Olympia Heights: The Pantheon

Chapter VIII

"Excessive fear is always powerless."

-Aeschylus

viii.

The cavern below was dark and bitter cold.

She waited at the mouth where the stone stairs fell,

spiraling downward, hung by vines of shadow.

Water rushed beneath.

The black river coursed under the skin of earth.

The moisture's quick chorus was the only sound.

It echoed from the void of the cave below

and then the sunshine.

A head of golden hair rose to meet the sun.

Her beautiful daughter emerged from the dark

and was received without delay with a kiss

and a warm embrace.

"Tell me," the mother said, "did you eat something?"

"No," the girl said, shaking her head in reply.

"Not any more than three pomegranate seeds."

The girl did not know.

Her mother began to weep for her child's fate.

The trees grew dry and the leaves fell and rattled,

landing as brittle brown sheets and then rotting.

The air became cold.

Her mother looked back to the mouth of the cave.

He was standing alone in his ashen form.

He was smiling wickedly with pleasure.

He had won his bride.

***

"Modesty is the colour of virtue."

-Diogenes

VIII.

It was Halloween-- the real Halloween, though all of the parties and trick-or-treating had occurred over the previous weekend. Even though the main attractions were over, students still wanted to wear costumes and stuff their faces with candy corn. The dress code had permitted any costume that wasn't provocative, racially offensive, or involving any type of headgear that might obscure the face. This eliminated most of the costumes that students had worn over the weekend, forcing much of the student body to improvise a second costume.

Dr. Celene Davis had opted for a lab coat and a stethoscope. She got a kick out of being "Dr. Davis." The actual M.D. at Olympia Heights Senior High, Dr. Jason Livingstone, was dressed as Indiana Jones. He strapped a whip to his belt and wore a very nice leather fedora. He'd even shaved his beard, which made him look ten years younger and entirely unrecognizable.

"I didn't recognize you," Celene said as she stepped into his office in the afternoon, looking for a quick fix for a bad headache. Jason had set a roll of guaze and a disinfectant wipe on the sink. He was washing his hands. Valerie Hess, sat on the chair in front of his desk, waiting for him to change her bandages. It was her first day back at school since the incident at the Halloween Carnival.

"Yeah, I tried to pull off Harrison Ford. I don't think it's working."

"Don't feel bad, nobody can ever be Harrison Ford," she joked, "that's just reaching for perfection."

"I guess that's right," he chuckled. "What can I do for you?" He dried his hands and took his supplies to sit opposite Valerie. Valerie was silent.