Of Hesperideae
Blossoming by fragrant lotus covered shores of lost empires, now, at this day crumbling and overgrown by thick bushes of thistle and thorn, a lonely wanderer sat down to drink.Appealed by ancient myths he had averted from the caustic grey light of the blooming realms of sun, and then departed to ancient empires, where grew now lustrous thick thistles and worn thorn of age; so that he had to dig deep through vegetation amassed over time, and vortices of greenery to uncover the last remaining stones of those same fallen empires and cities, recallable at most seldom times in present days.
Then sat he upon the slopes of a great mountain to rest, and drink some of his wine, lent to him by the lord of all fest and joyous occasions, the god whom Romans knew as Bacchus; and men of ancient Greece long before as Dionysus.
This God he had met a strange night, and to this day, he had kept a small leather pouch of blessed wine which the revered god had bestowed him with.
The skies darkened, the sun blocked out, and then once more as it showed through the
coarse blanket of the damp and black clouds, it once more was obscured; an eclipse which no calendar or numerologist, from past to the present ever had been able to predict.
So, ashamed of the fact that his leather pouch was empty, the man strode through thick vegetation until he reached the top of a gargantuan mountain slope, and from there shouted and screamed, hoping that the gods of golden days and times would hear his pleas and prayers; though the skies did not respond, and the young man sadly cried on the cold and lonesome top of the mountain covered with snow and crystals of ice; and from far and unknown places were heard hleahtor of strange gods to mock the young and dismayed lonesome soul upon the dead stone giant.
Hesperideae let his mind lay to rest, as he, at a later point had reached the golden grove where her fruit held growth, so without fear the young wanderer sat upon a stone by the growing trees and their blooming gifts and fed with joy.
Night fell and the young man joined the dancing fauns which had arrived; then the next morning he ate all the apples left upon the blossoming orchard, this amount being enough to fill him, for spring had arrived early, and this was the season when the hidden garden held her highest bloom.
The young man content and feeling some sort of blessing brought by higher powers, thanked the gods whomever they might have been; for he had prayed for better times, and dreamed constantly, both at day and the grey hours of the spectral moon for a new golden age to arrive. Returning to the heaths below the mountain, he now strained against the harsh winds of the ocean on his way back home; and even as they were strong and of great discomfort he yet was able to feel bliss.
In a sudden moment of soul devouring insight he realised, that he was yet in his dirt covered room of his apartment by the low ends of town where harsh winds blew outside in the late autumn night; Hesperideae had been no more than the drug of his addiction, the fauns, merely images which he had coloured and hung upon the filthy walls of his home, and so he realised that no golden age had been resurrected, no gods had stepped from their silent graves; for it had been nothing more than yet another sole hour amongst many, of intoxication.
Short story by Christos Tsolakidis
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Written on 2009-03-13 at 19:13
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