#ohq:plot

            Do you remember what life was like in the beginning? 

I ask about that pocket of time, after your feet grew steady following your first steps, and before you’d learned dishonesty and mistrust would be the two engines for all conflict. The bedrock of sin and strife. 

                                                          Of CHAOS.  

As our story continues, our protagonists’ plight has rendered me pensive about that state. Could that consciousness be called another life? In which you’d learned to speak, to identify, and retained most of what you know, somehow still losing memory of the events that ignited knowledge? At what point does memory begin anew? When does the line between familiar and renewal become blurred?

These are questions that arise in me when I see these beings bound by one’s design. The fissures are more visible now. YES. Can you feel it? Even we mortals can, those of us who are around the ones whose divinity is beginning to overflow through the cracks growing stronger with each passing moment they spend in each other’s midst. 

It troubles me, this predicament — I fear it is too soon, but who am I to trifle with such power?

Myria Acosta, feels the overwhelming urge to navigate Brooklyn, a hidden gem, her mind tells her, a new adventure, perhaps she will find her muse there, inspiration to build something new. Her map takes her to a bar, where her pre-occupation knocks its way into a bachelorette.

In this bar, a full bottle of wine falls from the hand of the clumsy bride-to-be and SHATTERS. Tyson Virani, stoops over the alcohol to make quick work of the spreading pool of deep plum hue and meets a sense of vertigo instead. When he closes his eyes, he sees LEOPARD PELT on white columns that flank a throne covered in grapevines. When those eyes open, it is DIONYSUS who stares into liquid reflection, breathing in the stench of mortal mediocrity. Madness cannot hold its master prisoner, and thus he is the first. his beloved — the antithesis to his disarray, the order and strategy in finding one’s way: ARIADNE is not far behind when she feels the rumble of the underground beneath her feet.

An ear worm plagues Lila Meadows, veering into a detour into Central Park. A melody she has heard only once, in front of her eyes in a corner musical instrument store. Unwittingly, she hums it under her breath, eyes trained on the moon whilst a feral BEAST thrashes within her and with the shout of a young girl in the distance breaks free. Her eyes roll into the back of her head, and with another’s name on her lips, her body crumples and falls in a deadweight.

When ARTEMIS opens her eyes, it is to the piercing and curious gaze of  Adara Phillips and Cora Sherburn. There is no other with a more open mind, or thirst for information than Cora, surely the moon’s ever youthful mistress and the smell of fresh dew on blooms could spin her mortal mind a tale so compelling it might bring PERSEPHONE forth from the prison of Cora’s malleable consciousness. Could the QUEEN of the UNDERWORLD, yield EURYDICE’S demand for free will then?

ATROPOS, wise to her will can sense her queen finally, beginning to push through the seams, her lips curve, as she informs hermione alden of the latest case: woman divorcing man for having an affair which yielded pregnancy, twins. A girl and a boy. How charming. She watches as Hermione’s stomach seems to clench and twist into itself, a scream that seems to come from her very womb, hunching over her desk as she heaves. When practiced composure returns the regal lift of her head is that of a QUEEN, not a mere lawyer. HERA, contains the residue of familiar rage in the taut veins of her neck before she forces a smile. 

A QUEEN’s aura will seek favoured subjects and strength is to be derived from an awakening such as hers. AUSTIN trips on set and twists his ankle, but the agony is so great, his roar is heard for several blocks. He sees his own death, FEELS the arrow sprouting from the chink in his flesh. ACHILLES breathes deep. The air smells faintly like rancid new york trash. 

BRANTLEY FLINT turns his head momentarily distracted by the far off roar he hears, trying to detect where it’s coming from. It echoes the roar inside his head, inside his chest — it fills his being and it’s growing louder. Covering his ears gives no relief, and running proves no distance can soothe the exploding embers at his very core. HEPHAESTUS fights his way to the surface, and is at once acutely aware, of machinery everywhere — a domain that has grown to a complexity worthy of athena.

ODETTE descends deeper into a scorned frenzy. Visions take corporeal form, they now dance in front of her. It is unclear if NYX’s imposition is wrath, or love. Her mortal cage is strong, too alike, yet also too weak, it won’t be long now, if she finds the final missing piece.

Old things have strange hungers, and Addison Rhodes is ravenous for something fresh when the final draft of a look book arrives. Suddenly none of the pages are appealing, none of the girls are appealing. What do they know of beauty? What is desirable? Knuckles whiten over a paperweight and just as her body registers pain, the mirror opposite audibly cracks. APHRODITE stares into marred reflection.

I cannot imagine what they must feel at the moment of their awakening. Without their divine powers, is their divine knowledge of themselves a curse? Will they be able to hold their own amongst mortals who once fell at their feet? As for the others, waking them will not be so simple, for those who endeavour to try will be tested without respite.

Perhaps it would be better to let sleeping dogs lie. For awake or not, every ounce of bliss is about to be torn to shreds. Every relationship tried and plundered. It’s a level playing field now, superiority is an illusion. We will see what they make of that.

       It is unclear how long they’ve wandered, camouflaged by lesser beings. A year, perhaps two. I don’t tend to count time. I’ve noticed them around the city, so unaware of their own potential. I see them interact with others and think: Could divinity still be felt in their presence? Could divinity still be defined in a world that has become so faithless ?  Have THEY of ichor beneath flesh, succumbed to that same faithlessness ? Engaged in the very same things they had once condemned ?  In the act of it all — is change possible — can they learn, and for how long? It pains me almost, friends, family, lovers all walking different paths, forging falsehoods and reinforcing mirages of a design not their own.

        There is melancholy in a fall, but there is also beauty in the romance of it all, to be something greater than one believes, to be something more. The divine, walking this earth, home like the rest of us. I wonder, are they humbled? 

        If I had the capability of any sort, I would wish to intervene, but these are forces bigger than me. Even so, in this story even with the greatest of power, nothing lasts forever, and resistant souls will always push through. It’s already beginning, can you see them?

       It starts, like a whisper: Like an old friend, beckoning, wistfulness begets a hunger for something other. They are not meant for this world you see. Some heed it, those crack quicker than the others. The others, choose to ignore it. But power attracts power. I expect they will find each other soon enough. 

       This is where the myth, and the city converge. This is where LEGENDS begin again. 

        Who am I? I’m no legend, just an ordinary man who sees things as they are. A wishful good samaritan. A storyteller. A small ornamental piece of Manhattan. Call me Uncle Sam.