Beyond the Pastures We Know: A Dunsanian Diversion · 9:58pm Feb 16th, 2015
I have one story waiting on a bit of plot tweaking after I received comments from my pre-readers; it's close but not there yet. And Mismatching Wits is waiting for me to address a structural issue before I proceed.
But I've been sitting on this one for over two years. It's time to let it fly.
It happened one afternoon that, following the directions of an old woman, and particularly the detailed advice of her black cat, I took a boat out upon the Thames, and rowed for a while until the outskirts of London were well behind me, and brick and beam gave way fitfully to heather and gorse. And when I had heard the song of the thrush seven times in succession, I then performed certain actions that the cat had suggested in a dry mocking tone, then closed my eyes and rowed three times widdershins, and when I looked again a fork in the river was apparent where none had been before, and I turned my boat down this course.
I rowed idly awhile under the blue sky and bright sun, until the thrush was audible no more and the reeds grew thickly about the banks, swaying and whispering in the soft breeze like gathering spectators. At length, I put up my oars and lay back in the prow of the boat, resolved to drift where the river might take me, and see what new pathway to dream I might thus discover, for the journeys had proven more difficult as of late.
The gentle heat of the late afternoon lulled me, though my eyelids were suffused with flickers of red and orange light from the sun. As I drifted, I mused upon the chariot of Helios, later steered by Apollo, and wondered what a world would be like where the sun was no remote force, locked to the stars, but an object palpable and near, and thereby I fell into a fancy.
~~~~~
There is a time that comes to all Gods, and the time for the Greek Gods had been, and passed. Olympus was dismounted, and was being taken apart, for the Earth was no longer the fixed foundation of everything, and could support Olympus no more; nor was there any aetherial realm it might call home.
And the God of the Sun, finding his office to be supplanted by a great and distant sphere of incandescent gases, was superintending the dismantling of his fiery chariot, and his workers rapped at the gilt frame with mallets of asbestos.
And the winged horses that drew the solar chariot stood nearby, restless in their harness...
