Alpha Chi Hero
“This is not going to work.” The goddess Kardia shook her head at her husband.
Huffing, he charged through the golden halls, his sandals clacking on marble floors. “By Zeus, it better!” Dionysus rolled the odd, bulky contraption – she remembered mortals calling it a keg– across the floor. “I gave the boy one job! One masterful, brilliant… I’m talking Apollo level brightness, so beautifully golden you want to rip your eyeballs from your sockets and use them for beer pong…”
She waved her hand for him to get to the point. The rambling was getting more and more maddening as the world faded. Since Zeus had arbitrarily strapped their lifelines to the humans’ playhouse Earth, they’d developed a jointed sense of what it meant to age. So far, it meant his frenzied plans to save the dying planet weighed more and more on her patience. The trying is admirable, she admitted to herself, but must he do it with so much screaming and flapping about?
He was ranting again. She crossed her arms. “…all he had to do was put that stupid black sword in Raschitka’s heart. Hercules would have done it in an hour. Achilles in half. By the gods, I’d even take Percy Jackson over this half-brained lout.”
She sighed. Loudly. The cursed sword, known for sucking souls, seemed like particularly satisfying karma for a monster the size of a black hole slowly vacuuming the Milky Way to oblivion. However, the sword, temperamental as it was, did not like alcohol and had a nasty habit of stabbing anyone with even the smell on their breath. Her husband’s trying time of sobriety was proving a greater trial than saving the planet.
“You know what he did, Pneumy?” Dino stomped, red blazoning his unshaved face. “He stabbed himself in the foot with the blade and sat down to have a good cry RIGHT IN FRONT OF RASCHITKA! The monster was so embarrassed at our lack of heroes, he didn’t bother killing him. Just waited till the sniffling died down and sent him back to me.”
“Dino, honey, you do realize you picked him from a… oh, how’d you describe it?”
“A witless band of buffoons chugging watered down beer upside-down for a dollar a gallon. Nothing of the drinking games we once played!”
“Yes. He’s a true fool for not using Hade’s three-headed dog as spearing practice.”
Dino slammed the keg down, and it bounced down the shimmering hall and into a pile of similar contraptions. His personal collection. “I really liked the boy. I thought he’d do well.” He sniffed, his voice calm for the first time in two days. “He did a four-minute keg stand. It was a record.”
The drooping shoulders tugged at her heart, and she wrapped her arms around him. Staring at the pile of rusted buckets, she kissed his cheek.
Under her embrace, he stiffened. “I don’t care if Raschitka is powerful enough to suck the world down a black whole! And I could give a gas station Stella Rosa if the boy is as skinny as the lines of a spiderweb, he will kill Raschitka and he will save the world!”
***
Alaster sneezed into his popcorn and sniffed. Someone in the theatre shooshed him, and he made a fist. Streaks of black, from the mystery sword the Old Creep gave him, still striped his knuckles. He rubbed his sweaty palms on the oversized basketball shorts. Hopefully, he doesn’t come back. Bro wanted me to kill a universe. He’s insane. Good thing I thought to stab my foot.
Returned from the bathroom, his mom sat down beside him. He handed her the popcorn.
“No, thank you.”
The lilting voice reminded him nothing of his mother. He turned.
The black haired, bronze skinned babe looked nothing like his mother. Her doe eyes blinked at him, dripping with the stuff men’s dreams were made of. As full and luscious as ripe cherries, her lips pursed in a frown, not loving what she saw.
Had he been less courageous, his heart may have sank. But he had been tested and tried against many a doll-face’s disappointment. His self-depreciating defenses were impenetrable.
“Al,” he held out his hand. “You’re gorgeous.” He smiled, praying no popcorn stuck in his teeth.
The woman’s nose pinched in, as though taking a deep breath. “Kardia.”
“Kardia?” He’d heard that word before, but where… Got it! Finally, those useless frat pledges were good for something. He shot up in his seat. “That means inner-self in Greek.”
His excitement vanished like a single flame to a flood of dread. The pit in his stomach deepened till he imagined Raschitka was gnawing on his insides. “You’re with him, aren’t you? The Old Cr—” he swallowed, “the wine god Dionysus. You telling me a god doesn’t have a better plan than to send a pretty face and believe I’ll fall for it? That’s a human trick!”
“Where do you think they learned it.” She smiled, a perfect row of white teeth glistened like stars, and dropped a familiar weight in his lap.
The sword. He groaned. “You here to tell me to be true to my inner-self and face the never-ending, soul sucking doom of my worst nightmares and it will all be alright because even if I’m stripped sinew to sinew, I’ll have done the brave thing?”
Her eyes flashed. “Hardly. Your inner-self possesses the integrity of a Laffy Taffy and bravery of a butterfly.” She tilted her head with a self-gratifying simper. “What may be hopeful to hear is we’re desperate for a hero, and you’re the only one who can save the world. So, you’ll have to do.”
He leaned as far away from her as possible. True terror struck his veins. Terror greater than that he felt when Dionysus handed him the sword the first time. Bigger than what he’d felt staring into the abyss of blackness. Stronger than what had enabled him to impale his own appendage.
She continued as though his heart wasn’t making a sound rendition of AC/DC’s iconic “Thunderstruck”. “Of course, Dino would love to let you off the hook, but you’ve already touched the sword and, unfortunately for all of us, that means you’re tied to it. Being human and all. You mortals need to be better about going around touching immortal things.” She peered down her pretty nose.
He swallowed, not even caring that he sounded like he was gulping a lake.
“So your training begins tomorrow. If you choose to accept, simply ring this bell.” After grabbing his hand, she folded his fingers around the cool metal.
He didn’t register her leaving. He didn’t register his mom sitting down and finishing the popcorn. He didn’t register the movie ending. Not until he stood up and looked in his hand did the words, “…integrity of a Laffy Taffy…” quit circling in his mind.
On their way to the car, the world took on a new shimmer. He looked around at all the old things he’d loved. The funny cracks in the sidewalk that looked like butt cheeks, the retro CD store complete with vape lounge, and the long line of movie posters, promising an entertaining escape from the stress of six college credit hours, a twenty-hour work week, and feeding his goldfish.
He looked at it all and grimaced. It was so little to give up. Not like his father. His father who’d served and died for his country. His father who used to take him to get a bag of his favorite candy, Laffy Taffys, and would look right at him to say, “Son, I pray you never get so comfortable with life, you forget to live it.”
“Alaster, hurry up! My bunions are growing bunions.” His mother, the rolls of her rolls jumping with each step, and her narrow glasses sliding down the frumpy face, squinted back at him in the midmorning sun.
Ignoring her, he looked to the clear blue sky. He used to stare at it for hours as a kid. He was rather fond of it still, he realized as his heart thumped. Or maybe that’s my body’s predeath convulsions.
Raising his hand, he took a deep breath and rang the bell.
A. Faith
