoted daughters. To make a long story short, you need me, not Icarus, because I am expert at violating locks, entering clandestinely into buildings without anyone to notice, finding ways out and escape routes even in the most desperate cases. Knowing that Icarus is safe, I will be undistracted and provide the hundred per cent of my abilities and worth. On the contrary, if Icarus stays with me, I will direct my attention only to him, instead of ‘my mind being the bridle of the soul’ like Theognis says.”

“The way you put it, mindful Dedalus, I have no choice that to agree with you. On the opposite side to some pedantic councils, which, although they have no other option than to grant someone’s just petition, continue procrastinating and interposing obstacles towards a clean, blameless and unreproachable candidate, I prefer to step back right now, because I see that you are right. Tell Icarus to go away, to run and escape, to elude behind the lines of the belligerent parties and experience an unforgettable and meaningful life!”  

Fearing that Eos could change her mind, Dedalus gave quick instructions to his son, after he thanked the boss for her understanding.

“Icarus, I know that you can repair Dino- Pterygium in a jiffy. So, do that and go, my son, without objecting to me, without even looking back.  Wherever you go, we will always be together! Go and organize nice shows under the Acropolis, make beautiful flights over the Aegean, live your life and eat experiences with a spoon! During your return, you should try this time not to pass too close to the sun, because one should never commit a sin twice; you saw for yourself that in the first time we almost got burnt! As far as I am concerned, do not insist that you can’t leave me, since you know that I have lived my life and only the final adventure remains to give me an honorable end, so that my career ends as it is fitting for me”.        

At this point, we could mention the ups and downs of the argumentation, since the son in the beginning did not even consider leaving the father, but finally he was convinced, when the latter pointed out that his eventual participation would jeopardize, worse even, would compromise the expedition irreparably.

Later, Dedalus made Icarus promise one more time that he would be very careful during the return trip, that he would not fly at any cost near the sun; when the heartbreaking farewells and embraces between father and son as well as between Icarus and the suicide squad took place, Dedalus felt all-mighty and free to act lightheartedly, even recklessly, with a careless temerity, to follow a course of action leading to the most unexpected consequences. He would probably die, but his offspring would survive, a good bargain, a gainful settlement, a profitable transaction with fate! Poor tragic parents!   

CHAPTER 14:

BEAST POLIS  

In front of a slope, in the interior part of a naked rock, ideal for shadow in the desert of thin-corned refined soil with the light reflecting dimly on the joints, the buttoned towbars, the armatures, the articulations and the locks of the submarine, the expedition started.

“Ahead slow”, Eos gave the order to Ehedorus, and the rest would follow with conclusive causality, since the variant of will always interposes and falsifies what at first sight appears to be a necessary, unavoidable and inexorable presupposition.

Dino- Pleustus was in the most distant civilized spot on the planet in relation to Olympus, the terraformed capitol of Mars. It was positioned near a completely chaotic city, where one could easily blend into the crowd of the pedestrians, vessels and ships and remain incognito. The city was called Ktema -Polis (Real Estate Town), because it was formed by the wires, which the first colonists had put on the fields during the first colonization of Mars, when they litigated about the occupation of cultivable land, real estates and ackers without any law enforcement whatsoever. If the diligent and orderly titans still ruled, they would have never tolerated such a mess, but this was entirely indifferent to Zeus, because he was aware of the irrefutable wisdom that, deep down, anarchy benefits tyrants a lot. Besides Ktema- Polis it was also called Kteis- Polis (Comb Town) due to the gold sieves  used in the goldrush by the desperate gold-hunters, as well as due to the combs of the hair- bun   (korymbos hairstyle), but also of the whores’ pudenda, who are an eternal syndicate of conscientious priestesses of the “weaker”- omnipotent sex, serving the most ancient profession, paradoxically enjoying also the approval of the feminists, since the prostitutes are supposed to dispose their body voluntarily for abuse, exploitation or molestation. In the end, however, even the term “Kteis- Polis” was proved insufficient and not entirely literal; as a result, due to the incredible prevailing cyberpunk, anarchistic and autonomous situation, unfortunately escorted by all the conceivable figures of crime and terrorism it was finally turned to “Kteno- Polis” (Beast Town), at least as the inhabitants and the tenants called it.       

In the continuation of the stone canal there were the suburbs of Kteno- Polis, the voluminous bulky graphics of which, as pictured on the screen of Dino- Pleustus, were expressed through various shapes and diagrams, symbolizing from high castles up to low huts and cottages. Slowly they entered the domain of exchange and money-changing transactions, financial services and shops of every kind, especially bars and restaurants. Across the itinerary, there is a suffocating and stifling crowd of people and machines, partly operating and partly simulating, like throughout the centuries is the case. 

At least four of the five extensions of Kteno-Polis are not inhabited by people anymore. Machines have become independent, since one cared about them furthermore. At the facades of the buildings, images are projected, where humanoid sketches are enjoying some kind of happiness, the greatest reproduction of fake news of all times, multiplied by artificial intelligence, which understood early enough how much (wo-) men liked lies and inflated the latter to satisfy the former. Sketches and caricatures, formative and formalistic comics ran on the strips and the screens of the walls, just as those escorting the children-songs “there is a hole in my basket dear Lisa, dear Lisa, a hole” that people say or “line, stroke, line, and the face is fine, put some hair, mouth, nose, now neck and belly pose, hands and feet like arrows, and emerges a man who hallows”, as the more sophisticated titans chanted to their children. Yet, people had left the premises long ago.

There were only half- automated devices or entirely self-dependent automata (auto + metis), facsimiles of sentient life, which executed ideo-kinetic actions and series of movements without any purpose. Barges seemed to plow and clean the canals blocked by seaweed διώρυγες, super-modern digital suction pumps continued to remove methodically, mechanically and unreasonably the red dust, which could not detach from the buildings, compounds, kirks or churches, having covered up everything with wet and rotten moldiness. On the roads, a grotesque caricature of evolution took place, an automated version of Creation. Half-formed devices collided with each other, and either were mutually annihilated or were united, one integrating ingredients, supplements, accessories or spare parts of the other. Through eternal teratogenesis and metamorphosis sick abominations and incredible conglomerations were produced, from which some -the luckiest- could not reproduce, while others created inconceivable monstrosities, miscarriages, abortive constructs, disgusting figments, brutal and raw cruelties that devoured their ancestors and sew unsustainable transitory figures as dragon teeth in their passage.       

All this inconsiderate and deprived of any meaning level was looted by sophisticated machines, lurking and expecting eagerly in shadows and ambushes to slaughter or disembowel, mobilized by indeterminate motives. Some more developed artificial intelligences, either changeable or obsessed, either asynartetic – incoherent or purposeful, either chaotic or planning, either intensified or loosening, either naïve or guileful, chased all machines they deemed inferior. Whether there was a hierarchy or if someone was losing or winning, it was difficult for any war correspondent to find out. Hovering drones or unmanned UFOs and miscellaneous aircraft were guided with remote control by synthetists (computers) not bigger than a mouse, while even an elegant, shiny, properly polished android or gynecoid machine easily proved to be dull, oligophrenic, imbecile, feeble- minded or more commonly stupid   and foolish. 

This cauterized, corroded by acids junkyard was often plundered by wicked and obscene villains, who jeopardized their already debased and forfeited flesh to grab whatever they could from the jungle of iron and silicon. People and machines collide with each other to the death, where paradoxically the former always disassemble and destroy on purpose, while the devises, not knowing what they are doing, capture and then either kill their captives or … perform complicated nanite- surgery save them from cancers and other genetically inherited diseases!

The fifth extension of Kteno-Polis is the abode of the humans. The multiple nets crossing it are not unlike the synapses of the brain. All kinds of good intention circulate and harm, diabolical, slanderous, and malevolent thoughts, although according to Thucydides “it is neither prudent to calumniate each other nor for the others to accept those calumnies”, but even wet dreams or satiation, disgust and nausea due to the dull daily routine. 

The internet of course is globally used and abused, reproducing, extending to continuity, multiplying, perpetuating, codifying and formalizing human needs. The thousand mortals living in Kteno- Polis perform daily via internet endless discussions, exchange information and made more deals than the real trump of United States. Orders, accounts, payments, offsets, compromises, transactions and contracts unfold unhinderedly and shamelessly knowing an unprecedented bloom. Especially the rights of property, usability (usucaption?) and possession are multifaceted, intricate, complicated, multifarious, exceedingly ramified and differentiated, the packing or unfolding, the wrapping or unwrapping of which, as well as their eventual new boxing towards a new transaction or disposal is performed instantly and efficiently through the stock market. Bonds, shares, pawns, mortgages of human organs, where the doners suddenly and disagreeably realize that their liver must be transferred and transplanted immediately and not after death, joint ventures of the future, leasing and franchising contracts, compound interests, interest rates and spreads etc., from where sues, recourses, disputes, unjust acts, crimes, pretentions and claims emerge. But let us not bother you, readers, with the inconceivable complication of the titan’s era, if you have the bliss of living in simpler and not so modern times!

Before Zeus’ conquest, sometimes law stood up and protected the weak. In the time of Jove trials had become a spectacle, a theatrical show, a drama or more appropriately a comedy. The TV spectators did not know or care if the projected story was real or false, true or imaginary! For the public, it was valid that the most outrageous a narration were, the most likely was that it would be believed: “We believe them, because they are unbelievable”. Pythagoras was justified for the motto «Μεγάλην παιδείαν νόμιζε, δι’ ής δυνήση φέρειν απαιδευσίαν»[48], while no valid were the motto of Aristotle “Education is a decorum within happiness and a refuge in misfortunes” and the motto of Sophocles “The only sure possessions are those of virtue”.

          There were two religions. One of Zeus and the Olympians, which was imposed and that of the future Savior who was destined to come sooner or later. The latter was expressed by the monotheism of Islam- Christianism with the incumbent Pope- Patriarch as a head, but, please, see more about this movement in the third tome of Titanomachy, concerning Hyperion’s deliberation. Of course, also some Buddhists, especially Techno- Buddhists were active, emphasizing the technical achievements, but also rabbis- to maintain that Jews would be absent in the time of the titans would be absurd! Funniest thing was that in regard of the postmortem life, many thought that they already experienced it on Mars, that they were already dead and that the paradise or hell or whatever meta-apocalyptic scenery was Mars! Father, forgive them!    

          As far as politics are concerned, anarchy prevailed, but its theoretical fans should not hurry to celebrate. For it was an anarchy inconsiderate and untidy, an anarchy of negligence, indolence and less effort. There was no state, because no one cared to organize it. A mentality prevailed like that of the Stoic philosophers in the Roman Empire, i.e. “get through life without drawing attention”, do not bother since nothing changes anyway, retract the head inside, so that it will not protrude and challenge the warlord of your neighborhood and risk to be cut. If you risk yourself in the open and draw the greedy opportunistic bulimic gazes of the others upon you, onto the protein of your meat and the calcium of your bones, there is no salvation: Because if you stand still, you are doomed, and if you try to escape, they will eventually do you in,  you will run, but you will not get clear, you will fight, but you will not survive. So, little man, be headed strictly and summarily to your hiding place, where you ‘d better wait hooded and equipped with provisions for the ice age to pass and the radiation to dissipate.

          The external periphery of the Kteno-Polis’ nervous system were its sensors, lenses of cinematograph and photograph, scouting devises of chemical reactions and electrical  tension, microphones of registration and transference of sounds, supposed to communicate with some central headquarters, a central tower, where the data would be gathered and evaluated; unfortunately, however, the central skyscrapers or magnificent surveillance domes were empty, there was no supervisor or coordinator, just some computers in a recurring feedback loop, so that the data retrogressed and recycled without a thinking subject, without identity and meaning.   

Anyway, just like the other four abandoned extensions, the fifth leg of the starfish consisted of two kinds of edifices, the built and the grown. The former were constructed of  bricks, legos, cubed stones and plasterboards which angled and buttoned into each other, replaced in the aristocratic residences by overlapped esthetically pleasing superior, even farfetched symmetrical or asymmetrical polygon -synapses, while the latter resulted from the void between two ruins or ramshackle shrapnel structures, had walls only partially and were surrounded by caves, scattered transferred stalagmites or stalactites, convenient bushy rocks or earthquake suffering slopes and crevices, which happened to be in a favorable position to fit together with the building blocks. So, the houses either leaned provisionally on the ground or were stuck and wedged with shallow inadequate fundament or grew like grass and hay from the earth according to the circumstances, in compliance not only to the natural laws, but also those of social dynamics and the chaos theories, which, correctly and properly construed, extend both to nature and society.

The innumerous canals constituted a system of  concentric circles intercrossed by radiuses or diameters, but, please, do not imagine some perfect Euclidian geometrical shape, so much so that even the tributary rivers or the marginal peripheric canals had their own sewers,  affluents, hair-fine capillaries or veins, so that the floaters inside were really lost in the turbulent noise, the panspermic inflationary whirling traffic and the non- encompassed, non- summarized, non- overviewed vast velocities of anxiety, madness and confusion.  

Tithonus was a bit terrified by the sometimes frequented, other times deserted environment and could not distinguish if Kteno- Polis became scarier when the scenery was emptied by people and only the machines left behind or when the crowd returned and there were people and machines all around, amid mist, dust and fog.  

          “Surely, Eos, you are the strategic mastermind behind our operation, but I fail to grasp the reasoning that to avoid detection we should start our march from the most populated and chaotic sector of Mars”.

          “And yet it is logical. Within the general disorder someone can move unobserved”.

          “That would be the case before the AI era. Don’t you see that the heavens are full of airborne drones? All these devices register data, process bulks of information and send them to the central headquarters.”   

          “Where there is no one to evaluate them, to apply to them the category of the essential, deciding what is important and what should be disposed of. This redundancy of data is in fact a deafening sound or background radiation, which disperses aimlessly and returns to the corners wherefrom it went out. They don’t have the means to supervise the countless conversations, interplanetary or not, that cross the space every moment, moreover they do not care. They may have some applications, so that, when certain keywords are pronounced, an alarm of briefing and vigilance is energized, whereby the dangerous word is wrung to various distilleries and filters, where the ideas are tested and censored, but cannot be entirely controlled, because no surveillance mechanism has such capacity. The plan is to hide for a while, to scout and supervise the expedition premises, to mix up and merge with the environment, to keep low profile until we are slowly assimilated by Mars’ landscape, to become one with its prairies and mountains until the time comes to strike”.    

          CHAPTER 15:

          THE OCEAN OF THE NAVIGATORS

          Ocean of Navigators or Nautical Ocean. It extends along the equator for Δ’ (four thousand) kilometers, σ’ (two hundred) klicks wide and eleven klicks deep, across the mesas of the Red Planet, irrigating a large part of its surface. It was artificial with sweet water, a work of Poseidon, but terraforming would not be successful at all, if it were only a quiet swampy lake, no matter how large, or a peaceful gentle creek, no matter how long, but to have an essential ecological impact it would have to be dark, plagued by storms and hurricanes, to have wuthering or tidal waves, to neighbor an abyss and an Erebus and teem with terrifying sea monsters. 

          So, after a long wandering in the canals of Kteno- Polis, Dino- Pleustus slipped imperceptible and unobserved into the Ocean of Navigators like a garbage being led into the open sea, like a pebble detached from a rock, carried away vehemently to the estuary of a river, like an excrement being poured into a sea cesspool, then it dived and traveled in a silent running modus. Of course, at regular intervals it emerged, because it had neither much electricity nor sufficient air nor enough energy in general and needed both the sun and the atmosphere to fill its batteries and its tanks. So, now it sliced like an arrow the light water of the ocean, while big foamy waves washed its bow. Outside the night dominated, but the optical and electrical systems of the vessel produced enough light, so that it resembled a searchlight illuminating the sky with a fast bowlike strife, sending out a cone of light, initially dense and later diluted during the emission, ready to withdraw anytime, if it located another light source. On the firmament squadrons of the Olympians were visible, but they were located too high, almost as high as the stars like a net of geometrical lines, sometimes set in motion, other times immobilized constituting a sort of protective dome over Mars, either they flashed, circumstantially swelled or shrank to extinction level.  Tactical movements and regrouping of the exo- dimensional hegemons’ fleet. Ehedorus and Dedalus guided the ship using with virtuoso’s skill the joysticks and the peculiar heart-shaped bowls of navigation. 

          Since these two exercised the useful authority of navigation, the only thing left for Eos was to worry

          “Dedalus, I do not know if it was appropriate to choose the Nautical Ocean to approach Olympus. It might be best to access it from the north, from the Mare Hellas”.         

          “Don’t even think of it. While in Kteno- Polis our camouflage was based on the large crowd, on the contrary here we are protected by the desolation of the wilderness. Either you stand on the one pavement or on the opposite one, because if you are caught in the middle of the road, the trucks will level us to the ground. The sea Hellas is destined for commerce, not for the ecological equilibrium, that is why it presents considerable traffic and commotion. Furthermore, there is this huge, inhabited islet inside it resembling the insignia of Titans’ Starfleet, which, if Zeus had figured it out, he would have dug the whole islet up! There, we would have been spotted instantly.”

          “You ‘d better look at this half- trapeze desk on your left, at those suspicious luminous readings. I see some strange symbols to jump up and down like hobgoblins, a word derived from Greek kobalos ‘impudent rogue, knave,’ kobaloi ‘wicked spirits invoked by rogues.’”

      “It seems like the fermentation of something big which rises up and towers in the horizon, an extensive vast low barometric pressure.”

          “A storm”, murmured Eos, as if syllabizing some very bad omen.  

          “Well, the Olympian gords are supposed to control and affect the climate since long ago to appease the planet, as they maintain. How do they allow such vast zones of bad weather to appear?”, wondered Tithonus.

          “Tithonus, let us not repeat always the same, because the readers of our adventures will get bored”, Eos answered rigidly. “There cannot be an ecologic balance without worldwide destructions, earthquakes, diseases, famines, deluges and submerges. Even the gods must be cruel and heartless, if they want to succeed something good”. 

          “Besides navigation through hurricanes, we must find a way to surpass dry-shod – in a matter of speaking- the areas stretching on both shores of the oblong Nautical Ocean, where a million dangers are lurking. Their names are threatening, ominous and infernal and, as we know, names bear meaning and weight in the world of titans, just like the important events of life, births, battles, fights and deaths. So, behold the names of the toponymies, through which we will travel: Chrysa, Eos – a district apparently somehow related to you, boss, just as the god Mars (Ares) is related to the planet Mars -, Caprus (boar), Ganglion, Koprates (manure), Ophiuchus (snake), Candelion (torch), Meles (suicidal youth). We should examine thoroughly the significances of the names to anticipate the problems that they pre-announce”.     

          “In fact, all these names refer to the myth of Paladion. Goddess Athene was raised by Triton, son of Poseidon and Amphitrite along with his daughter Pallas. Both girls were unseparated, emulated and competed each other in games. At a certain moment, while they exercised martial arts, Pallas was about to inflict a blow on Athene. Zeus, witnessing the scene and afraid for the safety of his daughter, interposes the aegis (leathery shield) between them. Pallas is astounded, so Athene sieges the opportunity to strike her. Unfortunately, the blow was serious, so Pallas was injured and died. Athene constructed a three times ell-high wooden statue to her honor representing Pallas, having the legs interwoven, holding javelin in the right hand and spindle in the left, and after she tied the aegis on its chest, which took her friend by surprise, rose the statue up to heaven, henceforth being used either by her or by her father Zeus.-

-Paladion was the ultimate talisman. It was entirely and hermetically identified with its protegee, hence the designation ‘Pallas Athene’. Whoever found shelter within it, it was impossible to be harmed. Three principles applied to it: the ‘unconfessed’, the ‘unrelinquishable’ and the ‘inalterable’. That means a) no one should confess that she/he possesses it, b) no one should divest it from another or relinquish it to another and c) if the disposal had been made, could not be reversed at all. If these three axioms were violated – practically the first two-, the enclosed in the talisman figure of Pallas turned into a monster, inflicting madness to whom confessed that possessed and disposed of it and eternal bad luck to whom accepted the transfer. Consequently, Paladion could change owners only through original, not derivative acquisition, e.g. with an accidental recovery, theft, robbery, plunder or snatching away. Only then, it preserved its protective and beneficial properties. –    

          – Later, when Zeus had his eye on Electra, one of the Pleiads, and she took refuge in the statue to be saved, the god, enraged, since he got tired to persuade Electra to leave the protective cage, so that he could finally corrupt her, cast Paladion to Troy. Yonder, King Dardanus found it, who later married Princess Chrysa, and since then the clan realized that they enjoyed the luck of the devil living entirely happily and sheltered. Yet then, queen Chrysa fell in love with a merchant, Timagoras. After their affair crossed all the stages, through which a relationship often passes, and reached the non-advanceable and beyond, the illegal couple acquired an unprecedented intimacy. Within this frame and as a highest token of love and trust, Chrysa thoughtlessly confessed to Timagoras the existence of the horrendous Paladion, moreover relinquishing it to him with the words ‘my love for you is so deep, that I cannot tolerate a shadow or a mystery between us. From heaven fell this invaluable object to me and my husband, this invincible vesicant, blister agent and amulet. I surrender it to you, to dispose of it as you please, and this action is the proof of my unrelented love for you’. Chrysa pushed the Paladion and Timagoras received it. Then, Pallas of the Paladion was revived in her monstrous version as Ophiuchus and Snake and told Chrysa: ‘And I have loved you too, but you confessed my existence, revealed our secret and that sealed our destiny’. Chrysa, affected by this unexpected encounter, found recourse to her lover to be relieved. Yet, as soon as the luminous, delicate -curled, white- winged, rose- wreathed, rose- ankle, gold-bridled, gold- throned, gold- sandaled, rose-fingered, saffron- veiled Eos rose, Chrysa saw Timagoras, at least as far as her view-angle was concerned, to be transformed into bore -caprus in Greek, goat in English-  let us not forget that ‘capr’ means ‘penis’ in Sanskrit, moreover into a bore full of abominable ganglia, i.e. mucous flesh and hernia of tendonous husks or articular clusters, while his poured sperm became, instead of river Euphrates, river Coprates (shit-river). In a frantic situation Chrysa started to scream until the nurses came, tied her with great difficulty on the stretcher and put her in a straitjacket. Even then, Chrysa beat her head on the pillow and howled emitting foam from the mouth and shouting: ‘but he is a monster, don’t you see it?’, but of course no one else beside her could see Timagoras as a monster. –

          -Owner of Paladion became now Timagoras, who could not explain the series of calamities that persecuted him. Later, Timagoras entered a new affair and developed a liaison with the musician Meles. One night, as his feelings had reached an unprecedented height, he disclosed also to Meles the existence of the omnipotent Paladion and offered to donate it to him However, Meles was devoted only to art and had no other interests, so he denied the offer as indifferent to him and sacrificed to the god Anteros (opposite of Eros). As much Timagoras insisted, the more Meles detested the artefact in question, who as an artist had presumably perceived the diabolical nature of the item. Finally, the denial of Meles to receive the paramount offer of Timagoras led to their separation. Given, however, that the principle of non- relinquishing was not violated, Timagoras despite his disappointment, condescended to return it to Troy after all. Yonder, it has always its revered position as an omnipresent and all accomplishing amulet protecting Troy from any evil, which means that its conquest by Heracles was not bad at all. We must add however that, although in our Creation the Trojan war has not yet happened, in other Creations known by epic songs, it has already occurred; in those Odysseus and Diomedes infiltrated Troy and snatched the Paladion through original way of acquisition, i.e. theft, therefore its energy was transferred from the Trojans to the Greeks and tilted the balance in their favor”.   

          “What an incredible story”, Eos consented. After she silenced for a while, she said: “Nevertheless, I fail to see how it is the related to what we have to face in this inhospitable ocean”.                

          “It is known, warlord, that the planet Mars is famous for its illustrious princesses. They are beings resembling our sirens, i.e. they are raw- eating cannibals, that’s why one must not be deceived by their pleasing appearance. The not immediately recognizable hazardousness of them is the most plausible explanation as to why they are able to coexist harmonically with the other horrendous creatures that dwell here. When an unsuspected vessel passes from their islets, where they stand and wait like immovable dolls and theme park’s puppets, they are neither trying to seduce the travelers with their song  nor are wondering like gorgons if king Alexander is alive, but they are asking other questions according to the axiom of Antisthenes that ‘the investigation of the meaning of words is the beginning of education’, whereby the respondent should strictly refuse honoring the tradition of the Paladion, the ‘unconfessed’, the ‘unrelinquishable’ and the ‘inalterable’. If the traveler turns out to be a loser or a compliant, they are imposing easily their dominance reaching from slavery up to devouring as an immediate consumption. On the contrary, the forceful refusal enchants them and they let the wayfarer continue his journey”.            

“Hm”, thought Eos “in front of those princesses, the tongue should not run before the wit. “Who posits something, ought to interpret it. Followship brings friends, but the truth brings enemies. According to Aeschylus: ‘I praise the tongue that has a good reputation, silences where it must and mentions what is important’. Theognis says: ‘Πολλοίς ανθρώποις γλώττη θύρα ουκ επίκειται αρμοδίω και σφιν πόλλ’ αλάλητα πέλει’[49]. Socrates says: “Ράον αν τις διάπυρον άνθρακα επί γλώττης κατάσχοι ή λόγον απόρρητον”»[50]

CHAPTER 16:

CATO THE MARTIAN   

 
       “Gaia delenda est”,[51] the big- stomached Cato the Censor coughed drily and shouted stretching his back and both instinctively and proudly, his huge belly protruding, arousing the crowd of the amphitheater from its seats. Of course, there were also those who represented opposite political convictions and got hoarse trying to be heard.

          “You don’t know what you are saying, even the word ‘Gaia’ o the word ‘deleo’ is Greek, derived from ‘deleterious’, poison.

          Among those present, unknown between unknown, Eos and Dedalus attended the conference, while Tithonus stayed in the ship along with Ehedorus, not to draw attention with his abortive disability. They endeavored to overcome their fear and disgust, since all those around them were no different regarding exterior appearance, but they could easily be cannibals, just as traditionally was their princess Seleastris.     

          Cato was not at all disturbed and smiled. He knew that every day he gained new followers, they mocked him always less and they heard him with more attention. He remembered very well the time when he had begun his campaign against Earth, the ironic smiles, the sneery muffled laughs and the jolts of the heads. At the beginning, as he passed in front of the other representatives, he could not fail to notice some frigidness, a certain tightening, as they greeted him. Some had insinuated then that he had urgent need for medical attention, instead of setting that agenda, but now they all attended with proper seriousness.

“Caveant consules ne quid detrimenti respublica capiat”,[52] Cato said again with a Stentor’s voice, looking each of the congressmen in the eye and enjoying his superiority.  

A new wave of enthusiasm packed his followers. Cato the Martian waited first until the cheers abated and then continued.

“You will wonder, of course, why I insist on such a bloodthirsty and hard appeal- insist and not persist, since insistence is a virtue, while persistence is an obsession. I assure you that the first time I uttered this sentence, my heart tightened, and my intestines twisted out of disgust. I am a Martian, just like all of you, and I consider murder as the ultimate evil and violence as a method and manifestation of animals. Yet, just like every realistic person, I reserve ana recognize to our leaders like Seleastris the faculty and facilitation of cannibalism – anthropophagy, so that she may protect our interests”.

“You minion of Zeus”, shouted Eos to provoke reactions and to rouse all audience members who did not consent to tolerate the establishment of the Olympians.

Cato got serious:

“Is it possible and wise to question Zeus, who brought eternal peace in Mars through the god Mars? Jove and his followship through their presence and domination gave value and substance to our world. “Nec deus intersit, nisi dignus vindice nodus“[53]. Zeus brought us civilization and his super-modern technology, exactly because we had the prudence and the foresight, not to resist. On the contrary, let us view Earth. It resists constantly and in every possible way the enlightened leadership of the Olympians. The Terrans and their avantgarde, the titans, destroy, torture, kill, cancel the works of the Olympians, refuse to gather even some laurel leaves to honor them. When the first radio-waves about the Earth resistance reached us, we did not want to believe that there is a tribe of sentient beings, devoted to attack, to murder, to torments, to theft and barbarism. I denounce before you the titanic movement that denies obedience and submission to those benevolent and trustworthy creatures of the other dimension. Titans are in fact the maverick of the solar system, “rara avis in terris, nigroque simillima cygno”.[54] –

-We are men and women, and nothing human is alien to us![55] When our antennas caught the first TV emissions about the terroristic titanic movement, our jaws dropped! We searched for a logical explanation for that outburst, a justification – please, spare me at this point the titanic hairsplitting arguments that there is a difference between explanation and justification. Yet our eyes verified what our ears could not doubt, and what our sensitivity instinctively abhorred was imposed on us by the irrefutable facts. I don’t need to analyze the horrendous pictures that we receive from the blue planet, so insulting for our esthetics! Murders, murders, murders, due to negligence or intention, immediate or eventual, or to premeditation to such degree that one is forced to conclude that violence is the only reality of this planet. And don’t think that violence applies only to the resistance against the gods (r.n. here Cato elevated drastically the tone of his voice), because it applies and is exercised firmly also among people, man against man, nation against nation, mother against child, always and everywhere violence and death!”         

  “These things happen also to Mars”, “You are a populist, Cato!”, “You said that you will not analyze the pictures, so how comes that you analyze them?”, sporadic opponent voices were heard, incited and instigated by Eos and Dedalus.   

“I, a populist?”, swelled like a peacock the demagog Cato. “You are the one ignorant.’Scribimus indocti doctique poemata passim’[56]. Should our religion include, accept and take care of all lames and cripples? Do you doubt that the Terrans have developed an atomic bomb to use against us? Everybody knows that they have a nuclear program enriching uranium! All you pacifists always maintain that the battles of Earth are not of our concern. And yet they are, because sooner or later they will be relocated to our domain. Some of you, progressive jelly-dicks with lukewarm philosophical views, have pinned on me circumstantially the nickname ‘Cato the Censor’.  Well, I accept the name! Just as Cato said about Carthage, I say that Earth must be destroyed.  Not in a month or in a year, but now or even better yesterday! Not because of what it did or keeps on doing to itself- I agree that this is an internal affair-, but in view of what they are going to do to us. It is obvious that they threaten to disrupt our way of life, to undermine and torpedo our truth with their low sordid life.[57] That is why the solution is the preemptive strike, we shall reverse the maxim and we shall  impose our truth on their life, export our much beloved peaceful regime to them! [58] Yes, I will continue to preach all this until I persuade every one of you that the war against Earth is unfortunately the only option. “Gutta cavat lapidem non vi, sed semper cadendo”.[59]»

Cato sat down at his place. What followed was not usual polite applause or rejective silence depending on the circumstances, but an enthusiastic standing ovation, a real storm of cheers and approval. Even the more reserved towards Cato’s rhetorical show off, appeared convinced by his ridiculous arguments, because -let us not forget – diligence persuades not, while persuasion is not diligent. Eos, seeing that there was no reaction from any part of the amphitheater, decided to speak up, since very simply put, silence was not an option! Drawing benefit from the democratic character of the titanic era, she just gave a false name and began to talk, without anyone demanding credentials from her or objecting that she was never previously seen.        

“Venerable Cato, I am one of those individuals who, even if they know that they cannot prevail in an argument, draw a little satisfaction by stating their opinion. Regarding especially what you said in your last expression, there is a dialectic answer for every colon or semicolon of it, which I would like to submit to you. First, I would like to point out that you are lapsing continually into methodological and epistemological mistakes. You say that you will not analyze something and yet you analyze it. Then, you present yourself like the drop that slowly carves the rock, so that you may appear as the epitome of stability and consequence, while on the contrary your viewpoints are a bunch of fireworks, which you are launching blindly like uncontrollable missiles, hitting both the nail and the horseshoe with no consistency.  But let us refer to what is essential: In the relations between the countries just as in the relations between men there must be objective criteria defining conducts, or else it is impossible to build a worldwide society. One of the criteria characterizing a war as just or unjust – because even the war is subjected to law, as it results from the conventions of not- bombarding the civilian population and for the humane treatment of prisoners – is ‘who started the fight”. The man who wages a ‘preventive war’ in fact just attacks and declares first the war against another nation. Whatever justification one invokes, that is not going to change, because in fact it is an explanation, not a justification. Whatever happens has an explanation, but that does not mean that it is also justified.

-Wars have always imperialistic purposes, either expansive on the ground or exploitative of resources and raw material. They are supposed, however, to be declared for two reasons: a) that the neighboring state does not consent to commercial or other agreements of common exploitation regarding minerals, rare earth elements etc., being targeted by the attacking warmonger and positioned on the ground of the sustaining the attack. In essence, the attacker complains: why don’t you lend weight to me, why don’t you appreciate me enough, so that we can make a deal? Here, Cato, to speak in your language, it is valid the ‘inter enim arma silent leges’.[60] It is unacceptable and immoral to exercise violence, so that I am forced to agree with you, just as you can never make me love you inflicting on me injuries with a molesting behavior, b) The second reason brought up by the attacker is his fear that the opponent will eventually hit him, that’s why he is hitting first! In those cases, the sustaining the attack usually differs from us in the religion dogma or in the constitution and has the general tendency to be so much different from us that she/he gets … disconcerting as to be considered a potential future enemy! Here, the difference is deeper than in the previous case, because as religious and constitutional concerns and stirs up the inmost nucleus of (wo-) men and strikes or doubts their very moral fundament. It is as if the hunter says to his prey: are you not ashamed for wanting to attack me? At this point of course the answer is easy, i.e. “αιδούς παρά πάσιν άξιος έση, εάν πρώτος άρξη σεαυτόν αιδείσθαι”,[61] as Theocritus says. Everything else is hypocrisy”.  

          During the whole time of Eos’ speech, Cato and his fans created a terrible pandemonium, they booed, made noise, trampled and stamped with the feet.

          “Well, you cannot deny that they are belligerent, while we are peaceful …” 

          “Yes, we are peaceful, simply because we have been submitted. The Terrans, especially the currently most developed part of Earth, which is Greece and its particulate city-states under the leadership of the titans, did not cause any hostilities, on the contrary they sustained attack by Jupiter and his band. Of course, it is valid that ‘no one is fool enough to prefer war over peace’ according to Herodotus, but let us also not forget ‘one omen is best of all, to fight in the defense of one’s country’ (‘εις οιωνός άριστος, αμύνεσθαι περί πάτρης’) or as it is said in your language ‘dolce et decorum est pro patria mori’[62]. ‘Παντ’ αγαθοί τολμώσι, δειλοί δε εισίν ουδέν ουδαμού’[63]; furthermore, ‘it is natural for someone to plan the salbvaton of one’s country through reason and cunning’ (“εικός δε παντί και λόγω και μηχανή πατρίδος ερώντας εκπονείν σωτηρίαν”) according to Euripides. ‘Emulating the best, and considering that happy are the free and free are the brave, do not underestimate the hazards and the benefits of war’ (‘Oυς νυν υμείς ζηλώσαντες και το εύδαιμον το ελεύθερον, το δ’ ελεύθερον το εύψυχον  κρίναντες, μη περιοράσθε τους πολεμικούς κινδύνους’) says Thucydides, who also defines which are the terms of waging a successful war, whereas war is not the evaporation of non- combatants through launching of missiles, but the battle in close quarters, where and only bravery excels both of men as also of women. “Νομίσατε τρία είναι του καλώς πολεμείν, το εθέλειν και το αισχύνεσθαι και τοις άρχουσι πείθεσθαι”[64] (Thucydides). But also, Democritus does not disagree: “Από ομονοίας τα μεγάλα έργα και ταις πόλεσι τους πολέμους δυνατόν κατεργάζεσθαι, άλλως δ’ ου”.[65]

          “Now, that’s enough with the titanic proverbs, give us a break, cut us some slack”, ululated Cato. “What do we need all this stuff, we have arts and literature, we have ‘otium cum dignitate’[66]».

          “We have absolutely nothing. Arts and letters were not brought by Jupiter from the other dimension, those occupy themselves with eating, drinking and reveling in the smell of grilled meat that tickles their nostrils. On the contrary, it is valid that ‘Graecia capta ferum victorem cepit et artes intulit agresti Marti’[67]. Of course, this was done because evolution proceeds neither through parthenogenesis nor through inertia, but through constant and exhausting fights according to the ‘war is father of all’ by Heraclitus by individuals that face difficulties, but do not accept them fatalistically, neither acquiesce nor get disappointed, quite in the opposite they fight to overcome them. ‘Poverty and deprivation are the mothers of invention’. Our ancient Martian language was enriched with thousand Greek words, extremely appropriate both for science and art. The various field and track events of Greece amuse us, no matter if the Olympians try to usurp them calling the games Olympic. Chariot races, horse races on the hippodrome, stadium, boxing, and pankration. The arts of Greece gave again life to our thoughts, offering us new figures, forms, ideas and directions. Our dusty libraries got full of a thousand books on city-states’ issues, democracy and the titans, who represent the aristocratic and meritocratic elements of democracy, of their theater shows and tragedies, which do not need to invent new heroes, because the archetypic ones of their mythology triumph and suffer, fight and are defeated every time in a different way. Let us be grateful for the extraversion and the mentality of the Greeks to expose all to light, to publish and not keep anything hidden, to disrupt the secrecy and the reservedness of the priesthood and to notify any invention or discovery, every idea or notion, until even the last (wo-) man learns and profits from them! Who is the sector that is not affected by the influence of Earth? Our doctors use methods of Aesculapius and Hippocrates to save lives of Martians. Our sanatoria follow the recipes of Eleusis’ and other mysteries to cure the patients with the method of cataplexy, vibration, shock and commotion. The music works of the Terrans fill up the halls of our concerts and their songs are whispered in all assemblies of Mars or are song loudly in a state of … intoxication. I mentioned only a fragment of the endless treasures that Earth donated to us along with its valorous selection, namely Greece. This Earth and this Greece are the ones that you want to destroy? Maybe, their unabolished optimism, the “θαρσείν χρη, ταχ’ αύριον έσται άμεινον”[68] alienates us, the fact that they never quit, that they always continue, that despite their disputes they unite in the crucial moment, that they consciously practice the stereotype ‘it is allowed to fall, it is imperative to rise again’, just as all stereotypes, because they believe them, they do not see them as something external to them, but glance themselves in them. How is it possible that we are pondering to attack against thinking and fighting people? How will we be able to sleep calmly again, if we exterminate them?”

          At this point Cato the Martian intervened and uttered the populistic, demagogic and shameful argument performing a profane reversion.

          “How will we be able to sleep calmly again, if we don’t exterminate them?”

          The discussion risked reaching an impasse, but now the time has come for the princess Seleastris to intervene in the tradition of the Martian leaders who followed the dogma of Paladion.   

          “We have heard enough and now is the time to reach our final decision. I believe that the last lady who spoke, although I don’t know her, followed the gentle tradition of Paladion, which inspires and directs every Martian since ever. Eventually, it is a mistake to pursue what is primarily available and opportune for us. Here, we must adopt the titanic tradition, because it is an indispensable part of the Martian cultural heritage. In our case, at first sight, it is deemed imperative, it seems attractive, it appears beneficial to attack Earth, without considering the long-term consequences both for them and for us, which exactly the very reason, for which we must not do it. This is the case, because the recklessness of many undertakings resulting to an uncertain and often nightmarish – destructive impact teaches us that success and happiness lie in self-restrain. Martians, through an attack against Earth we have many to lose and nothing to gain. If the gods will it, let them strike Earth themselves; we have no reason to disrupt the way of our life through a war, and against a persistent opponent at that, just as the titans are. As a leader with wide horizon, I do not hesitate to adopt two of their popular proverbs, i.e., the motto of Democritus: “Ην μη πολλών επιθυμέοις, τα ολίγα σοι πολλά δόξοι”,[69] but also the one that says: “Σωκράτης ερωτηθείς πώς αν γένοιτο τις πλούσιος, ει των επιθυμιών, έφη, είη πένης”[70]». 

CHAPTER 17:

NO TEARS FOR THE ECCLESIAST

From the spaceship Dino-Pterygium the submarine Dino-Pleustus was born and from it the shuttle “Ditch-Jumper”. Surely, the last, as its name signifies, would prove to be extremely useful in an area of Mars called Chasm of Right -who knows why – and forebode jumps over pits, craters, trenches, chasms and other challenges, posed to the travelers by Mars. So, the vessel began to wriggle in the red soil, and jumped like a flea, only if that were necessary. The sand, full of oxidated iron, put a strain to the suspension, the caterpillar tracks, even the springs of the jolters – catapults, through which the Ditch – Jumper hurled over the canyons. Since Eos liked the convertible cars with detachable roofs, she had opened the glass cover ignoring or even provoking or inhaling hedonically the dust, even if it entered through the guidance diopter, even if it shoved itself into its elegant necktie.

Eos, swaying and panting like a little donkey riding through the Himalayas, being constantly kicked in the seat of her pants, she continued her jumpy ride tormenting the pedals, both the accelerators and the brakes, changing velocities, molesting the clutch, while the screen in front of her projected continually alternative maps. The desert was red and dead without even cactuses. She passed the brow of a hill, she extinguished through reverse course a lateral wind, she circled around a natural stone pyramid and saw the minion of the Matriarch, who had asked for her help, to wait for her. She had Theobroma (chocolate) cheeks, multi-colored, frequently changing eyes, perfect teeth, shortcut hair.

“The Matriarch is waiting for you, rose- ankle Eos”, she said, choosing from all embellishing adjectives, adorning Eos, the most discreet and esthetic, since it referred to her ankles. “The holy texts are at your disposal to construe, a thing of course which is an originality and a daring act of the Matriarch, since, as it is well known, the holy texts are not subjected to interpretation”.

Eos took her in the vessel for a ride, as if she had hitch-hiked and, together, they entered deeper to what was named in a complicated, sophisticated and ostentatious way Domain of the Law Chasm Committee.

Later, she was found in a round room, perhaps fifty feet in diameter, and of about the same height, lighted by a great window opening on a sky of intense blue. Swallows flew back and forth, twittered (forerunner of the … Twitter) outside, giving quick, joyous cries. The minion of the Matriarch had disappeared und was bound never to be seen henceforth and ever after. She was one of those expendable stuntmen of the dramatic adventures, whose exclusive functionality was only to be killed in action (r. n. in the modern science-fiction stories the analogy is the so-called redshirts, the sentinels or the security- members of a starship, who eagerly escort the captain, even Prometheus himself, to various planets and fall easy prey of the indigenous life-forms, providing the captain with the unique opportunity to cry over spilt milk and say after the event und -alas- too late the classical but for the victims useless punchline: “Taurokathapsian histolytic bloodsucking worms. I should have known!”.  

The floor, the incurving walls and the ceiling were of a kind of veined marble-like porphyry, paneled with a strange metal, paler than gold, darker than silver, clouded just then by the early morning mist that came in through the window in great puffs.

Eos staggered toward this window, drawn by the freshness of the breeze and the sunlight, which was trembling and chasing away my dreams, penetrating the room with an illuminated dimness like a protruding bosom. She leaned her elbows on the balustrade and could not restrain a cry of delight. She was standing on a kind of balcony, cut into the flank of a mountain, overhanging an abyss. Above her, blue sky; below appeared a veritable earthly paradise hemmed in on all sides by mountains that formed a continuous and impassable wall about it, a real earthly paradise extended to the outer limits of the horizon’s circle. The peaks of the mountains which towered on all sides were completely covered with snow. A garden of Eden or of Champ Elysee or of Nephelococcygia, according to one’s worldview. The palm trees gently swayed their great fronds. At their feet was a tangle of the smaller trees which grow in an oasis under their protection: almonds, lemons, oranges, and many others which Eos could not distinguish from that height. That was a typical vegetation of the holy lands. One could also mention the all times’ classic broad blue stream, fed by a waterfall, emptied into a charming lake, the waters of which had the marvelous transparency which comes in high altitudes, great birds, which flew in circles over this green hollow, the red flash of a flamingo in the lake, but nobody  wants that this report reminds a scientific or pupils’ expose.

All these ingredients within a bright transparent atmosphere composed something so pure and such a marvelous beauty, that the poor nerves of Eos couldn’t compete, were overloaded, uncapable of assimilating the shining illumination. She touched her forehead on the balustrade, wept due to the diffused brightness deeply moved, and turned her eye-bulbs again towards the room to spare them.

The strange room was furnished in an Earthly fashion. There were indeed, here and there, round leather cushions, brightly colored blankets, carpets, hangings. A half-open panel in the wall showed a bookcase crowded with books, exposes, treatises and expertise reports. A whole row of pictures and masterpieces of ancient art were hung on the walls. Finally, there was a table almost hidden under its heap of papers, pamphlets, magazines, mainly with the holy texts of Mars. Let us say at this point that the inhabitants of the Law Chasm had engulfed the religion of the Fish since long ago, which in every Creation appeared powerful and attracted many fans. Even if you save or help only one man, it matters, that is why Christianity, but also Islam as its more simplistic version will never cease exercising and inspiring enchantment and fascination and the message of the Evangelium will never grow old or be erased.  Even though among antagonistic spiritual movements religion is something that usually prevails, in the future or past world of the titans it was exceptionally in a great crisis. To fight against the arbitrariness and the absolutism of the Olympian gods, the dragon- breed of the titans had given great emphasis to logic and that is always bad for the religion. Nevertheless, the Islam- Christianism, mainly due to the leg of Christianity, which was more rationalistic, since some of the prominent fathers of the church were logical philosophers, battled fiercely to survive.

The main issue of Christianity is that the “love each other” is too vague and is susceptible to mediation, indirectness and specification. What does it mean to love others and like yourself at that? Maybe, the simplest interpretation is, instead of fishing for him or donating him a fish, to teach him fishing. Also, forgiveness, which is preached and promised by Christianity, implies some problems. Can I be corrupt, vile, depraved, lustful, adulterous, murderous, a thief and a crook, and then repent, confess and receive the holy communion as if nothing had happened? Yes, but the penitence must be genuine. And who knows that? Since the priest, no matter how many assignments by divine powers or competences he carries on, is prone to mistakes, only God knows the whole truth. God as what, as something external to us, as a high despot who distributes forgiveness according to His whim? If God does not participate in us and we don’t participate in God, then where does our responsibility, the cross of our will and the tragedy of our freedom lie, which consists therein, that every choice commits us henceforth irrevocably? And if we receive a truth from above, without to participate in its formation, would that not cause an unprecedented fanatism and intolerance, would that not forge the belief that we have some kind of exclusive contract with God and the holy mission to spread His one and only truth, without to accept any deviation of differentiation? Those were, for the most part, the objections of the titans against the religion of the Fish, which, as we have already constated, did not diminish at all its drastic influence, but also its indubitable contribution to mankind’s elevation. The titanic thought will never cease to hold against the gods dictating external orders that: «Ουδείς ελεύθερος εαυτού μη κρατών.  Ταύτα μεν ούτω ίσθι, κρατείν δ’ ειθίζεο τώνδε· γαστρός μεν πρώτιστα και ύπνου, λαγνείης τε και θυμού· πρήξης δ’ αισχρόν ποτέ μήτε μετ’ άλλου μήτ’ ιδίη· πάντων δε μάλιστ’ αισχύνεο σαυτόν»[71] (Pythagoras). «Δει τον ευ φρονούντα τον λογισμόν αεί των επιθυμιών κρείττω πειράσθαι ποιείν[72]» (Demosthenes). «Δυοίν λεγόντοιν, θατέρου θυμουμένου, ο μη αντιτείνων τοις λόγοις σοφώτερος»[73] (Euripides). “Benefaction, honor and punishment constitute the life of men” (Theophrastus).

          In the continuation, Eos was led to Matriarch’s quarters, which were a rather abstract version of all stereotypes, that the titans heeded about the tents of the tribes of East, Israelis, Arabs, Persians etc.  to have been like. It was all frescoed enameled brick, peaked like a huge tent, with glassy ceramics and metal objects, animal-skin and animal-fat troweled representations like gray-blue scars, that looked as if they had been laid on the walls with a palette knife. The Matriarch, named Cratesipyle, had also cheeks with a lot of ink and melanin (maybe also melatonin for nice dreams in the evening), shiny, all-black eyes scintillating, robust deeply planted teeth despite the old age and snow-white hair. With her rainbow of voluminous skirt, she looked like an inverted punch bowl set atop a cushion. She wore a crinoline with the metal rays of a parasol. 

Accepting the obeisances of Eos, she said:

          “Are you the poet?”

          When the Martians spoke of poetry or poets, they meant interpreters of scriptures, commentators or text scientists, construers or glossators. A poet is born, an orator becomes one”, answered Eos.

          “The best news I heard lately is that you decided to engage yourself to our benefit and I thank you for that, because I have secret information of who you are and what you represent”, continued the Matriarch Cratesipyle. Then, she made a pause to underline that after the courtesies, she was ready to cut to the chase. “Our archives are very old. Our whole literature refers to our religion, which is something like the religion of the Fish, one of the prominent on Earth. It is the narration of the ‘lamb taking away the sins of the world, who gave himself as ransom for all’. And it is so relieving if someone takes away our mistakes and our sins. Unfortunately, in my culture, the Chistian religion has been misunderstood and has created a pessimistic suicidal mentality, as if the members of our race hurry for death to come, so that they may envisage God who will forgive them for their crimes and misdemeanors, which they have yet to commit. Since they know that suicide is a sin, they have fallen into a passive inactive situation, pondering consciously or subconsciously that the negligence of themselves will lead them to the death rather sooner than later. So, thromboses and wounds due to lying down have begun to manifest in my people. We need an injection of optimism. Knowing that you, the titans, are ruled by a positive mood and a joyful representative worldview towards life, I consider that you, Titanis, are extremely suitable to provide an alternative interpretation of our scriptures, which will put us out of this misery. Of course, it is required that you have some knowledge of Christianity, but I know that you, titans, are mindful of many and forgetful of nothing”.     

          “I will do what I can”, answered Eos. “We, the titans, always adopt a positive approach of things. We urge ourselves, instead of booing from the tribunes, to enter the field at last. If we allow the worst to deal with politics, what chance have our country or our state? Even if we pose one pebble in the right direction, it is a decent reward! There were never paradises, there will never be, only people that do the best they can under adverse circumstances! We go together with Aristotle saying: “Ο πολίτης ουδενί των άλλων ορίζεται μάλλον ή τω μετέχειν κρίσεως και αρχής”[74], but also with Solon: “Ευθύνας ετέρους αξιών διδόναι, και αυτός ύπεχε!”[75] (r.n. what an ingenious proverb!). Of course, freedom of will and the pertinent assumption of responsibility do not benefit, if they are arbitrary, but only when they comply with previous cardinal principles. “Μέγιστον αγαθόν μετά νου χρηστότης. Πας ο μη φρονών αλαζονεία και ψόφοις αλίσκεται”,[76] as Menander says”.  

          Later, Matriarch Cratesipyle escorted Eos into a maze of corridors and apartments until they reached the main library. Eos looked around with the greediness of the titanic love of learning and registered that behind the decoration a very elaborate system of esthetics was hidden. The ceiling was vaulted and corbeled; for another, there were side columns with reverse flutings; The texts were included more in wrapped papyrus than in paperback books in today’s concept of the term.  

          So, Eos began to research the scriptures of the Martians. The contemporary means of technique provided her with the possibility to deal with a great volume of texts in a reasonable time- period. The story of the sacrificed lamb was so amazing that even the titans had nothing to object to or find fault with this unrepeatable narration, except perhaps regarding the exact meaning of the proclaimed love. She observed, however, that the Martian texts had a strange spin, not exactly towards death, as the Matriarch thought, who had no references to compare or to express analogies regarding her own beliefs, but rather towards vanity, vanity, all is vanity. The analogous text from Earth’s literature was Ecclesiast, of unknown origin, for which the only known thing was that it circulated and inspired various nations and peoples during many Creations. So, Eos would try to find ways through Ecclesiast’s text to elevate a different perspective for those praising God, a view-angle that would incite to action, instead of resignation.   

          She saw in front of her and read loudly, thinking aloud, the inspirational text of the Ecclesiast: «Ρήματα Ἐκκλησιαστοῦ υἱοῦ Δαυίδ βασιλέως Ισραήλ ἐν Ιερουσαλήμ. Ματαιότης ματαιοτήτων, εἶπεν ὁ Ἐκκλησιαστής, ματαιότης ματαιοτήτων, τὰ πάντα ματαιότης. Τίς περισσεία τῷ ἀνθρώπῳ ἐν παντὶ μόχθῳ αὐτοῦ, ᾧ μοχθεῖ ὑπὸ τὸν ἥλιον; Γενεὰ πορεύεται καὶ γενεὰ ἔρχεται, καὶ ἡ γῆ εἰς τὸν αἰῶνα ἕστηκεν. Καὶ ἀνατέλλει ὁ ἥλιος καὶ δύει ὁ ἥλιος καὶ εἰς τὸν τόπον αὐτοῦ ἕλκει· ἀνατέλλων αὐτὸς ἐκεῖ πορεύεται πρὸς νότον καὶ κυκλοῖ πρὸς βορρᾶν· κυκλοῖ κυκλῶν, πορεύεται τὸ πνεῦμα, καὶ ἐπὶ κύκλους αὐτοῦ ἐπιστρέφει τὸ πνεῦμα. Πάντες οἱ χείμαρροι, πορεύονται εἰς τὴν θάλασσαν, καὶ ἡ θάλασσα οὐκ ἔσται ἐμπιμπλαμένη· εἰς τόπον, οὗ οἱ χείμαρροι πορεύονται, ἐκεῖ αὐτοὶ ἐπιστρέφουσιν τοῦ πορευθῆναι. Πάντες οἱ λόγοι ἔγκοποι· οὐ δυνήσεται ἀνὴρ τοῦ λαλεῖν, καὶ οὐκ ἐμπλησθήσεται ὀφθαλμὸς τοῦ ὁρᾶν, καὶ οὐ πληρωθήσεται οὖς ἀπὸ ἀκροάσεως. Τί τὸ γεγονός, αὐτὸ τὸ γενησόμενον· καὶ τί τὸ πεποιημένον, αὐτὸ τὸ ποιηθησόμενον· καὶ οὐκ ἔστιν πᾶν πρόσφατον ὑπὸ τὸν ἥλιον.[77]»

          Indeed, the main idea was synonymous to the repetitive and meaningless excerpt of Aineias: “There will be another Tiphys and Argo will again carry selected heroes, there will be other wars, and the great Achilles will again be sent to Troy”. This was precisely the distillation of all Martian poems and literary works, vanity lurking everywhere, directing people to resignation and awaiting of death. She thought that a solution would be to read this passage in front of Law Chasm’s assembly, only to relativize it in retrospect, diluting it in the inconceivable plenty of the infinite creation of the titanic literature, which supported another, contrarian, active and competitive mentality.  

          So, in her speech towards the Law Chasm’s assembly she said among others the following words: “… We also had on Earth circumstances and facts that led us to fatalism and a sense of absence. For us, titans, fate is the magnitude that tests people whipping them with unexpected and unforeseen events. From the way the subject will react to all this her/his worth will be judged, and that is the tinder and the imprint of God. It is true that many of us have sustained things so terrible that we wonder if our life is of any value. Let us admit, however, that life has also sides or moments that surprise us agreeably. Happiness is always short, but beside it there are also other genuine and intense feelings, which are self-fulfilling, inspiring and animating complements of the sternum, such as enjoyment, amusement, pleasure, satisfaction, wholeness, knowledge, capture of even one grain of truth, even sorrow, where someone, although he feels his/her heart squeeze, yet rejoices,   because one is after all a human being and is able to understand one’s fear and pain and that of the others. This is the joyful sorrow, as the Christians say. Thus, all of you having a death wish, deny life, deprive your descendants of all those gifts, which you yourselves have felt and enjoyed, lying blankly to the next generations that these do not exist. And when I speak of descendants, I do not refer only to the few kids that you allow to be born, but to all the potential offsprings of your genetic pool. You do not have any decay, decline or degeneration of the genome that could justify your low birth rate or demographic deficiency. And if you limit yourselves, only to wait for the delights of the afterlife without to fight, be assured that you will not find what you look even there, because in fact you do not look or search for anything …”

      Then the Matriarch Cratesipyle said something that Eos didn’t expect.

       “Words, words, words, that maybe of some value, but are all the same to us, because our race does not operate through theory, but through practice. And practice says that whatever action we assume, we harm our fellow men through words, deeds or thought according to the Christian dogma. Even the slightest transaction contains the danger or rather the certainty of inequality between the mutual commitments. In this respect, we do not refer to a subordinate relationship of employment or to an erotic liaison, companionship or kinsfolk, which implies as expected power and control over another’s body. To merely live is an injustice and ‘there is no man who is without sin’”.

          The Matriarch clapped her lips hedonically and continued:

          “Considering that we have provisions to live, obtained by nature without harming the ecology, there is something compatible with the Christian religion and not harmful at that and that is procreation, bearing of children, the pleasure of having good children. There, perhaps the theory of you, titans, has something to offer, because your dialectics entangle and join subject and object anyway. To know something, you feel obliged to conquer it, to enter it, to grope it, and this is what you call research. Your civilization is explorative, thus penetrative”.

          “This is of rather symbolic character”, said Eos. “The invasion is theoretical, not practical…”

          “We have no use for such distinctions. For us everything has a practical impact, and the teachings come from practical doctrines. Ergo…”, continued the Matriarch with a lustful mien, “if you teach us the penetrative, infiltrating  practice of the titans factually and in action through a sexual act, this will give us new motives, elan and wings to our tribe, so that it will thrive and perpetuate at least, which is by no means bad…”.    

          “That is not what I signed for, as I was assigned the mission of the encouragement and psychological elation of your people and lies clearly beyond the terms, conditions and specifications annexed to our agreement. Matriarch, you fooled me and involved me in an ambiguous story using me as means to achieve your purpose. The only thing that remains to tell you is ‘evil be to him who thinks of evil’, ‘impertinence is the greatest malady among men’ and ‘no one is heard alleging one’s own turpitude’”.

          Suddenly, the mien of Cratesipyle became pathetic, pitiable, lamentable. With heart-rending, distressing countenance she said:

“Titanis, what have you to lose from an erotic act? We haven’t seen something like that for many years, from the time that our tears were tears and were not vaporized in the hot cinders of the unrequited lovelessness. Among us there is also a male specimen, a male archetype, which we think is going to touch you. We are contemplating your robustness and muscles, and we are taken by vertigo, when we are pondering on the juices and the saps that cross your flesh. An erotic act is not going to consume your conspicuous and attractive blossoms, will, even more, not disturb the unseen parts of your soul; A great characteristic of it is that after its conclusion the two participants are not worse for wear, unspent, unharmed and eager for new adventures. The Delphic maxim says: ‘Do not mock the misfortunate’, so, don’t hurry to judge us, since as the Lord says: ‘Don’t judge, so that you will not be judged.’ So, if the voyeurism or pornography as erotic intercourse is something that can inspire people and give us a motive to be covetous of life, then why not? Pornography is a conspiracy in the candlelight of the stars and a photography as sign of the times, it means rebellion, desperation, darkness and magic”.

“Now, let us be serious here… you are asking me a sexual intercourse in public view. I agreed to do you a favor, but such a request exceeds too much the ordinary path, is an exaggeration and for us titans the motto of Euripides is valid: ‘Τα δ’ υπερβάλλοντ’ ουδένα καιρόν δύναται θνητοίς’[78]”.

“It is not hyperbole for us, but a new beginning, a new pulse of heart, a buzz and a thumping of the artery for all to see and admire the wonders of earth and love …”, was heard from the depth of the ballroom, where the Martian Astraeus popped and leapt out, a big-sized lover with a huge belly that paradoxically was not repulsive but appealing and an woodpecker organ corresponding his formidable dimensions, he was the punching fist and the fulfillment of Law Chasm. He was tall and stout, two meters ten centimeters, overweight and obese, but the calculation of his kilos was not one of this dizzy moment’s priorities. Why was he not repelling others despite the belly? Because it was entirely clean, shining and flawless, unstained, without scars from wounds, warts, pimples and swellings.

Some began to cheer with goggled, greedy and encouraging eyes, other seemed scandalized, other appeared distrustful and reserved and other appealed to the intruder Terran titan to go straight back to hell, from where she had apparently emerged.  

“The fate of our people depends on that. We like what we see, let it proceed, we want to watch it!”

“How is this going to benefit us? If they do it, it is good for them, what have we to gain?” 

“Titanis, go back home, get your ass to your own people and let us be!”

“Titanis, you offend us, unless you are willing to do it with me instead of Astraeus!”  

 “What are you?” an impressed Eos addressed Astreaus, “Are you the guardian of the temple, are you the templar?”

“Should I willy- nilly hold an office, Titanis? Should I obligatorily represent an institution? Is it not enough that I am a horny fornicated aroused Martian? Is it not enough that those around us look up to us hoping to begin a new life, sensual but not less Christian, compatible with love, summarized into the ecological precept ‘make love, not war’?”   

At this point it is imperative to talk a little more about Eos. Her weakness for the mortal, small-sized and meager men is well-known. You all have seen her frescoes, depicting an enormous woman grabbing a small man like holding a baby to take him to her lair for the usual procedure. The taken at each particulate time is not a star of some kind, usually nobody knows him, but nevertheless he enjoys the favor and the preference of the huge bossy matron. On the contrary, the big men were not of her liking at all, because he saw them more as antagonists and opponents in battle, villains coveting confrontation, usually described with the barbaric designations “bully, hillbilly, redneck, rascal”, words of both mysterious and unwanted etymology, than lovers. So, he envisaged also this putative presumptuous lover as an opponent, as a challenger posing her in front of a great deed or labor, a mountain she was tasked to overcome, a seaweed monster she had to face.  On the other hand, she could not confront him in battle, because she owed the leaders of Law Chasm for allowing Dino-Pleustus to cross their territorial waters, and had promised to carry on this strange assignment imposed on her. This mission reminded the children’s fairies, where the king asked someone to make him laugh, and in fact it was just that. Fancy someone to assign you the task of giving him again the joy of life, without compromising his religion or beliefs. Summarizing and coordinating all those reasons, Titanis decided in the end to condescend to this “gender act”, proposed to her by the Martians almost peremptorily, after they usurped her kindness, her benevolence, her good-naturedness. But that did not mean that she was willing to sacrifice her morality. Alas, she did not feel any moral commitment towards her previous lover and now multiply crippled and monstrous Tithonus- such fidelity could only be considered as a joke or a travesty under the current circumstances -, but rather towards the moral principles that all the ancient world explored and developed manically. But how would she reconcile all abovementioned factors?  To be continued on zour screens.      

The feverous, horny, fire-cracking bulk -God, it is already hot today- fell on her in an effort, not only to seminate, to germinate but also to humiliate her. His mighty hand dropped heavily on the neck of the Titanis, on the larynx and her carotid like an iron bar and a sledgehammer threatening to crush her. The Titanis, however, heaved her elbows, as she had learnt in the Martian arts, delivering dynamic blows on the chest and the stomach, ensuring the vital space which would allow her to rise again, even if the giant were to suffer from a heart attack or a sudden brain stroke and pressed her down with his incredible weight. Afterward, Astraeus seeing his male power being questioned, gave two or three slaps on the face of Eos to bring her to her senses and confirm his dominance, as only men know. To his great surprise, the Titanis answered with a karate chop on the back side of the Minotaur head, escorted by a thundering clap of the hands on both ears simultaneously, making the beast grunt.

“You stand down, step back, you, sanctimonious whore of Earth, and deliver what you promised. How do you dare hit me?”

«Ίνα γαρ δέος, ένθα και αιδώς. Αλλά τον αιδέομαι και δείδια. Τις μη δεδοικώς δίκαιος πέφυκεν βροτών;[79]», answered the Titanis without even to sweat.   

“You, wicked Terran, are you speaking of shame in a sexual act?”, Astraeus got indignant and vexed. “Let me implement on you what is valid since the ancient times, let me exercise on you the right of the stronger, let me ordain you as my priestess in the way you deserve according to the holy unchangeable traditions of men!”. 

«Το απ’ αρχής ανυπόστατον ου βεβαιούται ως δίκαιον τη χρονία παραδρομή»[80], answered the Titanis.

 The act of gender, also an act of evil genius, as well as a competition of hate and hatred with merciless beating and blue contusive bruises continued. It was apparent that the fat giant tried to penetrate the daughter of Earth in any conceivable way, but his enormous pole was repelled, chased and ejected by the excessively tight pudendum of Eos, who had the ability and the training to control it and tighten it at will. The seriously wounded egoism of the huge man continued incessantly the attempts of invasion, because the Titanis irritated him even more, as long as she resisted. And she had such a wild beauty with her loose curled locks of hair, her tall stature, her hanging but strong cow breasts and her endless legs, the copper- colored rose-ankle fluorescent figure, chiseled in the rim of the starlight. In the end, however, the huge dragon uttered a frustrated voice and retreated.

“Aaaaah” he moaned.

He turned to the assembly of the Law Chasm, where one could only see saliva flowing from doddering lips and goggled eye-bubbles like eggs with a microscopical stigma on the shell. Like eggs, just as eggs -let it be of an ostrich- and not rocks were the testicles of Astraeus which in the mercy of the superior female proved to be fried eggs, egg rolls, egg whites, devil eggs, omelet eggs, poached eggs, benedict eggs,  steam eggs, scotch eggs with or melt yellow cheese or rice or bacon or corn, with yoghurt or quark or tomato or caper.

“Assembly, I strongly protest before you. This barbaric, rude and cruel Titanis repels me as if her fissure were hermetically sealed. She let on purpose my manhood to intrude up to a certain point, then she closed her pudendum and almost split it in half! Is this the joy of life promised to us? Finally, you, manslaughter, man- deceiver and marriage-wrecker, what kind of a creature are you?”

“I am a barbarian; you said it yourself. Just as barbaric is the gender act, if it is not escorted, animated and completed by feeling. It seems that you yourselves have never studied the Scriptures of your religion, that is why, what you are afraid of most of all is your own founder. Have you not read that procreation, impregnation and fertilization without love is ‘sounding brass and tinkling cymbal?’ Of course, I as a titan with many incisions on my sword from many killings -all in battle- and a lot of cuts on my chest – all in front just like Socrates in Potidaea, I am certainly not the right person to teach you the love that your religion preaches, besides I wouldn’t want it, because I believe steadfast that ‘to whom belongs the country, belongs also the religion’. However, I wanted to show you that, as Menander said: “ουδείς εφ’ εαυτού τα κακά σύνορα σαφώς, ετέρου δε ασχημούντος όψεται”[81]. You endeavored to exploit my helping mood, and I proved to you that this is not possible, or else has a price and many consequences. How you are going to approach love is your own affair. As I said, we titans are not specialized in that, although we take pride that we are doctors of many sciences. Yet a good road and a good way of love is perhaps the feeling of shame, to be ashamed, thus, also to respect the other before and afterwards your interaction begins. I have a snapshot of classical Greece to offer you: “Πυθιάς η Αριστοτέλους του φιλοσόφου θυγάτηρ ερωτηθείσα ποίον κάλλιστον χρώμα, έφη το δια την αιδώ τοις ελευθέροις επιγιγνόμενον”»[82].

          Later, Matriarch Cratesipyle bid Eos farewell.

“Rose-fingered and saffron -veiled Eos, we thank thee.  Thou gave us what we asked for, moreover indirectly, according to the tradition of the Paladion. In our blindness, arrogance and self-conceit, we asked for an inappropriate thing, but with your wisdom you understood that we needed another medicament, and you provided us with it. Forgive us for trying to manipulate you. Yet, you were the only one who could disrupt the manipulation and see through our suggestive, spurious, almost autistic behavior things that we ourselves never suspected. I believe that adding shame to our attitude, as you have taught us, we will be able to experience Christianity”.

          “It is amazing, if you consider that I have no education whatsoever concerning that religion. I do not know the Evangelium, but sometimes an external factor with a fresh view-angle applied on the subject, understands maybe more than the believer who had so immerged into it that he can no longer distinguish the commandments of the religion from his own needs”.

          The Matriarch and the Titanis shook hands in the old way, one embracing the arm of the other above the elbow.

          “I hope that Astraeus did not take offense at my actions”, said Eos laughing.

“He told me to convey the message to you that you are the victor in the private little war between you. So, rest on your star- embroidered bed, warrior Eos, knowing that you tamed the greatest beast, the mightiest champion of Mars who knows also to bend the knee and to bow before his betters”.        

CHAPTER 18:

THE BEASTS OF MARS

Opening remarks of the chapter: We all have heard about the Eleusinian mysteries to honor Demeter and her daughter Persephone. To avoid repetition, as well as unsubstantial and unnecessary details, we refer to any manual concerning Greek mythology. From the infinite things that one could go through, but has neither the time nor the mood, is that the entrance examination for someone to be enlisted to them was named Minor Eleusinian. This took place in February in Athens (near today’s Panathenaic stadium). Then, the preliminary indoctrination was made for those who would be the future acolytes for the Great Eleusinian mysteries. So, the potential adepts sacrificed to the Goddess and the daughter Persephone, purified themselves and received some initiating information or guidance for what was about to happen. The Great Mysteries began on 14nth of the month Boedromion (third month of the Attic calendar, devoted to God Apollo, lasting from the first Moon of August until the new moon of September) in Athens and ended in Eleusis after nine days (a reference to the nine days, during which Demeter searched for Persephone before she returns to the Underworld).

During the festivities nobody could be arrested whatever the charge. The adepts were strictly forbidden to reveal what they saw or heard in the processing of the Mysteries. Due to this strict secrecy, we know nowadays very little about what happened in this ceremony. All we know are the three words signifying the procedure of the Mysteries: Acted, demonstrated, recited. These three words mean things that were done (ceremonies), things that were shown (holy objects), and things that were said (holy words). Whoever dared to violate the pact of silence, was subjected to a death penalty.

The heroes of the present story, however, living in the time of Titanomachy, knew that the Eleusinian Mysteries were a neuropsychic therapy, a series of healing tactics for the soul, implemented not only in Eleusis, but in all Asclepieions (ancient healing temples) of Greece. The latter were in fact psychiatric therapeutic centers, ideal for the staggered nerves and the psychic exhaustion of the space era people, who lived incredibly fast, hastily and constrainedly in an extremely complicated and frustrating environment, in a boiling and inflamed world.

One of the Mysteries’ methods was to expose the patient to optical and acoustic stimuli, random arbitrary increase- decrease and uncontrollable projections of sound and light. The patients-acolytes were lying on properly clothed benches and padded tables and let radiation from roof- hanging quartz lenses flood their bodies. After a while, the brain began to slow down and the glandular balance to tip. The radiation tinkered gradually with nerves, reflexes and metabolism, while a pleasant exultation occupied the body as sweet numbness.  

It was called “Damalis” and meant homecoming, return journey to the redeeming primitivism. To free themselves from the sickness of stress amid conflicting circumstances the adepts took refuge into zoomorphic conditions that provided them with a mitigating psychic alibi. It is not only allowed but also presupposed for animals (Damalis) to follow and surrender to the inner commandments of their instincts, to lose themselves in the languorous orgasm of a cow, and thus through the pertinent sensual decompression to avoid worse situations, i.e. psychosis, sexual perversion, depression. So, it is said that when the queen of Cyprus, namely Aphrodite, when she perceived that some of her priestesses showed fear and aversion towards the male sex, i.e. an unforgivable androphobic behavior, especially for her standards, «αυτάς μάχλους ειργάσατο»[83] to overcome their phobia. Of course, this therapy had also side effects, since as Hesiod says: «Είνεκα μαχλοσύνης στυγερής τέρεν ώλεσαν άνθος».[84]

In the best of cases, through escape into primitive life the well-fed rosy bodies of the adepts ended up playing and quarreling amid the trees, incongruously dressed in sheepskins and colored rags, and their only care was henceforth food, love and decoration of the woods with laces and fancy ribbons. In the worst of cases, the women who feared the men and the men who feared the women like Hippolytus were possessed by insanity and hysteria, trotted as Apollodorus says about the daughters of Proetus, whom we are going to mention again in the followingly recounted “Complete Titanomachy”[85], singing day and night and eventually returning home at some hour,  disheveled, raped and molested with shredded clothes. So, sometimes in that epoch, the believers of “Damalis” went extremely back on the evolutionary long ladder (“damals” as the German say), from where there was no inversion or new redirection to the healthy state, as the automated global positioning system does, and that is essential for the continuation of our story.  

So, reader, will you be surprised if you learn that Eos was addicted to “Damalis”? You should admit that this escape into primitivism was fitting for her to elude the current torturing worries of the present. In an environment of primordial jungle, it was easy for her to exercise her muscles at the expense of the other society members without remorse, inhibitions or other behavioral deterrents or safety valves, defined in the moral codex of the titans.

In a country of the Red Planet called Lithonion, Eos followed a Martian, Trophonius, into the ancient desert seas, the dry dead sea bottoms, the barren and wasted pits of darkness, the strained wringed wells, presaging the future drainage of the Nautical Ocean of the Navigators. Ribs of chalk and coral gleamed here and there, pushing through the lichens like bones through the dried skin of a man long dead.

Among the mountain- foots and the dead sea there was a city, low, amphitheatrical, always dropping, following the receding water down the slopes of the old coasts. From this height one could see the outlines of five harbors, their great stone docks still standing, enduring time, but where the sea would normally begin, now gaped the emptiness, from where one slipped onto the lower built harbor as foot, fundament or oblique extension of the previous one and so on. These anchorages were abandoned successively, as the sea receded deeper, until it disappeared completely through the fissures of the ground. Houses were built to fill up the intermediate gap, but they too were abandoned in their turn for the transition to an even lower level. We saw something like the seven cities of Troy, structured one over the other, not discovered by an archeologist’s pickax though, but through sinking of the ground and geophysical corrosion. Now, the sparsely inhabited town coalesced along the lips of the abyss, where there were still buried springs and gargling water, the bottom of which led and poured its content to the Nautical Ocean or rather to what was left of it, since, as it appears, Mars has been in the past a blue planet, but now evolved to a barren surface and domain, a presage of future desertification, even without a heat wave. There was something infinitely sad about that thin dark line of the hairy mossy walls around the last carcass of a previously far more extended ocean. 

When they descended deep down, the wind blew thin and dry and dust rose in clouds around their feet. The town spread ahead, dark and stony, sprawling upward towards the cliffs, cold in the eerie light of the twin moons of Mars. And the city’s name, as Trophonius said, was Pros- Eleusis (place of arrival) or Pros- Erpusa (creeping) and through word corruption Proserpina, because whoever searched for it either came forcefully or crawled to it with desperate expectations or expected desperation. 

They walked beside still black water, on paving stones worn hollow by the sandaled feet of countless generations. Even at this late hour, Pros- Eleusis or Pros- Erpusa did not sleep. Torches burned yellow against the chilly night. Somewhere, a double-banked harp made strange music.

Lithe lean men and silent women with catlike fiery provocative gaze watched clandestinely from the high windows Trophonius and Eos. On the narrow- paved uneven streets of the old Mars the particulate sound of the low canals was heard, the rustle from the rich- flowered wreaths – coverings of men and the lustful music from the whispering and chiming little bells that the women wear, braided into their dark hair, hanging from their ears, chained around their ankles.

This Pros-Eleusis that could under the proper circumstances turn into Pros- Erpusa was a rotten and corrupted town, ancient and wanton, but not exhausted or scooped out, because behind the walls the pulse of life thumped and throbbed, strong like the knocker of a door, hot like an erotic exhalation. Trophonius installed Eos in a prayer chapel built of carved stones, bent or undermined or even sucked from within by the burden of history to the point of becoming hollow. Here, it is obvious that many travelers, tired from the journey, enthusiastic visitors in view of the drug -administering with a twisted mind at the prospect of the debauchery, prosperity and excess, lovers and rivals had lived and loved and died in violence. The blood and tears of centuries had dried in the cracks inside Cyclopean walls. The rugs, the tapestries, and the furnishings were worth a fortune as antiques. Their beauty sometimes stressed the opaqueness of waste, other times the brightness and the glitter of the relentless emery of time.

“Titanis, rose -ankle, rose-petal, saffron- veiled etc., you are clearly not satisfied with the version of ‘Damalis’, destined for the tourists and offered in the great cities, but you long for something more powerful, that is to taste the life-changing experience in its insuperable potence. So, I commit myself to granting you what you paid for”.  

“To say the truth, Hypo- Trophonius (undernourished)”, said       Eos, constructing a pun from the telltale meagerness of the Martian race, “the quartz crystals that you provide in the commercial and developing cities are a big fraud. Their illumination does not reach deep into the veins to cause the bubbling and the fever of the primitive life”.

“Don’t you worry on me, big-sized matron, sturdy, voluptuous and well-formed – γεραιτέρα- [86] lady, there is a very big gem where I am going to lead you, one of the three oldest and most unwrought ever that have remained in Proserpina. It has been carved by the old ones, only they knew the secret of the material’s effect and the plump but nevertheless ingenious cut of its sides. Sparks with invisible energy like light, immensely more influential and multi-appliable, are emitted from the roof and flicker on the stone walls of the bestiality’s cell. Gold and orange and greenish blue little flames, the set the mind on fire and burn the heart.”

   “If that is the case, you, ungodly, impious, stingy and avaricious merchant, petty pitiful pathetic salesman, counterfeiter, peddler and commuter, falsifying forger, what is the stuff that you sell in the big cities of the present, what kind of radiation is the one crossing the crystals of your commercial centers in the prefectures’ capitals, which is supposed to bring alacrity to your suckers paying customers?”    

“As I have told you, the secret of the projectors is no longer accessible. It is some kind of cosmic radiation. We have replaced the prisms with ordinary quartz crystals, releasing and channeling enough radiation to have a significant effect, enough to be attractive, but also tolerable and harmless for commercial use.”

“You, who are you, if we may ask?”, wondered the Titanis.  

The laugh of Trophonius was heard malignant and malevolent like the one of hyenas. “Terran, we … Mars!”.

Once more, the inconceivable complexity and infinite quantity of the conflicted interests within the solar system crossed Eos’ mind. Despite the Olympian gods’ occupation, one should never forget that Mars never identified itself with Earth but had its own targets. Mars (Ares) had its own religion, a kind of diabolical gods like the Olympians, perhaps that was the reason for accepting their dominance unprotestingly, while of course some parts of it had adopted Islam- Christianism which never is absent in any part of the universe, being the salt and the spice of every world. The new people across the solar system used to accuse the titans of their identifying characteristic that, to know something, felt the urge and the tendency to enter and penetrate it, to conquer, to grope their way, to explore it from within. While the Olympian gods were way more unhesitating and far worse than the titans, the new people colonizing the solar system accused the latter! They mocked and ridiculed mercilessly the tendency of the titans to improve somewhat the world through their Delphic precepts and their philosophical questions in the name of the equivalence of all traditions, promulgating that the titans had no right whatsoever to intervene in the practices of other peoples, other nations, other planets, even if despicable atrocities were conducted in them, since they should respect the local customs and traditions! Surely, any kind of offensive war to propagate … democracy is condemnable, but a reasonable fight with modest, moderate and moral means for more justice and equality should be allowed to the titans, as it was allowed according to the standpoint of the new people to commit innumerous crimes within the territorial integrity of the societies invoking their tradition. This inference is fortified and affirmed furthermore by the fact that every cultural tradition often develops and turns into nationalism or religious fanatism, which are entirely offensive streams tolerating and accepting nothing different. So, eventually, sooner or later, the nationalists and the religious fanatics will not restrict themselves to their territory, but they will attempt to spread around their “truth” to the whole ecumene. That doesn’t mean that we support any kind of preventive war against them, but they should somehow be made aware and assume responsibility for their actions beyond the stale ramshackle justification that they follow their tradition, that this is what “their God” has taught them. After all it is valid what Epicurus said: “I despise gods for evident reasons” and “not the one is unholy that questions the gods of the many, but the one who connects the opinions of the many to the gods”. During discussions with enthusiastic young men, who criticized the fighting and indomitable mentality of the titans and sided with the various nationalisms and religious fanatisms maintaining that the instrumental and penetrative logic of the titans is responsible for their genesis and promulgating publicly their right to be protected from any questioning, dispute or debate, Eos used to present the following argument: If on some planet there are eight hundred million crazy and looney- ticks, superstitious and nationalists, who slaughter each other in the name of their “truth”, even if it is revealed that behind all this the guilty is a capitalist, a virtuoso of wealth, who pulls the strings, calls the shots, plots and conspires for economic financial reasons making the nations gutting each other for the food of the master, and even if the particulate guilty croaks or is put to death… or to suicide, the madness and the paranoia will still remain, despite the guilty had been punished. And this planet will not be a domain, which became victim of economic exploitation, capitalism or imperialism or expansionism, but a planet, where fanatics dominate and exterminate each other, whose only difference that the ones have a black strap on the right side of the face and a white on the left, while their adversaries have the straps vice-versa. Then, the problem of the planet in question will not be capitalism, or expansionism, or economic exploitation, but nationalism and religious fanatism.  

When finally, Eos was exposed to the full radiation of “Damalis”, she felt it flooding her brain and observed her mind as it successively jolted, disgusted, revulsed, hid, surrendered, begged and in the end accept.

Flames danced, blazed down upon her and melted her flesh like a torch, incandesced and red-hotted her mind and her blood. There was no relation whatsoever with the triste pitiful substitute administered to the naïve tourists of the commercial and developing cities. The provided pleasure was scandalizing, dazzling, intoxicating, exciting, insuperable. The body of the warrior began to move in the thick mud, to wring within animal skins, to roll in hide- rugs, to wriggle with intensive convulsions, to immerge into the most unconfessed and unholy delights, to peel itself from above like a Hesperides apple, until only a core of unadulterated pleasure remained intact.        

From a certain point Eos was not sure about nothing, except of the harsh realization that she was in a big trouble and that her obsession to test the genuine “Damalis” was a bad idea. Her mind rocked, and there were periods of darkness. When she was conscious, she felt that her senses were obtuse, muffled and dull, and when she recalled her memories, they seemed to be more confused every time. Then, she thought that one of the stones had rolled back to reveal a screen or a keyhole of a voyeur, from where a dignified face looked at her, watching as she bathed naked in the radiating warm flame of the “Damalis”.

A woman’s face of a Martian, high-bred, with gentle and delicate stature, as if a doll of a samples’ glass vitrine gets alive through addition of abundant features and a coating of paintbrush and artistic pencil, arrogant brows, and red lips like a bitter-sweet passion fruit to kiss and bite greedily. Her eyes were dreamful, reflecting the distant haze of the morning sky, out- worldish, alien, proud, provocative, despising, scornful and challenging, unbeatable like death. 

Who was she? She tried to withdraw some knowledge from the troubled ocean of the mind. She should be Anthippe, one of the fifty female parliament members or ministers that ruled Lithonion in an alternating row and now it was her turn. Or were the fifty a council of electors, who elected Anthippe as the current hegemon? She could not remember exactly the constitution of Lithonion, everything was blurred and equivocal. And of course she didn’t recall all the names of the councilors, only that they represented every age gone through by a woman from the early years until she becomes a doddering old magpie. We, however, from the high watch tower or the low prompter’s box of the writer, can assist the memory of Eos reminding her and the readers of all the names of Lithonion’s major council. 

α) Aglaia, β) Aeschreis, γ) Anthea, δ) Anthippe, ε) Antiope, στ) Argele, ζ) Asopis, η) Elachia, θ) Heliconis, ι) Exole, ια) Epilais, ιβ) Erato, ιγ) Euboea, ιδ) Eubote, ιε) Eurybia, ιστ) Eurypyle, ιζ) Eurytele, ιη) Hegesippe, ιθ) Hesychia, κ) Eone, κα) Hippo, κβ) Hypocrate, κγ) Iphis, κδ) Calametis, κε) Kerthe, κστ) Clytippe, κζ) Laothoe, κη) Lyse, κθ) Lysidice, λ) Lysippe, λα) Marse, λβ) Meline, λγ) Menippe, λδ) Nike, λε) Nikippe, λστ) Olympusa, λζ) Panope, λη) Patro, λθ) Praxithea, μ) Procris, μα) Proole, μβ) Pyrippe, μγ) Stratonike, μδ) Terpsicrate, με) Tiphyse, μστ) Toxicrate, μζ) Phyleis, μη) Chryseis, μθ) Xanthis, ν) Oria.

Of those, the most hideous and infamous was of course Aeschreis, so much so that in that era the names had a specific weight and a moral imprint, while Exole and Proole were also guileful and unreliable just as their name (destruction) signifies. Of course, all were distinguished in the erotic … riding (hippodrome’s) achievements, that is why most of them had in their name the word “hippos” except of the current leader Anthippe, which apparently was the opposite of the “hippos”.

  She spoke to her with a siren’s voice, mild, kindly, mellifluous, full of sweet and relentless magic.

“Titanis, fat vixen, are you happy now, as you feel the orgasm of a cow surrounding you from everywhere?”

“Yes”, she said with audacity and erotic dizziness striking down her buttocks on a spot, however, where no Priapus existed but only the grim stones and an illusion of hedonism channeled through internal images. Afterwards – and that is a cute and humorous snapshot –she was suddenly illuminated by a flash of shame and titanic shyness, so she completed her sentence pumping up a phrase from the most forgotten drawings of her education: «Ή βαρύ φόρημ’ άνθρωπος ευτυχείν άφρων[87] (Αισχύλος)»

Anthippe burst into sarcastic laughter.

“You are strong, you bloody shrew Eos. You are a good beast of burden, a pack animal to load, an exemplary and ideal porter for carrying baggage and freight, a coachman’s donkey not panting and not gasping under the weight of the shipment. You will amuse us enough until you retro-evolve or devolve to the level of an ape or rather a gorilla in your case, from those that the Phoenicians have spotted in Africa. I bet without fear or hesitation that you have the necessary vital saps and juices to live as long as it takes, and I am looking forward to the moment when you reach the end of your search. So, begin to crawl down with the belly, lick the stones of Mars like a slug, which, since Mars is far older than Earth, were there even before the apes of Earth learn to walk”.

The crowd watching the impious show were more than excited and off the hinges in a delirium tremens out of perverted revelry, some of them caressed their pudenda or even masturbated.

“Whip her, prickle the ape, o what a powerful robust female gorilla that is, make her roll on the ground! What thighs, what mighty legs, what long feet. Make the Damalis (‘cow’ in Greek) crawl before us, make the subaltern low life, the outsider, the whore, the concubine of Earth bow before the grandeur of Mars!”   

Despite the ostensible cutting off every sense, a wild mob howl deafened her.  But where was she? In a zoo of spectators -voyeurs?

She suddenly realized that she was not anymore in the stone chamber, but in the open crawling in the tradition of Pros- Erpina followed -escorted by a crowd moving like one supple creature, animated by the hilarity of the Couretes and the Korybantes. Had this rogue and savage crowd even paid for a ticket? Surely, they had not left their personal items in the vestiary of the entrance, since torchlight flashed from knife-blades, spears, jewels and shining glitter and the small chiming bells, and the points of the deadly spiked knuckle-dusters. Moreover, long black tongues of whips appeared in the hands of some, who did not hesitate to use them imprinting a geophysical map of red cracks on the perfect alabaster back of the Titanis, since, as we have pointed out, until then all the scars and the wounds were located on her chest, on the front side.  

          And they pricked and incised her body, with whips and knives and pointy spikes, but also her spirit with jeering and mocking, so that she may crawl on the roads of Pros-Erpusa under the surveillance and the leadership of one of the fifty princesses, a younger this time, who knows who among the many she was, in a procession like the Sorrowful Way of Christ, except that in the sky did not weep a sad moon, but raced and laughed shrill like hyenas the two vicious and vengeful ones of Mars.  

            Eos of course fought them, she tried desperately to come to grips with any of them, even to scratch some exposed flesh, but each way she turned she was met by the lash, the blade, the crippling kick and the hovering spittle. Blood ran like a river, the blisters on the back multiplied and there was no scientific doctor to rub an ointment or apply a classic plaster for absorption of cysts and bubbles, a vesicant (eating glove in Greek).

She craved to kill, and the lust of killing was redder and stronger within her than her blood that was spilled or was about to dart. She tried to hook or angle herself from something, but the hooks were external and tore her body; she wanted her hands to become engraved scissoring daggers, but the daggers were external and cut her incessantly, thrusted into her. She wanted to whip someone, but she reeled under the pain of whip blows, she was torn and driven back, dragged down by the lashes curled around her throat.

They let her run along the crumbling paths, up and down the twisting alleys that reeked of ancient crime, but not too far to be able to escape to the abandoned canals and the freedom of the sea bottom beyond. Here, at the absolute bottom, although the harbor was younger due to the vertical corrosion, the devastation was more intense. It was only logical that the inhabitants dwelled in the more ancient layers of the town, because they were closer to the sun, just as the sprouts of the plants get taller to meet the invigorating radiation of the star. Here, at the dregs and the sediment of the world, one saw rusted extensions and threatening protrusions that caused tetanus to the titans, imposing looming docks with the oxidated stripped roasted decayed bollards and the scars of moored ships still on them, oblique and bent on the dust, the mud and the sand.  

There was no life here, it got lost or migrated to the higher layers, the superior levels, the upper sediments searching for the sun. The wind had scoured and polished the empty houses, smoothing the corners to roundness, hollowing the doors and windows.

They walked here upon the bleached bones of their planet on thick dust and marble piers where the archons of Mars had moored their galleys, and later the ir sailing sand-ships, of which the very marble was shattered under the heel of time. In all the scenery there was no sound but the whispering of little bells that was like a silent litany entering already into a creepy and unpredictable twilight zone and is afraid to be heard. The young princess with an expression at the apogee of impudence led the irresponsible crowd, unaccountable for its actions. This whole messy situation with the princesses of Mars has gone too far; they had become too unrestrainable and that contravened every sense and every concept of law and order heeded by the Titanis. With a frozen belly and lungs panting and gasping for air, she had still the strength to confront her tormentors with her views, addressing particularly the princess:

“And Creon asked: ‘Ου του κρατούντος η πόλις νομίζεται;’[88] And Aimon answered: ‘Καλώς ερήμης γ’ αν συ γης άρχοις μόνος’”.[89]

“Δημώναξ ερωτηθείς πότε ήρξατο φιλοσοφείν, ‘ότε καταγιγνώσκειν”, έφη, “εμαυτού ηρξάμην’”.[90] That was what Tithonus monologued, as he entered unmapped territory to find and bring Eos back. “I shouldn’t let her leave. What kind of an expedition member are you, Tithonus?” he said and laughed at his impotence. What kind of mission’s lieutenant are you? He thought and laughed even more. What kind of a lover are you, albeit an ex? He asked himself and there he burst out laughing. Do not worry, never fear mighty Titanis, I, the deformed one from the laundry bucket …  eh sorry of the resuscitating chamber, I will save you! O my goodness, what is this strain, today, he reflected. I keep telling jokes on the row, hopefully it will turn out for my good! But it serves us right, since we tried to find an easy way to continue our relationship.

These and those Tithonus mumbled and ruminated, as he pushed painfully his long right leg in front of his left one dragging itself. And, since he did not deign to hold a cane or clutches or wear knee braces and move like a lame duck, he moved right and left his right hand with the small finger – thorn and his left claw to achieve a precarious balance on an irregular ground.

“If you demand that the others are held accountable for their actions, you should first assume your responsibilities”, the wretched cripple continued to encourage himself with titanic maxims, of Solon in the particulate case. But Solon said also: “One will learn to rule, only if one learns to be ruled”, while Bias Priineus maintained that “power shows the man”, also Sophocles in Antigone, he reminded to himself. 

          Tithonus minded his footsteps Not only was his invalidity dangerous, but also the fact that the ground, which he tried to cross, was uneven and sloping, since, as we said, he was forced to immerge like Schliemann into a depth of seven cities to reach the level where Eos was incarcerated. His movements were sluggish, his bunions pained him – because he had those, and crow’s feet at that! – which turned over when he encountered protrusions, and the pointy rocks almost pierced the shoe- soles, as if they didn’t exist.   He went downhill continually without to change the surrounding element, e.g. from air to water, but maybe in a sense he changed  the sensual environment, since in the down rows and bands the air was much more dense, infectious, sickly than the thin sparse atmosphere of the surface, as if all the microbes sat upon the bottom of Mars since the time of its bloom, historically placed way before the corresponding one of Earth until the era, whichever that may be, when our story unfolds. He rushed downhill, stumbled and moaned falling sometimes with all his weight on pits and cavities, on broken pavements and over edges of ruined heaps that left bloody traces on his hands every time he touched or got pierced by sharp nails.   

    He left behind the great looming docks with the bollards and the relics of water- and sand-ships, where the dust of their own rust and rottenness licked their bases with waves, not liquid but sculptured. He had reached already four levels under the original chasm. Four harbors, four cities, four epochs had left in fading characters of stone, while the stuffy sultry sensation of antiquity tightened its iron ring around the inconsiderate visitor, who was among other things an individual of special needs.

He passed a place where houses had been built within the curve of a coral reef. He saw above him a sloping face of rock with reversed inclination, where no mountaineer could climb, not even goats could balance, but only bats were able to hang and creatures of dark crawl, whereby the unbendable hairs, the natural glues and the sharp nails come into play and allow every insect to walk on any type of surface. Finally, he reached a palace in the middle of the desert, a strange misspelling amid long-aged boustrophedon plowed scribbles, ancient for sure, but not so much, since it must have been built after the recession of the Nautical Ocean’s water from that area, which resembled the Meteors of the Thessalian plain, as could comprehend and attest all those who had the chance of being there. 

CHAPTER 19:

ANTIOPE, ANTHEA, ANTHIPPE, ANTI-ILLA

Tithonus entered the palace of the desert which had huge Dark Gates, wide-open, as if it feared no invader of any type. There were guards but they passed beside him indifferently, as if his invalidity and his peculiar external figure were a usual ordinary thing. In the beginning our man was astonished, but then he observed a crowd of quadrupeds with long arms and short legs wandering in the yards and winding through the pillars with swollen muscles, extended forward underjaw and eyebrows, thick hair on the chest and the limbs, mane on the nape of the neck and hollow eyes with the hard shine of naked survival and guile, signifying that they had no scruples whatsoever, as they exited to search for food.  These beings resembled him and emitted hatred and hostility. Alas, understood Tithonus, that was the outcome of the exposure to the radiation of Damalis.  Among the corridors a heterogenous crowd of inmates and zoo- exposures ambled around, and maybe the only specimens lacking from the ark were these women – mountains of fat, who walked around in the seraglios and composed the harems of the East rulers, the overlords of the Levante.

Within the general infuriation even he, the sweet and gentle, felt losing his composure and becoming ferocious, he sensed his larynx choked in dust and an irresistible thirst neither for water nor for electrolytes of energy drinks, but he rather found blood fresher and more appetizing! He remembered in the past, as he watched a movie with vampires and while in the interval a peddler was advertising his beverages, he asked him as a joke “do you serve blood?” Well now, blood with its suffocating intoxicating aroma seemed the most reasonable and accessible source to drink! Perhaps, he had already started to be affected by the primitive environment, by the biting and acrid smells, by the unbearable stench of the musk that made his flesh shiver out of instinctive revulsion. The genitals, the pudenda, the testicle’s sacs, the wrinkles of the scrotums and the folds or cavities of the peritoneum of all these drug-addicted creatures stank and reeked. Your mission, Tithonus, do not forget the mission! Concentrate, compress, decompress, continue! Remember that you always were at the service of civilization and sport, you were never good at revelry, but you always excelled and gathered laurels in work, there lied since ever your true vocation and inclination.   

He raised the eyes over the miserable wandering creatures and studied the corridor and the great halls of the palace, i.e. focused for a while on the wrapping, not on the content. Time had donated the chambers a somber beauty and a nostalgic patina and had smoothed and carved caressingly and mercifully the corners of the walls. The color-patterns of the mosaic floors were blurred due to the settlement of glass and natural enamel. The impression was conveyed that even the hardest diamonds worn, scratched and wasted becoming thin like a cigarette- leaf or as a brittle porcelain, an ancient black- or red- figured ceramic. The tapestries had been rubbed off with attached dried shit in the fringes, had grown frail with soft nuances of unspeakable melancholy.  

On the frescos, the friezes, the triglyphs and the metopes battle scenes were depicted, magnificent representations of Martian Iliads and Odysseys, optical reverberations or melodic images -attention the word “melodic” applies only to acoustical stimuli and is used here entirely consciously to complete the oxymoron figure of speech that connects sound and image. Extremely ancient cities with grandiloquent names were imprinted pictorially near seas, which we call neither blue nor azure, since it is said that the ancient Greeks could not distinguish the blue color, that is, “cyanic” meant to them simply something dark opposite to something bright that was called “glaucoma” or grey; they also saw the sea painted with the color of the wine as a “wine- dark sea”. High ships were demonstrated tall and haughty, shiny armors, imprisoned princesses who, as we know, teemed on Mars, with teared eyes, wide-open jaws and a mute grievance of protest. In every planet, reader, there are such memories from an undefined epic past that up to a certain point, if the respective pictures are few and not many, are worshipped rightly and justifiably and are deified as works of art, but if they exceed a given quantity and a critical mass, then are characterized as distasteful artefacts or cheap petty trinkets.

Since the whole scenery of the palace reminded him of a rendezvous resort, Tithonus profited therefrom and approached a great gate of forged beaten gold within a frame of cast iron. Despite the guardians, this great door opened and closed frequently; it seemed that not only the flute players, not only the servants, but also the beasts of Mars had free access. So, Tithonus found the chance to enter hiding in a pale light that shone- glinted irregularly, vagrantly, despondently and randomly on shields and weapons of dead kings warming them to new brief life, crossed the gloomy brooming darkness, just as the whispers and the imperceptive echoes disrupted the silence. Tithonus would never say “veil of silence”, because he didn’t like generative pretrained transformed expressions.

The sunbeams and the whispers led to a throne at the edge of the hall (ethusa), because as you have already understood, we were now in the room of the throne with the fireplace burning and emitting soot and ethane (also ethanol? Etho = burn in Greek).

The high seat itself was cut from a single block of black basalt and an old woman sat upon the throne, wrapped in a black cloak, half-blind with white spaced hair, wrinkled as one could ever be, with crossed hands of advanced arthritis like a mummy , with formerly bleached whitish flesh, but, as time went by, took a coloration of garbed leather and dry flesh.

Maybe, Tithonus without intention approached the throne more than the hiding place, the disguise or the camouflage of his invalidity allowed, consequently being registered by the radar of the decrepit old woman, who stretched her bony fingers towards him, uttering something between commend and curse, having so many wrinkles that she appeared to have mouths everywhere. Immediately, the guards declared their presence and stepped with their sandaled feet on the neck of the defenseless, stooping, bent down hunchback.

Then, the hyperaged princess, seemingly perceiving the origin of her prisoner, changed from Martian to Greek language.

“Get that beast, not because he came nearer to my throne than all the others, but because his damages exhibit a particularity compared with the usual consequences of ‘Damalis’. As a rule, when they are exposed to demonic light, they grow hair, their bones are reinforced, the flesh is hardened so much that no carnivore can enjoy it, the muscles are swollen and inflated, the brows over the ophthalmic cavities are heightened and lengthened even more, but all these symptoms retreat when the radiation ceases. Yet our friend here suffers more permanent damages and that can prove useful for us”. 

The guards began to put rings, manacles and chains to their victim and pierce tentatively his rough skin with their spears before they take him to prison, as archetypically the captors do to the captives for ages.

“Master lady”, said Tithonus, who had learnt for many years to address women more powerful than him, faithful to his genetic inclination and tradition as punching bag, “I beg of you, before you put me to prison and throw away the key as it is usually done in such cases, do me the honors to tell me, to announce me your name, just to know who you are among the princesses, which princess would be the possessor, owner and usufructuary of my freedom, or the one which will incarcerate me like the nightingale of the king and eavesdrop my chirping in the cage”.

“I am Procris, the eldest”.  

You needn’t clarify that, Tithonus thought in the inside. The cogwheels of his thought began to turn slowly, to wind around, to fit each other and touch one another with their dented spikes, thus, to gather energy and tune themselves.

“Graceful Procris, please, have the proclivity and the pleasure to tell me, how is the permanency of my wounds related to the effect of Damalis…”, at that point he interrupted, because he reckoned that it was finally to his interest, if the princess considered his deformation as a result of Damalis, since that was the perfect alibi   for his current presence, “or rather tell me what benefit could my permanent incapability to take care of my own affairs could bestow to you, beautiful and shining, venerable princesses of Mars”.  

The hyperaged princess, seeing that her interlocutor was both talkative and unexpectedly structured, considering his present condition, began also to ponder her own words a little more.

“I ask the questions here, you, limp lame fuck! Looking at you more carefully, I conclude that your harm has nothing to do with Damalis. So, why are you among us? In this residence we hospitalize only those who have paid to enjoy the drug, which is the registered trademark of the planet Mars. So, what do you seek here? It seems to me that your invalidity has made you very serious and exceedingly melancholic, as to search for the delight of Damalis”.

“On the contrary, my disability obliges me to find way out to fantastic worlds, to worlds where I can picture myself strong and robust, my unhealed deficits guide me to the thermal baths, the therapeutic centers of Asclepius, the wellness health-restoring foundations. Ι intend to submit myself to all kinds of introversion, self- inspection, autosuggestion, self- awareness and self- immersion, even via enhanced means of perception like narcotics and intoxicating substances. And, please, graceful mistress, do not deny me the property of the consequent client, because I would feel deeply wounded. I am a customer paying for all my passions and sins according to the principle ‘the polluter pays’, I have paid all the respective fees to ensure my immunity (oxymoron) and all the commercial developing cities of Mars have profited from my purse and pocket, so much so that my peculium is heavier as what it seems prima facie. Through the proper use of the substances, I am trying to be better. ‘Ου μόνον, ως έοικεν, ο γέρων δις παις γίνοιτ’ αν, αλλά και ο μεθυσθείς’,[91] said the divine Plato, also that ‘in vino veritas (wine reveals the truth), while Anacharsis said: ‘κιρναμένου κρατήρος εφεστίου, τον μεν πρώτον υγιείας πίνεσθαι, τον δε δεύτερον ηδονής, τον δε τρίτον ύβρεως, τον δε τελευταίον μανίας’.[92]                   

The doddering old princess frowned even more.

“Hm, hm. Can it be that your purpose is freeing or recovering some individuals from the Damalis’ phalanx covenants becoming addicted? Have you any fiancée or concubine, you, deformed hunchback, whom you want to save?”

At that moment, Trophonius entered moving his hide like a wagtail with a short skirt, folded, crossed and squared with various black and white stripes and clinging earrings on his pierced ears.  

“You did well to arrest him, archon. This abomination of the desert was the companion of the giant lady oaf, who is our new acquisition, the latest conquest and trophy of the Damalis”.   

“Well, I certainly suspected that”, said the old lady swollen like a turkey. “Not that the motive of each one matters, who comes to cradle in the Cymothoe (cerulean Nereid) of our gentle narcotic. We are condescending, accessible and affable to all. Come, creatures of the solar system, no matter what your origin is, let us trample underfoot your identities, let us crush your ego and consciousness under the millstone of our psychedelic substances. Our shop is open and are waiting for you!”  

“I just perceived your inconceivable wickedness and perversion to all its extent”, said Tithonus. “It is as if you simply destroy those people, who once upon a time were your clients, but, when you bestialize them, you put your hand in their wealth through false testaments or supposed bequests in favor of your foundation. You make them disappear, so that they may be declared missing or politically dead, and then, you take their place through various tricks, appropriating and seizing their belongings. Here the titans would say ‘the presence of just and prudent men is superior to wealth and gold-laced and embroidered luxury’ (Euripides) and ‘The wealth of the avaricious rejoices nobody, just like if the sun descended upon earth’ (Socrates)’.  

          “We don’t give a rat’s ass about what the titans would say”, said Procris. “Guards, you don’t even need to take this troglodyte to prison. Trophonius, escort him along with all other beasts of Mars, all these abhorrent, degenerate vultures and the greedy damned weasels into the fire of Damalis. I wish you a late regress to primitivism, cripple, lame and one-armed creature, amputated maimed, mutilated lobster- and crawfish-handed, may you delay in your process of becoming an ape again, so that you be a source of fun to us for a long time!”

          “Procris, why don’t you come along to look me in the eye, as I will slip into the twilight or the dusk of human nature? Or rather the right question is, if you are willing to come along, to enjoy your triumph and pillage the spoils corresponding to you out of the carcasses and the carrions of the living dead?”

          “Don’t worry, you, impertinent and insolent blunt-limbed one. If I am not present myself, one of my sisters will be there, ready to attend the humble ceremony of your brutalization!”.

The garden of Damalis was a vast bowl-shaped depression surrounded by tiers of seats, pews that despite the ancient attrition and rust as well as the entropy of the ruins preserved its magnificence. The steps of hewn stone rose up on the rock of the inner wall; shortly, the whole structure reminded of the Epidaurus theater, which of course all the universal descriptions referring to an amphitheater bear in mind.

In the arena, there was in fact a garden with wild tangled orgiastic vegetation, shrubs and bushes, but also taller trees like white- trunked birches or dense-leafed walnut- trees or ringed Adansonias (baobabs) or coniferous redwoods, closed in by a glassy transparent bullet-proofed wall that protected the spectators. Before he passes from the gladiators’ entrance, Tithonus thought that he made out moving forms without to distinguish them clearly, shadowy, undefined shapes like circumstantial incorporations of his cold foreboding. Reptilian screams and hisses, roars and moans were on the daily agenda. Around the arena the bleachers were suffocatingly full, while the throne in the middle waited still eagerly to be occupied by the buttocks of the princess in charge to attend the games.

Yet the starters and the umpires did not wait for the arrival of the leader but declared the beginning of the games with a strike on an idiophonic oscillating sonorous caldron (gong). Here, one would object that if gong had a Greek origin, it would have a shorter name than the above. Then use the words sounding brass, thunderbox, knock pendulum, tinkling cymbal etc. The mellow melodic notes and mellifluous vocals called all the animals to clash each other and behold- like some evil priesthood of dark and bloody mysteries, crude clumsy shambling anthropoid forms with their rank beast taint began to throng, splashing on mud puddles and breaking shrubbery with their dusty, arid, dirty- knuckled feet.

Only the perspective of the impending confrontation or its inception electrifying the air sufficed for the fear itself to become something chilly and black, and the horror to be filled with a material substance, as the energy of the battle emitted by the bodies was scattered and channeled all over the place. Every observer, even more if he was trapped with hands and feet undetachably tied in this descent into havoc to deny himself the reality of this nightmarish stampede, pyx-lax pancratium and disembowelment, to wish that he were blind and deaf, or better than that, dead. The apes of the woods were beating each other to death under the austere and disapproving gazes of the Martians who came to watch the antics of the plump untrained animals of an unaffable traveling actor troupe, the members of a zoo or a low-leveled animal fair or a low -budget frontier fiesta, so that they may confirm and reinforce their own spiritual and intellectual superiority.

As the degenerating, retrogressive, palindromic ricocheting radiation of the Damalis led the people to the past of their race and their genome, a pandemonium of ululations and groans filled the atmosphere and an uproar, a hubbub of human -and more horribly –nonhuman voices sheared the firmament, crying, almost expelling the larynx itself: Damals, Damals. The stomach convulsed, when one came nearer to the center of the anti- Epicurean Garden, καθώς as the flock increased and turned progressively into a festival of blasphemies and an orgiastic Walpurgis night of monsters and demons. There were those who hadn’t devolved much on the evolutionary ladder and remained human. But there were also others who had slipped down headlong in reverse all the stages of evolution behind and beyond the homo sapiens-sapiens, the merely homo sapiens or the homo idiotic, beyond Neanderthal, beyond the Piltdown Man, beyond Pithecanthropus Erectus, beyond every common or intermediate or missing link, and had become shapeless, shambling, hairy brutes, with flat deformed skulls and red- veined, capillary- grooved cunning eyes and broken bared sharp teeth grinning yellow, had been reduced to not classifiable beings, tending through advanced disorganization to something scaly, flabby and slimy made of viscous emetic liquid and mere straw that even the anthropologists had never seen or dreamed of and had no intention of acknowledging, behind the stage of the mammals, back to the gills and the scales, the bifurcated tongue and the crawling of the belly, the egg left to hatch in the hot mud.

At that time Tithonus located Eos coming towards him timidly like an animal with tears fat like plums and a muffled sob like weep. She stood in the sunlight confused, terrified, lost and tired, savage and magnificent, being always an excellent top sample of the female sex. She hadn’t changed too much towards primitivism, on the contrary her breasts and buttocks had become even more round, her legs and arms even more powerful and muscular, as if every development or degeneration adapted and weaponized her even more for the requirements of a sexual act, maybe even fortified and harnessed her for the needs of a future procreation or the ensuring of bearing able-bodied and sound-limbed children. Her body presented itself strong, lithe, sensual, more beautiful and attractive than ever, free from the conventionalities and the exaggerating conscious freedoms of her titanic education.

Tithonus felt also affected by the radiation of the Damalis, which caused sweet goose bumps on the skin, a strange hunger and a deep lust on the flesh, an awakening, an erection and a stirring of the beast lurking very close to the subcutaneous surface. The hug of (every) woman seemed to him a wet vagina or a bosom-like bay of a lake, where he would cradle, or a caring receptive womb, where he could breathe rapaciously with his gills. Yet for some reason, he felt that the radiation could not reach a point of total degeneration as far as he was concerned, because the already deformed fears no deformation, just as the soaked one is not afraid of the rain, the low-growing dwarf does not dear fear the soil, the winter flower- the hibernation, the frozen ones- the snowing glacier  (where the chilblains are ruptured), the pig-coverer -the one night stands, the effeminate young man -the scorned kiss-off, the terminally ill the- death, and the already shitted – the toilette.

 At that moment, the princess in charge came for the ceremony. Her hair was the color of night after moonset, intricately coiled. She was dressed in arrogant fashion with a long full skirt slit to the waist at the sides, so that her thighs showed when she moved; in the taille she belted a wide jeweled girdle, on the neck she hung a collar of golden plaques. Her breasts were bare and lovely with high tits like those of the Minoan women and she held in the hand snake- embroidered caduceus. Her lips were very red like these carnivorous plants with the intense coloration that drop mingled honey and poison to trap their games. She sat on the throne and seemed to enjoy at once the savagery of the brawls and fights conducted before her. She rejoiced so much that she closed the eyelids, which fluttered in rapid eye movement, as if she was dreaming. It was as if she absorbed every moment a piece of vital energy emerging from the jumble of the torn bodies, and that gave her wings. She seemed to reach an orgasm in the heat of the battle and when she opened her eyes, the pupil and the iris ostensibly disappeared, but a careful examination revealed that they acquired an intensive white- grey color, the color of apocalypse and knowledge, of some truth’s recognition – whose? – only she would know. 

Tithonus, who had hidden behind a tree near the periphery of the garden, pushing with great difficulty the voluminous and weak-willed Eos who appeared in a state of complete confusion, attempting among others to elude a big male with very distinctive sexual organ and with inarticulate ecstatic cries uttered from his larynx, shouted to the hegemon.  

“O boy, you are very young, you have nothing to do with the previous scarecrow that you included to my welcome -committee. Who are you, pretty beauty, if I may ask?”

“I am Argele”, answered the royal princess.  

“Well, forgive me, if I am at loss here. You, the fifty sisters, whom your father produced in a row and your mother baked in an assembly line one after another, should have a minimum age difference between you. How can you distinguish yourself and each other is a mystery! You for instance should have many sisters of approximately the same age”.  

“Sure, yes, Calametis and Stratonike, Kerthe and Terpsicrate, but also Asopis, Klytippe and Tiphyse are almost of the same age as I, that is why we played together, as we were little”, said Argele, puzzled with this permanently deformed homunculus or half-man.  

“Yes, yes indeed”, Tithonus thought giving with his long leg a Martian artistic kick to his grand ape antagonist, climbing at the same time, as far as he could on a branch, dragging and inciting simultaneously the hypnotized Eos to ascend too. What did he think? That in the universe of the titans, names were not randomly given, but they included meaning, just as the actions or the omissions bore a specific significance. Tithonus captured himself murmuring the names mentioned to him by the female archon, clapping hedonically his lips. 

“So, you have the names of Thespiades, o venerable Argele, of the daughters of Thespius and Megamede, during the era, when this legendary king assigned to Hercules to kill the Cithaeron lion”. Now Tithonus acquired greater self-confidence, because he had climbed the tree along with Eos and was in less danger. “How did it come to the mind of your father – a John Doe Martian archon – to call you that way? One would answer that the man had fifty daughters and should find names. If I were your godfather, I would give you the names of the Danaids, which I consider as more fitting to your swarthy epidermis. Personally, I have graduated from a Titanic university, where I was taught mnemonic rules to remember the magnificent female names, which are the horizon of the Creation, and not be forgetful of none. 

α) Agave, β) Adiante, γ) Adite, δ) Actaea , ε) Amymone, στ ) Anaxithea, ζ) Antheleia, η) Asceria, θ) Automate, ι) Autonoe, ια) Bryce, ιβ) Glauce, ιγ) Glaucippe, ιδ) Gorge, ιε) Gorgophone, ιστ) Dioxippe, ιζ) Dorion, ιη) Erato, ιθ) Evippe, κ) Evippeia, κα) Eurydice, κβ) Electra, κγ) Theano, κδ) Hippodame, κε) Hippodamia, κστ) Hippodice, κζ) Hippomedusa, κη) Iphimedusa, κθ) Callidice, λ) Celaeno, λα) Clite, λβ) Cleodore, λγ) Cleopatra. λδ) Cleopateira, λε) Mnestra, λστ) Nelo, λζ) Oeme, λη) Pyrene, λθ) Podarce, μ) Pylarge, μα) Rhide, μβ) Rhodia, μγ) Sthenele, μδ) Scaea, με) Stygne, μστ) Hyperippe, μζ) Hypermnestra, μη) Phartis, μθ) Chrysippe, ν) Ocypete”.

          Argele began gradually to wonder and ponder where this Quasimodo[93] -Man standing before her wanted to guide the discussion. It intrigued her so much that she almost quitted watching the bloody scenes unfolding before her. At the same time her hurry was genuine and conspicuous, as if she for some reason couldn’t wait to leave, as if she was under steam.

          “Why should we have other names? We are perfectly satisfied with the ones we have” she stated.  

          “Think it over, give it some thought”, said Tithonus laughing. “All we, who inhabit the ancient world, have the great advantage to be able to choose or change our name, and there are many wonderful conceivable and often unexploited options from our inexhaustible mythology. Fancy if you had the names of the Oceanids: α) Admete, β) Akaste, γ) Amphiro, δ) Asia, ε) Galaxaura, στ) Dione, ζ) Doris, η) Eudora, θ) Eurynome, ι) Europa, ια) Zeuxo, ιβ) Electra, ιγ) Thoe, ιδ) Ianeira, ιε) Ianthe, ιστ) Eidyia, ιζ) Hippo, ιη) Callirrhoe, ιθ) Calypso, κ) Kerkeis, κα) Clymene, κβ) Klytia, κγ) Menestho, κδ) Metis, κε) Melobosis, κστ) Nephele, κζ) Xanthe, κη) Urania, κθ) Pasithoe, λ) Peitho, λα) Perseis, λβ) Petriae, λγ) Plexaure, λδ) Plouto, λε) Polydora, λστ) Prymno, λζ) Rhodia, λη) Styx, λθ) Telesto, μ) Tyche, μα) Chryseis, μβ) Ocyroe. You will object of course that these are only forty-two. Never fear, they can also easily become fifty. Furthermore, since I do not wish to aggravate your nomenclature[94] in any way, if we subtract five names which are repeated twice both in you and in the Danaids as well as in the Oceanids, i.e. Hippo, Electra, Erato, Chryseis and Rhodia, we see that we are thirteen names short to complete the magic number of fifty. To avoid Nereids who are approximately hundred, let us borrow some nice and grandiose names from the satellites of the Great Planet -Jupiter, whose exact mythological origin eludes me momentarily. α) Adrasteia, β) Amaltheia, γ) Themisto, δ) Lysithea, ε) Thelxinoe, στ) Hermippe, ζ) Kallichore, η) Erinome, θ) Eukelade, ι) Megaclite, ια) Callisto. Add also two other names that happen to like, Avrakome[95] and Eurydome, and you become again fifty and I wish you to enjoy your health forever!”

“You, deformed hobgoblin, I don’t know what game you are playing”, said Argele, “but unfortunately, I have other obligations to commit elsewhere and I must depart. Nevertheless, you were very entertaining, maybe even equivalent to the sweated and stinking bodies who fight”.

   “Do not disturb yourself on my account, you, archon. I was entertaining, but not also reinvigorating, weren’t I? It does not matter. I bet my ancestral real estate and property that your next sister who will sit on the throne will be even younger and will have less need of reinvigoration than yourself. Isn’t it so?”

       Indeed, in a while, a younger royal princess, almost a teenager, sat on the throne.

          “And what could be your name? said Tithonus maliciously and sarcastically. “Usually, you speak names beginning with ‘alpha’, so that you may not be confused! Is it an unreasonable demand to say that you are Clytippe or Menippe or Nikippe or Lysippe or whatever is available regarding ‘hippos’ (horse) except Anthippe?”. Then, he steeped both hands forming a funnel or a crucible and shouted to the spectators”:

          “Now hear this! You are victims of an incredible hoax! The fifty princesses who rule you are in fact ONE. Exhibit a’: You have never seen neither on the street nor in close quarters more than one of them, not to mention that in the councils the entrance of the subjects is forbidden in any case”.  

          Thunderous Martian laughter followed this appeal. Most were pleased to have found another source of entertainment, although the princess had grown pale.

“Exhibit b’, onomatological: They have taken their names from the Thespiades. The heroical Heracles slept with all of them following the suggestion of their guileful father, who wanted to obtain sons from the inexhaustible power of the demigod, sons whom he himself had failed to sow, so that they might be vigorous like the son of Zeus and Alkmene. ‘Μίαν νομίζων είναι την αεί συνευναζομένην, συνήλθε πάσαις’.[96] Here, the case is reverse, but the logic is the same. Out of many comes one and from the one come many”. [97]

A commotion was felt as well as individual indignant screams which gradually conquered and fomented fanatism in the crowd. The very well-known mass psychology, where the presumably most suspicious, distrustful, perfidious and uncritical voice ricochets, receives feedback and grows in perpetuity, although in our case the truth exceptionally sided with the populist credulity.

“Bring along your sisters for us to see them, you princess, What -so -hippe!”

“Yeah, come all together like a chorus for us to hear you”.

“So, we pay taxes for fifty and there is only one?”

“What an infamy!  A democracy in words, but on fact the power of one woman!” (Pericles’ paraphrase)

Tithonus, seeing that the situation inclined to ridicule, while not hilarity, but rather indignation was to his benefit, continued unrestrained the revelations.

“Do not take it lightly! This is not a hoax without consequences. Your queen is an insatiable monster, fed on the meat and the energy of the Damalis’ warriors. That is how she ensures her youth, only that the effect is temporary. In a while she becomes once more an old witch and needs the elixir time and again, which is produced from the sweat and the blood of the drug-addicted reversing to the primitive life. For the time being, she exposes to the Damalis the foreigners and the visitors, but when she is out of raw material, then it will be your turn! Even worse, your consumption is already overdue. I am sure that you have already experienced among you many mysterious disappearances of beloved people. Sorry, they are not going to come back not now, not ever. But if you up to it, search for them here in the garden of the Damalis, maybe you ‘ll find someone looking like your relative, if you can discern him or her through the hairs of the eyebrows and the   cheekbones”.   

What made the words of Tithonus more credible was that the queen did not make any effort to cancel or discredit them laughing ironically, but on the contrary, she was seized by a mania directed personally against Tithonus, addressed exclusively to him. The final proof came when her features ceased to remain steady and began to fluctuate, as her metabolism got disturbed and the energy absorption from the dramatic events was interrupted.  

“You, disgusting minus- limbed midget, despicable half portion of a man, you are now doomed! I will take your fat cow Eos for my own use, and I will milk her energy forever and ever to be eternally young!”

Meanwhile, the general pandemonium had expanded. A part of the spectators had rebelled and caused riots, the guards were forced to turn against the spectators’ seats, leaving the railings of the garden unchecked, with the result that the Damalis addicted beasts of Mars jumped over them and poured indistinctively into the crowds. The gates leading to the interior of the arena were demolished and not one stick was left standing. Police brutality brought a reaction with the character of a political upheaval. Conventional ray guns and ceremonial spears or knives within sheaths or stuck at the side of the sentinels on adhesive rough hairy tapes (Velcro) on the one hand, i.e. on behalf of the power, nails, teeth and muscles on behalf of the retrogressive primitives of the Damalis. Hairy, scaly creatures darted here and there, biting, slashing and grabbing pieces of meat, ripping and tearing, snapping bones like matchsticks, pressing and cracking skulls with both hands, before they become themselves victims of the firearms and the miscellaneous blades flickered and brandished by the guards. As we know, violence causes violence and the result was an exaggerated escalation, where backbones and spines crushed upon knees and throats were twisted until the atlas of the neck cracked like those monstrosities which many of us mysteriously like to watch on the small or the large screen. Tithonus almost carried on his shoulders the hypnotized Eos, just as Aeneas did with his father, a very difficult task due to the weight of the personified Dawn and his own inferior paralyzing handicapped situation, and distanced himself hastily from the ground “zero”.

“Come back, you short-legged half-grown midget, thickset stocky fatso, give back the spoils you took”, the princess screeched demonically, focused sickly on Tithonus and ignoring the general pandemonium. Now, her age was undefined, her features fluctuated continuously in fast motion, perhaps along with her names from the list of the fifty Thespiades, but this time the vector was from the fictional elixir- based youth to the real, horrible and mummified old age.    

«Δολίως πράττει ο απαιτών όπερ οφείλει αποδιδόναι»[98], answered Tithonus, whose education was equally mobilized as far as his self-confidence grew and vice-versa, so much so that he saw all the teachings of the wise men that he had been taught in his early years to be verified.

“I will take Eos back, you, minced meat, hell-breed, stooped inferior rat, pitiful small-pecker minion, whom the cow used only to scratch and poke her nose”.

  «Εν ίση μοίρα κρείσσων εστί ο νεμόμενος»[99], answered self- confidently the smiling Tithonus.

“Guards, arrest him, arrest this abominable miasma, this deformed clown”, howled the rapidly changing queen, addressing henceforth non-existent, wounded or dead sentinels”.

“I am gone, catch me if you can, if you return me to your boss, you will be rewarded with a golden coin”, Tithonus mocked shamelessly.

Holding tightly the dizzy Eos, who was the symphysis of his nature, the condition of his existence and the guarantee of his survival, Tithonus retreated relieved far and away from the battle, behind the lines.

“I did it”, he said to himself, “and bloodlessly at that, I mean of course bloodlessly, as far as I am concerned. I didn’t kill no one and I am not to blame if the power of the Thespiade was based on such brittle foundations and shameless lies. Politicians, what can you expect! Chrysippus was right, as he said that: ‘I avoid politics, because if I conduct myself like a sly wicked politician, it will displease the gods, and if I behave like a virtuous and moral one, that will offend the citizens.’ And while it is valid that: ‘no law benefits all’ yet it is indispensable as supplement to nature, exactly because the human mind perceives a far greater spectrum of reality than the animals, the environment of which is tailored for their needs, corresponding completely to their instincts.”  

          Suddenly, all the ancient Greek culture came to his memory, the things he had learnt in the early years. He remembered the Esthetics of the Titans having as frontispiece the proverb of Hipparchus: “The most valuable possession among humans is the skill of living”. He recalled the difference between mankind and animal from an esthetic point of view. And it is not so bad to stress the pride and the superiority of (wo-) man in comparison to animal, and this difference is an ethical one. Is there any meaning to proclaim categorically that people are also animals like all the rest? Will such an affirmation- assertion hinder us from exploiting brutally the animals, ourselves or each other?

          He smiled nostalgically, recollecting the esthetic description of Man and animal in the chapter “Transparence of the Human Figure in Comparison to Less Evolved Ones”.

Regarding the animals: The organic element still submits to the deficient illiberality of not being able to impose itself as a specific singular subject in relation to its extremities expanded to the external reality. The main seat of the organic life’s activity remains hidden to us, we see only the external outlines of the figure, which is covered clothed with feathers, scales, hairs, skin, thorns and shells … 

Regarding humans: The skin is not covered by soulless or sprouting wrappings, the pulse of the blood is apparent on all surface, the active heart with its beating is present everywhere, appearing on the outer layer as a throbbing vividness, as a spouting forth, gushing up flow and overflow of life. Also, the skin appears sensitive and shows a sickly indisposition, an emphasis on the coloration of the tissues and the nerves, which is a real crucifix for the artists.

          Let us disclose a last piece of information before the closure of this chapter. The Martian territory, once ruled by the peculiarly polymorphous changeling one and only queen was called Lithonion (Stone Area) at that time. Since that time until today it is called “Tithonion” in the honor of Tithonus’ great deed.  

          CHAPTER 20:

          THE INHABITANT OF THE ABYSS

          They stood in front of the cave’s opening on a ground colored like thrombotic blood, while on their feet even the individual molecules of dust seemed to trouble or to magnetize by the threatening column of the twister which had already covered the weak Martian sun and raged at a close distance, so close that other hovering particles of atom-like sand were blown in upon them, stinging their hands and faces like powdered adamant.

          “Maybe now would be the proper time to enter the cavern, because this dust is so rough that it may pierce our protective suits”, said Dedalus.

          “Yes, you ‘d better take cover under the rocks of the entrance to make a last check of the provisions”, said Eos. “To begin with”, Dedalus, you have yet a last chance to persuade us that it is in fact necessary to go down so deep under the surface to find that deposit of carbon dioxide, which we supposedly need so much for Dino-Pleustus’ drive. I wonder: Can’t we find a more unrefined biological or fossil fuel or even draw carbon dioxide from the atmospheric air of the terraforming?”

          “What do you take Dino-Pleustus for, boss? His engine is too advanced to run on petrol or ethanol. Besides, I don’t possess a filter of pyrite or silicon to extract the dioxide from the atmosphere. The circumstances force my hand to find it already available and in big quantities. At least I have electrodes and ethylenic glycol in the ship, through which I can channel the carbon dioxide and produce easily synthetic gas for our vessel to move”.

          “And I have on me enough C4 (dynamite) to open a big hole, once we get to the bottom of the cavern. Tithonus, you will carry the dioxide pump device. If there is air in the upper zones of the cave, we will keep our helmets on, because they possess an integrated lamp. We will keep the glass open for breathing, and we will close it only during the dioxide pumping, so that we don’t empty the oxygen canisters prematurely. So, look sharp, remember your training, and let us start the descent with slow and careful steps, not only because we carry heavy equipment on the back, but also because this area has a very bad reputation. As you know, it is called ‘Nocturnal Labyrinth’, a name ominous enough, foreboding nothing good”.

          “You just give me labyrinth and take my soul, boss”, said Dedalus. “Perhaps this is the only moment that I regret not letting Icarus come with us”.              

          “I remind you, Dedalus, that here we are not dealing with an uncovered maze without a roof, from which you easily escaped with your flying device, but with a cavern, where we ‘d better implement the method of Ariadne’s thread or the one of throwing breadcrumbs or pebbles to find the road of return. Tithonus, for the last time I am asking you: If we take under consideration all your problems, are you in a state of alertness, capable of acting promptly?”

          “I am as ready as I will ever be”, answered Tithonus, grabbing tightly the zap gun, which was attached on the adhesive tape of his taille.

          Without further idle talk and since the twister was warping hence so much that no mountain foot and no leeward rock could offer protection anymore, the trio began to walk towards the deep illuminating the surroundings with the lamps of the helmets. Their torch beams tore a clotted gloom and revealed the corners of an underground country that had perhaps never known the intrusion of light in all its former cycles or Creations.

The place was bare, with the death-like emptiness of some long-deserted catacomb. Its floor and walls had the color of rust and returned not in the least the gleam or sparkle of the helmet lights. The cave sloped downward at an easy gradient and the sides were water-marked at a height of a meter; no doubt it had been in earlier eons the channel of an underground offshoot from a river- Mars being the planet of water! The waters had obviously swept clean all detritus and the cavity was like the interior of some Cyclopean conduit that might give upon a sub-Martian Erebus of Hecate.

          “Since we are talking about Hecate, first lady, the goddess of the crossroads, entrances, light, magic, knowledge of pharmaceutic or poisonous herbs, of ghosts and necromancy, I consider if she is identical with the Bendis of the Thracians. Furthermore, I wonder if the flagship of the titans, Benobinda, has an etymological relationship with Bendis”.  

          “You do well to occupy yourself with etymology, Tithonus, because ‘the inception of wisdom is the inspection of the names.’ If you do not name something, you can neither define it nor refer to it.   Benobinda or also Venovinda comes from ‘ventistos or beltistos Venthylos”. Benthylos or Venthylos means explorer of the depth- bathos, connecting apparently to Bendis, consequently to Hecate, as they both goddesses of the bathymeters and bathyscaphes”.

          No sound interrupted the echo of their discussions, maybe only a faint undefined whisper like a sigh of a sunken sea caressed discreetly their ears. The atmosphere conveyed an intense sense of humidity, as is generally expected in caves, and an imperceptible draft like an island breeze appeared to lift Nocturnal Labyrinth’s veil of silence.

They continued their quick advance into the cave profiting from the favorable gradient of the corridor, which earlier had been the bed of a torrent. Of course, slowly but steadily the landscape’s conformation changed, on either hand there were high shelves of metallic stone or rather columnated recesses embroidered with nuggets of precious gems replaced the traces and the stains of the water, while in front of them broader dark tunnels opened with pillarlike stalagmites and stalactites, huge arches of internal elevator floors, cathedrals of absolute void like photonegatives, where, instead of a shape being formed, it is conquered internally by empty space and hot air, defined or confined as an outline by the compact surrounding rocks. The granite walls of the cave reminded a canvas painted with tempera, seemed just as phony as they could be, as they were illuminated here and there by scintillating feldspar -crystals, which shoved together on the surrounding surfaces like an army of fireflies. As the light dimmed, the brightness of the peculiar salt- nuggets got even more intense within the folds of the rock. Do not fancy that in the middle of the bumpy, uneven downslope of the granite rocks there was some natural or artificial path, more passable for the travelers. They rolled down on a rough, slippery declivity running the risk of a crush, got their skin scratched down to the bone on the unhospitable splinters and tumbled piggyback not on the path of an abundant material source and towards free fuel, but on the highway or fast-track boulevard to death.

The air had grown heavier, and the dampness pierced with a fork, invaded deep into the uniform of the cave-divers, cave-nauts, and easily at that through the open helmet. There was a breath of stagnant ancient waters, a fetid stench of stuffiness, encountered only in abandoned dwellings.  This dense viscous atmosphere was translated into a sound of the smacking of myriad, wet, enormous mouths, appeared though as if it ascended grating, rustling and rattling the walls as if metal scissors dragged over rock.

          “Maybe it wasn’t a good idea after all to cross the distance from within the cave, perhaps we should have searched for another external way of going down”, whispered Tithonus frightened. “I am carrying a lot of junk, but I also am missing some vital items. I have neither a coin with me to pay the boatman of Acheron nor my passport to be stamped in the gates of Hades”.

          “The thing is that maybe that cavern extends so far down that even the sensors could not register such range”, contributed Dedalus. “Perhaps we are at the edge of the abyss, on the lip of Erebus and the inception of Chaos. I ‘ve got the feeling that we have discovered the gulf of the gulfs and I do not even dare to assess to what bottomless depths this precipice immerses, to the center of the Earth, into the infinity itself?  Needless to say that I have thrown a stone and I am waiting still for the sound of its landing”.  

          “We will go down, as long as there is an access, down to the point where the sensors will indicate the deposit of the gas. We will carry on our assignment, no matter what”, confirmed Eos. “And be sure that when the explosion of the D4 (C4) is heard, the cave will seem less terrifying, provided of course that the necessary security measures are implemented to keep the ceiling from falling”.  

          “Well, I ’ll be damned, leading hegemon Eos! While the recording sensor showed a gap underneath, now it indicates ground, and at the height of the dioxide deposit’s line!”, shouted Dedalus.  “As if a plug emerged from the depths and sealed the orifice of a reversed bottle! And not only that! The stench cannot be further explained only with the stagnant waters, here we are talking about the savor of a tavern, which serves as main dishes all kinds of meat, chopped offal and entrails and liver roasted on a spit or even better about a muffled blood- smelled malodor of a butcher’s shop, a slaughterhouse, a sausage factory, a pigsty…”

          “Ok, we get the picture”, said Eos. “Perhaps, a sufficient reason occurs to abort the mission. We are dealing with a strange phenomenon here and I doubt that we have the means to face it …The darkness is already full and even our torches are like glowworms compared to the unlighted gloomy vastness of the cavern”.  

          When they started to retrace their way back and upwards, however, to follow a vector leading far and away from this place, which was the incarnation of he dark, while the light and the vision were but temporary intruders into this kingdom of the blind, they realized astonished that a bunch of wretched Martians like a whitish followship of lepers blocked their way. At the beginning they thought that they envisaged only some tenants of the labyrinth, but soon they saw that an entire anthill of them excluded any possibility of emerging to the surface.

The creatures who stood there seemed, however, to represent an extremely degraded and aberrant type of the human race, while the flabby pallor of their bodies denoted many ages of underground life. It is important for our story that they were all eyeless, not in the sense of a congenital invalidity of faint, rudimentary slits where the eyes should have been, but in the sense that in their faces gaped deep and empty orbits that suggested a violent removal of the eyeballs. To the old ones the conch of the eye had gradually become a niche, since in the eye- cavities prοtruding corners, keratoconi and thorns had grown, according to the axiom that nature hates the gaps (natura non facit saltus).

          “Let us use our zap guns on stunt”, said Dedalus.

          “That is not effective, they are too many and they become more by the minute. It is obvious that our confinement was a part of some plan we ignored”.

        “But what do these people want from us?”, wondered Tithonus. “Let us ask them, it’s as simple as that. We, the titans, believe in dialog”.

          Eos proceeded one step or two and said:

          “Creatures of the Nocturnal Labyrinth, state your intentions”.  

          The mysterious newcomers attacked, without saying a word. The Earthlings reacted by making ‘zap- zap’ with their ray guns. It was impossible to miss the target, but the hypnotic dizzying ray of the parsimonious moderate ecological preserving weapons was a drop in the ocean, futile as pebbles flung at the spate of an onrushing torrent. The eyeless beings did not waver, they just seemed confused and organically disordered, that is why they began to bleed from various openings of the body a yellowish-red pus. Yet their whitish bodies created an impenetrable iron collar and sealed every exit. The company of our story figured out too late that the attack was entirely predesigned and aimed at the destruction of every light source. They broke with their bare hands the torches of the helmets, even the tiny lights of the mobile communicators, any kind of hurricane lantern or storm lamp that the explorers carried with them, until they left them in total darkness. Retreating on an exalted rock the astronauts held the blind cavemen to account for the injustice of their attack.

          “What do you want from us? Why did you attack us? We came in peace and good faith; we are benevolent visitors of the stars”.

          One of the whitish fungus-like ones proceeded with an almost automatic step. He was barefoot, hunchbacked, ossified, undernourished, ragged with shreds that were colored at some time, but now had melted from the use. His beard was petrified, being scrubby and scrawny from the slime and the remnants of unnamable, unspeakable food. A sound ejected from it though, mechanic after a fashion, complaining according to other acoustic standards, tentative, testing and experimenting caw or a succession of hollow unarticulated uncoherent groans, which progressively gathered momentum and reminded all the more articulate speech.  

          “Terrans, the nightmare of the light ends for you here and now. Henceforth, the honor is bestowed to you to be member of our race, who are the fellowship of the retreated waters; we are the fans and providers of the Inhabitant of the Abyss. We left you four out of five senses, because you will not need eyesight anymore. And it is a good bargain for you, if you consider that we do not have ears or lobes either. I know that you, Terrans, are obsessed with science, that is why I will describe and introduce you in detail the god, who will be the acceptor of your worship. He is made of wood, seaweed and shards of the abyss and is covered by a hard harnessed carapace, so that he may move between the underground petrification without getting hurt. He has a long, triangular, eyeless head and from the drooping corners of the cruelly slitted mouth, two long proboscides curve upward, hollow and cuplike at the ends, while he has trunks sealed by calluses and bunions for legs and round, blunt, obtuse, stemmed and goblet-like stumps for hands, narrowing into razorblades or swords. He is our god and if you know another, teach us about him. It is unlikely, however, that he is more powerful than ours and certainly neither the gods of Olympus nor the edible palatable Fish that you, the creatures of the surface, adore can compete with him”.

        Another dweller of the gulf took the floor.

       “With his swords our god cuts our ears and with his sucking cups extracts our eyes, because we need them neither to worship him nor to feed him. And after today’s briefing there is also no reason for us to talk either. But do not be disappointed, our comrades. You will miss neither eyesight nor hearing. You will drink from the fouled waters of the underground lakes and eat the slugs, the raw blind fishes and the worms of the waters. And when the time comes for the Inhabitant of the Abyss to make use of you, you will not even get aware of your consumption, since his sucking cups spray anesthetic, his myriad feet will numb your sacrificial flesh with reinvigorating sprinkling parenchyma, clyster or enema and in the end your half -eaten carcass will be grateful to our huge god for accepting your sacrifice”.

Later, our titans were constraint to retreat to some corner with no light anymore and deliberate repeatedly about the things to be done. Their training, dignity and mettle, their moral formation and education did not allow them to quit or surrender either to the creatures of the dark or the Inhabitant of the Abyss. «Ουκ ανδρός και γυναικός όρκοι πίστις, αλλ’ όρκων ανήρ και γυνή»,[100] said Aeschylus.

They continued to frequent the underground kingdom for a long time, until they perceived the full magnitude of the cavern cavity and were familiarized entirely with the textured paintings and the decorations of the walls, not discerning them with some lamp, but groping for them with bare hands. They stayed always in the range of murals, because in the voids of the unconfined space and the vast dome they risked being lost due to lack of reference points. They learnt very hard and very painfully through a tormenting fast -track sacerdotal consolidation of a spermatic word, primordial seed (rationes seminales) -god, I must find a much shorter Greek word for seminar – to orientate themselves by means of dimly illuminated images and reliefs of the walls, but to be on the safe side they counted the corners and the openings of their passage, so that they would rely exclusively neither to the trembling light of feldspar not to the touch that sometimes finds all to be the same and feels without distinction. So, they capitalized not only on the senses of hearing and touch, but also on the benefits and the intellectual merits of geometry and measurement. In the end they knew all corridors and their destination, even those leading to a dead end or impasse or a gaping precipice.

     When they finished all military rations and were furthermore dependent on eating and consuming moles, snails and lizards, whereby of course those were the splendor and the Lucullan meals of the underground arcade’s restaurant menu before the last solution of the worms and the bugs, Eos convoked the three-membered council and presided in a new session. 

“Gentlemen, I require propositions, advice and recommendations regarding our future course of action or even questions, concepts of paradoxes, investigation results. It seems that we are immured here. The way upstairs is blocked by the legion of the whitish, while underneath lurks either Erebus or, if we are lucky the ground – elevator, whenever it pleases to rise. As far as the monster is concerned, which the nyctalopic adore, I personally think that it probably does not exist. We haven’t encountered it so far and it is not enlisted in the already catalogized monsters like e.g. Sphinx, Lernaean Hydra, Chimera, Medusa etc. Therefore, my ethos as a scientist dictates that I principally deny its existence until it is proven otherwise”.

“Boss, you mentioned already the motto of Antisthenes that if we do not name something, we cannot define it”, said Tithonus.  “I would say, that if we cannot define something, we are never going to be able to fight it. We must rack our brains to figure out what this threatening monster is, which these people worship like God, and what are its properties, although we do not even have visual contact to this being to find ways of dealing with it.  Let us recapitulate some empirical information resulted so far. Exhibit number one: Whenever the bottom of the cave rises, there are victims. This is obvious from the malodor of the rotten meat. Exhibit number two: Until now, as far as I can hear steps, stirs and noises and I can fathom dim shining in the distant dismal downs and depths, I have realized that, when the ground bottom is on ‘up’ position, the nyctalopic visit it regularly and I see them moving like phosphoric string puppets on a dark troubled ocean. Since all the exhibits above are also premises of a syllogism, the conclusion is that the bottom ground contains beings armed with teeth and nails, maybe even equipped with razorblades, as the nyctalopic representative mentioned, through which they extract eyes and cut ears without explanation as to why they do that. It is a depth, which is very much alive and extremely dangerous.  

“I will, attempt to give an explanation, which would be fitting or at least not contradictory to all exhibits of Tithonus”, the technocrat Dedalus took the staff of the discussion, “since we do not mumble over this for the first time, but we should have already assimilated or consolidated the whole issue with a monasterial devotion as rationes ‘seminales’. From the moment we accept that there are not any unregistered monsters, to maintain that the depths contain monsters committing atrocities is a metathesis of the problem. It is as if we maintain that the world was created by aliens, whereby the problem is who created them. So, let us suppose that the ground floor kills and feeds on the flesh of its prey itself and not through representatives. How could such a thing be even possible? To begin with, is there an example of a ground or seabed that eats algae, plankton, vermin, animalcules or even bigger sea-species, oysters, clams, urchins, shrimps, cuttlefish etc.?”

“The coral”, answered unanimously the other members of the company.

“The coral within its own corral”, agreed Dedalus “And maybe in the final analysis, big-sized and plethoric Eos, it is not the case of an unregistered monster, as you insinuated, but of a known and cataloged one. I would like to remind you the story of Medusa or Gorgon, daughter of Phorcys and Ceto. Her elder sisters were the old women (Graeae) Deino, Enyo and Pemphredo, inventors of the famous Phorcides net, which is so often used in today’s wars for spying and camouflage στους σημερινούς πολέμους.  She also had two sisters close to her in age—Stheno and Euryale—who, unlike her, were immortal. Since, however, Medusa had in any case an unattractive, even terrifying figure having hair like snakes and turning into stone whoever looked at her, Phorcys did not dare address her or call her by name and murmured in an ostensibly caressing way a child song: ‘Stheno, Euryale and my other daughter’ (kore alle). So, this kore alle was Medusa, the coral. Since the situation is critical and we have no time for details of an internetwork level, let us add quickly that she was decapitated by Perseus, and that from her therapeutic blood jumped the feathered Pegasus and the hero Chrysaor, while her head, Gorgonion, was donated to Athene by Perseus, who put it on her shield to turn into stone whoever dared to oppose her. Let us refer to the coral of our area now. Yes, it is a sea-trunk with wooden corpse and knots, because as a zoophyte has on it xylo- remnants of countless other plants. Yes, it possesses hands with razorblades, because it has a hard skeleton and callous extensions from the anthracic calcium emitted by it. It has also sucking cups, because in this way the myriad polypods constituting it acquire food through tentacles and cnidae (captive cells). The polypods emerge from the calcium shell and attach themselves to absorb any loose-tied and lineally distinguishable biological mass, thus they gulp down eyes, noses, ears and other easily detachable or extractable annexes or appendages of the organisms. Of course, if they have a big hunger, they can disassemble a whole body, if it is trapped on their uneven breakwater.”

“Even if what you say is valid”, unsheathed Tithonus, “you shot a hare, but it proves to be inedible. Even if it is coral and with such offensive properties plus carnivore predisposition at that, it is an undefeatable enemy, especially if one takes in account the crowds of its irrational fans, completing voluntarily or involuntarily the circle of the nutritional chain within the Nocturnal Labyrinth”.

   The astronauts got the blues again and restarted the silent syllogistic and contemplative examination of alternative solutions.  

“Enlighten us, you intricately thinking Dedalus, you artful and crafty engineer, about the ways of a coral’s death”, ordered Eos after having given it some cunning thought.

“A coral dies, if its biggest part gets extracted by unscrupulous hunters and turned into red jewels hung on the women’s necks, if the algae are discolored, if it gets dry or withered by the air or the sun …”

“By the air or the sun? It matters”, asked Eos.  

“If one considers that many corals lie exactly under the sea surface, obviously the sun is not contraindicated, but a prolonged exposure to the air or a sudden gush of wind…”  

Eos jumped sky-high, as if she had taken a bath in high -conductive brackish waters with a clandestine infiltration of electric current, or else if she had been singed, toasted, roasted! 

“We need to do nothing else except fulfilling the mission. The dioxide’s deposit is next to the coral reef, when it rises to search for food. The rest falls it my jurisdiction, the one of a competent commando, marine or navy seal!”

You can figure out the rest. The plastic dynamite of D4 (C4) exploded on the cavern’s walls, opening only a hole of a geometric circle calculated with surgical precision, the carbon dioxide invaded vehemently with a violent decompression into the underground cavity; in a while, the presumable red coloration of the coral became black, fitting to the pitch darkness of the surroundings, the red scales turned into dead crystal sprouts, protrusions or extensions  and the orgiastic intricately wrought internal polypods became decorative starfishes with arms covered by ice cubicles and chips. Even today and in every era, some whitish memories of man continue to move on the dead carcass, on the drum-blown and swollen mass, which was dried and wrinkled like a dehydrated sporocystian mollusk, searching to feed it or feed on it, since those who still possessed  human features scattered into different directions of the cave to take their chances, many of them risking and daring the beginning of a new life on the surface. In any case, check on the diary of your mind “Inhabitant of the Abyss deceased”, something that in another time would be considered a relieving extinction of a monster, but today all would mourn him as a sympathetic and defenseless victim of the instrumental titan science. Let us wonder: Should the inflexible principle of not interfering in the affairs of other domains or countries know any exceptions, considering that in the present case the interfering freed the locals from the oppressive dominion that… devoured them, or maybe based on the nonintervention maxim within the frame of developing habitats or societies, should we wait how would the destined for mangling and consumption nyctalopic subjects evolve in the future?

CHAPTER 21:

GREEN LITTLE MEN

After they filled up the batteries and the reservoirs with carbon dioxide, Dino- Pleustus sailed again and continued its course into the narrow and lengthy Nautical ocean. On the islands and the shores the navigators  – equals between peers, as Eos was only an unofficial captain-, ‘saw the cities and knew the mentality of many men’, faced a lot of dangers equivalent to those marking the return of a posterior expedition, that is Laestrygones and Cyclops, Scylla and  Charybdis; Besides mean people and carnivore princesses they were forced to confront the following extraterrestrials beyond the aforementioned ones: α) an ostrich-like creature, which was intelligent and very communicative, especially when it assimilated the concept of “one plus one makes two”, β) many species of big-sized polypods, not incarcerated in a coral this time, because they are also encountered in a free status. Regarding those beings, the sapient ostrich, as far as she could make herself understandable, informed our heroes that “if to you one and one makes two, also for them one and one makes two”, an intellectual affinity that allowed to such octopuses to project their own thoughts and wishes on the minds of their preys, e.g. an etheric existence to the men and a tempting bone to the dogs, γ) a barrel-like silicon- and not carbon based being,[101] with a hole on the upper part, an arm on the side and a straight queer sharp tail under its crouching body. Every ten minutes it pulled out a sound like sigh or panting and then a brick was expelled from the hole as a product of natural pottery. The arm grabbed the brick and posited it on a pyramid-like structure that it built. When the pyramid was completed, it opened into slices, a new being emerged from there and began the same procedure over again. The clever ostrich clarified that for these beings the “one and one makes two” did not apply, which meant that they were not sentient, but that their production was automatic and unconscionable. They were blind, mute and deaf creatures without nerves or brains, programmed and destined to build pyramids for all eternity with their excrements, at least so long as their environment offered them silicon generously. δ) another kind of a barrel in horizontal position this time, which had four fast legs and four tentacles as hands. Its front side was cleaned like the stretched hide of a drum, while it had many rows of eyes on the side, that is why the Terran explorers named it “Argos”. It pushed a carriage along and built a city of clay with its companions. About Argos the ostrich said: “one and one makes two, two and two do not makes four”, which means that it has a different logic than we. The Argos emptied their carts beneath a big wheel that crushed all, sand, stones and pebbles to produce the necessary construction materials. Proof of their diverted intelligence was that they in the lack of material often threw themselves under the wheel and were pulpified or pulverized without a cry, hesitation or resistance, just to contribute to the erection and construction of their city.

Redaction note: Usually, the extraterrestrials, especially those coming from Mars are described as green little men, having two slits for eyes, a pimple as a nose and a spot as a mouth. We, for our part, theorize that the green little men are rather an encompassing concept including all kinds of aliens, so that no one may stay out of definition and risk to be forgotten. Of course, since the aliens have yet to come, we observe them on the screen of our imagination. Given that we see the world not only through our eyes but also through the eyes of others, when we say imagination, we do not mean the individual but the collective one. We did our best to peruse all the beings of the planet Mars, as they were registered by great authors who invested effort and investigated thoroughly the red planet. However, there will be always reservations and objections that we have disregarded or wronged through omission during our report, that is why we choose to lay before our readers a complete study regarding the subject matter of aliens from an epistemological point of view, which we consider to be adequate to cover the most, if not all facets of the subject at hand.     

More precisely, in the following, the subject-matter of epistemology will be addressed via stimuli, borrowed from the domain of science fiction, especially in a magic quest and pursuing of what is totally strange to us, what is extraterrestrial and alien. Epistemology extends to the limits of our perception; thus, the example of aliens is most appropriate to deal with it, since they are, by definition, so unusual that they may be only marginally and barely registered in the borderline of the senses. Indeed, perception is a matter of conception and translation of sensual data, being performed daily within a procedure where the senses send unrelated, desultory and unelaborated stimuli to the mind, so that it may interpret them. Ultimately it is a matter of dull repetition, administrative reiteration and habit. Renowned is the historical fact with the designation “Cook’s paradox”, when the indigenes of the Vancouver islands simply denied acknowledging as real the huge for their standards ships of the explorers, these wooden behemoths, because they did not acquiesce to accept that their existence was even possible. 

Both the recognition of the offhand acknowledged as out-worldish strangers and the communication with them becomes a lot easier, if we introduce the condition that they are almost anthropomorphic. This is the usual representation of the bipod and two-handed alien, whose physiology is basically like our own.  If we accept as a point of reference the most sophisticated SF series, namely “Star Trek”, we see that the aliens may possess antennas like Andorians,[102] may have pointy ears just like the Romulans[103] and the Vulcans[104], may exhibit cranial ridges, just like the Klingons[105], but they are basically like us.  Even more extravagant creatures like the Tholians,[106] who have red color, energy structure and somewhat indefinite outer shape, maintain their basic anthropomorphic profile with one head, two hands and two legs. Furthermore, the allegedly pure energy beings just like the Organians[107] are presented to us with a human representation, being familiar and acceptable according to the premise of the philosopher Hegel that we think in representations and cannot assimilate or consume anything if not through and by representation. The familiar image of the aliens who look just like us presages- predicts an easy faculty of communication with them.

A usual mean of science fiction is the automatic universal translator, allowing the aliens to speak English quite fluently (or more precisely American English). In this way each time the story proceeds and unwinds promptly, but the scriptwriter circumvents the crucial question, how is it possible for people so distant, having so different premises, to communicate with us so easily.

And yet the first element of the concept “alien” is and should be the totally incomprehensible, persistently unconceivable and immanently strange, because only this can be expected to test the boundaries of our ability to acquire valid knowledge, which is the main epistemological quandary since the era of Kant. Thus, the treatise cannot be based on the classic extraterrestrial universe of Star Trek due to its abovementioned anthropomorphism. Besides, this unrepeatable series, being an inexhaustible source of inspiration, never aimed to epistemology “per se” as a legitimate doubt, but  focused rather on philosophy and ontology, so much so that within a Shakespearean atmosphere of dramatic persons (“dramatis personae”), fancy costumes and ingenuous dialogs, properly stressed by the actor Christopher Plummer, featuring  admiral Chang in “Star Trek 6- Undiscovered Country”, distanced itself all the more from our familiar renowned external parameters and penetrated into the psyche and mentality of mankind, teaching us the deepest truths about ourselves.[108] As captain Kirk said in the famous episode “The Conscience of the King”, profiting from the Shakespearean education of the actor William Shatner who impersonated him: “the play is the thing, wherein I’ll catch the conscience of the king”.

Therefore, our further analysis will be performed on the grounds of a TV series, considered as inferior, but equally nostalgic and exasperating, as far as the impasse regarding the presentation of the aliens was recognized. We are referring to “Lost in Space”, the well-known humoristic series with the fascinating robot and the unfaithful, treacherous, but prominent user of literary figures dr. Zachery Smith. Except this series, the ingenuous producer Irwin Allen filmed also other equally imaginative series, like the worshipped since our childhood “Time Tunnel” and the adventurous “Journey to the Bottom of the Sea”. Nowhere else, however, seemed the likable Irwin Allen to have a worse time regarding the presentation of aliens in “Lost in Space”, since he felt that human imagination, based precisely on representation and basically on anthropomorphism, betrayed him, restricted and confined him. So, after he has pictured and featured the crawfish man, the rock man, the carrot man, after he wore on the faces of the presumed aliens all kinds of ugly deformed masks, after he tested on them every version of kitsch costumes, wigs and dye, he saw powerless his ideas declining, exhausted. Of course, due to the absence of digital help at the time, he tried to fill up the deficits and compensate for the immanent limits of the image attributing word-predicates to the aliens. In the following, I have gathered the “alliterations”, used by the literarily erudite Dr. Smith to characterize mainly the robot during their comical confrontations, by extension though they applied also to all appearing aliens, within an effort to break the barrier of the needful image through a combination of words. Here, Irwin Allen endeavored no more no less to apply the transcendental dialectics of Kant to the phenomenon of the language like a new Wittgenstein, replacing the quandary of “what we can learn” with its counterpart of “what we can express”. So, behold the alliterations with the same initial letter both on adjective and noun that, while on first sight seem endless, they hardly sum up to 127.     

1. addle-pated amateur
2. addle-pated armadillo 
3. asinine abuser
4. blasted barleycorn  
5. blithering booby  
6. blithering bumpkin  
7. blubber-brained booby
8. bookmaking booby
9. brutish breed 
10. bubble-headed booby
11. bumbling birdbrain  
12. bumbling bolt-bucket   
13. bumptious booby  
14. bumptious braggart
15. busted barleycorn 
16. cackling cacophony  
17. cackling clown  
18. cackling coward  
19. callous creature 
20. cantankerous clod  
21. careless centurion  
22. carious companion  
23. cavorting cybernetic
24. clanking clapper  
25. clattering crackpot 
26. cold creature 
27.  collapsing creature
28. corrupted contraption  
29. cowardly clump  
30. crawling cockroach  
31. cruel creature 
32. cumbersome clump   
33. demurring dolt 
34. deplorable dunderhead 
35. digital dunce 
36. disrespectable dunce
37. doddering dunderhead  
38. evil effigy  
39. floundering flunky  
40. galumphing gargoyle   
41.  garrulous gargoyle  
42. ghouly goose 
43. gibberish goose 
44. gorgeous garbage  
45. great goose   
46. hollering hump  
47. ignominious ignoramus  
48. ill-informed ignoramus  
49.  impersonal item  
50. inanimate iron-plate   
51. incompetent imbecile 
52. insensitive idiot 
53. iron-born ingrate  
54. irreputable ironclad   
55. irresponsible idiot 
56. jabbering jackanapes  
57.  juvenile junkpile   
58. knocked up knight
59. lead-lined Lothario 
60. loathsome lump  
61. lugubrious laggard  
62. lugubrious lump 
63. magnificent mobile
64. mechanical man  
65. mechanical marvel  
66. mechanical meddler 
67. mechanical misfit   
68. mechanical monster  
69. mechanical moron  
70. mental midget  
71. metallic monstrosity  
72. militant moron  
73. mindless machine  
74. miserable mechanism  
75. miserable misfit  
76. moronic moralizer  
77. nauseating noisemaker 
78. negligent ninny  
79. nonsensical ninny  
80. non-worthy ninny  
81. obsolete oaf  
82. oversized oaf 
83. pitiable pipsqueak  
84. platinum-plated pal  
85. pompous popinjay   
86. pompous pretender  
87. potbellied prankster  
88. potbellied pumpkin   
89. preening popinjay  
90. pretentious popinjay 
91. puny pipsqueak 
92. pusillanimous pinhead   
93. pusillanimous pipsqueak  
94. quavery quack  
95. queasy quack  
96. ramshackle Romeo  
97. renegade robot  
98. retarded ridicule  
99. ridiculous robot
100. ridiculous ruin 
101. rivet-popping robot
102. roly-poly rowdy  
103. rusty Rasputin 
104. scurrilous scatterbrain  
105. sententious sloth 
106. sickening sentinel  
107. silent sentinel  
108. silly sentinel 
109. sleeping sloth  
110. sputtering steel-mechanism
111. stalwart sausage  
112. stalwart steward
113. steam-hissing stator 
114. teasing tattletale 
115. tinkering tin-can  
116. tinplated tattletale
117. tinplated tintinnabulation 
118. tinplated traitor  
119. treasonous tyrant 
120. ungrateful underling  
121. vaporous vermin  
122. vicious vermin  
123. wacky wrongdoer  
124. withering winkle 
125. worn- out wine-dipper
126. worthless whelp   
127. wretched wiggler 

At this point, given that the couple Allen- Smith did not include in their planning the three last letters of the English alphabet, I cannot resist the temptation to complete them myself! So, let us add:

1. xenophobic xylophone 
2. xerophilous xerophyte  
3. X-raying Xerox
4. yapping yokel 
5. zinced zombie 
6. zonked out zany  

Here, somewhere, both the verbal and the representative imagination of Irwin Allen came to an end, and the sequels of science fiction, which he demonically and hedonically created, stopped abruptly and irrevocably. Anthropomorphism and vivid representativeness seemed to be the ultimate prison of fantasy. Even if we add to the creatures of science fiction those of mythology (for example chimera, griffin, Moloch, monoceros, the Cyclops Polyphemus, the centaurs, Sphinx or even the fish-shaped creature, who was teacher of the Babylonians, Oannes), our powers are again insufficient to break the barrier of our own representations either in separation or in unison. 

In the continuation, we will refer to previous and posterior efforts trying to depict the immanent, inherent alienating element within the concept of the extraterrestrials, the par excellence out-worldish “alien” dimension, endeavoring to present the aliens as something surpassing and exceeding our own representative horizon or, in any case, lingering on the barrier of our senses. For instance, in the «Rendezvous with Rama” by Arthur Clarke, the huge spaceship betrays some of its secrets, but ultimately abandons the solar system, without giving specific answers and without revealing the core of its enigmatic self.[109] Thus, it maintains a mysterious veil, on the opposite of the “poor devils Overlords” in “Childhood’s End” (justifying fully their name), who in the end turn out to be the pitiable errand doers, assigned by a superior power.

In “Solaris” by Stanislaw Lem the alien may not escape representativeness, (since it is an ocean), but at it causes an out-worldish awe through the subliminal transmission below the threshold of conscious perception. The famous astrophysicist Fred Hoyle endeavors to convey the same feeling of the totally alien with his thinking “Black Cloud”, although the bombastic scientifically sound idea does not reach farther as the episode “Obsession” of “Star Trek”.  Interesting is the conception of the aliens in “The mote in a God’s eye” by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle. Both writers introduce to us some aliens who have no gender to begin with, but they start their life being male, become later female to bear children and die after giving birth. The English designation for them is “mote”, which means “microscopic corpuscle” or “molecule”, whereas the Germans translate it as “Splitter”, i.e. “sharp irritating fragment” or “splinter”. The lack of gender or parthenogenesis- in- itself is not something original, not even their threatening overpopulation, which forces the Federation of planets to surround their solar system with a permanent siege. But their most peculiar and exotic characteristics are that these mass beings bear no names and receive terrestrial ones to be able to communicate with their appalled besiegers; they are not symmetrical regarding their body, on the one side they have two arms maybe three (which is groundbreaking and unheard of even for the standards of the nature’s orgiastic variety) and on the other side they have more or less limbs. They are also produced in many sizes, from splinters in paperback format, who can invade into the tubes and the gears of the machines and render them useless, are also represented in medium size, featuring the negotiators, up to the realm of the giants, where are the warriors. The idea of these aliens seemed so exotic that it inspired the great Physicist Gregory Benford to write a prolog regarding the specific work. The continuation was not so thrilling, because the afterwards edited sequel of the work under the title “Gripping Hand” had not a similar success, because it presented the aliens in question as competing … Arabic tribes, poor and indigent that simply try to lift the siege of their planetary system. Finally, the matter is solved by a sterilization’ serum allowing the birth- control of overpopulation! Benford himself thinks that the communication with the aliens can only be performed through “intuitionism”, bringing as an example his own self. When he was young, he exercised the profession of the gender controller, especially  “chicken sexer”, namely he fumbled and groped for knobs in the underbelly of the new-born poultry, in fact tiny fluffy balls of plumage to recognize if they were male or female; paradoxically enough, after a period he gained some sort of a tapping along, discerning knowledge allowing him to distinguish their gender at a 95 % percentage. Of course, he does not omit to clarify that such intuition, as he perceives it, is a sort of closed circuitry to the future, which he describes and analyzes in detail in his known works “Cosm” and «Timescape”.

So, which is the proper way to approach the aliens and further the unknown, the Kantian thing itself? Hegel gives us the following solution, just as we said above: Every being has two ontological philosophical dimensions, it is thing- in -itself, as a figure presented from outside and secondly for- itself, as the same sees itself from inside. There are things which possess a meticulously outlined itself, having an external appearance perceived and lucid for all, like for example a glass, but they are internally inert (or at least that is what we suppose). Through an inconceivable repertoire, a lengthy gallery of intermediate figures, among which also mankind is included, who being both intrinsically and extrinsically, physically and positionally, the headquarters and the homebase of observation, are in the middle between spiritual and material world, we end up with beings exhibiting a very indefinite “itself”, but on the contrary a very powerful “for-itself”, just as God, fate, society, nature. These beings are not seen or surveyed, at least not in their totality, however we understand their existence by the repercussions, influences or effects which they exercise upon our lives. So, let us be susceptible to universal interactions. What is called trust and love within communication with our fellow-humans, can be construed as “openness or aperture” to cosmic influence, to the extent that it regards creatures beyond the horizon of our perception.  Of course, such an openness, such a cosmic or universal trust as a cognitive tool, as a collection of inferences on the grounds of theories not contradicting the facts, of logical or intellectual assumptions or analogies between different levels, as well as the study of the impact on our daily life by not confirmed, not fully demonstrated creatures, falsely deemed as transcendental, can broaden – extend the boundaries of scientific research and phenomena that usually are exiled- exorcized  by the positivistic thinking to a space of non -existent metaphysics, for example the study of the soul, of death etc. Yet they are undoubtedly also a legitimate object of science according to the Hegelian holistic perception.

At this point we are going to analyze two difficult matters regarding the concept of the alien and totally strange to us that reveal the impasse encountered by imagination, when it tries to explain the paradox of life, recurring to factors or agents lying and lurking somewhere outside us.

a) The aliens often presented in the novels of science fiction are considered as “too little” by the author himself to maintain a high-leveled narrative pattern and keep the dramatic interest of the spectator, and they end up being the messengers of some impending doom or catastrophe, about to be caused by some omnipotent terrifying godlike evil demons, who do not appear, but promise an indefinite breathtaking plot, which never follows.    

Thus, in the trilogy by Alastair Reynolds, compiled from the works “Revelation Space”, “Redemption Ark” και “Absolution Gap” the good aliens Amarantin build Cerberus, a whole space station, in which on the one hand they find shelter after they have been turned into a computer matrix, on the other hand they transmit a warning signal against a hypothetical murderous alien scourge, responsible for the sparse population and the thinly inhabited diaspora of the universe.

In the end of the trilogy, specifically in “Absolution Gap”, Alastair Reynolds decides and dares to reveal us, in what these terrible and horrible aliens consisted, whom the Amarantin dreaded. So, they are presented as a sort of mechanical shredding wolves- terminators, but the question arises swiftly, who hired and mobilized them. Through a worldview of subsequent tangential cosmic membranes, he theorizes that their instigators are some shadows hiding in an alternative universe. But these shadows, similar to those of the successful SF series “Babylon 5”, are very vague and insufficient to acquiesce the mind of the readers, so the writer recurs to sophisticated constructions, such as the arthropods -nest builders who produce barnacles and their rulers, the slugs, as well as a sort of greenfly playing the role of an ecological terraforming assimilator, leading the interesting series into a total disillusion and demystification! We see that the border of representativeness cannot be surpassed, overcome or violated. What appears fascinating, thrilling and groundbreaking for the imagination as a mystery is demystified and disillusioned, once it is exposed in public.

In “Quofum” by Alan Dean Foster a planet is featured with an orgiastic vegetation, numerous night -dwelling somnambulist organisms and impossible aliens (insect-like, gelatinous, hard -dermal or -skinned, thorny and carapace-covered or shelled). Finally, it is revealed that this planet was a refuge, often hidden in an alternative dimension, so that its multi-handed constructors (reminding the Hecatoncheires) may lure some intelligence, capable of energizing their fearsome weapon, been installed in the Great Attractor, the gravitational center of the galaxies, whose user manual and function was forgotten by all! 

In the “Gateway” by Frederic Pohl the good aliens (Heechees) are hiding cowardly in the black holes to escape some molesting mischievous and evil factors – agents who never appear.

In “Heaven’s Shadow” by David Goyer and Michael Cossutt, renowned screenwriters and experts of the Hollywood’s science fiction production, the aliens are incubated in the beginning in cysts and in an environment of hives, corals and crystals, unfold and develop like flowering wood louses – polypods – slaters or pill (pig) bugs and act as sentinels who behead their opponents. Later, they are rejected somehow by the authors themselves as inadequate, and are replaced by the resurrected relatives of the protagonists. Finally, it is proven that behind the resurrections some beings with four arms and face consisted of many levels and reflections move the strings. Further on, it is demonstrated that these beings are in fact field- energetic, therefore not able to fight or face on their own some archetypical evil aliens, that is why they searched for potential material helpers that could raise arms against their Nemesis.    

b) Furthermore, the alien entities are presented as representatives of some even more powerful agent who, however, hides behind the lines and the scenes and is not discernible.

So, in “Rama Revealed” various aliens appear, mainly the extremely capable octospiders, acting in the name of the highest universal intelligence, i.e. God, having at their service ostrichsaurs, whom they ride, living together with Terrans abducted passengers in a huge spaceship along with others enduring a similar fate. The spaceship Rama III has the mission to study the existing races of the galaxy with a specific purpose, which is to ascertain who of them are the most appropriate to coexist peacefully and harmonically with each other in a universe without hatred and convulsive wailing.  

      Other aliens are the myrmicats (named by Richard Wakefield, a combination of the Greek word for ant, myrmex, due to their ant-like appearance, and the English word “cat” due to their feline size and running gait), who were a naturally heteromorphic species whose final form was a large, interconnected sentient mesh which was able to directly interface with the human brain through a network of fibers connected to our body, while at the same time was able to enter a symbiosis with another sentient “avian” species.

There is also the not at all despisable ancient Greek conception which at first sight may be related to astrology, but it is eventually, until the opposite is proven, the only sober: that the star firmament, the constellations, the nebulas, the suns, planets, comets etc., in short the meteors are just a scenery aiming to inspire them towards the right direction. There is no extraterrestrial life – perhaps of a different dimension – but not extraterrestrial. No matter how long they search with their telescopes or sweep the skies with their super modern sensors, the only thing they are going to get will be false images, deceitful idols, which become believable through the illusion of depth. There are no distances either, this is also a lie, whereby one should consider that illusion often demands more energy to be staged that if it were a reality. Since meteors become perceivable and registered only by one of the five senses, namely the (even enhanced) eyesight, a circumstance already stressed by Aristotle, the existence of the star firmament is impossible to be proved by experiment, as the incompetent positivists would propose. The old ones proved to be right, who always distrusted the space programs and would say: Can anyone pierce the seven skies? They had perceived that maybe there wasn’t any space around Earth, but merely a crystal impenetrable dome (or many successive domes like overlapped cobwebbed veils or dense-woven membranes, that is a technical matter). And who creates the perception and feeling of distance and the illusion of the heavenly bodies? Zeus and the other gods who performed catasterisms (turning of humans into stars).[110]     

 Conclusion: The passage to others, to think as if the subject could be someone like us and try to describe it in this way, did not help us to track and clarify the concept of the subject. Even the representation of God as father is anthropocentric and therefore not convincing for those who reserve their judgment and doubt their own beliefs. On the other hand, no matter how much we imagine something alien, something our-worldish and incompatible with our experience, so that we may broaden or deepen the concept of the subject that can populate the universe, we cannot overcome the relentless border of representativeness. We will cogently return to ourselves, but nobody can define one’s own self. So, we will expectedly return to something indefinite, indetermined, vague, field- energetic that will not be abstract anymore, but more specific, since we came to it through process of elimination.

CHAPTER 22:

ON THE HEIGHTS OF THARSIS

Towards the end of their wandering in the Nautical ocean of the Navigators our travelers reached the heights of Tharsis (Tartessos), which were practically the first mountain foot and slope of the Olympus Mons. For a while, according to their acquired habit, our heroes moved secretly amid the dense population of the premises to acclimatize to people and things, so that their behavior would not be criminalized (acclimatize- criminalize = almost a pun!) We should like to remind you that their original plan remained the killing of Zeus to revenge the shame and miasma of Tithonus, where Zeus showed a despicable meanness that could not be tolerated. Of course, by such an intention exhibiting a full ignorance of danger and contradicting all data of reality, the words “ambition” or “ambitious” forfeit their meaning, that is why, if we are not wrong, at some point we have characterized the expedition as suicide mission, and that was exactly what it was. A suicide mission, where the three participants, if we leave aside Ehedorus who was an AI, engaged for their own reasons. Dedalus intended to withdraw consciously his guardianship over Icarus to let him free at last, not afraid of being alone, taking in account that his great engineering and inventing skills would discourage the persecutors or the captors from harming him, Eos believed really that she can kill Zeus, besides like all fearsome warriors she did not care much about her life, satisfied that she had already lived everything in the most intense way; Tithonus on the other hand had simply nothing to lose.            

 One day, whereas the three friends pretending to be drinking pals wandered aimlessly in the marketplace to avoid suspicions, buying fewest things due to a restricted frugal budget, a representative of the local capitalist and art- patron Deiphobus contacted them. Do not even think for one instance that we ignore the relationship between Deiphobus and Hector (they were brothers). In this case, however, the name was a combination of the ones of the two Mars’ sons and the synonymous planet’s satellites Deimos and Phobos. Indeed, often enough the well-known businessman wrote his name Deimo- Phobos to honor, to appease or sometimes lay it too thick flattering the mortals’ slayer, arms-bearer, arms- rejoicing, “οβριμόθυμος”,[111] “πολεμόκλονος”,[112] “τειχεσιπλήτης”[113] Mars (Ares) and the gods of Olympus.  

So, on the day of Mars, as it was fitting (let us refresh our memory that the days of the antiquity’s week were: day of the Sun, of the Moon, of Mars, of Hermes (Mercury), of the thundering Zeus, of Aphrodite (Venus) and of Cronus), on the most routine day for the transactions of the market, on hour after dawn, a morning hour having gold in mouth, the three caballeros upon borrowed horses, escorted by employees and subalterns of the businessman, as a manifestation of courtesy and politeness, galloped towards the manor of Deiphobus. A lot of Martians (wo-) manned at that time the walls and the windows, equally placed, while on the streets their presence was even denser, causing uproar and hubbub, as the traders advertised their merchandise and the candidate clients emphatically refused to buy.

Deiphobus welcomed them in front of his villa wearing ostentatiously an imitation of god Ares’ uniform with a shining armor, a red stola and a wide coat – a military jacker covering his back and a helmet with a conspicuous Greek pompon, not an Asiatic covering, as he is often depicted as an image or sculptured as a statue. His propensity for mimicry and servility towards the patron saint and master of the planet god was more than apparent. On his side a complete garrison aligned, which rendered the welcome committee great officiality and rather evaporated even the last unjustified hope of secrecy and discretion concerning the mission.

“Hallo, you, rose-fingered, saffron- veiled, rose-ankle Eos, daughter of the shining Hyperion and Theia, Eos and Dawn, or however you are called”, Deiphobus addressed respectfully his guest in an era, when the appellations, just like the designations or the actions, played an elevated role. “Join me along with your hungry companions to the table that I have prepared for you, so that we may discuss urgent matters, entirely unsusceptible to postponement”.          

From the moment that Deiphobus knew her identity, Eos had no reason to hide and she had worn her official dress, gold-green within and red-white on the exterior, so that due to the numerous  iridescent – fluorescent turnabouts one could not fathom which parts of the uniform were tough, callous, shelled or harnessed and which parts were pliable and flexible to ensure agility In battle. Taking the bridles of the encounter from the beginning, after she dismounted from the horse with female grace, she grabbed Deiphobus by the collar, by the cloth exceeding the armor and raised him sky-high.

          “You ‘d better omit any comments about my associates, Deiphobus, or else I am prone to teach you right now what Deimos (dread) and what Phobus (phobia) means. I have accepted your invitation for two reasons: First, I want to know how you discovered our identities to approach us. Secondly, since you obviously want something from us, or else you would not have invited us, I wish to ask you to assign us a guide in exchange or give us some instructions for further entrance into Olympus’ domain. Give us also some trench coats to prevent the cold.”  

          “Dynamic and heavy-handed lady, I see that you are not interested in an endeavor to know us better and you dislike any kind of foreplay. All your questions will be answered immediately and casually during the meal and over dessert. Indeed, in view of your hurry, I strongly recommend skipping the appetizers and the aperitifs and passing directly to lunch”, Deiphobus said dreading and trembling, thus multiply justifying his name.

          So, they sat at the table, where they were served rabbits and other meats, fish, honey, walnuts, figs and apples, generally all edible stuff mentioned by the Deipnosophists with the only exception of the callipygous and not steatopygous Aphrodite.  Still the atmosphere was chilly, and the three travelers did not touch their food, obviously fearing the eventuality of poisoning. Every effort of Deiphobus to initiate a pre-congress small or idle talk came up short. In the end, every effort of gentleness or courtesy was peeled and stripped naked, leaving space only for laconic frankness.

“Well…hm”, lisped and stammered Deiphobus, “let us examine the reason for your coming here”.

   He pushed a button and a holographic projection appeared immediately close to the table representing a man who turned his back to the screen, obviously an orchestrated machinated trick to increase the anticipation of the people present. 

The man made a turn around his own axis and was… the market place protector, the guardian of popular assemblies (αίγιος), the oath imposer (όρκιος), the generous liberator (ελευθέριος), the avenging spirit (αλάστωρ), the preventor of evil (αλεξίκακος), the redeemer of guilt and purifier of miasma (καθάρσιος),  the guileful deliberator (μηχανεύς), the harbor keeper and port watchman (λιμενοσκόπος), the mild, bland and kindly (μειλίχιος), the defeater of Lycaon and creator of the first wolf (Λυκαεύς)- the epithets are infinite, to prolong the suspense and anticipation of the readers I have placed before the most unknown predicates and attributes without referring to the known ones like thoughtful (μητίετα), cloud gstherer (νεφεληγερέτα etc.)  -well, yes, he was Zeus.

“Eos, I think that this charade has gone far enough, as the people say, a further procrastination cannot be tolerated. I have allowed you long enough to get lazy and suntanned, to drag your feet aimlessly, where of course by Tithonus the act of dragging feet is proper and hits the mark, to fool around without consequences within my domain deep domain. You know, some say that even a walk in a park is a constitutional right, simply called constitutional, which must also be granted or yielded by the leader. It goes of course without saying that since you ‘ve landed on Mars I have you under strict surveillance through screens, cameras, registering micro-scanners and not (wo-) manned drones. All this time, both my associates and I have been watching through holographic projection your pathetic adventures and your ineffable Heracles’ labors, which were all lamentable and laughable; We knocked ourselves out and had a heartful laugh in a light-hearted joking manner[114] at your alleged and self- induced calamities and adversities. At some point, however, all jokes must come to an end, especially when they are out of line, just like you, who have come too close to my headquarters. That is why, I hereby order you to take your lame pet and your clock repairing stone age quack with you and get the fuck back to the barren rocks of Earth and the dirty clay mud, from which you had the audacity to emerge”.

“Language, language, my Zeus; I see that the mere fact of our approaching has alerted you, fancy, if we had already reached you winter or summer residence, you would jump like a monkey! You call us dirty clay beings, while you and your kind have run aground to our world through a filthy wormhole, so you are nothing more than worms from outer space or insects and parasites from another dimension και παράσιτα, whole all this propaganda that you came from the Far East is just a Scheherazade’s tale. You are not even human, you have no authority over me, I am not subjected to your power, I don’t answer to you”.

“You fat ass, overnourished flabby Eos”, Zeus becoming dangerously red due to his anger, “you are out of jurisdiction, participating in an unauthorized mission. Sirius does not recognize you and Prometheus rends his clothes, if one tries to connect him with your unauthorized actions. May we learn, if you are kind enough, the reason of your being here?”

“When injustice and meanness exceed some limit or rather every boundary, then the Code of the Titans, the plebiscite of Demophantus, the evolutional summary of our species, authorizes us directly. ‘If one abolishes the democracy of Athens or fills a position after the democracy has been overthrown, he will be an enemy of the Athenians and will be sentenced to death and his money will be confiscated, while one tenth of them will be given to the goddess. He who executed the perpetrator of the military coup or the dictatorship or the insinuator of such act should be honored and appreciated.’ And the constitution of a sympathetic familiar city- state, which I know, says: ‘The implementation of the constitution lies on the Greeks’ patriotism, being entitled and obliged to resist in every possible way to whomever attempts to violently overthrow it’.  That is why, I came to kill you. I will smash your head with the dumbbells that the tyrannicides Harmodius and Aristogeiton hold in the museum of Naples”.

Zeus burst out into laughter, knocked himself out in such heavy, thunderous and inexhaustible hilarious face contractions, that if someone did not care to interrupt him, he would probably laugh until today.

“You, that’s a laugh! You are no opponent to me! When I look at you, I see a blood-covered bulk tied to my chariot, the smashed body of a wretched fat animal rotting under the sun. If you want to cross something other instead of our swords, then we can discuss it, because despite my endless erotic experiences, I have never done it with a fat cow and maybe such an act has also many delights to offer. My mouth is watering when I try to imagine the size of your genitals and your breasts. As far as your quest for justice and punishment and defense of democracy etc., you’d better try to convince some ignorant fool about them, because I don’t buy them.   The only thing that matters to you is that you put the pocket lover, which you had inserted in your robe, into my washing machine and it expectedly wrought and strained him! Who told you to become apprentice sorcerer in a technology you do not understand, you, primitive jackanapes? You coveted immortality for the monster, the abomination, the prodigy!  So, take enough immortality now to fill your pocket (literally)!”

“You are shameless! “Τους μεν κενούς ανθρώπους το πνεύμα διίστησι, τους δε ανοήτους το οίημα”,[115] Socrates said. Euripides used to say: “Βαρύ το φόρημα οίησις ανθρώπου κακού”[116], but then he disappointed us by saying that ‘Zeus is the punisher of the arrogant’, showing that he was entirely confused, probably because his wife cheated on him. You should punish the arrogant, while you are the most arrogant, braggart and self-conceited of all? Unless of course we familiarize ourselves with the supreme holy hypocrisy that you punish others for crimes committed by yourself. In any case, I challenge you to face me on the field without your miscellaneous techno- gadgets, your microprocessors and micro-applications[117], without you throwing missiles, thunder and lightning at me and without stealing from this scarecrow Athene the Egis shield (αιγίς) that has the head on the Medusa melted on it. Well, that you extracted from your head a descendant with more brains than you, that I can believe, after all it is not so difficult! But to take guns from her or from others, to hide and distract from your nudity, this is the greatest humiliation for a warrior. Indeed, don’t you have any shame, don’t you feel your own disgrace?  Isocrates said: “μηδέποτε, μηδέν αισχρόν ποιήσας έλπιζε λήσειν. Και γαρ αν τους άλλους λήσης, σαυτώ συνειδήσεις”».[118]                  

“Steatopygous Eos, please, do not serve your titanic proverbs beyond measure, because you will make me cry. Certainly, you would like me to stay unarmed in front of you, but that is not going to happen not even in your imagination. Besides, a duel between you and me is not an option, not even a possibility or an individuality, mainly and prominently because we are not equals. Perhaps Prometheus would be entitled to challenge me to a duel or at least Hyperion, both being the leaders of the mortals, and surely not you who are just a huge fat piece of shit.  To meet me in the eye, you ‘ve got to fight first my subalterns and afterwards, in the hypothetical but not likely case of your survival, you would have earned the honor to confront my representative champion, who is no one less than the protector of this planet, the war-god Mars. There, even the suppositions or the assumptions come to an end, because it is guaranteed that you will never walk alive out of Mars’ hands.”      

At that point, Mars covered the microphone with his palm and addressed Zeus whispering. 

“Are you insane? Do you think that I am eager to cross swords with that elephant? As they say in the movies, I didn’t sign for it. To play gods with our energy weapons is one thing, to face, however, mortal warriors in a duel to the death is another. Duels must be legislatively abolished, because their outcome is far too unpredictable and depends on many uncontrolled factors”.  

“You are a coward and a chicken-shit, your piss has reached your socks, stained and soaked the felt, you are the disgrace of the gods! By definition, the creatures of this dimension cannot harm us because we are energy beings. Armed with the weapons that I shall give you, you need not fear anything. Don’t get frightened by this delirium of the titans about valor, courage, heroism, wars etc. We do not risk any danger from their close-quarter bragging, because we strike from afar with our thunderbolts, we hit from a distance with missiles and rockets. Who spoke about war? The shepherd does not do battle with the lamb or the sheep; he just slaughters them!”    

CHAPTER 23:

ON THE SLOPES OF OLYMPUS

Eos, on the road to fight Zeus and his subalterns, knew that every doubt, every year, hour or minute of her life until now was but a preliminary prelude and eliminatory pregame to today’s culmination of glory. All previous events, every breath, every stage of her training, every victory or defeat on the battlefield was nothing more than the preparation of the present, of the impending. In the next few hours, she would fulfill her destiny. Fate is what nature, life and circumstances reserve to a (wo-) man and God or the divine is haw (wo-) man deals with them. Either Zeus would die today, and she would triumph or vice versa. Of course, the latter, which was the statistically and credibly expected outcome, would entail sufferings worse than death like humiliation, shamefulness, burlesquing or erasing of her name from the history board and oblivion throughout the ages. But the amazon did not accept to be neither forgotten nor dishonored like an insignificant fly crushed by Jupiter through a simple clapping of his palms.  

She remembered with an understanding and condescending smile the mission’s beginning, when there was the ambition that the presumptive and unexpected commandos would take in their possession some of Zeus’ famous guns and preordain them at the disposal of the people. Obviously, from the moment that their expedition was early enough exposed, being furthermore under surveillance, this choice was not a feasible option, not on the table anymore. The only thing remaining was pure revenge and Zeus’ murder. And what an inconceivable service such a deed would be for the people, redeeming them from many tortures and future wars, so that Eos would be further worshipped as the greatest mankind’s benefactor. 

On the morning, as she woke up in Tartessos, she felt strong and undistracted, having left behind all pending issues. She washed herself thoroughly and meticulously just like the Spartans before Thermopylae and coated herself with the flour of the wrestlers, so that her hands would not sweat and slip in the battle. She looked at the metallic mirror of her room and devoted her face and body enhanced attention, especially to parts that she usually neglected.  

Eos knew very well that she was not pretty, at least according to the objective esthetic criteria, i.e. the established rules of the classic statues.  She admired the muscles of the arms and the well-shaped meaty calves of her legs. Certainly, these mainly virile characteristics did not agree much with the ideal of the female beauty, since even the goddesses preferred to hide them to appear impeccable and attractive, but she didn’t regret at all, not for an instance, for her countless hours of training and the fierce fight required to obtain them. She, for her part, found that through her light lingerie, her shining armor and the silver belt emerged some kind of beauty. Of course, she was aware that Zeus, the god with his infinite experiences, probably did not consider her desirable. ‘Me and Jupiter being a pair’, that image flashed in her mind, what a perilous and unholy thought! On the contrary, the important issue was that her underestimated half beauty would be the last thing that the false god would see.

Since her childhood she was a tomboy with eyes not seductive for their color because they weren’t exactly violet or intense green, but they were penetrative and piercing. As time went by, and through constant training her body had become muscular and through prolonged gymnastics, swimming and hunting in the open suntanned – you know, calisthenics, extensions of legs and hands, alignment of the shoulders etc. -, but it was neither meager nor skinny nor weedy. She had a full circumference, round hips, fat and sturdy loins and waist. She ascertained all this moving right and left the coccyx and the tail of her body, as if she saw them for the first time. Furthermore, it is worth mentioning that her breasts had an inclination downwards like udders of a cow, but when she lifted the hands, they became elevated enough, and when she was lying on the bed, then they came in an entirely upright position; plus, her tits were rosy and fat like drums.  Anyway, this examination in this phase, shortly before the end, had no meaning whatsoever. What did have meaning was the respect and the worth of (wo-) man as the primal obligation of the state. In the frame of this dignity, she wouldn’t by no means accept to be dragged as a prisoner or be fertilized like a mare or if you prefer a female horse by some hairy scoundrel, who will think of himself as a man, while being homunculus. She wouldn’t allow it, she wouldn’t stand it, she would find a way to commit suicide in due time.

“I am Penthesilea intending to kill Achilles. This is the most accurate analogy, the most proper comparison”, she said.

While she was dressing, she smeared the magic fragrant ointment, taken from a silvery vase in a shape of a rosebush, over her heart, neck and the horizontal tangent of her curly hair, as if she were self-complacent- because finally we all are marked by self-complacency – as if she was Aphrodite herself. And it would be a nice idea if through the ointment of individual care, the consequent fragrance or the flour of the weightlifter- wrestler she was able to daze or distract Zeus, Mars and the other mates! And what a good thing would be if along with her spear she possessed another secret weapon, an aroma donated by Aphrodite or Artemis, suitable to irritate the thoughtless testosterone of the down brain, to confuse the languages and the meanings of people, to sow the seed of ignorance to all those imbecile rascals!         

Beyond her shining armor, Eos admired also her guns. The bow and the quiver full of red-feathered arrows, which she could shoot around in a dispersion mode with her unrivaled skill like bullets from a machinegun strafing, her sword sharp, handy, flexible, balanced and deadly, and the double-edged ax, in fact a halberd, used only in the most demanding duels.  

Then she cradled and weighed the spear in her hand, brought it right, left, up and down with extension of the elbow and wriggling of the wrist. This was her great advantage, the ace in the sleeve of the athlete and the champion, a ramrod and a wedge that the warrior could grab by the base, by the middle or by the cutting edge depending on the circumstances of the fight! Her favor movement was to turn quickly her back to the opponent, give him a strong elbow-hit in the belly, and just as he would instinctively and reflexively jolt the face forward, pierce his face with the point of the spear directed by the reversed palm. This point equipped with a shackled hook was not made of common ore, not even iron, but of forged orichalcum, the famous metal of the era, the exact properties of which we ignore even today, but surely nothing could resist it, because it acted as if it was dipped in a powerful and unerringly lethal poison!  One strike in any spot of the opponent and the scraping of the orichalcum would be drawn and absorbed up to the heart of the enemy and would mail him expediently to Hades in seconds. The shaft of the spear almost buzzed, whimpered and whined that it wanted to nail the skin of Mars and Zeus, to stretch them down and fill their eyes, mouth and lungs with the blackness of death.

As expected, Eos had also various other weapons on her which one would be tired of enumerating. Living in a technological era she could not disavow her ballistic arms and surely besides her sword in the belt, the baldric with silver-embroidered straps weighing three kilos, she had also her pistols and her rifle hanging as well as silver magazines, totally a summary of twenty- seven, perhaps thirty kilos plus the cartridges she carried in her pouch.[119] Zet, these ballistic weapons were for her a sign of cowardice and inadequacy, were not fitting to titans, but to some cowards who shot from a distance not to see the result of their attack, the pain they caused to the face of the enemy depicted in his mien, to people who committed the extreme dishonor of not assuming the responsibility of their actions.

  Burt right now, in this instant, in this blink of an eye ever changing, Eos galloped from the city of Tartessos (Tharsis) directing to the slopes of Olympus. As often happens in such cases, where from the static electricity of the air follows that havoc is nearing, many idle folks and dawdlers were gathered on both sides of the road cheering the marching rider, without even knowing why. They felt conspirators to something, to which they were not at all related, yet they chose that the particulate matter mattered to them, how human it is, maybe the most human, i.e. to make a foreign case my own one.    

These manifestations of ostensible fraternization bore, of course, no meaning for Eos. Her target was plain, definite and clear, i.e. Zeus’ death, and let whoever had the audacity to oppose her beware. She had already mailed whole legions of men to the gates of Hades, forcing the boatman to work overtime and protest indignantly and inefficiently to his union, and this is exactly what she intended to do today as well.

So, to the east, to the great East, she spurred her warhorse. The halberd was tied on the pommel or the capital of the saddle, while her spear remained calm in her right arm- such was her balance, self- possession and dominance over the available means. She rode incessantly towards the oblique oblong slopes of Olympus ascending upwards across the endless klicks that separated her from gods’ domain. Maybe she should take along Dedalus as a paladin, but she chose to leave him behind. His presence would have no meaning except for being killed. She had a desperate hope, namely that the gods possessed some kind of honor that would not allow them to exterminate her from afar, that based on their deep egoism would like to defeat her fair and square, rightfully and factually, in the battlefield.

She knew that her itinerary was registered by a thousand cameras and sensors, being watched by a thousand spies, that is why she shouted with untamed pride:  

     “You, snitches and ruffians, informers and hired paid eavesdroppers, send to Zeus following message, that I, Eos, daughter of Hyperion and Thea, am coming to terminate his wretched life. Tell him, if he has some traces of honor, I challenge him to a duel, himself, not his pitiful subalterns, lieutenants and apprentices, although I do not object, if he wants to place them before him, if that makes him feel better, however this will give him only a temporary and fleeting sense of security”.

Continuing her unrestrained course to fate, Eos kept on uttering triumph clamors, offenses and provocations towards the opponents. 

«Οιμωγή τε και ευχωλή πέλεν ανδρών ολλύντων και ολλυμένων[120]. Αβροβάται,[121] ανασεισίφαλλοι,[122] γυναικοπίπαι- ανδροπίπαι[123] μύζουρεις,[124]  ρωποπερπερήθραι,[125] σποδηριλαύραι,[126] πιθηκαλώπηκες,[127] get out of your barricades and shelters and  face your fate like men. Do not hide like slugs, come to the open or I guarantee you, the shit will hit the fan.”[128]

To rephrase Virgil’s Aeneid, which refers to Penthesilea, when she came out to face Achilles:

The amazon marches with moon-shaped shield,

Inflamed by rage and anger on the field,  

On the naked chest she wears a gold belt  

She fights against men, as a virgin never felt.

Mars – Ares sent laxly and successively four bullies from his followship against her, four terrible riders of Apocalypse corresponding to the Right of Conquest, which a paranoic, boastful and delusional fanfaron chief of our neighborhood invokes constantly, as well as Hunger, War and Death. More specifically, he sent Arab who gnashed his teeth, Aithon who was red- hot like incandescent steel, Phlogius who was even more ardent and Conabus who lifted dust and made a fuss. Unfortunately, Eos chopped them rather easily through summary procedures. Uttering a sky-high, mean, hateful, abominable and terrifying clamor, thrusting her spurs into the flanks of her war-horse  she decapitated the first with a double- edged hatchet, pierced the second with the spear, threw from the horse and trampled underfoot the third and shot an arrow with an impossible throw through the neck of the fourth making him gurgle in a macabre way. The four unlucky or rather misfortunate riders of Apocalypse were escorted also by some paladins, who were armed and fought as well, if one can call battle their comical performance. Yet the relentless warrior Eos reminding the undefeatable glass heroes we see on TV, thrust the one with the sword, shot the other, cut the former, pushed and fired on the latter, disemboweled the rest. It was as if she regretted peeling them like eggs.

„Just ask for mercy. If you wish, cry, let your tears and your mucous flow and I will be merciful and quick. I am not a bad person, I have no beef with you. Surely, it is not honorable for a man to cry and ask for mercy, for some reason however I am hindered to kill someone who begs, weeps, sobs, wails and laments.  Not everyone is tailored for wargames, and you should know that war is a road without return. Either you stand on the shore having a drink a letting other belling the cat or you enter the stream and die. Maybe you have another talent or inclination, you, wannabe opponents. Perhaps, you were born to be poets, to stitch or knit or sew, to be active in the services sector, be suitable to occupy yourselves with economics as a lose- lose situation and never come in touch with the ethics that the ancient savants taught us. You can easily enough view science from outside, nourishing the illusion that you can find the perfect answers outside yourself without entering what you are searching for and what interests you.  You don’t need to die today!”

Ares (Mars) was troubled, worried and uneasy in the palace of Zeus, if you know what I mean. When he saw that his emissaries- champions were decimated, he turned to his sons Deimos and Phobos encouraging them to join the battle. They gave him the following heroic answer though:

“Father, like hell we are. You should search for suckers elsewhere. When things get tough, the tough ones are going away. And the mother of the coward never weeps”.

The dudes, the fuckups, the sons of bitches let him helpless and exposed! For the first and last time in the whole Titanomachy Trilogy invective mode is so brutally used, but how should one call the sprouts that abandon their father in a difficult moment, instead of supporting and protecting him, and, instead of inspiring awe and fear as their names indicate, they sensed these feelings on their integument, summarized and condensed into what the Anglo- Saxons justifiably  call “chicken shit”.[129]   

Ares turned to Zeus with a desperate mien.

“Do not seek comfort by me. I have assigned you the portfolio of war, so get out and fight. You are in possession of energy body and strong energy shields. You will be hurt, but you will survive”.

“This vixen is prone of hunting me till the end of time. I don’t know what makes her tick, if one considers that she could join our side if bribed with some talers or silver staters. What kind of people are those who do not get corrupted, never betray their faith, never give up or compromise and never stay put, so that all of us can have a good time? “Παπαί, Μαρδόνιε, κοίους επ’ άνδρας ήγαγες μαχησόμενους ημέας, οί ου περί χρημάτων τον αγώνα ποιούνται, αλλά περί αρετής”[130]».

“You, tricky -giggly Ares, since I am getting bored of your constant whining- my god, i.e. my precious self- what a useless band are all those minions surrounding me- to boast your shredded confidence, I am going to give you my most effective weapon, the thunderbolt, which is not merely thunder or lightning, but their very quintessence. So, you will be able to stand against the Eriny, this ugly Harpya, not like a chickenshit fuck, but like a man, if this word still means something and is not canceled in the spirit of political correctness. So, get your ass to the battle and godspeed, because merely to look at you makes me sick and causes me a heavy nausea”.    

Knowing that with that weapon he could pulverize Eos from a considerable distance, Ares found again his lost mettle found again his mettle and came upon her on the war path like a Wild West cowboy ready to draw his revolvers. Since in this dimension he had superman’s capabilities drawing his powers from the red sun of Crypton… eh sorry this is an element of another epic saga, for which we do not possess copyright -, he enhanced arbitrarily his height to become five times bigger than common mortals[131]. Fast and furious he reached the battlefield and proceeded three steps in front of the terrified Olympus’ soldiers. With vigor and bullying machismo, like the one the fathers usually demand from their sons during the child soccer matches, Ares moved forward and stuck the protective of his genital’s jockstrap or codpiece on the Amazon’s horse’s snout, so close that he could slap its face from above, if he so chose. If you wish, if you like, like the referents of today’s conferences say, whereby a general of a nationalistic Tv channel answered: If you wish, if you like, well I don’t wish and I don’t like!

 “Woman, why do you involve me, are we somehow acquainted?” said Ares feeling secure and invincible. “What do you want? Are you out of your mind?”

“I am Eos, daughter of titan Hyperion and Thea. I am not looking for trouble, especially with you, son of Zeus and Hera. However, I regret to say that I have a very serious issue with your father, whom I challenged to duel with all proper formalities, and he insists on ignoring me. So, I appeal to you to step aside, to let me pass, until I envisage my opponent and look him in the eye, making him pay for his hybris consisting of dealing with free people like they were guineapigs and animals for slaughter, using them like a means towards an end, shredding their dignity!” 

“Tell me woman”, said the sexist Ares. “Where do you draw your mettle from, what gives you the audacity to think that you can make a stand against your betters, resist beings superior to you according to the order of the universe, creatures that trace their heritage to mighty Cronus – Chronos himself, while within them roars the blood of the cloud-gatherer Zeus? You speak of hybris; is it not hybris to challenge powers much greater than you?”

“Not, if I believe in a principle, not if I believe in justice!  Hybris is to commit something unjust and illegal and think you can get away with it; Then Atis, Nemesis and Tisis assume the duty to bring you to your senses. So, when I do something to restore equality – talking always ethics in account, because the end doesn’t justify the means but on the contrary the means define and prejudge the end, determine and shape the purpose – (r.n. ideology is one thing, ethics are another, listen to Eos at last!), then not only I must choose to  clash with powers superior than me, but it is imperative that I do so!”  

Ares made a huge step back, Eos took an attack posture and the battle began, at the beginning, with conventional weapons, where the hissing of the spears, the whistling of the arrows and the clank of the iron edges that rebounded on resilient armors. I am hearing “the rifles emptied, the swords crossed, teeth grinded, woods tossed”, just as a uniquely sensitive poet use to say.   

 Eos suddenly realized that the wind blew against her, which was very unfavorable for every duel either with catapulted or with ballistic weapons. So, Ares had objectively a big uncompensated advantage, since he could adapt his size, thus having longer hands, a fact that favored him, when the confrontation became physical and from close quarters, hand to hand. Despite all that, she continued fighting against the muscular giant till the end. Her horse was pierced and holed by spearpoints, the spears ricocheted on the shields  ; the duel exhibited no fancy elegance or demonic skillfulness, as we picture it, but it was pushing and elbowing  to bring the opponent out of balance, a wrestling contest and street fight between two behemoths, where Ares resembled a multi-tentacled Lernea Hydra, while PAOK (the other great football club of Thessaloniki, enemy of Ares) …, sorry I mean Eos, was the unbendable rock, the indestructible anvil that deflected all strikes, the oak-tree that endured countless knife-cuts, that absorbed the knife of Melampus (see relevant entry in the next tome of Titanomachy), the small condense sharp diamond, the hardest of all, the compact core or nucleus impossible to split. How many times she fell on the ground due to violent kinetic force and shear brutal collision with the weapons of Ares, but she rose to her feet dynamically according to the dogma “you are allowed to fall, but it is imperative to rise again”.   

The duel went through many stages. After a lot of repeated javelin throw, lancing and fencing, having a bigger surface as a target, Eos achieved some blows somewhere within the joints of Ares, between his arms and the ribs, stinging him to certain points.

“Ah, you mosquito”, cried Ares, “you, harmful mosquito, your sting hurts, nettles. You made my Ichor[132] leak, you shrewd wacko fat cow!”  

“You have still the option to surrender”, said Eos trying to hide her panting and fatigue.   

“You ask me to surrender, me the god of war?”, said Ares with hurt pride. “Let us leave aside all those weapons and confront with muscular mass and strength. Let us finish this as it is fitting, body against body, I think that is to your liking, you, primitive material homunculi. If you do not sense the smell, the reflection and the humidity of the stunk sweat, the aroma and the stench of the moment, you never learn from your predicaments and you never understand your experiences”.

It goes without saying that Eos was favorable and positive to such initiatives. So, they threw away their armors and engaged each other with bare hands. Beside the wind direction and the variating size of Ares, there was also another aggravating factor for the fighting Titanis, namely the energy body of the opponent, making her jolt constantly die to static electricity.

They both had the attitude of a carnivore, caw-bearing, rapacious animal. Grips of Greco-Roman or freestyle wrestling, crushing and bone- smashing, tripping up, tackles, somersaults and overturns that would carry away or break even the legs of bulls or buffalos offered an unrepeatable performance to whoever had the chance to watch it. Be sure, dear reader, that even we, the contemporary spectators, who have the opportunity to watch and admire athletes of the highest level, have never witnessed such a spectacle; here it was the case neither of a boxing fight or a football match with a thousand safety valves and protection regulations nor for self-complacent exhibition of talents or skills, but for a fight to the death by opponents who had unleased and launched against each other their limitless potential without any restrain whatsoever. And mind you, the digital blots that picture a battle on TV are incapable of conveying us a real impression of the current confrontation, because they represent the movements with impossible unnatural speed, while the lethal blows are slower, visible, albeit weighted and calculated, premeditated, cynical, surgical, vicious, with a hideous malignance, that is why they are really terrifying.        

Ares was big and bulky, voluminous, impressive, self-possessive, radiating his reputation in every step of the way, in every movement or rotation. On the contrary, Eos possessed and relied upon a power, not derived only from her muscles, but also from somewhere else beyond herself, from her principles, from abstract concepts, from her untamed will, not only hers, but also of things, as if she twisted the commandments of fate to serve her own purpose, supplementing every distinguishable opportunity with proper ergonomical energy. One could reckon that she drew her power from space itself, from the electromagnetic field surrounding Earth, from hot balloon air that seemed to have substance and hypostasis after all.

Mythical blows and hits that would pulverize others or send them to hospital for many years were scored or sustained. I don’t know, reader, if one should name their fighting praxis “karate” or randomized and despondent kickboxing, but be sure that it was the deadliest wrestling tactics in the universe. If someone had the escapade to thrust her/his way in between these two behemoths to separate them, she/he would be trampled and crushed like a reed or a sandstone or a tile, they would probably not even take notice of the interventor, as if one was an ant or some vermin under the sole of a shoe. Every single motion of this macabre choreography would have a lethal effect on a lesser adversary within seconds. Karate hits on the neck, targeted and concentrated fingers driven into the solar plexus, focused and stretched palm on each other’s nose, capable of pushing the rhinal bone deep into the brain. We speak here of a combat’s apotheosis, of an archetypical, primordial, rudimentary, atavistic, cave-like clash between a man and a woman for conquest of territory or living space, of influence sphere or dominance.

The physical and somatic superiority of Ares was evident, in the final analysis he was from another privileged dimension, but also his wrestling ability was enviable and first-class, since he was the first among equals and number one among his peers in the specific field. That is why the spectators watched Eos retreating constantly and if the limits of the ring were demarcated, Ares would have confined her in a narrow corner or by another syntax Eos would be on the ropes. 

And yet, as the retreat of Eos seemed definitive and irrevocable, she thrusted her feet deep into the ground mounding up, creating a dyke, offering a decisive resistance. It was the defense of a woman who could not possibly win, but it was also unthinkable and non-sequitur for her to lose.

Dust and rocks, soil and blood and branches rose, broke, hovered. The clamors, the insults and the swearing had stopped, both gladiators had henceforth no puns to exchange, nothing to say to each other. Not even the elementary meaningful communication between two sentient beings was left, the only interaction was the trick or treat of the hemlock, the mercy of the coup de grace offered by the one towards the other – the logic of “let us finish this” -, the compassionate option of death of the one or of the other as the only possible outcome, the only eventual end.  

The heel of Eos was perhaps not so strong as the one of Achilles, neither vulnerable nor invulnerable nor immortal, but it pierced the ground like a spike or a lever, a bolt or a nail or a splitter and angled there like an experimental or seminary ratio, shooting testing probes or roots, close-range plummets or sprouts for scouting the truth. Nothing could remove it.

Ares leaned on the unmovable object pushing and repelling for hours, he sweated, breathed briefly and sweated again but saw no significant progress.

“The devil should hold you”, he exclaimed in the end and distanced himself from the battlefield indignantly. To Zeus he said via communicator:

“What can I do? She is made of steel.[133] I have no intention of spending all my life here, I have many things to do”.  

   Eos started to march forward, to climb Olympus with steady successive heavy steps, faithful to her plan to reach the top, to challenge the top itself!

Ares turned and looked at her with awe. As he retreated, he grabbed a spear from the many scattered on the ground and threw it to her. The spear ran its course at an unnatural speed but was deflected by Eos’ shield. Then Ares, always using…reverse gear and suddenly smiling maliciously, picked and catapulted another spear with such accuracy and skill that even Achilles would envy it, mobilizing all his technique and hoping to startle Eos who after a tiresome and exhausting duel of many hours would definitely not expect that the last blow would be the most weighted and balanced, just as the fans of the Fisherman expected the lesser and not the major wine in the tell-tale marriage. Eos though lifted again her shield like a rotating sickle to ostracize the spear, but this time it penetrated it and almost touched with its point her left breast without piercing her heart, as it was destined according to its spin and momentum. Eos broke it ostentatiously and continued her walk with the pride of her excellence brandishing furthermore the shield pierced crosswise by a maimed plump trunk, a broken rod, half a pole, a zagged splinter, forming a peculiar set causing many headaches to the interpreters archeologists who even today search for the significance and the function of curious obsolete ancient objects, made for intellectual, clever, shrewd and otherwise smart guys with top example of course the mechanism of Antikythera.

Now, Ares looked back with a glance incorporating unfeigned admiration, limitless appreciation, but also deep sorrow, genuine “a priori” repentance for what he was forced to do.          

“Sorry, warrior. But just as you are refusing to lose, I also cannot allow myself to be defeated.  I deeply regret that our era is so cynical, mechanistic, causal, unfree and relentless, that is not my fault”.   

He unslung from his shoulder the thunderbolt of Zeus and threw it, not exactly upon Eos, because he pitied her proud appearance and her haughty march, but without even looking, somewhere sideways, approximately. The explosion was terrifying, the impulse power only was shoving and annihilating; Eos was hurled in the air, her helmet was flung, her weapons scattered, and Eos after a flight and a fall landed on the rock by the head. Immediately, the blood flooded around placing her within a red halo.

“What a cowardice, what a cowardice”, Ares wept. “Zeus, don’t you see that, don’t you see what we deteriorated into? Where does our dominion rely upon, we have no moral foundation whatsoever. Our journey has many stations but no destination. The titans are free and will drag the whole humanity along to freedom.”

“’Tum saeva Amazon ultimus cecidit metus’”[134] said mournfully the disgraced god of war, repeating the saying of Pyrrhus in Seneca’s “Troades”. 

Then the wall- demolition man Ares cried towards the heavens:   

“Heavens, please accept in your bosom the immaculate Eos. From the moment that ‘eidos’ (form) and matter exist in the world, many roads to immortality open. Whatever she believed, whatever made her tick, God is one and only, same as the world and the souls. We all float between a beginning and an end, which both communicate, embrace and entangle each other.”

Ares was devastated. The roads of love are mazelike, and it seems that during the duel Eos quite simply got infatuated with Eos. It is not unheard of, we have seen more unexplainable, unfitting, difficult, dystopic loves at first sight. Hereby helped the fact that Eos was not mutilated, her face remained unharmed, uninjured, intact, unspent, peaceful, out-worldish, haughty, timeless, beautiful.

   ””Aurea cui postquam nudavit cassida frontem, vicit victorem candida forma virum’”,[135] whispered again Ares excerpting Propertius in his elegies.

As the idle, the lazy and the curious surrounded around the event, some of them to steal spare parts from the scattered equipment remained after the fight, Ares still stood with crossed hands and observed the amazon that he had “defeated”. His nostrils swelled as he inhaled the stench of the blood, of the horseshit and of death. He caressed awkwardly his face, maybe to hide the tears that already flowed his cheeks.  

Then, a perky presumptuous Martain like an ugly Thersites or a muzzled vampire Shylock bent and began to cut the straps of the breastplate and the sheaths of the heroine with his knife and in his haste to detach the prey that he didn’t deserve cut also and uprooted skin cells from the epidermis. The amazon risked staying naked, only a legging  blown by the air, her silver belt and her red sandals, resembling those of the marbled king had remained in their place, still hung or slung on her big body, which paradoxically despite the infinite scars, the cuts and the bruises, smashed, wretched and destroyed seemed in a curious way to have fulfilled its purpose.

“You get the hell out of here, you rat”, warned Ares the pillaging marauders.        

Thersites however seemed not to have heard and continued snatch from the body whatever he still could. Whereas he unbuttoned Eos’ belt, which of course he could do only under the necessary condition and the presupposition of her previous death, otherwise he would already be a chopped steak, he dared say being so busy that he did not even raise his gaze:

“All-mighty god Ares why do you observe your victim? What could you possibly envy in this voluminous bulk, her youth, her strength or her beauty? Whatever her body was earlier, now it is carrion for the worms”.

Without the slightest compassion, as if encouraged by the fleeting sensitive moment, the almost female weakness that Ares showed, the Quasimodo ugliest Martian snatched the belt lifting somehow Eos’; Body shaking at the same time shamelessly his hips, conveying the impression that he had sexual intercourse with the corpse.  

It was then that Ares moved forward and punched the godless filthy defiler in the face breaking his jaw, his nose and the cheekbones altogether. He was hurled like an airplane, ran a trajectory over the dead body and crashed many meters beyond.  Second, you had the audacity to address me. I forgave you for being a fool. Third, you showed disrespect and indolence towards a person much superior to you in the ladder of universal hierarchy. The consequence, the aftermath, but also the penalty for it is death!’

Thersites choked in his own blood.   

Now Ares, alone in some chamber of Olympus, is kneeling respectfully before Eos’ corpse. Olympus is so high that from the open window the whole Nautical Ocean is to be seen up to the horizon, but also the other prairies of the planet, as well as the sea of Hellas with its islet representing the sign and the mark of the titans. The wind is blowing downwards across the endless slopes of Olympus, propagates and howls mournfully among rough rocks and edges, carries away, depilates and polishes all imperfections leaving behind only what is inseparably and indissolubly connected to the surface.

Time and again Ares takes in his arms the head or the muscular extremities of Eos and caresses her shoulders. He bursts into tears when he sees that her body had sustained many scratches, but no one seems fatal or entirely disrupting in length or width or passing through in a diagonal or antiesthetic way the skin’s contiguous integument. Her body is intact – in a strange sense – her head seems integer, pale of course since it was emptied of blood in a way though that death appears mysterious and unexpected, caused by an indistinguishable inner damage and rendering the dual code or pair ‘life– death’ unexplainable, this something that switches someone in an “on” position and then extinguishes him with an “off” switch, that detail separating a steaming living body from a soulless and recently dead one.

The main feeling that Ares sensed was shame. His means and weapons were so devastatingly superior that the outcome was preordained from the beginning. What value had such a victory? He felt not as God of war but as president of the scoundrels’ association. He regretted the words he had uttered against her in the frame of the usual mutual insults’ exchange before the battle, that in   a while she would be a carrion of the bords or the worms of the earth. Surely, these were not things that a noble, magnanimous and gentle charmer would choose to say to a woman.  Some rules of gallantry seem very deep rooted in the genome of every male cell in the contact with a female one. He could not avert the gaze from the broad forehead, the fleshy lips, the curls that still reeled in the breeze and the lids along with the eyelashes which seemed ready to flatter and open again, as if death were a bad joke!  The tears of Ares beyond staining his robe dropped and flowed on the cheeks of the female warlord, as if they were her tears.

“Zeus, Dias, Zeus, Dias” he murmured to the Trismegistus God behind him.  

“Zeus, Dias, Zeus, Dias”, the great one repeats mockingly with an altered ironic voice. “Buenos dias, my name means yoke and join, but what can I yoke, what can I join? Should I play my game or play possum? The fans of the Fish are right when they say that even God is tired of too much “Lord have mercy’. Even more suitable is the groundbreaking disapproval of constant doxology through the phrase ‘Don’t lord-mercy me’. I am sick and tired of all those psychological issues that you, my supposed defenders, display. I am not an obstetrician or a pedagogue or a governess to nurse you. We agreed all together to start a profitable business, but I have no intention of massaging each one’s ego or of comforting each one for his mistakes, what am I, your father? I only know that a few hours ago you were horny, prepared and eager to eat her liver and now you are weeping like a wifie over spilled milk.”            

          “Even when I killed her, I was not aware of what I have done”, whined Ares again cleaning diligently the features of her beloved’s face.

          “Well, I pity you because the jealousy scene that Aphrodite reserves for you will be of such intensity that you will search in vain for a place to hide. I pity you not for your love per se but because it is so ill-mated and improperly matched. You can have the mostly beautiful women at your feet, and you fell in love with a fat cow and dead at that.”

“You should resurrect her in the resuscitation and reinvigoration chambers.”

“This is beyond my power. I too am but a user and not connoisseur of the technology that we brought along from outer space. It can be implemented and applied only to us, it is locked to our genome and not to the one of humans. Unless you desire to have from here to eternity on your bed an abortive thing as a companion with eyes on the back, the features of the face upside down and the split of the pudendum in a horizontal position.”

“We should constrain Dedalus to help me. Maybe this technology is alien to him, so that he could not decipher it earlier, but if his life is at stake, then he will squeeze his mind and wring his meninges to find a solution”.

“Dedalus will be arrested and punished for the participation to this subversive attempt against me. I already see in front of me a sensational trial, where I will make an example of him and condemn him ‘de lege artis’, according to all maxims of legal science. And while there is this attractive perspective, most favorable for our interests, you want me to assign him for you to conduct macabre experiments of resurrection, just to practice necrophily on the precarious result afterwards.”

“We will lull him into believing that if he resurrects Eos, we will accept mitigating circumstances in his case and indeed Eos will testify that she persuaded him to participate in this doomed mission. Just fancy, cloud-gatherer, what a great fiesta will be celebrated for the mighty Eos to be condemned, while a trial of the lower blue-collar engineer bears per se no interest for the public”.

“I don’t understand what you have to gain from all this. In the best of cases, if she is not executed, whereby her resurrection would be in vain, Eos will be sentenced to life; I will throw her into prison and get rid of the key. Are you so perverse that you will condescend to feast your love behind prison bars? Do you that Eos will forgive you, if you keep her incarcerated?”

“This is my personal affair”, said Ares smiling imperceptively, guilefully and self- complacently among his tears.  

Zeus sensed in the air the almost indistinguishable change in Ares’ mood.    

“I perceived something vaguely perverse in your last statement and that consoles me that the world as I know it has not changed. Surely, the conquest of the solar system has no intrinsic value, if we cannot satisfy our passions and pursue our ambitions, even the most sophisticated vices. So, I give you Dedalus to play with you the most evolved electronic games, so that you will be together the hebephrenic and the drooling old fool, the inconsiderate young man and the multiply sclerosed, the baby and the silly dotard.”    

Ares nodded satisfied with this agreement, but then he raised his eyebrow, as if a last concern shadowed his face, a worry that he didn’t consider before. 

“Just a minute. I just remembered that there was a third member participating in this expedition against us”.

And it was just then, when the mood in the Olympus residence changed abruptly and both gods burst into uncontainable laughter!  

CHAPTER 24:

ENCELADUS 

Indeed, the third member of the expedition was Tithonus.

It is a feature of the those diverting from the statues’ esthetics or of the analogies’ golden rule, no matter whether they are abominations, monsters, prodigies or people with special abilities or needs or invalid if this word is even allowed in our times – surely the term “pension or disability allowance” exists, because facts have a way to be persistent and cannot be undone through erasure of words or through wishes or curses or orders from above, but only through proper measures and much care -, that they both be viewed as curiosities and go unnoticed. When someone notices them, tries at first to integrate them somehow into his nebulous worldview and then he tends automatically to hilarity and self- appeasement realizing that they cannot harm him realizing that they cannot harm him and that he has nothing to fear from them. This feeling of relief is followed immediately by the next occupation resulting in oblivion of all other elements of factors according to nature’s compassionate clemency and leniency.     

Tithonus continued his itinerary on the slopes of Olympus, not conspicuously on the surface though, but into the cave’s underground. The vast, intricate, cavernous system of Olympus was so extensive that it was impossible to guard all entrances to the depths of the earth. Of course, the chthonic chambers of the sophisticated and utterly threatening weapons would be guarded draconically, but until that could become an issue … God would provide! As we have already observed during the narration of this story, the people of Mars moved on the far edge and at the outer limits of anthropology, physiology, morphology, physiognomics and skull doctrine, presenting an infinite diversity in infinite combinations, while the half- grown stature of Tithonus gained only a circumstantial fleeting gaze and then was forgotten like the undefined shadow of a mass, as if he had poured everybody a drink of some magic oblivion potion or had treated around a pill of  forgetfulness.

As he went down, he had the feeling and the sense that he heard noises from the surface, before he eavesdrops again to the out-worldish silence resembling a taciturn shroud. He was scared, startled, spooked and accelerated the step following an irrational urge to save himself by finding refuge in the bosom, the bowels, the intestines of the earth to get rid of his persecutors both on the upper or of the lower rows.

He felt that his lamp was about to extinguish, that would be the day to remain without any vision within eternal darkness! Of course, the dark was not absolute, as if something bleached from above and this made the terror even more tangible!  He breathed heavily, erratically, in a dim gloom, sheening and dawning as if illuminated by pearls, he felt an iron fist squeezing his diaphragm and the chest causing the piercing pain of a heart seizure. An almost imperceptive whisper minded him, that the best he could do was to be headed for the upper layers, to emerge like a cork, and surrender unconditionally to the creatures of the surface; after all he had already surpassed himself considerably performing this epic free fall into the lair of Enceladus, he had done all that his strength permitted him to comply with the metaphysic commands of his superior divine authorities. No one could blame him, everybody would say “well done Tithonus” and “what you have done already is no minor thing”, nobody would accuse him if he didn’t dare take a further step.

          In all this unwrought and intricate net of fears, wishes, insecurities and unconfessed belied unsatisfied desires the doubt stole in that he had not interpreted properly the indications of the present descent to Hades and that simply nothing waited for him at the bottom of the well, nothing could protect or console or compensate him, nothing at all, that he marched irrevocably to oblivion, to death, to an early grave, being a poor and fatal volunteer. But even if he found something, could it be scarier and more monstrous than his imaginary persecutors?

          He had the sensation that multilegged creatures crawled on the walls dragging along metallic protrusions and scratching the surfaces with them.  On the one hand he had the tendency towards leaning on the wall to support himself, on the other hand he hesitated, because his fingertips groped for something wet, soft, creeping or walking on all six, that ricocheted backwards reacting to the touch, uttering a disgusting hiss or whistle. At some point, he stumbled – that was the only calamity or predicament that he had not yet undergone- and he nearly somersaulted down the stairs breaking his precious lamp. Fortunately, a yawning pit, instead of making him trip even further being worse for wear, embraced his body like a hug and absorbed the vibrations of his fall, without avoiding however to hit his shinbone on a hard place, on a ledge destined never to be touched.    

Hypnotized and roving, Tithonus continued walking down into the depths of the impossible necropolis that he had discovered, entertaining the impression that the stones of the walls were gradually replaced by sculls, and bones as hybrid construction materials. Without a doubt, there was a series of catacombs down below, so much so that they are always a crucial indispensable element of every adventure and every descent to Hades, either made of dreams or by nature’s hand. Our hero pried and scrutinized the Latin or Greek inscriptions and the variated representations that he encountered in the successive tombstones’ floors, running, almost dropping like a stone in the diverse claustrophobic cellars, articulated on respective archeologic strata wondering where this trek would take him, forgetting in the phantasmagory and the anxiety of the discovery his delicate sensible nature. In fact, as the educated reader may guess, Tithonus went back in time plummeting like a sonar echo into the overlapping stratifications of history.

The stairs narrowed, became artless, crude, and slippery, bending intentionally expressing serious and premeditated intention, as well as an indication of the constructor, whoever he might be, that he approached his target. Indeed, along with the suffocating malodor of the mold and the foulness he smelled and perceived something else, a different scent of censer or incense. “Is my foot trapped in the embalming stuff and the cotton of the dead?”, thought Tithonus with horror, reliving, reincarnating, and materializing childish nightmares. “What is this stench?”, he said clearly and loudly as if he could exorcise his complicated situation with a simple summarized observation. In addition to all this, he perceived a constant murmur of unknown origin that seemed to come from the walls themselves, as a mourning, an obituary, an epitaphic speech, a wailing, a deploring, deep, pompous, hollow, gurgling, and digestive like the training gargle of a basso aria singer. If the instigator of the sound revealed himself in front of him, he would certainly die on the spot due to irrational primordial fear.

          In the continuation of his descent he observed that the walls seemed steadily to revive again, but this time not due to rottenness or foulness, glued mucous or goo -catarrh or mildew and plight, because started again to show on them samples or artefacts of civilization, lamps, appliques, self-illuminating bio-gel  or bio-gelatine or bio- glue, boards, illuminating traffic signs and indications, railways for carts and draisines etc. It was as if Tithonus ambled and scampered again towards future.

          Progressively, the rows of the present workers, subalterns, minions and underdogs (even in the working class there us a hierarchy), supervisors, foremen, motormen, engineers, planners and executives, general directors and (wo-) men in charge based on some kind of legitimation multiplied and grew denser, because Zeus had fortified the depths of Olympus building barricades, tunnels and underground passages, where beyond construction factors a lot of army and heavily armed security forces circulated.   To the greatest relief of Tithonus a miscellaneous crowd of impossible creatures, derived from the whole solar system, emerged from the depths of the planet and performed its daily tasks, entirely indifferent to each other. Within this panspermia one could easily blend in, integrate and go unnoticed, since obviously an arrest warrant had neither been issued against him nor he was persecuted after a state attorney order or caught in the act, because in such a case he would be instantly located through the differentiated sensors. It seems, however, that Zeus amused himself with him or that he wanted to erase or exhaust him through contempt and silence, to show him how insignificant he was, so that he would despise himself and commit suicide on his own.

          Thus, there was in great depth a pulsing underground city under cavernous rocks and the limestone figures of dubious origin or the karst formations which possibly were ruins of previous Mars’ civilizations. Tenths of servomechanisms, ancillary motors and air-tourbillions plumbed, probed, plummeted, measured, examined, catheterized, analyzed and dug, other engineering automata built, repaired and extended mercilessly the underground station, while there were also intermediate machines in this incredible vertical integration of production that brooded, incubated, vomited and cast up on shore construction material modifying easily the local raw matter. Here, in dusk of the dismals it was virtually impossible to exploit solar energy, thus the machines had re-adapted to the warmth, the caloricity and the geothermic streams of the earth as well as to the often reviled but always necessary petrol oil. Semi-autonomous drills and tentative sonar plumbs had mined and carved tunnels through the sand and the rocks in such an inconceivable depth that sometimes the sensors registered even a gravitational difference!

          Fortunately, Tithonus was in his present state ideal for clandestine and stealthy spying. He did not need to eat or drink, to urinate, to stool, to wash, to shave, to cut his nails, a fact that made him the cleanest creature in the whole creation. So, he did not need to enter restaurants or public toilets and attract attention. The integrated denser and ιmatter distributor within him protected him from feelings’ outbursts, irritated and reinforced the spirit with stimuli, freed his consciousness from unwanted burden and sentimental ballast, while, being sexless and genitally inactive, he had gotten rid of the annoying sexuality and felt relatively healthy, fresh and undistracted to eavesdrop his intuition and inspiration, but also to think with a clarity and a limpidness that he couldn’t recall having in any period of his life.

          Near the central arch he saw a gate that although hermetically closed could not restrain an iridescent illumination that slipped through the fissures, a red shining as if it was the workshop of a blacksmith with a hammer scintillating on the anvil and forges an incandescent metal.  Fir the time being let us call it the treasure’s gate -to pay proper homage to the tales, Arabic or not-, from the ones that are guarded by a coiled dragon in the children’ stories and hide priceless jewels. Sentinels stepped back and forth armed and armor-plated like lobsters. There was no doubt that the devastating and most destructive superweapons of Jupiter were hidden there. Poor Tithonus heeded no hope whatsoever to bring himself to possession of these majestic trophies. It was not possible to deceive or defeat so many sentinels, this can only happen in the movies.  

          Then why had he come here? he wondered. Let us not forget that the theft of superior weapons and their mobilization to the universal general struggle between the powers of friendship and those of litigation, being conducted within the solar system, constituted plan B in case the assassination of Zeus should fail. His sensitive and fragile psyche did not permit him to stay on the surface and watch the outcome of the duel initiated by Eos. He knew, however, that the only purpose of the inequal and desperate fight was distraction and diversion, so that he – Tithonus – would have the chance to act. To act and do what?  

“My beloved large Eos”, he thought “what a big woman you were!” A common character with ordinary somatic proportions, which was he, had the chance to know love with a practically perfect woman, capable and skillful in all activities, an excellent existence that enclosed the male in her cocoon, covered him with a blanket and protected him, heeded and encouraged him, on the one hand drained and absorbed all his juices, on the other hand her energy penetrated, infiltrated, entered stealthily, stole in, intruded easily into the layer of the skin and charged repeatedly, wholeheartedly and completely the batteries of the body, which she had earlier depleted. She was like an energy drink making the heart thump and the lungs gasp for breath, draw and pump, huff and puff to eventually become mighty compressors, blowers, sperm whales and Aeolus’ bags, able to finish the job. Making love to her was both exercise and suffering, whereby the lover was summoned to overcome his own self and be crowned as victor. If the amazon sympathized with him, if she loved and cherished him, she let him win. 

Profiting from the general flow of the crowd and the confluence of ancillary and assistant creatures, being at the service of the gods one way or another, he passed whistling indifferently in front of many storerooms and noticed that some of them had fewer guards and diminished custody. There were also storage spaces without any human attendance, where the servomechanisms worked mechanically, just as their name suggests, gathered, measured and evaluated data, but their evaluation was flawed, because they were not guided or directed by a ruling mind.  They mainly shoveled or moved around artefacts or devises made of tile, rusted metal, green nephrite and various hydraulic functions. Then along with the lamp he held, his mind was also illuminated by the flash of a sudden idea, to which he should have zoomed in earlier, if he was not limited by the balanced flabbiness of the androgyne body with the mutually annihilated hormones. The mechanical arms recycled and tided titanic technology which the gods of Olympus very simply discarded as garbage.

And yet the inventors of the titans and the humans had created some extraordinary devises. Maybe, they did not possess the technique of quantum entanglement and multiplied at that, which led to an instant space parallax or to beaming, maybe they did not possess the perverse nuclear and thermobaric bombs of Zeus, but they had developed cybernetic organisms (cyborg), who had the capability of working in vacuum. In fact, their biggest achievement were the catasterisms, as we are going to see in the next volume, through hybrid energy pumped from the haze of the myths, the power of the narrations and the beginning of the Creation, yet they were aware that beyond the world created by them through reflection of their own subject there is an external universe, maybe reflected by other subjects, that is why they had also built cybernetic organisms capable of functioning in a anaerobic environment.  

With robotics technique they built simply from scratch a new body with mechanical parts that communicated through cables to the mind of the corresponding owner who was preserved in formol -saline after the decline of his/her physical body. The difficult part was that no one would accept to direct an avatar, an incarnation, a vertically integrated doll, living himself in a bucket full of organic fluids, only people at the point of death or heavily crippled could agree to prolong this way their existence and became through this method individuals with special skills and abilities. Tithonus knew that cybernetic organisms were very powerful weapons despite the underestimation of the titans, especially if they had a connection with a Hesiod’s plow, as we shall see in the following.

Finally, he stood in front of a low gap for crouched people or for pygmies. Then our hero condescended to stoop, although he was unaccustomed to perform such swift and tiresome moves and entered the threshold of the cavity appearing through. He was received by a silent void etc., etc. and the lamp strained to light; when his eyes got used to the darkness, he saw that the place was not bigger than the bottom of a well. He saw at the opposite side a kind of shrine or high altar full of golden and wooden goblets, candlesticks, and other trinkets.

          What however lied straight ahead easily added nausea to the predicaments of the first terrorist in human history. This was the source of the smell of putrefaction, and it seems that in the duration of all those years it had ample time to leave slowly its point of origin and ascend to the higher strata of the atmosphere or at least it was only interruptingly and intermittently perceptible.  

It was a brain totally naked, free from body or scull and rotten as hell, connected through various interfaces with diverse instruments, so that its functions were guaranteed throughout its lifetime. Tithonus explored and studied for hours these protrusions, juts, jags, and overhangs trying to deduce their use. His mind was galloping ahead of his time, and he concluded that the connections were: optical fibers, scouting devices, channels for chemical senses (smell, taste), organs of capture and sensors of touch, megaphones and telephone receivers, gauges measuring temperature and radiation, delicate strings to count other more elusive parameters, maybe speed, perhaps gravity, conduits for sustaining the brain with nutritional juices, transponders of noxious irritations’ registration, i.e. pain, digging spades, excavators, protective thoraxes, and heavy armament both ballistic and hand-to-hand. It was a high-tech war machine, very difficult to confront, let alone to defeat. Th brain was as if it were mummified, yet it was certain that with the proper reinvigorating technique and connection to a power source and a fluids’ distributor it would operate again.    

                And yet wedged and inserted in this weird organism was a Hesiodic plough, a common wooden one with a classical protruding plowshare. A more attentive and concentrated look revealed that from a technological viewpoint it didn’t fall short of the expectations outlined for a cyborg as we would name it with today’s terminology. Tithonus remembered that such complicated devices, called summarily “synthetists”, possessed by the universal adepts, the very powerful emissaries of light, who had sent him the cosmic message about the battle between Prometheus of men and Epimetheus of kings still raged. This Hesiodic plough was enlisted among his most exclusive and unconventional instruments, while its inventor himself called it “mesoscope”, capable of scouting, illuminating, and mapping the interval spaces or levels of reality with different order of size. When this devise pondered the various stages of the infinitesimal always in relation to the observer’s scale, it was called “innerscope”. However, while starting from some middle-ranged scale and aiming at an upper level, it can become “periscope”. Summarily, this instrument was known as “mesoscope”, being related to sonar function, sounding line or weight, plumb lead, probing or tentative plummeting. It was a synthetist or layer –penetrator which allowed us to ascend some levels or planes of reality from microcosm to macrocosm and vice versa, illuminating sufficiently the successive layers. In this way our vision could envisage phenomena of middle range and middle scale, unseen by human eye until now. Given that, as Archimedes taught, any catoptron can be also used as a weapon, the “mesoscope” through connection with a sight notch had the capacity of emitting rays and return fire, focusing, concentrating, and amplifying the energy of the quantum waves. Proportionally to the energy transferred to it, the Hesiodic plough had the faculty to retrofit or feedback, to turn into a real perpetuum mobile and extend the trail of its plowshare as an incandescent macrocytic monofilament until the end of space dividing and tearing apart, splitting and rending   splitting and rending, scissoring and scraping, incising and dichotomizing.    

Above all, however, it was a device of free men for their own service and facilitation, contrary to a situation, where the man is a subjugated means to achieve alien purposes aiming the dominance of foreign religions, oppressing tyrannies, or other inhuman goals. In the final analysis, thought Tithonus, this is the only battle, the eternal ongoing struggle, the confrontation between human logic and institutions on the one hand and religions, despotism, and caesaropapism on the other hand. The religions and the dominions yoke man to their chariot unwillingly as a mean to the predominance of what? Of the god or an archon propagated by them, a false god trying to pose as a hegemon or an ambitious hegemon trying to pose as a god.

At the side of this detestable trophy, the poet sensed a big leather bag, tied with complicated nautical knots. He opened it and pulled out a marble plate with the following content:

          “Devoted to Angelic Egelus Echetlus” Underneath was written the known epigram by Simonides: “Athenians, as defenders of the Hellenes, in Marathon destroyed the might of the golden-dressed Medes”.

So, it was the battle of Marathon, the combat, where to all the confrontations, attritions, and frictions of history converge and all heroes of history confluence, the most decisive duel since the down of the world, because as its consequence emerged what we call Occidental civilization, Renaissance, Enlightenment, modernity or whatever designation one wishes to ascribe to the unique civilization  that rose and developed upon this Earth without to underestimate its partial variations, parallaxes, nuances, modifications, its earlier or later manifestations. John Stuart Mill has declared that the “Battle of Marathon” as event effecting the British history is more important than the battle of Hastings and proved definitely more conclusive and influential than any other battle of the nations that constitutes merely a local happening in comparison.

Suddenly and automatically, filmlike lectures emerged in the mind of Tithonus and were projected, like those of adolescence in a time of apprenticeship, not creation. He remembered the narration of Pausanias: “… In the battle’s account, a man with old and odd clothes, who resembled a rustic, appeared among the Athenians and slew many of the Persians with a deadly device of his. After the battle, he disappeared. When the Athenians searched for him, they could not find him anywhere. When they consulted the oracle, they were commanded to worship the hero Echetlus, that is the hero with the “echetlon”, or plowshare. It was believed that he was part of the gods’ intervention during the conflict, which also included the appearances of divine personages such as Athena and Heracles in the battlefield. So, the Athenians erected a monument of white marble to his memory. However, I did not manage to discover any more traces of him neither in the tomb of the heroes nor amongst the fallen Persians. Although the victors insist on having buried them also, because in any case the divine law prescribes that a dead body must be interred in the ground, I have found no grave. Neither there was any tomb or other conspicuous trail to be seen, so much so that apparently many dead were thrown to some ditch…” 

Herodotus contributes another version of this unknown warrior and his weapon. After he had described that in the battle of Marathon 6.400 Persians and 192 Athenians were killed, he mentioned that during the combat something very strange happened. One Athenian soldier, Epizelus, son of Cuphagoras, while struggling bravely breast to breast, he lost suddenly his sight on both eyes, although nothing had touched him, neither a spear nor a sword nor an arrow. Continuing, Herodotus mentioned that Epizelus recounts how he saw a tall and stout pedestrian- or so it seemed at the moment- whose beard covered his whole shield, and how this ghost held in his hands a very bright weapon! He passed by him killing Persian opponents and that scene was the last seen by Epizelus in his life, because he was blinded by some excessive shining! The Athenians asked the Oracle of Delphi who was that unknown person having fought with them and it gave the answer that they must honor the hero Echetlus.

This Echetlus was depicted in the painting of Panaenus, brother of Phidias, which represented the Battle of Marathon in the Poikile Stoa (Painted Porch), erected during the 5th century BC and located in the Ancient Agora of Athens. The Stoa Poikile was one of the most famous sites in ancient Athens, due to its display of war-related paintings and loots. The hero was clearly distinguishable in this painting among the combatants who fought at Marathon in the same manner as Callimachus, the polemarch of Athens, and Miltiades. Echetlus’ mythical status in the eyes of the Athenians can be demonstrated by his inclusion in this painting, which also included Athena, Heracles, and other Attic legends such as Theseus, a sign of the high esteem of the ancient Greeks towards the heroes, who were expected to come back to life not only eschatologically in the pastures of paradise, but also in present current time.  Such sporadic appearances were called epiphanies, clairvoyant, prophetic, and mystically perceived phenomena, which the combatants have been often invoking during the battles.    

          The honored person of the epigraph was Hegel whose peculiar name the Greeks tried to reproduce with designations of gradual accuracy and probability, as well as with successive degrees of growing certainty: “Angelic Egelus Echetlus”, as it was fitting to their epistemology, leading progressively from the abstracter to the concreter. He would be certainly a great master, to whom Tithonus should deliver again this honorable weapon. The latter felt destined to provide again this set of undefeatable arms to this great timeless warrior of light, who surely would be out there, somewhere yonder in the continuum of the universe, in a battle stance, either the same one or another who would be exactly like him.   

          “I am a part of them, because I praise them, study them, love them, because I have criteria, because I chose to serve mankind, to support it in its relentless fight against tyrants and religions. And I will be always present to judge and be judged, for just as the world is eternal, what envisages it is also never ending. What is being seen is answerable and accountable to what it sees and vice versa”, said Tithonus trying to consolidate the floating hovering swinging meanings.  

He thought with horror that perhaps somebody else would go down the steps of Olympus and find all this which can make a (wo-) man lose her/his mind! Indeed, the divine messages as well as the supernatural revelation as eternal Tyrtaeus’ elegies, as epistles between past and future, as cream, as splendor, as limpid distillation of the universe, were destined only for those who could bear them. Even if he recounted the mysterious and mystic both old and new scriptures, no one would believe him, because those are acceptable, only if recited in the frame of poetical inspiration, as if the spirit was something qualitatively different from the matter.

          Who would believe that the gun itself craved, thrilled and was eager to return to its user, its boss, its enlightened constructor?  Who would believe that the gun itself trembled and shivered as if it searched for an electricity socket or a cable terminal or some power source to plug, to connect, to reverse its necrosis and decommission and to operate again? And yet, while this macabre set of cybernetic organism and Hesiodic plough seemed inert, somewhere on the edge of the ploughshare an energy vibration, a hot-fire halo, a sparking scintilla illuminated, just as a steel sheet strikes a flintstone and the tinder ignites.

          Of course, the whole synthetist, composed of the cybernetic organism and the Hesiodic plough, was too heavy for him to carry, besides he would neither know where to transport it to nor he had a way of escape from Mars at this moment. Since he was never practically gifted, all arising questions acquired a theoretical nuance and became a conditional mood. If he chose a weapon, what would that be? What would be the most appropriate method to transport it? And if he had the opportunity to transport it, where should he hide it? And if he could hide it somewhere, how would he export it from the planet and deliver it to someone who would be able to make the ideal use of it? The obvious answer was that Tithonus had neither the strength nor the means to achieve anything from the above. And yet his master Eos had sacrificed herself for him; it wasn’t plausible   to accept that she just commit suicide to have an honorable death and a worthy end, because she was neither vain nor desperate. She had directed upon her all thunders of Zeus, because she believed that Tithonus would find a chance, would profit from a serendipity and make her proud, would meet her expectations, not only valuing her death – since it had intrinsic value-, but also giving it meaning and purpose, perspective and integration into a plan.   

Tithonus continued his wandering in the deep ground of Mars, of the earth, of the narration, where literature always finds refuge, circling around in all the empty or crowd- frequented halls with his well-known tirelessness and diligence, which was additionally imposed on him due to his condition. “I never gained glory without much pain”, Euripides whispered to him, «φιλεί δε τω κάμνοντι συσπεύδειν θεός»[136] Aeschylus murmured.  

He mainly sought out and explored the unguarded places. “The unguarded places are my domain”, he repeated to himself. Perhaps one of the reasons, due to which he had earned appreciation and favor by the big Eos was his curious anti-conformist thinking. He reckoned that even today Eos would be equally proud of him concerning this feature and constantly advise him to think originally and alternatively. Eos, Eos, that was enough, he couldn’t remember or invoke her anymore. She was what she was, a heroine, but now she was dead and he would better forget her, at last temporarily, at least within his working hours to carry on his assignment. «Ώ πότνια λήθη των κακών, ώς εί σοφή, και τοις δυστυχούσι ευκταία θεός»,[137] would Euripides comment, but what he should do is perhaps to follow the scientific view of Aristotle: «την δε κατοχήν των φαντασμάτων μνήμην επονομάζεσθαι, την δ’ αναπόλησιν τούτων ανάμνησιν».[138] To keep always the memory, to block the reminiscence.

Hear, see, be silent, thought Tithonus. «Ζήνων (ο Κιτιεύς) προς τον πλείω λαλείν θέλοντα ή ακούειν νεανία – νεανίσκε,- είπεν- η φύσις ημίν γλώτταν μεν μίαν, δύο δε ώτα παρέσχεν, ίνα διπλασίονα ών λέγομεν, ακούωμεν».[139] So, in some unguarded room he saw some chambers or tanks or clusters that resembled respectively to beaming cylinders, resuscitation sarcophagus or medical incubators, i.e. very high-tech items of the gods. But while it was sophisticated and hard to find equipment, it looked abandoned, filthy and wasted. And how could it not be filthy, given that some workers brought in the room time and again carts with mud, construction material, stones, bricks and tiles altogether, but also other depreciated objects, oxidized metals, junk and garbage of rather titanic origin and threw them inside the chambers as if they were waste- baskets. The curious thing was though that these materials in a short time, sooner rather than later, disappeared with an out-worldish azure shining! Indeed, something both remarkable and strange happened here and it was worth it for someone to invest some grey matter to trace and clarify it.  

So, Tithonus sat twenty- four – seven in a niche of the wall or on the pedestal of a statue or on the eaves of a vitrine or on the frame of a window for Pete’s sake – why should literature be so complicated – and meditated. In any case he had ample time, he could devote even years to the project, considering his immortality. Could someone solve by giving some thought the problems that practical people used to face with material and often violent actions? Through the power of the mind what is absent becomes present, Parmenides said.[140]

Think, think, he thought. Reflect, reflect, he reflected. Why do they make garbage vanish, why don’t they throw it to some dumping place, can it be that they are ecologists? But even ecologists would have found a cheaper solution than those luxurious, energy- devouring and costly devices, if they meant to make garbage extinct.  Then, again, maybe it was not an extinction but a transfer to some rubbish heap on the borders of the solar system. Even in such an eventuality, it would be much more practical especially for the Olympians who were not famous for their care, interest and concern for other peoples to mobilize or commission some space barges or ramshackle trucks and send the unwanted waste products to a nearby destination, simply to the garden or to the yard of the other.

He found the solution much later implementing all rules of epagogic, anagogic and paragogic (deductive) reasoning. He ascertained that corresponding to his beloved unguarded room there was also a guarded one, where soldiers of Zeus arrived continuously through parallax or teletransportation. He observed, counted and studied the times of arrival, as if he were an airport supervisor, with a tiresome investigation and verification that lasted another year out of his endless life, to be sure of his conclusions. Well, the arrival of the soldiers or – synonymously – their beaming and appearance in the chamber of the parallax transporter coincided chronically with the disappearance of correspondent material in the unguarded unloading chambers.  Every appearance on the arrival circles resulted in disappearance on the departure ones. Conclusion: An exchange of matter was conducted between two places. For every soldier coming to Mars, his corresponding matter departed to another place, no one knew where.

          But why was the exchange of matter performed? That was another brilliant stage of thought. It was obviously related to the fact that the Olympians were creatures from another dimension, and their matter had a different quantum signature. It showed similarities to ours, that is why it could coexist as compatible with the latter in a state of mutual peaceful toleration, but it wasn’t feasible to be added to it, only to squeeze itself into our world replacing some quantity of matter- energy that should be discarded, expelled, ostracized from our continuum. Thus, the exchange ascertained the balance of matter between dimensions that contacted each other in a relationship of communicating vessels.     

          How could Tithonus profit from this circumstance? It was impossible to learn where the teleportation brought the useless stuff to.  Not to the outer space, to the extent that it is included in the boundaries of our dimension, because that would be inconclusive and futile; then perhaps to some dumping place of the Olympians, a location, the features of which would be impossible to predict or assume (hypothesize). Would there be enough oxygen available?  Even if it weren’t, Tithonus as an immortal being could not care less and would not be troubled at all, as the commoners would say. He would feel that he drowns only for an instant, but this impression would soon pass, and our friend would recover immediately. In theory there was always the possibility that said materials would be directed into a sort of hydraulic press and become a decalcomania, whereas our unique hero, last man standing, would be crushed to a thin sheet of biological mass like a one- paged newspaper, if he chose to enter such a teleportation chamber without knowledge of its exit point.

But let us be blunt for once. What Τι την ήθελε τη ζωή και μάλιστα την αιώνια ζωή ο Τιθωνός χωρίς τη μόνη γυναίκα που στάθηκε ικανή να τον αγαπήσει, την Ηώ, έτσι παραμορφωμένος, σε βαθμό που, αν κάποιος ήθελε να τον γνωρίσει καλύτερα, θα έπρεπε πρώτα να αποβάλει δέκα στρώματα προκατάληψης, αηδίας και απέχθειας: Όπως ξέρουμε, η ορμή προς κοινωνία, αλλά και η γενετήσια ορμή είναι πολύ πιο έντονη ακόμη και από την ορμή προς αυτοσυντήρηση. Πέραν τούτου, αυτή η αποστολή θα έπρεπε να έχει κάποια έκβαση, κάποιο τελικό αποτέλεσμα, έστω κι αυτό θα ήταν ο θάνατος όλων των συμμετεχόντων. Αν καθόταν και περίμενε εδώ στον αιώνα τον άπαντα μέχρι να τον ανακαλύψουν οι επόμενες γενιές αστροναυτών, θα ερχόταν κάθε μέρα το φάντασμα της Ηούς, όπως το φάντασμα του Δαρείου εμφανιζόταν στην Άτοσσα, και θα τον επέπληττε καθημερινά, θα τον επέκρινε, θα τον έψεγε, θα τον επιτιμούσε, κατσάδιαζε, μάλωνε, σιχτίριζε, όπως θέλετε πέστε το. Θα τού έλεγε τι περιμένεις εδώ; Τι είδους διαίσθηση, τι τύπο έμπνευσης και ποίου άραγε την επιφοίτηση; Επίσης θα τον διαβεβαίωνε ρητά ότι δεν υπάρχουν εγγυήσεις σε οποιοδήποτε εγχείρημα του ανθρώπου, η διακύβευση και η διακινδύνευση παραμονεύει σε κάθε γωνία. Θα τού προέβαλε το ρητό του Μένανδρου «αλωτά γίγνετ’ επιμελεία και πόνω άπαντα»[141] και το ρητό του Σοφοκλή «το ζητούμενον αλωτόν, εκφεύγει δε τ’ αμελούμενον».[142]   But let us be blunt for once. What use of eternal life could Tithonus make without the only woman capable of loving him, Eos, considering that he was so badly deformed that if someone intended to know him better, he would need first to peel off his skin ten layers of prejudice, disgust, repulsion and revulsion. As we know, the urge to society, but also the sexual urge is much more intensive than the instinct of self-preservation itself. Beyond that, this mission should have some outcome, some final turning point, even if it resulted in the death of all participants. If he sat here and waited in the years to come until he was discovered by the next generation of astronauts, the ghost of Eos would come every night just as the ghost of Darius appeared to Atossa and would reproach him on a daily basis, would rebuke, chide, scold, reprimand him, even curse him, however you want to call it. She would have said: What are you waiting for? For an intuition, a hunch, an inspiration, an epiphany? She would confirm emphatically that there are no guarantees in any human undertaking, risk and hazard lurk in every corner. She would remind him of the adage of Menander «αλωτά γίγνετ’ επιμελεία και πόνω άπαντα»[143] and of the adage of Sophocles «το ζητούμενον αλωτόν, εκφεύγει δε τ’ αμελούμενον».[144]       

          Finally, some day out of the many, of the countless ones, he made up his mind. All at once he loaded the Hesiodic plough on his shoulders and without attracting many indiscreet or curious gazes, he carried it up to one of the parallax chambers, put it inside, entered in there himself, camouflaged with some dust and some mud instead of a disguise and waited fatalistically for the time of the next teleportation.

           And the blue shining of the parallax field came! Through many redirections, inclinations, deviations and derailments, since there were not only one but a lot of successive tele- transportations the subspace travel of Tithonus began. Through many points the zigzagged beaming line found the way and the opportunity to pass from many short or long parallaxes, voids and oscillations in between energy spiderwebs, netting and spinning, ramifications and inflations of spacetime which were not at all related to the ordinary routes of transport. So, the two data- packages were mailed to an unknown destination, one of which was Tithonus with his dull senses and inert thoughts and the other was the cybernetic organism, whereby no one knew which was the integrating and which the integrated one, which was the including and which the included.   Who knows, if during the passage they were not also summarized along with other bundles of elements, if they were not enlisted and included into other transport packages representing soldiers or materials and crossing the universe guided by pulses, signs and directional vectors. On the intersection points the parallax changed angle and course, passing through filters and instillations of high definition and multiple usefulness, often moving the travelers away from their destination, but finally redirecting them to the preprogrammed – predetermined course. I reckon that after all this even the most dull-minded and incorrigible reader understands that the itinerary of the transport beam was not linear but a dragged, slippery, crawling and under-creeping deviation, rope-dancing among many turnabouts and edge- cutting stones ideal for staggering and stumbling. Indeed, the predesigned timetable of the subspace travels continued to execute treks even through zigzagged interstation paths towards the ineffable and perhaps terrifying end of the line.

          And behold: Tithonus and his cargo were washed out to the bottom of a strange crucible, being perhaps the diaphragm between the two dimensions. He felt being electrified and possessed by a mysterious and unexplained cough, as if he were allergic to the new environment. And the bad thing is that allergies are not curable, can neither be healed nor gotten used to, only be suppressed, but there weren’t any pharmacies here. The crucible was semi-transparent; Outside a frozen moon was depicted in orbit around a planet with many rings of satellites made also of ice. For a spaceman of the titans’ era, it wasn’t difficult to conclude that the planet was Saturn (Cronus) and the satellite, where the parallax ended, was Enceladus.

This was obvious due to the crest of steam or waterdrops over the south polar region of the satellite indicating, combined with the escape of internal warmth from the existing craters, that Enceladus is always geologically active, a fact easily attributed to the tidal powers exercised by the planet to the inner core of the satellite.

Indeed, Enceladus is one of the only three celestial bodies in the outer solar system – the other are Io of Jupiter and Triton of Neptune (Poseidon)-, on which volcanic explosions had been observed. The analysis of the emitted material indicates that it originates from some inner water compartment in liquid state, something that, combined with traces of other chemical compounds traced in the crest, fueled discussions about the existence of simple life-forms, also reinforcing the opinion that material coming from Enceladus created the almost undiscernible fifth ring of Saturn.

          He walked beyond the geometrical circles or rather the egglike ellipses of the transporter, luckily without someone noticing him at that moment.  As a result, the adage has been verified that someone hides better if one is in common sight. He hid somewhere the cyborg along the Hesiodic plough and tried to find his bearings. There wasn’t any garrison that could worry him. It seemed that the groups of soldiers, regularly beamed to the human universe, were considered security enough; of course, they did not perceive or acknowledge virtually nothing, since they were moved here and there, both spineless and ridiculed like slaughter animals, like the Persians before the battle of Plataea, like the travel agencies hoard the tourists into all- inclusive hotels without the residents- tenants even knowing to which island they have camped. 

CHAPTER 25:

          CRONUS, ODODROMUS (WAYFARER), THEODOLITE

On the opposite side of the elliptical parallax base there was a door made of dark synthetic metal. The trembling hand of Tithonus touched it feeling archetypic awe for the eventuality of an alert system that would trigger itself due to failure of giving the proper code. To his surprise, the door opened with a “click” without many fancy or flamboyant mechanisms or useless ornamentations. On the other hand, no firecracker was lit for his performance either, if you know what I mean. Sometimes the arrogance and the superiority complex of the mighty in combination with the furtive clandestine behavior and undercover discreet gliding action of the weak can lead the story plot very far.

       Now he walked faster passing near cable bundles and fasces of tubes, chemical lamps as tiny oases of light, tried to find a way of descent into the building’s interior, as he was used to do in this story, and wondered which would be the entrance ana the passage to hades this time. To his great satisfaction his movement did not attract many indiscreet or curious glances.

          He went down a helicoid ladder, opened another door and stepped on a corridor with a low scratched wavy roof. Right and left metallic muscle-like membranes or contracting -expanding irises or hatches led to rooms of various utilities. Only in the beginning it was dark, but upon the weight of one and only step a buzz was heard and a light was flooded from the roof as well as warm air from the oblique shutters of the wall.  

          “All automatic systems are functional and react to human presence. It is a very well preserved and impeccably oiled installation. Well done, Zeus”, murmured Tithonus.

          Further systems woke up, screens showed two-dimensional blueprints of the station, while at the same time holograms gave information about the purposes of the installation in a language similar to Greek that Tithonus had a hard time to understand. A panoramic window on the left side revealed a view of the ice of Enceladus and the rings of Saturn with the «διάκενον διαίρεσιν»[145] in the middle.  

          “What rich means, what wealth they possess, the humans were always short of all this…”, murmured -guess who- there is no one else remaining in our story anymore. 

          The friendly mood of the place alluded to Lucian’s Nephelococcygia[146], a constructed molded ορχάμη[147] or a spatial planning area[148], where one could make his constitutional and have fun. It resembled also an alien museum or mausoleum, very discreet and designed with considerable respect that remained dark until the inertial dampeners and the automatic environmental systems were activated. Let us not forget that inertial dampeners were scattered everywhere, since Enceladus was a small moon of only fifteen kilometers diameter and had no gravity. Anyway, the corridor seemed to widen constantly as if it was guiding to an arch or a dome of colossal dimensions.

          The screens and the other work consoles of the station showed miscellaneous spaceships of unknown technology for the Terrans, but also exotic landscapes from the dimension of the newcomers, where the green of the woods was replaced by red and the wine-colored sea by the vast azure. Is it possible that the gods of Olympus brought and injected the blue color into our seas? Everything is possible! 

          Later, he reached a colossal hangar of aircrafts, where the first expositions were three vessels elegant enough, conical and narrowing to the front and with aerodynamic fins of rather titanic than Olympian technology, obviously decommissioned, preserved in mothballs, as the military men would say. Further, spaceships of different kind and size followed, apparently from nations which were unfortunate enough to encounter and cross paths with the Olympian gods, some shaped like drops, some resembling pears, other like bullets or melons.

          Continuing his itinerary his gaze focused on a gate multi-used by the visitors with a handle so worn out that it had turned shiny and gold, being used or twisted by infinite sweaty palms, without even a trace of dust, while even the microbes might have gotten tired from the indiscreet repetitive use and disturbance and might have slipped away. Of course, the overriding and overlapping fingerprints on the handle were justified, if one considered the imposing scripture on the gate’s cornice with relief-wrought grey capital letters on ebony which composed the word “ODODROMUS”, a pleonasm since “odos” and “dromos” is almost the same, a conceptual alliteration, from those often practiced by the Olympians who repeated like parrots a language that resembled Greek, but it wasn’t Greek.

He treated on a five-meter platform, wreathed and surrounded by high gunwales reminding him of the ship-sides where the oars leaned. This wide platform was roofed by a virtual Firmament like a Planetarium and beyond the mosaic[149] the huge almighty machine stretched around, the vast starship, with which the Olympians had warped space and invaded our solar system. In operation modus one would observe its engines roaring and spit fire like dragons’ mouths, its cogwheels, the rotors, the hinges and the faucets turning around, its fountains and sprinklers spaying steam, the pistons, the rods, the cylinders, the rams, the metal plates vibrating and retrogressing, the safety valves exhaling violently and decompressing,  its compartments uniting automatically through tying clampers, peripheral moorings, junction hooks, attraction magnets, male and female components of  towing, anchorage etc. In its museum version and presentation, however, as expected, it was entirely dead and inactive.

But nevertheless, it was admirable! Thousands of visitors perused daily this legendary ship, which at a certain time brought the newcomers gods from another dimension. Its domes and rooms were countless, because it was not an imitation or emulation, but the genuine real ship – besides it wouldn’t be profitable to build again such a Moloch, even if it were feigned. One feature of the shop was that it could divide and separate itself into polyhedric compartments, cubes with six sides, eight tops and twelve edges, octahedra, dodecahedra, icosahedra like a beehive or honeycomb, where, however, every part or section had power autonomy. It reminded someone of a truck tied to a whole series of towed vehicles, vessels or stagecoaches. In good old times any platonic solid object could detach itself from the main tract of the ship and be used as a shuttle or an independent space pod, not needing an operation consol, controller or joystick at that, since it operated on voice command.

The captain of the ship, when it initially entered the solar system, was Cronus- Chronus, about whom any fond of learning reader can be informed from many reliable or not sources. Since there is a great antilogy, dispute and quarrel as to whether Cronus was a titan, furthermore patriarch of the titans or god and father of Zeus, it is worth to clarify ex cathedra of the prominent author that simply both are true. Cronus was head of both the gods’ and the titans’ race. He came to the solar system as god and leader of the gods, but after the relentless confrontation against his son Zeus he was defeated and permanently exiled to Tartaros. Less known is that in the distant past he had manipulated human evolution through an interventional external factor, which significantly raised the body temperature of humans. Based on his genius, he went back in time using the sling-shot effect of the sun, to hurl his ship into periods of time, uncharted and unregistered by the historians. Cronus managed to implement the overthrow of the maritime civilization of Atlantis by gradually warming the human cells with the drastic as well as mysterious energy substance of thermotropine. He located his antigravity equipped headquarters in Mega planet (redaction note – called nowadays Jupiter) because of his very swift rotation in comparison to Earth which permitted the intermittent emission of the radiation in regular intervals. Finally, following the completion of the long-lasting cell development treatment, his ultimate achievement was to pulverize the city of Atlantis by modifying his high frequency beam and causing the eruption of the seamounts and the subsurface vents underneath, thus initiating the most significant succession of events in the history of man. Due to this outside influence the humans abandoned the seas and continued their evolutionary process on the land. In such sense he is also head of humans and the best (“aristoi”) of them, the titans. On the one hand through his evolutionally… titanic intervention he undermined human civilization for many years; on the other hand, he involuntarily paved the way for a new different development and initiated the spiritual and intellectual cultivation of the titans through their submission to adversities and difficulties. Cronus wanted a humanity susceptible to subjugation, but what he really initiated was the foundation of a resistant and untamed mentality, opposite to any uncontrolled leader, enlightened or not, maintaining that there are no benevolent tyrants. So, he succeeded quite the opposite of what he pursued.[150] In any case, his goals as well as his methods turned out to be blamable and reprehensible, that is why he stuck and was encumbered with the rather justified predicate that he “eats his children”.   

          The mentality of the titans, however, was a lot different from the today’s “progressive” standpoint, which according to a distorted bad digested version of Marxism maintains that the only virtue of man is to demand and vindicate. Claims and demands are good when they are put up for all and profit all, but they cannot be based on the adage “the goal justifies the means”, exactly because the means finally define the quality of the goal, so they should not excuse sacrifices and cannibalism to fulfill a purpose. «Μη τω κακώ το κακόν ιώ»[151] said Herodotus. Ideology is one thing, ethics is another, the former refers to global and collective demands and claims, the latter refers to our attitude towards a specific person. The titans believed that «πάσιν κατ’ ιδέαν επικούρει, ενί κατ’ ήθος χρω» (one should help all with one’s ideas but should behave ethically to anyone in particular). Heraclitus said: “one is ten thousand for me” and sometimes the needs of the one outweigh the needs of the many. The ancients believed also according to Heraclitus that «ειδέναι δε χρη τον πόλεμον εόντα ξυνόν και δίκην έριν και γινόμενα πάντα κατ’ έριν και χρεούμενα χρεών», which means that the war and the struggle must be common, but in the disputes among people justice should prevail. It may be true that all is achieved through some kind of conflict, but must be pursued according to analogy, proportionality and duty of each one. More so, as far as one satiates oneself, expands, occupies space and develops, the need for claiming, vindicating and asking should be reduced and responsibility should grow.

          Back in our story: The legendary spaceship “Ododromus” with Cronus as captain, which invaded the solar system from the dimension of the gods, was available for public visits; people were allowed to wander through the countless kilometers it was consisted thereof. It was a generous offer and sponsoring of Zeus to entertain and at the same time intimidating his subjects.

          The most formidable sight of Ododromus was its bridge. As the visitors approached and saw from afar its abundant illumination, they heard hedonically the humming, the murmur and the dull thuds and the thunderous roar of its engines and sensors. It consisted of seventeen workstations with consoles, niches or cavities over glass semicircles. In the middle prevailed the armchair of the captain, empty like the workstations. The visitor proceeded straight to the big screen of the bridge, where exactly underneath the known sign of infinity was projected on a special console, i.e. a noose or a wriggling line of a coiled snake tail.

In fact: In the multiverse the symbol of eternity is an Eight lying down. Not at all by accident it represents exactly the two-folded nature of the worlds on the path of an intertwined Amoebius -strip[152], an infinite spiral two-ringed system. They say that the number of worlds is infinite und grows constantly. But it is also said that this cluster of worlds is conceived ayewards or naywards.

Two facts are, however, undeniable. The under half of this peculiar Eight of worlds is negatively charged regarding sorcery – naywards- and the upper half is magically positive – ayewards. Earth, our beloved Terra, lying in the crucible and at the crossroads, is symbolized even today by the lemniscate as imperial coat of arms. Compared to Earth, the south lying worlds, i.e. the causally determined and at the same time highly energetically charged, passive regarding the influence, draw from the upper worlds representations, figures, shapes, design and form to merely exist. The upper worlds, the will-driven, the energetically poor, the rich in inspiration lend from the corresponding lower landing domains power, mass, substance, and energy to be able to function properly.

One can picture the journey from one cosmos to another as a bothering wandering pilgrimage either ayewards or naywards. Often one must ascend or descend on the cosmic branches hanging often between the worlds, between two steps of the ladder.

Anyway, the touching of the lemniscate was the first step of all visitors including Tithonus, who was the most faithful and chronic customer of the museum, profiting also from the free entrance, a tradition kept religiously by today’s Greek museums, although nobody appreciates a performance or an exhibition, if he doesn’t spend a considerable sum of money.  

As he pressed the icon of the lemniscate the weakest and feeblest titan of all times looked at his hands. They were old with wrinkles and thin fissures, folds and carvings. As if he was getting older faster than the others, that was some immortality. His corporeal decline was more than obvious. The truth was that he did not even remember how many years he had already lived in Enceladus fooling around and wandering aimlessly after his previous very long stay on Mars.   

Then it was heard, like it happens every time, a strict austere voice demanding a password, a code that all visitors knew. It was a palindromic phrase that can be read also boustrophedon like the «νίψον ανομήματα μη μόναν όψιν» (“wash your sins, not only the face).

«Σήσ’ ά μόνω νόμ’ ασής» or «σήσ’ ά μον’ όνομ’ ασής», which means “sieve and analyze with the mind all these which you will despise, if you accept them at face or nominal value”. It means furthermore that the established or the preexisting contains the logic that it created it, which cannot be ignored, disregarded or undervalued. Any improvement presupposes understanding the reason for the prevail of the previous situation that needs change.  Through the passage of time many thought that the password was «σήσαμον ονομάσης» (call something a sesame), which evolved to “open sesame”, encountered in the Arabic “One and a Thousand Nights”.[153]  

Then, the austere voice said: “code recognized” and before the astonished eyes of the visitors appeared the hologram of Cronus, holding the sickle in his hands, through which he had once cut the genitals of his father Uranus. Sometimes he appeared with a baby in his arms symbolizing the children devoured by him. What the spectators saw was a hologram, not immaterial though, but drawing matter to be more convincing, desirable and sensitive to groping.

The show began dynamically: “initiation of safety protocols”, the captain’s hologram said. “Wakeup call and reveille of the crew members are completed. This is Cronus speaking, captain of the starship ‘Ododromus’. Preliminary report follows imminently”.

At the same time the other seventeen members of the crew began to (wo-) man the workstations, men and women, officers of the “Ododromus”, having waited supposedly for years in the cryogenic, stasis or incubation chambers or cribs, where they were covered with con- and preserving neuroglioma. First, they greeted the captain, master and commander, then they condescended to glimpse oddly at the usual frequenting patron Tithonus and took their stations pushing buttons and moving joysticks, levers, steer-wheels and other operating clutches.

“Report”, said Cronus and the department heads hurried to contribute their respectful recommendations.

“Our situation is steady, lord”, said a forty- year- old goddess with a tight silver uniform that stressed her curves. She also must have some mythological name but who cares to find it. “It is considered desperate, not critical (normally it is expressed in a opposite manner, but here we care to distribute to the spectators some Attic salt, which was the ancient designation for humor and irony, as loosening fresh juice. The parallax has transported us under the bottom of the ocean, where we are irrevocably stuck in a thick layer of sediments. And there is no one to save us”.

Here, a dramatic tone was given to the spectators aiming to elicit cries of agony from the public. Of course, it was not mentioned that their immersion to the Tartaros was attributed to Zeus, but it was presented as the result of their initial arrival to the solar system.

“If we restart the engines, we may penetrate the sediment. What power autonomy do you read?”, asked Cronus sharp.

“Merely ten percent, lord”, a stressed ensign answered.

Cronus nodded instantly being prepared for something like that. “Channel all auxiliary power to helm. Shut off immediately all peripheric systems, even the emergency circuits, if they are not necessary. Communications, sickbay, arsenal, galley, stellar chartography, cryogenic chambers are not needed and useless under these circumstances. Therefore, cut off any life support beside the bridge”.  

          “Twisted- minded hook-nosed captain”, said another juicy officer, whereby we should point out that both predicates are similarly pronounced in Greek (ankylo- metis, ankylo- mitis). It is obvious that the script of the show was written by the gleeful, resentful and rancorous Zeus. “We cannot cut power from the cryogenic chambers. We encounter resistance by a critical mass of neuroglioma tissue. It seems that there are foreign entities occupying parts of the neuroglioma!”

“Annihilate alien entities”, Cronus screamed. “Restart the freezing procedure of the cryogenic chambers. We will make them numb and torpid!”

“Too late capo. The artificial intelligences (A.I.s), which hid in the neuroglioma, have already emerged and are moving towards the bridge”.

Cronus opened an emergency cupboard and began to distribute ray guns to his own. Meanwhile, the A.I.s, which had hidden like microscopic larvae in the neuroglioma, developed already cathodic vertically integrated puppets (avatars), so that they were able to grow in space and fight. When they reached the bridge, the classical battle with the intercrossed beams took place, which later turned into a close-quarter confrontation with anything the combatants could detach from the consoles using the levers and the joysticks as crowbars. Zeus as screenwriter made little concessions to Cronus, that is why sometimes the Olympians won and sometimes the A.I.s. This was in a few words the theatrical happening that was offered to the theater-loving public by the propaganda mechanism of the Olympians.  

Tithonus had seen this performance x-times. There was something that seemed improperly matched, something that annoyed him and made his inner alarm-bell ring, but he didn’t know why. He smelled and suspected some kind of deceit, but he failed to specify it exactly.     

In any case, he had ample time, while the mission to internationalize and upgrade the confrontation against the gods in a universal cosmic level had stagnated, had become a marshy, swampy, shallow and boggy lagoon.  

«Διόπερ ράστον έστιν απάντων εαυτόν εξαπατάν – ό γαρ βούλεται τούθ’ έκαστος και οίεται- τα δε πράγματα πολλάκις ούχ ούτω πέφυκε»,[154] he repeated to himself the motto of Demosthenes.  

Then he thought of Eos and said smiling bitterly.  

“Eos, never fear, Tithonus is here! I am continuing the mission. You will see, I am going to make it! You always trusted me, didn’t you?”

And the days, the months and the years passed, while the attendances of the theatrical happening by Tithonus multiplied. The spectators along with the mini pocket titan were often carried away by the epic and dramatic acting of the thespians and neared the protagonists, so much so that the performance was so interactive that it was allowed to dwell in the bridge between the actors to be aroused, irritated and limitlessly enthusiastic at the happenings, absorb directly any ounce of the commotion and the shivering. But Tithonus was a hard customer. He circled also around the protagonists and felt that they behaved constrainedly and agonizingly, obsessively and compulsively or rather emitted a deep unrecognized sorrow from the beginning of the show, which was quite unexplained. Their roles were not particularly difficult, were constant, monotonous and somehow one-dimensional, even an elementarily programmed puppet would be able to play them. So, what was wrong with those holograms who could not carry out even those schematical and roughly distributed roles? 

        At some moment, as the employee of the museum was distracted, since absolute surveillance is never possible, Tithonus proceeded to the first moving hologram and touched it fleetingly looking at it at the same time with a persistent penetrative eye lust and voyeurism pursuing an immediate, insightful, ecstatic knowledge. It seemed malleable to the touch, more palpable as it is the case of an unbending marble-vest. Is it possible that the programmers of the holograms managed to give to their works of art what the son of Sophroniscus failed to provide to his own busts, namely the steaming overexertion, the hyperemia of the cheeks and the overstrained expression of the face?  

He scratched a little the enamel of the gold-woven surface at the height of the forearm, unstitching the gold-baked line and scattering the gold dust, as if he cared to reproduce his intellectual tendency and conscious demand for deepening and immersion into the secrets of the beautiful artefact, but what an immense surprise he felt, when under the superficial patina of the worn out ornaments and the trimming textures he encountered a brownish soft mummified flesh!

          So, the crew of the bridge did not consist of facsimiles, but they were the genuine officers of Cronus and what appeared to be a copy of Cronus was Cronus himself! Prisoned by a remote- controlled external hull, hard and callous like stone, condemned in all eternity to make the same involuntary movements for the amusement of inconsiderate spectators! It was not Cronus that swallowed the wrapped around stone that Rhea gave him instead of Zeus, but -alas- on the contrary, in a dramatic reversion the stone swallowed Cronus forever and ever.

Only the petrified solidified shapes are left behind, strange fossils not human anymore, distorted, twisted, deformed, grotesque, not reminding furthermore of the gods, incarcerated in granite or sandstone, frozen, deadlocked, gridlocked, distorted. The show presented in front of dumfounded Tithonus forced him to go pale, to blanch with fear. It was better to forget this battle, to never mention it again, not in a thousand years. Here, “silence is decorum” (Pericles) and the recounting of the deeds is shameful. To kill a foe is honorable and glorifying, especially in the era of heroes, where the great lawgivers founded and built cities and states. To torment a foe, even if it is the only viable option, is vulgarity, a turpitude. To condemn a foe to torture forever is an eternal abomination.

Because Cronus and his lieutenants were all alive. Turned into stone, deprived of every locomotion, sight, hearing, touch or other perception available both to monsters and men. Nevertheless, they live, they will be living until every stone turns dust and even longer, “as long as the sun follows the same trajectory as today” (Herodotus). We are contemplating the rotating shivering crackling vivid auras of their bodies, eager for rebellion. We are sensing their anger, their fear, their astonishment. Zeus, cloud- gatherer or however you are called, you shouldn’t be proud of this fight. You should never commemorate such a battle but rather erase it as if it were the name of a cursed pharaoh, drown it in oblivion, in the bottom of Lethe. And above all, you should never dare utter again these alienating sharp deadly words that cause the marbling of these poor creatures. Hallow Zeus, what a prize in the catalogue of your achievements, a leave of laurel on your wreath, another cut on your sword just as in the case of Tithonus, where you acted as if you wanted to kill the dead, made a deprived man even more deprived and invalidated an already invalid!

          This revelation, this awesome discovery that Cronus was imprisoned in an eternally humiliating vicious circle for him was an inference that kept Tithonus busy for years. But how could this unexpected cold shower be related to his mission which has meanwhile become an obsession?

          The only option to leave behind the dimension of the Earth, but also that of the titans, which was wedged as a crucible or a funnel into Enceladus’ atmosphere, was to find the famous navigation instrument, used by Cronus to enter the solar system, i.e. theodolite.

Today, theodolite is defined as a portable optical instrument of great precision to measure the corners among predetermined visual points in an open field, both on the horizontal and on the vertical level. The traditional use of theodolite consists in topography and geodesic scrutiny and study, but it is also used in constructions, as well as in some special implementations (for example, meteorology, rocket science). In the epoch of the titans, theodolite was used exclusively for the last of the above implementations, more specifically for the transgression between space membranes and layers. Its operation manual was somehow mysterious and supposedly relied on the disruption and fission of space through time, since it was constructed by Cronus, master and commander of Chronus. Indeed, it was not identical to today’s theodolite, just as the orichalcum of the ancient times as an alloy of gold and silver and second valued metal of Atlantis had nothing to do with the contemporary orichalcum as a mixture of copper and zinc.

The etymology of the word is clearly Greek from Theus- deus- god and “dolichus- dromos- road” and it means the road of the gods, while Theus origins from “theo or run”, since the primitive humans were hunters and runners. At this point, of course, the titanic perception is expressed that god originates from (wo-) man and not the opposite. Now, we have learnt to say that the one or the other word may resemble a Greek one, but in fact it is derived from some Sanskritic difficult to pronounce -alias a partly hypothetical and partly imaginary word and this tendency of explaining the apparent through the obscure is expanded by the contemporary linguists to a broad extent of other words. Of course, Greek as everything else in existence originate from a previous preexisting fundament but their mediation was so essential and operational in human history that for any communication problem of a still unelaborated, unkneaded, ominous future babel it is more useful and suitable to refer to their propositions and solutions than to vague suppositions of an unexplored past or sophisticated neologisms of a confused present. With perplexion, we see a lot of people, who exorcise the Indo-European myth in politics just like the devil abhors the incense, connecting it justifiably to fascistic or national-socialistic visions and fantasies, to be identical to those enthroning this myth in linguistics to underrate the Greek influence. This is only human, of course, because the ambition of the next generations to attribute to themselves the new findings and the current discoveries or inventions is logical, diverting from the traditional knowledge, just as every kid wishes to distant oneself from one’s parent. Yet, when someone grows up, posits his/her parents to their proper dimensions and understands their immense contribution. In the same way today’s society will end up that it is maybe too much to deem ancient Greece the cornerstone of its languages and meanings, but it will necessarily acknowledge that Greek tongue through its scientific concept, pictorial and descriptive wealth and profound detailed etymology offers an incalculable benefit concerning the clarification and development of concepts. So, the Greek effect cannot be reduced, it multiplies its influence and impact, because it is the essence of flexibility and vividness of the spirit.  

   In any case, from the moment that Tithonus discovered that the crew of the spaceship wasn’t holographic but real, he had very reason to assume that he would find theodolite sooner or later. Surely, they would also present him to the public as a museum’s exhibit, of course dead and deactivated, probably in Ododromus. Heeding a perspective of a future escape from Zeus’ domain, which seemed  in his most ambitious moments all the more probable, he transported his inactive weapon – finding, previously abandoned in some junk store of Matrs, i.e. the cyborg along with the Hesiodic plough, and hid it in one of the autonomous power cubes, in one of the united Ododromus’ platonic solids, which he could eventually use as a shuttle or escape pod.

All the passing by guards, the merchants or suppliers, who always attached themselves, crowded and shoved together behind a mighty troop, as well as the clerks of the museum got used to Tithonus and considered him a kind of lunatic or village idiot, whom they mocked and saw as an easy target for practical jokes and relief for hilarious disposition. When they saw him carrying his strange cargo, the Cyborg on the back the connective hose or strap on the shoulder and the Hesiodic plough on the chest, they talked to him either ironically or suspiciously, imperatively or scrutinizingly.

“Eh hunchback, what’s the hurry?”

“Οι εκούσιοι πόνοι την των ακουσίων υπομονήν ελαφροτέραν παρασκευάζουσιν”,[155] he answered with the motto of Democritus.      “Eh, short- leggy, long-leggy, what are you carrying?”

«Αίσωπος έφη δύο πήρας έκαστον ημών φέρειν, την μεν έμπροσθεν, την δε όπισθεν. Και εις την μεν έμπροσθεν αποτιθέναι τα των άλλων αμαρτήματα, εις δε την όπισθεν τα εαυτών. Διό ουδέ καθορώμεν αυτά».[156] Until the questioning thinks what he heard and understands that Tithonus had not answered at all, he distanced himself.

“Tell me, you cripple. Yes, I am talking to you, you old fart. Everybody here does a specific job. To what purpose do you carry this garbage on your back?”

“To participate in the general activity”, Tithonus silenced him giving the answer of Diogenes the Dog, when they asked him for what reason he rolls his barrel in the siege of Corinth, while all the others reinforced the walls.

Another smart guy stretched his ear and said in confidential hush -hush.  

“Come on, tell me in the ear, what is this item that you carry? We two are friends, so be a sport. Are we “ποτίστατοι περιβεβρεγμένοι συμπότες κωθωνιστές” (drunken intoxicated tablemates) or aren’t we?” 

  «Χρη σιγάν ή κρείσσονα σιγής λέγειν. Κρείττον σιωπάν εστίν ή λαλείν μάτην. Αισχίνης ο Σωκρατικός επιπληχθείς ότι Σωκράτει εσχολακώς σιωπά, “ου γαρ μόνον” είπε “λέγειν έμαθον παρά Σωκράτει, αλλά και σιωπάν”».[157] Until the confidential friend realizes that Tithonus, excerpting silence repeatedly, has not answered, the once tablemate was already off the hook.

So, without any other incidents the weak under-titan or hypo-titan brought his inactive superweapon in his new hiding place, in one of the Ododromus’ platonic solids.  

          Our hero devoted the next years to locate the legendary devise of theodolite visiting with undiminished persistence the museum, which the arrogance and the self-complacency of Zeus has built to remind him of his proud victory upon his father, the ultimate patricide. Sometimes he turned his gaze to the heavens and said ironizing his own self.

          “My dear Eos, how do you judge my conduct? I am getting nearer and nearer to the target, every day, hour by hour.  I live a stochastic life, continuing to combine the particularity of my specific case with a broader cause. I am the cripple visitor of a museum but at the same time I am member of this unauthorized mission that started sometime to shatter the tyranny of Zeus. And I must find a way to fulfill both requirements, the general and the individual, since anyone of them on its own is isolated and inconclusive.”  

Think, think, he thought. Contemplate, contemplate, he contemplated. Can a man figure out through simple thought what the practical people often arrange through material and usually violent actions? Through the power of the mind the absent become present, maintained Parmenides. Is it possible that Zeus has destroyed the original theodolite? If he had done such a thing, he would have also destroyed the whole Ododromus, instead of exhibiting it in a museum. In any case, there were also theodolites in all the spaceships coming from the other dimension, and the rumor already circulated that the blueprints of mentioned machine had already been stolen and come into the possession of the titans, who prepared a fleet on Sirius. It would suffice to detach and disengage the artefact from any power source, just as Zeus did with the whole Ododromus. Therefore, a theodolite should exist, but where?

What was the main characteristic of Cronus that comes immediately to the mind? The fact that he ate his children, but we have analyzed how this is explained. Another common piece of information is that he cut off the testicles of his father. And then, when they fell and bubbled to the sea, they became froth and flooded the ecumene and from the foams Cyprid Aphrodite was born. Or is it possible that from the fertilization of the testicles arose the sea itself, the wet element as successor of the solid one, the spilling, diffusing and indefinite rhizome as beginning or end of the inalterable and specific, moving as departure and emanation of the stationary thing? Time as negation of space? So, the sickle that Cronus always held as a scepter or a cane was the theodolite!

Almost reflexively our indefatigable investigator seized the sickle from the hands of the surmised hologram. In the moment that the public servant of the museum came to recover it spelling the classical “eh you”, Cronus turned towards Tithonus and one of his eyes twinkled in his socket and teared.  It was the last reaction of the imprisoned thrown down god, the voice from the Tartaros, the scream from the stone, for which he gathered all his remaining strength. And the sickle, which was the theodolite, was activated.

          The reality disruptor meant to confuse the languages and the conceptions like a new Babel tower, not only in terms of consciousness but also in terms of reality. The desired pursuit was to disturb the perception of space-time, so that we all may adapt and compromise ourselves to the conditions of rudimentary or non- existent consciousness, to cope with the immersion to the primordial oblivion of oneself, a characteristic property for the quantum universe as dominion of death and prelude of a new life. To enforce their sovereignty in quantum subspace the Olympians had established devices all over the world with primary function the disturbance and disruption of space coherence. The machine was functioning as follows: It’s well known that the universe is composed of rudimentary constructive pieces, which can be called strings etc. Every corpuscle of energy has a gravitational potency “lamda”. The summary of “lamda” energy particles constitutes the quantity required, so that the three- dimensional continuum will not fold and collapse into itself.  Through deliberate collision of the fast as light “lamda”- powered particles in a perfect rectangular or perpendicular course with equal possibility of refraction towards right or left they managed to rend them into a state of precarious indecisive flux. Philosophically this phenomenon was called “the donkey of Buridan”, who is equally distanced from two heaps of hay. It is a strike with knife against the inflationary universe transforming space unexpectedly into an indescribable chaos of separated unrelated objects. Time on the other hand suffers disjunction and follows a parallel independent path.   

Thus, when the device was activated, the unified conception of space –time has collapsed to satisfy the malevolence of the Erinyes. The representations of the environment popped up like soap-bubbles, were dismantled and dislocated. They became fluid, as if they were flowing and dissipating on an oily canvas. Everybody felt dissociated as if one didn’t reside under the same roof, but one sensed that everyone was separated, each one left alone in a room or a corner. Ododromus was disconnected, diffused and multiplied into a collective of separate apartments. All these imprisoning residences circulated incoherently in a three-dimensional chaos forming a mosaic of erratically moving cubicles. If anyone tried to open the door of the house, that was indubitably a suicidal act, because then one was exposed to all combinations of delusion, misguidance and deception. When one appeared at the doorstep, one faced the immediate danger of perishing entirely and irrevocably, because it was impossible to maintain a sense of direction within the contorted dimensions, the complete distortion of space-time. Space was rotating and dislocating creating upheavals and labyrinths, hills, channels, tunnels and worm holes. One could envisage directly all kinds of delusion up front, a lamp or a passage, but couldn’t get close or reach it no matter what. Occasionally a delusive light seduced everybody, and they followed a road without destination or return, which led to nowhere.

Tithonus caught up on the messy distortion and jumped on time in the platonic solid, where he had hidden the Cyborg and the Hesiodic plough. After – who knows how many years – he had succeeded in his mission to escape in the general confusion from the Olympian dimension along with a super weapon, even if that did not belong to Zeus but to the titans. Beyond that he held still in his hands the sickle- theodolite which was by far the greatest trophy and came to his possession due to a lucky streak, without previous pursuing or planning as an additional gift of serendipity. A we shall see in the next book, on the base of theodolite the Sirius’ titans their own pheno- dimensional corridor with a similar function. One ignores if they succeeded that, copying the sickle of Tithonus or if the titans had pilfered otherwise the pertinent technology. 

“Come make a trip with me, let’s go away la-la-la-la”, sang Tithonus without a phorminx something different than the melody of Seikilos with a more vivid beat, so much so that the ancient Greeks considered a melody without a rhythm as “unorderly, inert and dark”, while plus rhythm “robust, energetic and clear”.

CHAPTER 26:

ECHETLUS AGAINST PURIFIER

From the personal log of Echetlus, Knight and Agent of light, on board, riding a freely moving neutron star:

The “Great Attractor” is a monstrous knot, a dreadful consolidation and amassment of the visible universe, mobilized and set in motion by the Purifier, attracting through its countless gravity whole spirals of galaxies like wondering moths captured and seduced due to phototropism from a distance of three million lightyears. My mission is to destroy it.

Consciousness controls the phenomena of the universe, and the future evolution of our world depends on conscious decisions that we must take relying on ethics but mainly exercising out logical judgment. Only warriors who are moral but at the same time have the good judgment to combine the above into individual ethos and reasonable conviction may be able to save the ark of life. «Παπαί, Μαρδόνιε, κοίους επ’ άνδρας ήγαγες μαχησόμενους ημέας, οί ου περί χρημάτων τον αγώνα ποιούνται, αλλά περί αρετής» (Alas, Mardonius, what are these men that you incited against us, who do battle not over money but over virtue) said Tigranes. These are known things. It is our destiny and our exclusive privilege to exercise enlightened (reasonable- ecological) power over the soulless- inanimate or less animated matter and determine the future of the world though beneficial manipulation of the past.

As the clouds of the stars passed by and I was the ghost of a helmsman in a dark flying coffin, I thought why the universe should be so prolific and fertile? Why is it in every stage full of life and increasing complexity? The tug of war, the river of life, where nobody can enter twice since other and yet other water is constantly flowing, leads in the course of time with certainty to the last strategic headquarters, installed at the end of time, where the last consciousness will make the final observation and form the last thoughts. That means that even the above-mentioned observation won’t be the last, because through the hermeneutic dive towards the past mobilizes and feedbacks repeatedly the dynamics of an always uncompleted circle. The universe has no constant texture, definition or well-defined structure until somebody observes it. Moreover, even the last observer can’t be stable, because the existence of all the previous ones would have no meaning. Either he should change continuously or integrate in himself all previous beings, which is the same. Behold here the scientific and philosophical conception of God!

Each one of us represents a view-angle necessary for the universe’s continuity. If one of us were absent, that would constitute an opening and piercing of the huge inflationary balloon, in the gas of which we are floating. That is why any one of us can be extinguished as an object but not as a subject because the latter is interwoven with the sense of an existence observing the universe, therefore it is eternal. The atom («άτομον»), symbolizing the soul is eternal, engages and adds to itself, attaches and attracts («ρύεται») rhythmically solid bodies or corpuscles corresponding to it and appears as a material organism, after the death of whom it returns to the void («κενόν»).  It is a reflection and a mirage («είδωλον»-superposition) of the atom according to the paradigm of Leucippus and Democritus. Yet this idol is not the only relationship of the atoms between them, there is also the entanglement («διαθιγή») that connects various atoms or figures among them into broader psychic molecules or hypostatic souls. Idealism and materialism as divided worldview do not understand that the cognitive subject and object is one and the same being reflecting and construing itself in different positions and various moments, thus inaugurating space and time. Causality and will are interconnected inseparably and retrace their steps throughout past and future, constructing the universe.

          My self- awareness consisted of a tight knot of wave functions, Now, cautiously, I began to unravel that knot, to allow the focus of my consciousness to slide over spacetime. Soon it was as if I was flying over the arch of the cosmos, unbound by limits of space or time. Throughout the galaxy I found the works of man. I lingered over places and artifacts abandoned by history, over towers as well as shooting loopholes, dwelling as long over a drifting child’s toy as over some huge space-bound fortress. Everywhere, of course, I found relics of war, ruined stars, and worlds, squandered energy, the easy evil answer to the miracle and achievement of creation.

I labelled meticulously the places I visited, the destinations of my travels, the relics   and the precious talismans I found all around. But as time passed and my confidence as being a central individuality grew, I removed the cumbersome barrier of conscious thought. I allowed my consciousness to soften further, to dilute the narrow human perception, to hold only a moral quintessence to which I had clung.   

All about me flames blazed and quantum wave functions pricked and pierced me. Layers of possibilities spread from stars and planets, sheets of probability that linked matter and time. They were like spiders’ webs scattered over the aging galaxies. They mingled, reinforced and cancelled each other, all bound by the implacable logic of the dismal governing wave equations. It was as if I rode wild horses on a harsh thorny wilderness and I passed like a cord through rosary beads.

Within all this mess, I continued to search for the proper way to fulfill my mission, to disrupt and pierce the huge mass gathered by the Purifier, which threatened to swallow the cosmos as an insurmountable and fateful black hole. After careful study and meticulous examination, I concluded that the only method of bursting a mountain of exaggerated mass and dimension are the cosmic strings.   

in the three-dimensional space circulate many types of defects, stable or unstable, linear, flat and solid, – monopoles or dipoles – points or planes- domain walls, boundaries and incisions, from whom the most cutting-edged, sharpened, whetted and scissor-like are the cosmic strings. These are residual traces of the ultrahigh, energetical symmetric vacuum of the GUT epoch, embedded in the empty space of our universe, like residual lines of liquid water in solid ice. Despite their designation referring to something cobwebbed and thin, strings are massive. Their width is only the Planck length, but their density is enormous – a one- inch length would have a mass of around ten million billion tons. They were fine tubes containing charged particles: subatomic elements, electrons and their antiparticles, gathered into super heavy clusters. As a result, the strings are acting as superconductive wires. In the three-dimensional space, three types of stable defects were possible: in zero, one or two dimensions. The defects were points – monopoles or lines – cosmic strings or planes- domain walls. To avoid infinite extension, the universe through its established method wraps, condensates and staples them in loops or circles thousands of light-years across or else they will be endless, stretched with their infinite mass right across the universe, showing an inflationary and conquering attitude towards the surrounding expanse. Of course, the cosmic strings are resisting their wrapping up constriction, resenting to be a thread-ball but rather choosing to be the Ariadne’s thread in the labyrinth. That’s why they develop enormous tension – a tension that increases with curvature – and so those loops and cusps are struggling to straighten themselves out, all the time. Most of the length of the string is moving close to lightspeed and so are the cusps. How could something as complex, as real as this, be made of nothing but folded spacetime? And yet it is so.

The Gordian (Chordian) string knot has the power to cut like knife through this galaxy’s magnetic field. As it does so, immense electrical currents – of a hundred billion billion amps or more – are induced in it, thus disrupting, grooving, whipping and flogging the main riverbed. Consequently, gravity waves of vast magnitude are emitted through space. Because the loop is asymmetrical, it’s pushing out its gravitational radiation and momentum in particular directions – in spikes, ahead of and behind it. It is a gravitational rocket using its radiation to drive through space.   

But how would I activate those strings disengaging them from their own strong nuclear bond to release their unimaginable power? While I was contemplating in a very stochastic way this Delian problem, a small platonic solid with an ugly hunchback midget as only tenant, deformed to a degree that even the sickest imagination could not conceive, whose invalidity I deem impropriate and impolite to describe in detail. Suffice to say that he was not a dark matter soul like the rest of us who ran as small gods (“theos” in Greek: the running one) the trajectories of space, namely as spiritual constitutions or forms consisted of corpuscles attracting and repelling each other instead of the firmly connected  molecules of organic matter; on the contrary he had a sort of strange, not viable biological immortality, considering that human beings due to their ephemeral relationships, concerns and pursuits aren’t made to live forever and immortality leads them directly to madness. Despite all this, this little man was entirely, almost irrationally sensible and wise.  

He delivered to me a very powerful weapon of titanic technology consisted of a cybernetic organism and a Hesiodic plough, which due to its simple and handy construction and its self-fueling  property and tinder- functioning usefulness through the available mechanism of spectacles and optical fibers was exactly what I needed as a percussion cap and a firing pin to ignite the cosmic strings.      

As soon as I adapted the application properly, the vehemence and the devastating impact power of the rotating blackholes was released like a warp and a mythological Typhoon by the wing-footed twinkle-toed Mercury and the mix-shaped Aegipan of spacetime dispersing without much ado the ridiculous toy-train, the condemnable hula-hoop, the honkey-tonk parade of the Purifier.   

          So, the cosmic strings cut and sliced the wheel fast and furiously like knife in a butter-bread, mainly the two lower levels, while a serious effort has been made to keep intact the upper level which contained life, unfortunately not without some collateral damages, for which the Purifier and not me must be held accountable.   

I will resume my report about all this later. For the time being, I would like to include the dialog I had with this peculiar creature, who helped me so unexpectedly and decisively to fulfill my cosmic mission and to score a proud victory against the Purifier.

“You deranged sleepwalker” I said to hm “how could you escape Jupiter’s domain with a ship and a gun? Sorry to express myself like that but a man in your condition …”

“I managed it through conjecture and thought, through induction and generalization, through combining the particulate facts of my life to wider considerations and the greater good. I am a titan”, he replied.

It crossed my mind like a shadow that the only conceivable way, through which this caricature of a titan could carry out his audacious plan, this unimaginable Heracles labor, would be the sneaky, behind-the-back, treacherous, guileful murder of who knows how many soldiers, guards, even of civilians as acceptable collateral damage.  

He anticipated and sensed my thoughts, posited the question and answered himself in advance.

“Only through the power of the mind. Thought cannot harm but only benefit, exactly because it is merely a thought…”

“And what do you intend to do here, within the intermediate and infinite space between worlds, you, who are still or rather forever incarcerated in the bondage of the soul, without any possibility to extend your spirit outwards?”

“I will remain here; I will be around watching until the last molecule of my body turns to dust. And who knows? Perhaps then I will not differ from you so much. The time will come for me to thrust in the apartments of the dark matter and somewhere inside to find eventually my beloved Eos.”

That been said, the stranger who revealed that he was called Tithonus entered again the platonic solid and vanished.

Authorities of light, let us unite our prayers for this paradox and honest fighter. It is difficult to characterize him with one word and maybe I am forced to violate in this regard the protocol of the service, which forbids the bestowal of attributes, and to use an unsuitable, exaggerated and unapproved predicate, an epithet that is not even Greek but emphatically fitting for his fragile and at the same time dynamic personality. He was by far the most graceful villain that I have met, the softest terrorist of all times.

CONTENTS

1. UPANISHAD OR SYMPANTIS EX HADES OR OCCIDENT EXPRESS
2. ILION, TROY, GANYMEDES, EOS, TITHONUS ET CETERA, ET CETERA
3. THROUGH THE KEYHOLE INTO THE CHAMBERS OF ZEUS AND HERA
4. HERA’s PARTING TO AN UNKNOWN DESTINATION
5. DIVINE COUPLE
6. ARGONAUTIC EXPEDITION  
7. THE FIRST FALL
8. REGENERATION CHAMBER
9. THERE WILL BE ANOTHER TIPHYS AND ANOTHER ARGO …
10. DINO- PTERYGIUM
11. THE LONELINESS IN THE SHIP
12. THE NEWS ARRIVES TO THE GODS
13. ICARUS’ EXCEPTION
14. BEAST POLIS
15. TH OCEAN OF THE NAVIGATORS OF THE NAVIGATORS 
16. CATO THE MARTIAN  
17. NO TEARS FOR THE ECCLESIAST
18. THE BEASTS OF MARS  
19. ANTIOPE, ANTHEA, ANTHIPPE, ANTI- ILLA
20. THE INHABITANT OF THE ABYSS
21. GREEN LITTLE MEN  
22. ON THE HEIGHTS OF THARSIS
23. ON THE SLOPES OF OLYMPUS
24. ENCELADUS
25. CRONUS, ODODROMUS, THEODOLITE  
26. ECHETLUS AGAINST PURIFIER

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Bracket Leigh, The Beast Jewel of Mars

Brandhorst Andreas, Ikarus

Hesiod, Theogony

Fast Howard, Cato the Martian

Simmons Dan, Olympos

Smith Clark Ashton, The Dweller in the Gulf

Weinbaum Stanley, A Martian Odyssey

Zelazny Roger, A Rose for Ecclesiastes

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[1] There is nothing better than prudent laws. Because when both the rich and the poor have the same material and judicial rights, the latter beats the former if she/he is right.

[2] Socrates said that if someone asks from the town-crier to summon the shoemakers to rise, only they will rise and the same will happen if he summons the coppersmiths, the tailors and the other professionals. But if he summons the righteous and the just, they will all rise. So, in life it is a great problem that the many, whereas they are fools, think that they are fair and just.   

[3] Work is no shame, only laziness is shame.

[4] Altsheimer

[5] If your roommate is a limp, you will end up also being a lame.

[6] By this order a dog goes away and brings back a bouncer or a plastic bone or anything else the master had thrown.

[7] Shaved to the scalp

[8] Gold is a child of Zeus, not worn either by moth nor by wood-fretter, while on the other hand it eats up the mind of the mortals, which is the most valuable possession and asset.  

[9] My precious heart

[10] Caring for all 

[11] Whom they banished in this desert to be eaten by a wild illness, after a viper had bitten hm and caused him a man-perishing intrenchment.

[12] These bows found food for my belly, but you took them, give them back, I beg of you! 

[13] With this bow you will grab and own Paris’s life, capture Troy and send the spoils to your palace, after your whole army calls you and designates you the best of all.  

[14] Thank Zeus for the light of prudence and sing him song of victory

because he has ruled that to learn means to suffer

And in sleep drops into our hearts the painful memory,

 And reminds us of our wounds without learning buffer.

[15] It takes time to build a heap, stone by stone

But you can crush everything with a strike alone.  

[16] Now, we are in front of you, and if you dare, you are free to question us (free hermeneutic translation).

[17] Hallo, victorious Heracles with your harp!

[18] Alter erit tum Tiphys, et altera quæ vehat Argo delectos heroas; erunt etiam altera bella, Atque iterum ad Troiam magnus mittetur Achilles.

[19] Soul of mine, do not hurry to face death, you ‘d better draw relations and experiences from the act of life.  

[20] God needs not to be feared, since death comes always without warning and without to be suspected. On the other hand, it is easy to acquire what is good and to endure what is dreadful.  

[21] Property of freedom is the outspoken courage, while danger should be perceived as the exploitation of a chance, as serendipity, presupposing the ability of discerning it in advance. 

[22] Power is enviable, but vulnerable to sickness and old age. The only immortal and divine thing is education. 

[23] Podaleirius, I read, I learned, I condemned.

[24] A mountain ached in the stomach and born a mouse. 

[25]  You read but you didn’t learn, because if you learned, you would not condemn.

[26] When someone talks about all knowledgeable, while she/he does not grasp the obvious that all the others understand. 

[27] The first sight deceives many.

[28] Cheap gadgets 

[29] The young men must dare, because no one lazy has acquired glory, but all glory comes from hard labor. 

[30] One could not reach prosperity without toil. And it is really a shame for a young man, not to take pains.

[31] All those words aspire to be synonymous with the healing layer of a wound.

[32] Never admit that ‘nothing’ exists but always avoid that road.

[33] Frontalis muscle is the one contracting the eyebrows.

[34] This is a childhood’s memory: The bus “31-58, New Smyrna – New Philadelphia”.

[35] Naturam expellas furca, tamen usque recurret. If one extracts nature with a fork or a pitchfork, it will, return with a vengeance.   

[36] Vacuus cantat coram latrone viator. He who has an empty pocket, sings before the thief.

[37] To save yourself in the future, you must either have good friends or sworn enemies. 

[38] Envy is the meanest and unfairest god, because it rejoices with what is evil and underestimates what is good.

[39] The greedy one never ponders or covets something just.  

[40] He, who does not care if he wrongs someone, but only not to be held accountable for his actions, acts like a criminal.

[41] We expect you to die now, Diagoras, because it is hubris to the gods to outlive such happiness that they themselves have not felt (completely free translation).  

[42] Άρχον δε και αρχόμενον φύσει δια την σωτηρίαν -το μεν γαρ δυνάμενον τη διανοία προοράν άρχον φύσει και δεσπόζον φύσει, το δε δυνάμενον το σώματι ταύτα ποιείν αρχόμενον και φύσει δούλον – διό δεσπότη και δούλω ταυτό συμφέρει (1252 α, 2) … ότι μεν τοίνυν εισί φύσει τινές οι μεν ελεύθεροι, οι δε δούλοι, φανερόν, οίς και συμφέρει το δουλεύειν και δίκαιον εστίν (1255 α). … Διχώς γαρ λέγεται το δουλεύειν και ο δούλος – έστι γαρ τις και κατά νόμον δούλος και δουλεύων, ο γαρ νόμος ομολογία τις εστιν εν ώ τα κατά πόλεμον κρατούντα των κρατούντων είναι (φασίν). Τούτο δη το δίκαιον πολλοί των εν τοις νόμοις ώσπερ ρήτορα γράφονται παρανόμων, ως δεινόν ει του βιάσαθαι δυναμένου και κατά δύναμιν κρείττονος έσται δούλον και αρχόμενον το βιασθέν (1255 α6) …Διό και συμφέρον εστί τι και φιλία δούλω και δεσπότη προς αλλήλους τοις φύσει τούτων ηξιωμένοις, τοις δε μη τούτον τον τρόπον, αλλά κατά νόμον και βιασθείσι, τουναντίον (1255 β)

[43]  Δοκεί γαρ το περί τας ουσίας μέγιστον είναι τετάχθαι καλώς– περί γαρ τούτων ποιείσθαι φασίν τας στάσεις πάντας. Διό Φαλέας ο Χαλκηδόνιος τουτ’ εισήνεγκε πρώτος – φησί γαρ ίσας είναι τας κτήσεις των πολιτών – τούτο δε κατοικιζομέναις μεν ευθύς ου χαλεπόν ώετο ποιείν, τας δ’ ήδη κατοικουμένας εργωδέστερον μεν, όμως δε τάχιστ’ αν ομαλισθήναι, τω τας προίκας τους μεν πλουσίους διδόναι μεν, λαμβάνειν δε μη, τους δε πένητας μη διδόναι μεν, λαμβάνειν δε (1266α – 1266β).

[44] He thought that painting is silent poetry, and poetry is a speaking painting.

[45] Fortune gives most to many, but enough to none.  

[46] Fantastic creatures partly animals and partly humans or entirely animals, held up as examples by the Byzantines in law of inheritance, wondering what would happen if they were born alive in a vain effort to cover all conceivable possible cases, which could be presented to a court, henceforth the name “Byzantinism”. However, no matter how many computers or AI are mobilized, casuistry can never be exhaustive, and interpretation will be always necessary.   

[47] To δ’ άγχι πλευμόνων ξίφος διανταίαν οξυπευκές ουτά

Διαί Δίκας- το μη θέμις γαρ ουν λαξ πέδοι πατούμενον, 

Το παν Διός σέβας παρεκβάντος ου θεμιστώς

Δίκας δ’ ερείδεται πυθμήν, προχαλκεύει δ’ Αίσα φασγανουργός

(Aeschylus, Choephori)

[48] You should consider it a great education, if you manage to provoke lack of schooling.

[49] Many people, exactly because they do not close or restrict their big mouth, end up leaving many things unsaid.  

[50] It is easier to withhold in one’s tongue incandescent coals than a confidential secret.

[51] The Earth must be destroyed.

[52] Let the consuls pay attention, lest the state be harmed because of their politics.

[53] God does not get involved, if the node of the vindicator is not worth it.

[54] A rare bird on Earth like a black swan.

[55] “Homo sum et nihil humani a me alienum puto”, a maxim of Renaissance.

[56] Experts or not, we are sketching poems.

[57] Verum impedere vitae – To obstruct the truth through life.

[58] Vitam impedere vero – To obstruct life through the truth. Correct is “Vitam impendere vero – to spend your life, to devote, to lend the weight of your life to the truth, an ambiguous phrase, leaving open the question, if someone through this way protects or crushes the truth. Hence is derived the “verum impendere vitae”, by Nietzsche, which is that “you “aggravate the truth through your life”. 

[59] The drop does not dig the rock through its power, but though its constant fall.

[60] Amid arms the laws silence (also the agreements).

[61] Only then you are entitled to invoke shame, if you are the first one to be ashamed.

[62] It is sweet and worthy to die for one’s country.

[63] Always the brave dare, the cowards do not even exist.

[64] Three elements define a moral war, that someone wants to fight, that someone is zealous of honor and pride and obeys the orders of the legitimate archons.

[65] Only through unity and concord great deeds can be accomplished and wars be faced.

[66] Calmness with dignity (it is said that it is proper for the old).

[67] Greece although occupied, conquered on its turn the savage conqueror and introduced the arts to the agrarian Mars (the authentic exression of Horatio is “Latio”, instead of “Marti” and refers to the agrarian Latium, the posterior mighty Rome!) 

[68] Mettle is needed, because tomorrow will be better.

[69] If you do not require much, the few will seem many to you.

[70] Socrates was asked how someone can become rich. And he answered: “by being poor regarding one’s desires”.

[71] No one is free, if she/he doesn’t control her/himself. That is why, you should learn and keep the following advice training yourself in self- restrain: Overcome the gluttony and the laziness, pleonexia and anger. Mind no to do any shameful act, neither alone nor along with others. Above all, feel shame, bashfulness and modesty, as to how yourself is expressing. 

[72] The rational one should pose logic over desires.

[73] If two are quarreling, the wiser is the one who does not answer to insults. 

[74] The citizen is defined from nothing else than participating in the decisions and in the administration of the state.

[75] If you are asking that the others should be accountable for their responsibilities, you should first assume your own!

[76] The greater good is the virtuous administration according to the mind. He who acts without prudence either is consumed by arrogance or by fear.

[77] Vanity of vanities, says the Preacher, vanity of vanities! All is vanity.What does man gain by all the toil at which he toils under the sun?A generation goes, and a generation comes, but the earth remains forever. The sun rises, and the sun goes down, and hastens to the place where it rises. The wind blows to the south and goes around to the north; around and around goes the wind, and on its circuits the wind returns. All streams run to the sea, but the sea is not full; to the place where the streams flow, there they flow again. All things are full of weariness; a man cannot utter it; the eye is not satisfied with seeing, nor the ear filled with hearing. What has been is what will be, and what has been done is what will be done,and there is nothing new under the sun.

[78] Exaggerations are never a chance for the mortals.

[79] Where there is awe, there is also shame. I fear only who can put me to shame. Who among the mortals is just, if he does not fear anything?

[80] What is unfounded from the beginning, cannot be affirmed as a right through the passage of time.

[81] No one recognizes that has exceeded the limits, unless one perceives another behaving indecently.

[82] Pythias, daughter of Aristotle, when asked about the most beautiful color of all, she answered that it is the one of a human face blushing, the color of people when they feel ashamed.  

[83] She turned them into lustful, shameless, debauched and libertine. Here the bibliography is stiflingly full but let us confine ourselves to the famous “Stress-flooding Therapy of the Proetides’ mania by Melampus” by D. Kouretas. See respectively also the complete Titanomachy in the following pages.   

[84] Due to their shamelessness, they forfeited their blossoming beauty.

[85] Proetides on the one hand were animated by the wish of the species’ procreation, on the other hand their father oppressed this urge, which caused an incurable inward conflict.

[86] Wandering and proud 

[87] Although it is a heavy burden if an unwise person prospers.

[88] Is it not considered that the city belongs to the leader?

[89]Of course, you would nicely rule over a desert land.

[90] When Daimonax was asked, when did he start philosophizing, he answered: “When I began to blame myself for my wrongs”.  

[91] The decrepit and the drunk become children twice in life.

[92] When one treats you to a homemade wine, the first glass brings health, the second pleasure, the third challenges your fate and causes bad behavior, whereas the next surrenders you to mania.

[93] Quasi Modo – The hunchback of Notre Dame.

[94] The devising or choosing names for things especially in a science or another discipline.

95. Having nice hair- she didn’t become a satellite.  

[96] Thinking that he had intercourse with one, he slept with them all.

[97] E pluribus unum.

[98] He who demands what he has to render, acts dishonorably.

[99] Blissed are those who possess the thing, because they have the advantage by equal conditions and the rest terms of the vindication remain the same.  

[100] Not the oaths render credibility to women and men, but the latter give the oaths credit, faith and worth.

[101] We will refer later to the episode of Star Trek “Devil in the Dark” του Star Trek, where the creature Horta is presented, a living rock of silicon penetrating other inert rocks. 

[102] Episode “Journey to Babel”

[103] Episode “Balance of Terror”

[104] Vulcans are mentioned in all the episodes of the series

[105] Episodes “Errand of Mercy”, “Private Little War”, “Trouble with the Tribbles”, “Day of the Dove” etc.

[106] Episode “The Tholian Web”

[107] Episode “Errand of Mercy”

[108]     Other not human aliens, presented by way of exception in ”Star Trek”, since at that time special effects as tricks of gaining impression were not developed, is the monster who absorbed salt in the episode “Man Trap”, the crocodile Gorn in the episode “Arena”, the silicon-based creature Horta digging underground passages in the episode “Devil in the Dark”, tiny, branch-like and foliage -covered beings of another galaxy asphyxiating in the episode “Catspaw”, strange living mushrooms in a glass bowl in the episode “Gamesters of Triskelion”, a huge amoeba in the episode “Immunity Syndrome”,  luminous creatures with supposed deadly appearance (Medusans), enclosed in a protective  casket or chest in the episode “Is There in Truth No Beauty?”,  hovering undefined creatures with eyes like burning coals (Melcotians) in the episode “Spectre of the Gun” and alien rocks (Excalbians) in the episode “Savage Curtain”.    

[109] The standpoint of the contemporary prophet Arthur Clarke, as it is formulated in its work “Rama Reνealed” (ed. Οrbit, p. 583-584), that the world is but a semi-failed experiment in a series of experiments conducted by God, so that He may find the ideal initial conditions, which, once developed, could lead to a universe of harmony, expectedly does not include immortality of the soul into the respective worldview since the survival of our specific world as a whole is not considered necessary after the end of the experiment. However, in page 611 he admits that his theory cannot explain, how and through what procedure the chemical material can be organized into self- awareness.

[110] See Eratosthenes, Catasterisms

[111] Untamed  

[112] Uttering a war cry

[113] Attacking the walls

[114] The Greek expression is “we broke a plaque”, meaning that we exposed the Maltese falcons – excuse me- the Maltese antiquity smugglers.

[115] Hot air fills the airbags, and self- conceit fills the fools. 

[116] The self- conceit of a bad person is a heavy load.

[117] Sophisticated James Bond’s stuff provided to him by Q.

[118] If you do something shameless, do not hope that you will escape. Because even if you stay latent and unnoticed by the others, you will not avoid your own conscience.

[119] Such weapons are timeless either corresponding the current technology or due to tradition.

[120] The cries of pain and the clamors of triumph are fitting correspondingly to men who perish and men who slaughter.

[121] Womanly, effeminate

[122] Those who shake their phalluses and cause sexual fever.

[123] Voyeurs who look though the keyhole, men or women.

[124] Dick-suckers  

[125] Bloody fools

[126] Shit- eaters

[127] Smart alecks

[128] This expression is contemporary, in fact is not encountered in the ancient literature.

[129] An international expression for fear and cowardice

[130] Alas, Mardonius, what kind of men have you chosen as our opponents who do not fight for money but for honor.   

[131]Just as in the Star Trek episode: “No Mourn for Adonais”, although there appears Apollo, not Ares.

[132] Gold blood

[133] The specific expression is taken from “Rocky 4”.  

[134] At last, the amazon is dead and your fear stopped.

[135] As the helmet was lifted and revealed the naked front, the attraction of the genuine figure conquered the victor. 

[136] God loves to assist those who take pains.

[137] Venerable oblivion of calamities, how wise you are and a welcomed goddess for the unfortunate.

[138] The possession of the representations is called memory, while their recollection is called reminiscence.

[139] Zenon (from Citium) said to a young man who wanted to talk rather than hear: “young man, nature gave us one tongue and two ears to hear twice as much as we say”.

[140] Λεῦσσε δ’ ὅμως ἀπεόντα νόῳ παρεόντα βεβαίως.

[141] Με την επιμέλεια και το μόχθο όλα τα αγαθά είναι δυνατόν να κατακτηθούν.

[142] Ό,τι επίμονα αναζητείται μπορεί να αποκτηθεί, ξεφεύγει όμως ό,τι παραμελείται.

[143] Through toil and diligence all goods can be conquered.

[144] What one persecutes persistently, can be acquired, but what one neglects eludes.  

[145] Today, Cassini division.

[146] A Disneyland of some kind.  

[147] Unexploited, uncultivated place.

[148]  A theme park 

[149] terrasse

[150] Just as Kant maintained that we should not question God, since we cannot know and analyze scientifically His domain, and the result was to involuntarily erase Him. The pertinent argument is” if we cannot know Him, why bother?”

[151] Do not heal bad with bad.

[152] In fact, it is called Moebius strip, but I wouldn’t like to spoil the Greek language sensorium.  

[153] So, Popay the sailorman turned the “open sesame” into “open says me”.

[154] The easiest thing is for someone to deceit himself – because one believes whatever suits her/him – but things have often a different outcome.

[155] The voluntary toil prepares us to endure easier the unvoluntary ones.

[156] Esopus said that each of us carries two saddle- bags, one on the front and the other on the back.  The errors of the others burden each of us on the front, but we fail to see our mistakes that accumulate on our back.     

[157] You should either be silent or say something better than silence. You d’ better be taciturn than babble. When Socratic Aeschines was reproached for being silent, whereas he was a pupil of Socrates, he said: I have learnt from Socrates not only to speak but also to be quiet.