Pandora

(Photo by Thomas Hodge)

"I am Pandora and everybody knows me because of my box which, as you can see, is in fact a large jar. As the myth goes, I am the first woman on Earth and my box was a God's gift which I should never have opened but as you all know...I did.
But I was spared despite my evil deed. You know why?
 Because they knew I was going to open the bloody thing, as it never had a lock and because they wanted me to keep it forever, negotiate it, keep people away from it, keep it sealed.
 Now, you want to open my box again and use it to your liking. We both know what that will bring, don't we now....but we still know you are never going to quit until you do.
You want my box so badly, your spine quivers. You think you can possess it, own it.
Who am I to refuse you? I am too tired to negotiate. I offered you myself in return and you choose to ignore me, reject me.. So...
So here it is... my precious love. The box, which like I said, is in fact a large jar.
My advice: Pandora is enough for you, turn away from it, for once it's opened, it will claim and consume you."

Having finished her long, needless monologue, Pandora sat on top of the wooden box, folded her white legs and looked at me coldly.
"Pandora.." I said quietly and walked towards the jar. "I don't want you, never did, never will. In fact, there hasn't been a man in recorded history that ever wanted you more than your box. Why would I be any different?" I asked picking up the jar which turned out to be very light.
"Is this empty?" I asked and shook it. "It seems empty.." I muttered and shook it again.

Pandora's eyes fell to the floor, her skin rejection-pale, disdain-white.
"Open it." she muttered.

My fingers curled around the lid and I lifted it up. The jar was empty.
I pressed my face inside to get a closer look, it was big, bigger than I thought at first, like a rabbit hole it was, an earthy cave.
"Hello!" I shouted and walked deeper inside. It was cold and dark and empty. She had cheated me the horny bitch, there was nothing in the jar after all.
"FUCK YOU PANDORA!!!! " I shouted and my voice hit me from all directions, it shook the walls, they started to crumble around me, a large boulder hit me on my back, I ran outside.
It was a familiar street, I was back home.

"There he is! Get him!"
I turned around.
"What are you doing here? What do you want? I told you never to come here again."
"Why did you kill them? Why did you do it?"
"Killed who?"
The living room smelt of piss and vomit. I looked at the ceiling. My mother, my father, my sister and me all hanged from the ceiling, blindfolded and naked.  A large cleaver was still locked in my father's thigh. I looked at my broken body, blood was dripping out of my mouth..so young I looked, so strong.
"No!" I said, " I didn't do this.."
"You killed your own mother..you did.."
"No, I love my mother, I could never kill her.."
"You killed me, and you loved me too."
"What? No, it is the other way around and you know it."
Her jaw fell to her feet and golden beetles walked out of her throat.
"Take one" her eyes said, "For good luck."
"Don't you want to fuck now? I am all infested with your love..rejection-pale, disdain-white." she said and came towards me.
"Stay fucking away!" I shouted and went for dad's cleaver. I'm sure he wouldn't mind.
I hacked her body to pieces. The beetles, scared, scattered everywhere, some even climbed on top of me, they smelt of her. Young, and mad, and covered with butter.

"I need to get to work, I will be late." I mutter and wipe my hands on my shirt.
 I look at my family hanging from the ceiling. I should get them down, but I will be soo late, tooo late. I don't have time for things like that, I have too many obligations, too many things to do, no time no time...

"Where do you think you're going young man?"
"To work, I need to get to work."
"Now, now, calm down, you can't go to work every single day. I thought I told you that... You can't go to work as often as you please. You need to wait for my permission, you need written permit my sweet love."
"They are going to fire me. I need to get there."
The woman pulled a large needle out of her pocket..
"When I shove this into your sick eye-socket, you'll sing a different song."
I raised the cleaver and hacked her face in half. She didn't budge.
"You're fired!" her mouth shouted. "You have no work, no money and no time."

"I am young!" I shouted, "I can get a new job and make more money, I am young and time is ALL I have you fucking bitch! NOONE CAN FIRE ME!!!! I AM INVINCIBLE, ETERNAL, PERFECT!"

"Can you sing? Got a good voice?" the dead woman says. "You know I'd sing to YOUR mic any time, precious.." the tongue escapes the mouth and touches my naked skin right above the belt.

The cleaver has a life of its own, I turn her to mince, a pile as high a freshly dug grave.
"Here boy..." I say to a little dog, as white as snow, it smells the heap and licks his nose.
"Eat up, it's fresh!"
My hands leave a read streak on its fur as I caress it. So weak, so vulnerable, I can make it love me and then hack it clean...but this needs time and I need to get to work...

I turn my back to it and lie on the grass. The sun is shining on my face and my eyes close. The air is light and full of smells. Flowers and tears, flowers and rain..
"I can find another job, I can get another house, a new lover, I have time."

Bang! Bang!

My eyes open to darkness.
"What the fuck!"  I say and sit up only to hit my head against the box.
"LET ME OUT!!! Jesus, you are burying me alive...I AM ALIVE!"
I hit the box with my fists, I can't see the sun from the cracks any more ..I hear the thud of the soil hitting the lid. I hate this box, it's so small, it smells of rot and decay.
So many bones around me, skulls and skin...death, disease, despair...

"Time's up, my love."  Pandora said.
"Oh no no no your time is up, you are old and weak, look at you, all wrinkled and needy.  I am young and eternal, remember?"
"Are you?" she said and placed a large floor mirror in front of my chair.

I was in a wheelchair, older than earth, frailer than snow.
"No!" I said, "It can't be...I want to leave the box, I choose you! I choose you, instead!"

"You made your choice, now now..." she says and wipes my tears. "It's time to die my young bird." she said and caresses my bare skull. "Goodbye!"

She steps into the mirror. I see her sitting on the wooden box, folding her white legs. She gently places the lid  back into place.

A myth. ( i.e. a story that no one believes in anymore)

(photo by Julie Fain)

Once upon a time, a long time ago, when dragons were aplenty, there lived a girl, a very pretty girl, loved by many but who desired none.
She spent her days and nights in the forest outside her village, picking herbs, blossoms and shoots and using them to make curious, little potions which then she used on plants and animals to see their effects.
Some flowers bloomed before their time, others died before seeing the rising sun, animals grew wings and flew away, while others grew old and died. She kept the potions in small glass vials in the hidden pockets of her skirts, she made labels made of leaves to know which is which and she never let them out of her sight.
She was a clever, little girl with an everlasting talent for concotions and magic brews, a little witch, that was what she was.
Time flew, her beauty grew and so did her collections of tiny vials. Soon she could not carry them all at once
and began to look for a secret place to hide them, a cave perhaps.
Yet, such  a talent cannot stay obscure, especially in a tiny village like hers, the village people started to talk.
So she found no other way but to leave her tiny house in the tiny village and make her living elsewhere.
All the village lads tried to change her mind. They offered her jewels, marriage and fancy fabrics, they begged and they wept, they made promises of travels to new lands but she never yielded. She left in the dead of night, into her mighty forest she went, where all her weapons grew. As she happily skipped around the trees her tiny vials made a happy, high-pitched sound which echoed miles away from where she was but she cared not, she felt home already.
The rising sun found her under a tall pine tree which stood right next to the mouth of a cave. When she woke up the sun was high up in the sky which caused her skin to be all itchy and red. She had a nasty sun-burn.
Into the cave she ran and there in the shade she took all her bottles out, one by one until she found the right one. A few drops and the angry burn was gone, her skin was all soft and cool, the magic brew had done its wonders once again.
And so it was that the village girl had found a new place to dwell and was happy indeed because she neither knew nor she cared that the cave was the house of someone else far stronger than her.
After a fortnight the dragon returned to his lair, where generations of dragons before him had called it home.
He came back in the middle of the night and found the pretty girl sleeping on a bed made of leaves.
Without making any noise, he placed his newly found treasures at the very back on the cave and spent the night scrutinizing the girl and the dozens of glass vials stacked in a single file on the floor.
He uncorked them all, some he smelt, others he used on his scaly skin, by dawn he knew them all and the girl as well.
The girl woke up with a start, her face near the dragon's nose, his big green eyes opened wide and the warm masculine voice sounded wisely.
"Welcome pretty girl to my home. I'll call you Maya and you'll be mine. " 
The dragon's voice like a lover's song, touched her once closed heart. You see  dragons have a magic of their own, far more cunning than all the potions she brewed together. The girl fell for the dragon right then and there. She fell so deep, her real name was erased from memory, so the story goes, she was only Maya, the dragon girl.
And so time flew again and Maya was a girl no more.

(photo by Kerembeyit)


A dragon flier, a lover, a dragon witch, he had captured her heart, she had yielded within. Together fresh battles they won, new treasures they took, new places they explored and still time flew and a grown woman she soon was.
The dragon left her alone from time to time, in the cave she stayed, her potions she brew until one day, one very unfortunate day, a black steed came to rest outside the mouth of the cave, its rider all wounded and half dead lay on the steed's back still. She took him inside and made him all well, night after night he rested on her bed.
On the seventh night, the man's eyes opened and Maya was there, many nights followed and Maya slipped inside the bed.
A month later the man rode his horse at last, he asked her to come with him but she said that she couldn't. The man rode away but the dragon came back and he saw from the start Maya's change of heart.
Maya ran but not far enough the dragon followed. The dragon's angry breath burned her black silky hair and in the middle of her scream the dragon swallowed her whole!

And here the story ends, well not exactly but there is nothing much to tell. The dragon carried her within, close to his heart, two heart beats one inside the other. He made sure he fed regularly so that she could eat but never a herb of a weed, her weapons he was afraid to give. She cried and begged for the dragon to let her out but his vengeance lasted until her very last breath was out. Only then did the dragon cut his belly open and pulled her dead body out.
Woman and dragon lay together in the cave and were soon dead. I found their bones and their hidden treasures along with Maya's vials just like my husband had said. He was the wounded rider on the black steed and he was the only one in the story who lived happily ever after before he too, one day, dropped dead.