Stories and promises

Eurydice is lurking on the edge of my consciousness, asking me when I'm going to finish her story, and let her get on with what she wants to do when I've finished with her. She's telling me that I'm probably worse than the counsellors and commissioners for mortal rights because I'm leaving her to suffer and get bombarded with brochures for "The Fields" just because I know the right answer but can't be bothered to write it all down, and she 's more than a little bit fed up of it all, she says. "Get on with it!"

It's a bit bad when your own characters start having a go at you and tell you what to do, isn't it? Mind you, Eurydice ( and all the others, to be fair) aren't entirely mine, are they ? I borrowed them from a myth - or several myths, if I'm honest, myths I'm trying to weave into a story to show how clever I can be. Maybe they don't like it. So I'm expecting Penny's lawyer to have a few words soon about how I'm making her out to be a bit of a tart, which is certainly not how she's portrayed in the real Odyssey myth, and what's more, I don't think Odysseus is too pleased about being portrayed as a serial philanderer telling tales about how he's always getting lost on the way home from the pub. Maybe it is a good job that they are mythical, or I could be expecting a few whacks round the head with a sharp sword or an axe, or an arrow or two heading my way, or maybe Max Clifford selling their story to the tabloids and them taking me for every penny I haven't got.....

Eurydice was a bit of a sweet little thing in the original myth, quite innocent and naive, not the girl I've made her out to be in my version, plotting her own fake death to get her man, and I know that I did borrow a few bits from real people I know to make her what she is in the story. Maybe the way she's acting is a result of this - she's doing what the people I've based her on would be doing if they were there. That could be a problem, as they wouldn't all do the same thing !! Not all of them have read the story, thank god, so they won't be suing - hope they don't mind being a bit of the muse.....anyway, the ones who really matter to me are not in the story at all. They might be closer to the real Eurydice, the one who never wanted to die and didn't expect to be rescued, maybe the rescue will work for her because she didn't expect it !!

There are lots of words going round in my mind, thoughts and ideas and messages to be sent, visions and dreams that need to find a way out, but they are for another time, another time when I can talk to them alone, not in this place. They will be said when there is more time, when this silence ends.

The next thing on here will be the story, your story, Eurydice - that is a promise. Another promise made, another one I must keep. I like keeping promises, they are important. This time.

That's all, see you back in the story next time.......

Words, silences and the story

You can't actually write silences. All you can do is tell people there is one and hope they can find it for themselves. Even then, it won't last as long as the real silence would if it actually happened........unless they stop reading for all the time it says, which is unlikely. I suppose the actual silence in any story is the sound that comes after the sound of the book being closed. But even that isn't really a silence, unless no-one else is ever going to read it again. At precisely the time one person closes the book another may start reading it, so there is never really a silence in the story.

Thinking about it all that way, nobody ever really dies in a story either, unless no-one ever reads it again, because when one person reads the bit where the character dies, someone else is probably reading the bit before that, when they are still alive. They are immortal in a way, quite a bit like Adonis, continually getting killed and being brought back to life.

That makes it very complicated - they are both alive and dead at the same time, and probably doing completely different things too - they could be sleeping for one person, or eating, or weeping, or laughing or kissing or doing almost anything. I suppose it can't be a lot of fun being a character in a story - for a start, the author will probably make you do all sorts of things you didn't want to, if you had a choice, and then each reader makes you do it all again, and, unless the author makes it very obvious, will probably think of a different motivation for you to do it .....what's more, each reader will imagine how you look and sound - so you can never be certain what you look like - you wouldn't recognise yourself in the mirror, and wouldn't know your own voice if you spoke to yourself.

If you think about it too, what do characters do when no-one is reading about them ? Do they still exist ? Do they carry on with their lives until someone opens the book and makes them do what the author and reader expect ?
I'm beginning to think that my characters don't like me much - I've left them to their own devices a bit too much recently, maybe I need to get back to them and get the story sorted out, Eurydice does seem to have developed a life of her own, which is more than a bit odd, considering she's been dead for most of the story so far.....which she certainly won't thank me for.....next time I write, it will be the story again, and it will be very soon, I promise.

Solidarity and Rights for the Semi-dead

The title kind of sums this up. We are all really angry about how we died, and we aren't going to take death lying down. We want to put some life into the afterlife, not just shuffle off peacefully to "The Fields" - kind of asks the question "Do you want to be dead all your life - even after you've died ? "
Part of this is actually an admission that we have all died, that we're not going back to the sunlight up there - which is a big admission for us all, really- our point is that being dead shouldn't stop you enjoying things as if you were alive.
It's not clear to us why the rules are the way they are - seems to be more about controlling people who can't actually do anything than about a proper afterlife.

All the counsellors seem to want is conformity, playing by the rules, not rocking the boat and being nice, quiet, dead people.

I wasn't like that when I was alive, and I'm not going to start now.

OK, so I do understand that there have got to be some rules, but the ones we've got are so, so strict - they are aimed to stop us dead people upsetting people who are still alive, mostly - well, hey, let me just say that they have more choice than we do. It's a sight more upsetting for someone to actually be dead than it is for anyone to be grieving for someone.
No matter how sad you are about someone who has died, you still have the sunlight, the air, you can touch things, touch and hold people, talk to them and see them for real. I do know you can't talk to us, and you may want to, but it's a whole lot quieter down here !!
Yes they may miss us, miss us very much in some cases, be very, very sad about us not being there, but THEY ARE STILL ALIVE!! so they do have a choice about things. We don't.

That kind of sums up our manifesto - we want the in-between bits - to have a choice about what we do, within reason, to be able to do some of the things we used to do, like have fun and a bit of a laugh, and, once in a while, be able to remind people up there what we were really like - even if it does make them cry, or get upset, or get angry. So that's it - it's mostly girls in the group, because they seem to get the rough end, but we have got a few blokes who want to join, which suits us - most of us are down here because of some soppy sap up there who couldn't rescue us, but that doesn't mean we're off the opposite sex - it's nice to have a bit of male company as well, just to prove we aren't completely dead and nor are they.

Didn't see myself as a leader, really, but I seem to be the figurehead of this lot, all because I've stood up and shouted about it. Scary stuff.

I wonder what Orpheus would think of me now ? Or Tony for that matter - be interesting to find out, but I don't know how far off that will be.

Got to go now, got a meeting of the group and we need to get our campaign started properly !!

Will tell you more soon.

Been a long time

It has been a very long time since we last spoke - but time down here does seem to work in a different way to how it does up there.

Last time we did talk was before Tony went off to the world up there. I remember him asking me about snakes and how I got here, but beyond that it's all a bit of a blur. Each day down here seems to last for ever but at the same time to take no time at all. Really confusing.

The counsellors are still having a go at me on a regular basis. I must be making their lives hell, if you'll pardon the bad joke ( again) - they really have no prior experience of dealing with somone like me - someone who still doesn't belive they are dead months after the event, someone who has absolutely no ambition to accept fate and move on to "The Fields" as they call them.

What really seems to be worrying them is that I've got a few friends now, who are joining in with my battle against the bureaucracy of death down here, who are as stroppy as me about it, who won't accept what seems to have happened to them and won't cave in and move on.

They all have similar issues about why they are here - it's always down to some bloke or other - and although we have taken different paths, they are all convinced that someone tricked them into being here - that they had other options, but chose wrong, and they want someone to pay. Interesting stuff - never saw myself as a role model for dead girls somehow - but here I am. I'll tell you all about it next time.

And now the story must go on.....

OK, so the waiting is officially over, it's time to head back to where we were.
Let's play catch up a minute

Adonis is about to go back down to the underworld to do two things -
Firstly, to check with Eurydice to find out what she wants - whether she wants to come back to life and live with Orpheus, or stay dead down there - and maybe be with Orpheus at some point, or maybe not. It is her choice.
You will notice she does not appear to have the choice of being alive and NOT being with Orpheus - that seems to be his mum's decision - and nymphs still have a bit of clout it would seem.

Secondly, to have a "quiet word" with Hades about what he knows and a hint about what will or could happen if he doesn't play ball. That isn't going to be a lot of fun. Needs doing though.

Calliope is off to find Orpheus, to try to persuade him to stop doing what he's doing right now - because it is really annoying the local women and they will kill him if he doesn't stop, plus finding out whether he still wants Eurydice.

Worst case scenario - Orpheus decides he doesn't want her, she decides to be alive and be with him.
Second worst case - he decides he wants her and she decides to stay dead.

All other options are kind of not too bad.

So now it's time to go back to the story itself - mind you, we haven't heard much from Eurydice since Adonis left, so maybe we ought to start with her.......see if she's settled into being dead yet.....could be significant.....

So do we do that ?

We talk to Zeus and he thinks it's a really good idea. He doesn't have to go to the Commissioner with it unless it all goes wrong, so he gets to keep a good relationship with his family....and they get to keep their jobs, assuming they play ball. He agrees that he will keep an eye out for us and promises that nothing will happen to either of us while this is being sorted - and if it does, he will bring us back, as it were. I get the impression he is really, really pleased that we've tried to sort it out without involving the Commission - they do seem seriously unpopular with the gods - more interested in upholding the rules than in seeing that things work - so we have earned some brownie poibnts by doing it this way.
He suggests that Calliope stays out of it as much as possible, and leaves it up to me. He says mostly because I won't be linked with her son and his girlfriend, so I won't create any gossip whe I visit. He also suggests that I go and talk to Mr H first, because he is most likely to agree to doing a deal, and because it won't mess up my relationship with Aphrodite.
He says that I should stay away from Ares at all costs - he will not listen in normal circumstances, and I will just be a red rag to his bull. Not productive, he says.
He suggests that if Mr H won't play, that Artemis is the next weakest link - mostly because for her it was a contract, not anything personal, and the Commission like to lay down the law more if a god hasn't got a real grudge. So she could have a lot more to lose than the others, and be more willing to make them sort it out.
So that's the game plan then, I have to go and talk to Mr H and see what happens next.
We do have to agree what we want to happen - Calliope wants Orpheus to be happy, and for her that means bringing Eurydice back to life and them both living together happily ever after....I say that maybe we need to ask them first, just to see if that's what they want too, and she kind of agrees with that - says she'll track her son down and ask him, and leave Eurydice to me.
So that's it sorted then, I'm off back down there as soon as I get out of here.

Bump into Hermes again on the way out - he's still after a story. Tell him that Calliope is on her way to sort out her son's sex life - or at least his attitude to it - and that I'm on my way to Hades to make sure her son isn't there already. He seems to go for that too - let's hope he really has.
Off we go then - crusaders in the cause of truth and justice.....well, something like that, anyway

Decision Making - first things first

Me and Calliope have had a bit of a chat about what to do next. She reckons we ought to play it a bit clever, not go public just yet, because there's so much to lose for everyone - not least because once the Mortal Rights Commission get involved, the whole thing tends to go pear shaped, because they go into every little bit of detail they can, and it can take forever to sort out. She thinks we could come up with a plan that will make it OK for everyone.

What she suggests we do is to have a word with Zeus about things - tell him about the plan and get his agreement to try it - then if it doesn't work, he can go to the Commission and get them to sort it.

Her plan goes like this - we let the "bad" gods know that we know what they've done and why, and that they had better sort it back out again - get Eurydice back up there and leave them both alone from now on - or we will go to Zeus and he will go to the Commission. Don't tell them we already have, just see what they do. She reckons that by telling Zeus about it we will be OK - he has the power to get us both out of it alive if they play up rough, so we should be OK anyway. We can get them to agree something properly ( promises, written or stuff like that) that they will back off Orpheus and make sure things don't happen to him or Eurydice "by accident".
She reckons that makes it what she describes as a "win-win situation " - personally I think nymphs shouldn't use business speak like that, kind of devalues their mystical role, but maybe I'm old fashioned that way.

Must admit that what she says makes a lot of sense, just need to decide who we talk to - whether we say something to all of them, or just one or two - I have a feeling that Aphrodite will go off me more than a bit if it's obvious that I've been involved in it, so we need to look at all the possibilities.

So now we have to go back to Zeus and tell him. And hope he agrees and will back us up, keep us alive all that sort of thing.....here we go.....

Take your time. think about it.....

Well. This is a big decision and no mistake. If we go ahead with the complaint, Zeus will be obliged to take it to the Commissioner for Mortal Rights, and, given the information we've got, several Gods won't be any more. Well, that's not strictly true, they will still be Gods, but they won't have any power or authority. They will still be immortal, no-one can take that away, but I should imagine it won't be particularly attractive to them - especially since, with losing all their powers, stuff like eternal youth goes out of the window too, so they'll get very, very, very, very old...and still not die....eternal life isn't everything, you know. Got to be careful what you wish for....
Aphrodite would be absolutely devastated by it, for one, wouldn't be able to cope, if you ask me. As for the others, it will be a very nasty shock - the rules say they'd be replaced by someone else, and go into some sort of god limbo. And it all seems to be down to me. Me and Calliope. She's more of the injured party on this, it being her son they were after, so I suppose I'd better ask her what she wants.
Thinking about myself, I'd lose Aphrodite, lose the two thirds of the time I spend in the real world, and have to spend all my time down there with the dead folks. Not something I think I'd really want to do.
I did take the hint that I might be the boss down there, but I'm not sure it's a job I'd want - Perspehone is a bit bossy and possessive - and she might not be too pleased if Hades is kicked out, after all, she did pick him to begin with, and, although that was a few millennia ago, she still has feelings for him. Believe me, I know, she has made a point of telling me from time to time.
So it is a big decision - my principles about right and wrong against my own life and all its comforts and privileges....but it's more than that -there's Eurydice and Orpheus to think about too, and what it could mean for them...I'd better make sure I get this one right - and that could take some time !
So I'll be back with some ideas soon....

Decision time - yet again !!

It doesn't get any easier, does it. Now I've got to make yet another decision about what happens next. Me and Adonis both. The story has kind of developed a life of its own - got out of my control - I've created a situation I didn't plan for - the power of creative thought has tripped me up, and set me a question to resolve that I wsn't going to ask....if you look back on the "potential endings" posts, this one wasn't on the list at all. Didn't see it coming.
So now what ? maybe I just need to let the story go and tell itself - it seems to work better that way - planning it out seems to make it dry up too quickly....who am I talking to ? Nobody......so these are my thoughts for a potential reader who isn't reading any of this.......makes about as much sense as the plot, I guess....so back to the story, after a suitable pause for Adonis to think......

What happened next - with thunderbolts !!

There we are, going in to see him , and we've got to get the story straight, decide who says what, because we'll only get the one chance to tell him. What's more, it's not going to be easy - after all most of the ones involved are either his brother, his sister, or one of his cousins, so he may not be that keen on finding out, and even less keen on making them pay for what they did. What makes it worse is that, before the new laws came in, he was one of , if not the worst for messing around witg mortals, and he wasn't impressed when the law came in, so that might be a problem too.

Anyway, since it's me who knows most of the plot, in both senses of the word, it's up to me to tell him. He obviously knows who we are, so no introductions necessary, but I do take the time to remind him that Calliope was the one he brought in to settle the argument about me, and that should also remind him that, in a way, he is responsible for it all. I need to keep an eye on his reaction too - given his history, he might see it all as a bit of a laugh, and just something Gods do when they've had a few drinks, so not worth reacting.
So I start telling him all about it, hoping that it doesn't annoy him too much, but just setting the scene. He doesn't seem that interested to start with, not the bits about Eurydice's plan to make Orpheus jealous, but when I get to the stuff that's been going on, you can tell it's got him really annoyed. How ? He picks up a thunderbolt and chucks it down through the clouds. No aiming, just throws it. Then another one. Go on, he says - so I tell him about the messages from Artemis and the meeting I had with the snakes. Then he really loses it. " Ungrateful bastards" he shouts - " How dare they ! It was all their fault in the first place and all I was asked to do was sort it out - and now they're having a go at you for doing what they asked. Bastards !! " So much for my theory about him not seeing it as important - he's obviously taking his King of the Gods role seriously and that includes upholding the laws. He picks up a handful of thunderbolts and hurls them angrily - about three or four of them. I'm getting a bit worried about what's happening down there - thunderbolts can do quite a bit of damage when they hit you, especially if you're not expecting it, and right now there could be four or five people who have been walloped for no reason, which will probably lead to a complaint or two to the Mortal Rights Commissioner.
He calms down for a minute, stops pacing up and down, and says, a bit sadly " Why do they think they can get away with a stunt like that ? It's all so obvious - if you can spot it ( he says, meaning me - and I don't take it as a compliment to my mental ability) then anyone with half an eye can see it. It breaks just about every rule in the book , and now you've told me about it, we've got to do something. I really don't need this right now - not that many of them all at once - if the Commissioner finds out about it they could close us all down, and for good, and where would that leave everyone ? No valid belief system, no reward for a good life and no punishment for a bad one. The possible impact on moral imperatives could be devastating, to say nothing for the ritual artefact industry and its retail arm." He'd lost me at this point, I hadn't really got much idea of what he was talking about, but Calliope whispered in my ear, explaining it, and it all made sense. He was obviously taking his King of the Gods role very seriously indeed.
So he sat and thought for a while. Then he said " You do realise the potential implications of all this, don't you ? " I didn't, so I said so. He said " If I take any action on this, you'll alomst certainly lose your main girlfriend - possibly both of them, if the one down there had any involvement - and you won't get brought back to life every year any more, because none of the gods will countenance that. There will need to be a new King of the Dead, though, and it will probably be you, because no-one else is up to it. How do you fancy spending the rest of your life down there with Persephone (if she's still there after all this ) or with one of the other dead girls ? " He looked at me hard. " Have a think about it - let me know what you want. If I go to the Commissioners with this lot, there's five gods who will be out of a job right away, and you will not be popular with the rest, but that might not matter too much. I'll give you a few hours to think it through and tell me what you want to happen"

Great - more decisions. So we go back out to have a think....see what's what

Meeting the top dog - or god

So there we are, at the top of Olympus, waiting to go in and see him.
It's all very odd - I'm kind of on nodding acquaintance with quite a few of the gods and demis, so I have to say Hi a few times, and getting quizzical looks - as in "What's he doing all the way up here, and with her too ? Isn't he supposed to be somewhere else with Aphrodite, or Persephone or something ?" Can sense the immortal rumour mill starting to grind away, and so when Hermes turns up, I get a feeling everyone will know what's going on pretty quickly. For some reason I can't quite fathom, he sees himself as a bit of a star journalist, a paparazzi without a camera, a sleuth on the trail of a story.....which he isn't - he just tells tales, passes on news and generally operates a rather bad gossip column for the immortals. Don't like him a lot, in case you wondered , not that it's obvious (much)
So he asks me what I'm doing there, and I'm obliged to say "No Comment" like a politician who's just been caught out with a mistress or two, and when he asks why I'm here with Calliope, it's really tempting to tell him to **** off and mind his own business, but I don't - I'm tempted to do the " No Comment" thing again - but he's not looking happy, and I know this one is going to play in the storybook for a few days at least, and everyone will know - including the ones who did it - and given I'm not alone, they will fairly quickly put two and two together, and even the most educationally challenged immortal ( which is quite a few) could hardly fail to make that four !!
So I have to come up with a story for him, and quick. I decide that the reason we're up there is because we've heard that her son is trying to persuade blokes not to stay with their wives, and that we've heard a rumour that someone is going to kill him for that- a rumour that has come through the nymph network, and the reason I'm here as well is because I heard the rumour too, and that he was ging to be ritually sacrificed like I am and so I wanted to help her get it all sorted before things got too far - we can't be having more than one sacrifice in a year, now can we ?
Not sure if he believed me, but he did nod a couple of times - well, it is kind of plausible, not too far fetched - so let's see. Glad that's sorted - now we've been summoned to see the big one, the boss....

The first ending - so far

I knew what I had to do, there had been a major miscarriage of justice, and I had to sort it out for Eurydice - well, for Orpheus too, but he was less important to me than she was. So I had to decide pretty quickly who to approach first - if I picked the wrong person, then I could see me ending up where she was - gods tend to stick together and this involved at least 4 of them....not an easy choice.
In the end, I played it safe and went to see Calliope, Orpheus's mum, to let her know what had happened and ask her for her opinion on what to do next....where do you find nymphs these days ? Took me a while, but eventually I tracked her down to the springs at Pieres where she lives
She was really surprised to see me, she hadn't had many visitors for a while, and she was really pleased to see me at first, asked me lots about how things had been going since she last saw me that day, and after a while I started telling her the story - as she listened she put a hand over her mouth in shock as I told her what I'd found out, then she burst into tears - first, she said, for her poor son, who hadn't done anything wrong, but then for Eurydice, who was not only wronged, but dead - and she had absolutely nothing to do with any of it.
Once she'd pulled herself together, she suggested that we both go to Zeus with the story. Apart from being top god, it had been his decision to involve Calliope in my judgement, so he was in some way responsible for all this. I thought that might be a bit of a big step, going right to the top, but she pointed out that Hades and Ares were pretty high up the pecking order, and so it needed to be someone with a bit of clout to make things happen, and you couldn't get a cloutier god than Zeus. So we set off to Olympus to visit him.

Get On With It !!

Your audience awaits, hanging on your every word, with bated breath and tissues ready......I wish !!
So GET ON WITH IT !! they are saying - you've got a story to finish here - and you've got two or three handbooks to get sorted too - and you haven't really started yet....so which ending ? The one that fits the myth as told, or an alternative....one that says what I would want to happen - if it was me that was Eurydice, which is a bit of a transformation to make....can't get shoes to fit, for a start....surprising how many people ( well 3, actually) have said I sound female writing as her, so that's OK, I suppose - not quite Grayson Perry territory.....not at all - persona not clothes....so let's make a start on Ending Number One.....my choice.

Is it decision time ? probably not

Greek myths are all well and good - but there are rather a lot of them, and having introduced Penelope and Odysseus into a myth they don't belong to, what's to stop me letting Medusa loose on them all - or having Adonis meet his match in Helen of Troy - who he falls in love with, disastrously , and that stops him spilling the beans about the Gods plotting with Eurydice.....sweet Helen, make me immortal with a kiss.....as Faustus said....and I know someone called Helen too.....but not that one....so it's still no clearer how to end it all - and I've still got to do the counselling manual and rules for gods - the Mortal Rights Act stuff - both of which will require a bit more research....do you get the impression I'm procrastinating here, putting things off to whenever ?? Trying to avoid finishing the story??
Maybe the answer is to write all the endings separately and see which one works best - I reckon that way I've got years......or as long as I stay interested in doing it, anyway....we'll see.....
Maybe I'll start doing one later - maybe I won't ....that's all for now

So now what - more alternative endings

So now, for those of you who are still reading (if that is anyone) we come to the vexed question of endings. I am now faced with a number of options which could challenge the Orpheus / Eurydice myth - Adonis knows what has happened, and that it breaks the rules for gods / goddesses so he knows he can do something about it... but what does he do, and what is the result ? There are a number of possibilities - and I'm torn between them - one of them is right for the story, but I don't know whether I'm allowed to rewrite the myth's ending - where Orpheus and Eurydice are reunited in the underworld after his death.
That ending is a possibility in this story too- either Adonis bottles it, or gets stitched up by the immortals, or they decide the rules haven't been broken, or Eurydice decides to stay down there, whatever - whole range of possible ways of getting to that point ...and that might keep the myth with it's traditional ending - Orpheus dies / is killed whatever - and ends up with Eurydice down there - and they remember each other in spite of what I said earlier about memory and time and death.....but is that a happy ending ? Not sure if it is, or if that's how I want the story to end....onr option could be that even though Eurydice is allowed to go back up, Orpheus has just been killed and she decides to stay so they can be together...ahh! true love rediscovered....

The alternative is to drop the myth's ending entirely and have Eurydice escape - be allowed back up - because of the plot by the immortals - and she then decides whether she finds and gets back together with Orpheus and changes his mythical ending too - or whether she runs off with Tony (Adonis) or whether she does neither and settles for a new life without either of them....

There are far too many options and I need some help to decide - am I a myth-buster or do I go along with it....could do either - still haven't done the guide book or the bereavement counselling manual yet either....what am I like...

So what does a snake do, then ?

So now I've got their attention, what do we talk about ? Have to think quickly, although they've promised not to run off, they won't hang around for ever either.
Decide to be a bit cunning (maybe) and try to see if they'll do for me what they did for Eurydice not long back.
Say to them that I've got a girlfriend who, I think, is going off me - doesn't pay me attention, that sort of thing, and needs a bit of a shock to make her realise how important I am to her. Tell them that I've heard that getting bitten by a snake ( like a viper in particular) while out walking can almost kill you, but not quite, and after a few days you wake up with a bad headache, but still alive. Tell them that I think this might bring her round, and ask what do they think ?
So they think about it for a while, I can hear them whispering to each other, and eventually they tell me that it's a good idea, but you need to be careful. It can go wrong they say.
So I ask them, all innocently, what could go wrong ?
And they tell me all about Eurydice and what happened to her. And the one with the milky eyes says " Got me killed too, I was dead as well, and if it hadn't been for those nice gods and goddesses I'd have still been down there"
Now that was the beginning of what I wanted to hear - so I carry on playing the innocent and ask "Which Gods and Goddesses would that be then ?" and he tells me - swears me to secrecy first, I've got to promise not to tell a soul, but it was - well, there was quite a list - and he tells me it was all because of some nymph or other, who had annoyed them about some Adonis bloke, so they'd decided to sort her out by making her son so miserable he'd probably kill himself. So who was it ? Well, if I said that Mr H, Ares, Aphrodite and Artemis were all part of it, that would just about sum it up.
He said they didn't go into all the details with him, but that he had been approached by Artemis first, who had explained to him that this girl would turn up and ask him to bite her, because she would be set up by Mr H to get bitten by a snake, and that the others were just out for revenge and she was doing a "hit" for them. She said she'd done it before, too. She had explained that she'd be firing a poison dart at the same moment as he bit, so it would look like a snake bite had killed her, and that as long as he did what he was told, he'd be all right. Part of the deal was not to tell her, the target, anything about it, even if it went wrong - and that was why they sorted it out for him - why he was back up here - because he'd kept his side of the bargain.

This was dynamite - what I had suspected had been confirmed - and they were all in it together - so now what could I do ? I'd promised milky-eyes that I'd not tell anyone, and that promise had to be kept, but it was really unfair that Eurydice was still down there, dead, because of a plot by a lot of gods that wasn't even about her ! And the fact that a lot of it was about me made me fel really guilty too - if Orpheus's mum hadn't done what she did for me, Eurydice could still be alive.
So who could I talk to ? Zeus ? Apollo ? Got to find a way to get it sorted.

Anway, for now, tell the two vipers that I'll have a good think about what they've told me - getting bitten to make my girlfriend notice me doesn't sound quite as much of a good idea as it did to start with now, I said, and I tell them they can go, and their secret is safe with me. So off they go, quick as a flash, into the bushes, and I head off back to base, thinking all the way there about how I can make something happen to sort it out and make it fair.

Not an easy thing to manage, that, I'll tell you about it next time.....

Talking to snakes revisited

I'm quite lucky, in a way, because although I'm alive right now, I'm also dead some of the time so I can go between both places without too much fuss. OK, so I have to keep Aphrodite sweet, make sure she doesn't think I'm visiting Perspehone down here, or one of the other "ladies" she keeps getting told I see, but that's not too difficult, well, not compared with getting permission to visit upstairs (in triplicate) from what you might call the dead hand of bureaucracy - and believe me, they are both dead and bureaucratic.
So I'm on my way back up again, having asked Eurydice where she was when the snake turned up out of the blue. I reckon he's gone back there, after all, they don't have a lot of imagination, snakes, and he has got to find someone to do his biting for him ( unless they gave him his sacs back when they sent him back up - the records don't say so, but you never know) or he'll starve. Ask her for a description of him, a bit more detailed than "he looked a bit of a snake in the grass at the time" and she does manage a bit more- apparently when he lost his sacs both his eyes went a bit milky - he can see fine, they just look a bit unusual.

So it takes me a few days to find the house where Eurydice lived - where it all happened - he isn't around, so at least that's consistent with what I'd been told, so all I've got to do now is keep out of Penny's way as best I can. She's still there, still waiting for her other half to come home - maybe she needs to realise there might be a reason he doesn't want to be there, and a mirror might give her a clue why that is, and she's still trying it on a bit with blokes, there's quite a few of them hanging around - but I manage to put her off. So off I head into the hills to look for snakes. Can't help feeling that I'm being followed, or at least watched - maybe it's just paranoia, but the trees seem to be talking to each other, and I can't quite catch what they're saying, and when I turn around, sometimes there's a shadow with no light to cast it, and there's a bit of a breeze blowing in the branches that didn't seem to be there when I was outside the wood...it's all a bit creepy....anyway eventually I get out of the woods and back into the sun, and then, just as I'm coming round the corner of a big rock, I see them - two snakes, vipers by the look of it, fast asleep in the sun. They're still soem way off, but I can see that one of them's got milky-white eyes...it must be him. So now I have to come to a decision - how do I play this - first off, how do I avoid getting bitten - there's two of them, and even though I've got a stick with a fork in the end ( no, not that sort of fork !!) that's only going to work for one of them. I may be able to travel between the two lands pretty easily, but right now I'm alive and a snakebite could kill me, which I certainly don't want to happen. It would be really difficult to explain down there, for a start, can't imagine Mr H believeing any story I came up with and I don't need to make him suspicious.
Don't think that they put back the sacs on our friend, as I said, didn't say so in the records, but you never can be sure...how big a risk is it ?
Then, assuming I'm still alive and unbitten, how do I find out what I want to know ? Do I do it straight away and ask, or try to fool him into a confession of some sort....Decide the latter is likely to work better, at least as a starting point...so, pluck up the courage and walk towards them - that wakes them both up and one of them goes for me straight away - the other one kind of hangs back a bit. Fortunately, I can put the forked bit of the stick down on the head of the one that's having a go, and hold himdown, and the other one, the one with the milky eyes, just watches me, a bit warily. Obvioulsy not had the sacs put back in, or if he has, he doesn't know...
So I say to them that I'm not after hurting them or anything, just want to talk, and if they promise not to bite me I'll let his mate go, as long as they don't make a run for it - so they agree to that, and I do it. Now I have to work out what it is I want to ask them.
And that's it for now.....

Tony as Hercule Poirot ? Chapter 2

So all the stuff about snakes was a set up. Obviously planned with the "hit" in mind - plus finding a snake - and specifically a viper - that hadn't got any poison sacs just has to be too much of a coincidence - there really aren't many of them out there, and to find one just then, with the plan she had in mind, really had to be fixed somehow. So do I try and find the snake involved ? Eurydice tells me he got killed the same time she died, so he must be down here somewhere - I go and look in the snake records, and he is in there - but when I go to find him, he isn't - all that the custodians will tell me is that "someone" came to visit him, someone important, obviously, cos they gave him a second life up there. I am now convinced that it was a stitch-up, no question about it. The records don't say who did it, though, nor who the "visitor" was....so it's all more than a bit odd. So now what do I do ? Sounds to me like he could be the key witness - the key to sorting this out once and for all After all, it's pretty unlikely that Mr H will admit to anything, if he was involved, nor will the other immortals either, so that is pretty much a dead end for investigation - unless they say something by accident. I reckon I've got all I can from my visit down here for now, so after saying to Eurydice that she's being watched by the bereavement counsellors and to tread carefully because Mr H may run out of patience at some point, I make my excuses and leave. I report to Mr H that Eurydice is coming to terms with being dead, so he may not have to worry too much - just back off a bit, and give her the time to sort it out for herself, keep up the counselling, but not too heavy. She's no risk.

Then I go - maybe I can catch Aphrodite in a careless moment - maybe she'll say something in her sleep, maybe she won't. Have to see later.