Your Time is Up Peasants

Creative Sparks Weekly Prompts #4 — Written Prompt (Mirrors stop reflecting reality; instead, they show what could have been if different choices were made)

Epilogue

The echos of the timepieces crashing some to the floor and the rest of the clocks rising to the rafters in Greece, their living environments destroyed, was a reminder that mere mortals cannot control their own destiny when they are tethered to the handlers, the Greek Gods.

The Prelude to Senseless Time

Before the debacle, when daytime stood still, the peasants in this world ignored the gods of Greek mythology. But during a meeting of the Gods in a forum called by Zeus, the God of the sky and heavens, he had summoned several of his deities to his lair in the sky to discuss the low energy of the peasants below, whose main purpose on earth was to honor and worship the deities thus providing sustenance to the god’s sustained power in the Universe.

In this crew were Zeus’s brothers and sisters, Hades, Poseidon, and Hera. Aphrodite was there, milling around the crowd of deities, hugging them and arousing them with her body. Hermes had just arrived after summoning all to sit in the presence of the almighty Zeus. Hera sat next to her husband and brother, looking over the group that had been assembled together by Zeus the almighty.

Ares was complaining loudly, “There must be a dual, fight or other physical altercation with anyone who dares to challenge me”. Ares being the God of war, was always flexing his muscles and preening around the female goddesses in the Court of Zeus. Today, he was being very provocative with Aphrodite, and she was married to Hephaestus, the God of fire, blacksmiths, and metalworking. He was no match for Ares, and he had been told by the cupids that his wife was frolicking in the clouds with Ares. This angered him immensely because his beloved was very sensual and affectionate to everyone. There was no stopping her if she wanted her “way”.

Hades had brought his bride, Persephone, because it was Spring and she was permitted, with the blessing of the deities of Olympus, to visit her mother Demeter for four months. Then she would need to return to the Underworld to Hades, so she could resume her role as his queen until the following year. Persephone was the Goddess of new growth in nature. Their love they shared after he abducted her from her mother’s care, allowing her to return to her mother, outside of the underworld, is symbolic of life, death, and rebirth. It is the embodiment of balance between light and darkness.

Poseidon, the most destructive of the deities of the Olympians was the creator of storms, floods, earthquakes, and destruction on the earthly plane. He was angry with the peasants because they were not obeying their creed that all gods must be memorialized and thanked daily for their benevolence to the throngs below the heavens and above the underworld.

The Middle Voice

This forum of the Olympian deities, all loosely clad and lusting over one another, had an unhealthy air of incestual behaviors, as they tried to lure their intended prey using their wiles in this milieu above the clouds. (Some of them were related by blood…. ewe!)

Zeus finally called the enclave to order and announced that time was up for the peasants below due to their ignorance and undesirable behavior towards the gods. He announced, “Their time is up, Gods, and we must get their attention to make them humble again.” Hades spoke up first, “What did you have in mind my brother?” Zeus pondered inquisitively for a moment and then said, “We need to get their loyalty back where it belongs, so our strength and power continues in the heavens”. He continued, “I am already feeling less powerful than I did yesterday”. All in the group snickered at this notion.

Hades added, “well how much pain can we gods inflict on these mere mortals”? “I could conjure up some trouble with the Cyclops and Cerberus, my three-headed puppy?”, evilly grinning from ear to ear. Zeus instantly retorted to him, “No, no that is not necessary” as his eyes rolled back in his head. “We just need to make mischief with the mechanisms they have come to rely on in their day-to-day tasks”.

Zeus called out each of the gods and asked each of their gifts. “What could you offer to this group for this task?” “Are you willing to risk a possible negative outcome, if Hercules is still milling about on earth”?

Hermes spoke up while the others were murmuring to one another. He said triumphantly, “I know just what to do to these vermin”. “They worship their sun dials, or whatever you call the things with numbers in a circle”. Everyone yelled at once, “clocks, dummy”. “Okay clocks, do they not seem to plan their day around time”? Poseidon offered, “Well I don’t really understand the notion of a clock particularly because we don’t use clocks in the water….yet”.

Zeus assigned each of the gods a task which follows,

• Hermes, stop time on each clock as fast as you can, and create chaos.
• Hades, make the light of the day and surround the peasants with darkness.
• Poseidon, make a storm so strong that all living things do not have control of their balance and send all of their material things away in the wind.
• Ares, surround their villages with warriors ready for a bloody battle.
• Aphrodite, make each man on earth, feel a longing in their loins, they cannot control. (Loins, well, you know!)

After Zeus had assigned all the deities their charges for the peasants, he dismissed them saying, “Go forth and conquer”. “Bring me back good news Hermes, as soon as the peasants are under my control”. The deities descended Olympus on the down escalator to carry out their evil deeds on the unknowing peasants below.

And so began the debauchery and evildoings on the peasants. The first thing that happened was Hermes made all time stop on all clock devices. Then the clocks simultaneously fell to the floor or rose high up in the ceiling in all buildings and dwellings. Without the use of clocks, the peasants could not figure out what they were supposed to do next. They were frozen in a time continuum…get it?

Then Hades darkened the sky, and the darkness engulfed the peasants while they worked, stood, sat, conversed, or anything they were involved in doing at that time. Some of the peasants tried to walk in the direction of the outside, but their feet would not move in the direction they had set out to. Confusion overcame the inhabitants in the land, looking to the clocks in disbelief. What was happening? Where were they to go?

Outside, they could see a wall of dirt and rocks coming towards them while they stood in their place, seemingly halted in fear. The sound of battle cries was heard in the distance, and the peasants were becoming afraid that something awful was happening. Not to be out done, Aphrodite put a spell on all men, which intensified their carnal senses and made them lust for sex. The women soon realized that something had overcome the men in their midst, and they were not safe to be in the company of strange men.

When Hermes sent the message to Zeus that he could now regain his power over the peasants, Zeus descended the escalator of Olympia into the earthly dimension. Zeus proclaimed to the peasants in a thunderous roar that he was the almighty Zeus and demanded them to obey his command.

“You peasants will bow down to me and these deities which you have forsaken as your gods”. “You will remember your vow to each of us to honor and genuflect often to our memorials and alters.” “Each of your dwellings must have an alter for each of these fine deities that have given you another chance at redemption, otherwise Hades will banish you to the Island of Tartarus where you will be punished for eternity.”

“Do you understand the voice of Zeus”? he asked. All of the peasants in each building and dwelling, humbly and meekly answered “yes we will do your bidding”.

But Zeus thought it might be humorous to prevent the peasants from knowing when to follow their tasks, travel to destinations, or feel like they were goal driven, and so, he commanded to Hermes, “Destroy all these keepers of time these mortals have found desirable and suspend these “clocks” from their view”. “This will prove to them we are the almighty gods in the Universe, and we must have their earnest and loyal allegiance, or else Cerberus and the Cyclops will be unleashed by Hades for all time”.

After the deities had ascended to the sky on their gilded escalator, the peasants began to look around at the destruction of their homes, buildings, and landscape. They no longer had their clocks to give them an incentive to get tasks accomplished. They would no longer know when to work, play, eat, or sleep. They soon realized they had lost their moral compass when the deities suspended their time clocks.

Thank you kindly for staying on this story for 30 seconds. Due to the length of it, you probably couldn’t help it! Feel free to clap, highlight, or leave a witty uplifting replay. I am very grateful to this community of writers and readers. You make my heart sing with every expression of appreciation for my writing.

© Jezebelle Darling — February 2024

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