The change was coming, I could see it from a few step backs. The split was inevitable, as sure as a breeze on the lakes, but I wasn’t expecting it like this. Her debt owing was significant, we have been partners for years - I’ve seen most of her, she’s seen all of me. We have had each other’s backs in amongst the vipers, we’d taken our fair share of venom for each other.
Staring at her across the courtroom, I could see in her nervous hands that she wasn’t comfortable with how we’ve laid it out. No... not capable, not of seeing my devotion and protection as any more than cheap sentiment compared to the weight of her morality; but I needed her too. I tried peering through the side her head to get attention, so that I could see in her eyes a comfort to tide me over to her eventual exoneration. A comfort that I knew wasn’t forthcoming.
She steadied herself and spoke, clearly from the back of her throat, with a forcefulness that made it clear she had made her decision. ‘Yes, it was him’. She shifted her gaze towards me just as I closed my desperate eyes.
It was a Wednesday. Objectively the worst day of the week. That day when the productive energy of returning from a regenerating weekend of bowls, chicken parmigiana and some amber liquid are well and truly spent. Empirically it is the day furthest away from both the preceding or proceeding weekend. They don’t call it hump day for nothing, it’s effectively the harsh intimidating cliff face leading to the tip of the mountain - and you’re stuck in line behind a troop of mountaineers all looking to leap over the summit.
I have it on good authority taxes were created on a Wednesday; some ancient tribe leader was sitting around (no doubt rocking back on his tree stump staring at the sky after a relatively productive Monday and Tuesday) and had the thought - what if everything was a little worse for everyone else and a lot easier for me. Remember taxes in those days weren’t going towards filling potholes or mowing the park.
Yes all the worst atrocities of the world occurred on a Wednesday. The final siege of Carthage began on a Wednesday. Lincoln was shot on a Wednesday. Charles Manson was born on a Wednesday. Disco was first conceived on a Wednesday. And Wednesday is the day Samantha stops out the front for a chat as you’re going to put the bins out (somehow happening every... single... time). Samantha is an empty vessel, somehow devoid of all charisma whilst considering herself the most interesting person in existence. And obsessed with horses... uggh, she goes riding every second Wednesday.
Ragnarok certainly took place on a Wednesday, and of course Wednesday is Odin’s day, and Odin is a grumpy old crank.
On the subject of Gods, consider this; on the third day (Wednesday) God created the land, seas, plants and trees. This may sound like things you can’t do without, and in fairness they probably are. But think about if from God’s perspective; it’s the first part of creation he really had to put some effort into. The first day he simply turned up the dimmer switch to create light. The second day he just needed to create the sky, effectively a big blue void of nothing since water wasn’t created yet to form clouds. All of a sudden he was creating horizons of dirt and rock and desert (just think of the beard sand). And then he had to tediously populate the lands and seas with every plant in existence.
And thus Wednesday is clearly the worst kind of day to be lost and alone on a mountain.
My new parrot tells stories. Stories of her adventures around the world, stories of jolly singing men and raucous unseemly glee. Stories of witches and voodoo and black eyed girls with precise black arts. My parrot tells stories of broad shouldered beings with stern brows and shortly packaged might. Yes my parrot is a story teller but I’m not sure how.
My parrot could be other worldly, an eternal soul or life force or god. Having experienced eternity from creation to destruction, she may know all. She may be the Holy Ghost perched on the shoulder of existence. Or she may not be, after all, her blurts and squawks generally aren’t congruent with one holding the secrets of the world. And her current congregation is one bed ridden old man.
Maybe she is a dreamer, a wily bird who can let her mind overcome her, parse a narrative and message and recite to all who show interest. But her frame of reference is flawed, parrots must dream of crackers and seed and falling from the sky. Dream of being under the claws of the neighbours fawn demon, teeth bared and hissing.
Or she may have been a simple pet of a simple woman, who read stories for her daughter. Not simple stories though. Stories of gods and men, forever in conflict. Stories from the darkest corners of a black underworld, where tentacles devour the light. Stories of love and passion between the beautiful and the spiked jealously of the dismissed. Stories of the glory of nature and the cosmos, and sometimes crime at the racetrack.
My parrot tells stories, none to be trusted but all I will relish.
You astound dear Artemis as you aim for the heart, Strength from the Forrest, the hunt, your heart.
So precise, each movement, clean vision eternal, Steady love and desire, passion, more heart.
Time labours around you, as pierced by an arrow, Fallow nature lingers from time before heart.
The wood nymphs stand with and on love as they may, Gods and humans infested, shrivelled, sore heart.
Yet true beauty’s within, all around and without, Simply ask mother Gaia, you need to shore heart.
Mighty Ares peers at you, gills green as fresh leaves, Ready to wage war and crack and score heart.
