and you look to your companions:
but they too are overburdened
and cast their eyes down from the sun’s brutal honesty,
all laid bare in harsh relief.

Stories told of bygone blessings,
tales of golden yesteryear,
these soothe no more your battered spirit
longing for solace, not promises.

You spy oases,
and some are even real.
They quench you briefly and cannot sustain you long within this heat,
but oh! while you sit there
‘neath shade and chew on figs,
how much it seems like home.
And then again it’s gone.

This burden shared with your companions,
that memory of fruit and laughter,
do not hide it in deep inside,
but speak of it aloud;

Underneath the same sun burning
Together live. Alone you’ll die.
Each find the strength to bear
The others’ burden for just a while.

When you spy oases,
find the one that is real
and stay to dig a well, to rebuild that homely manor.
Oh! the life of fruit and laughter!

I was rather confused myself. “Um—” I declared, “ah—you. Lightning,” I eloquently concluded.

“Mortal,” He said, more directly this time, “What place is this and how long have I slept?” He stood there in His pearly  tunic and fiddled with the golden eagle emblem on the head of His scepter. It was obvious who He was, though I don’t think I had quite accepted it by then.

“You’re in Ohio. A suburb of, uh, Columbus, actually. Sir. I don’t know how long You slept. You just appeared. Are You really—?”

“Indeed! I am the Demiurge; I am the Eagle of Justice; I am the great Oak whose roots support the world. I am shining Zeus Aegiduchos, pater Olympios, parricide to Cronus and sire to Heracles. I was born in the bosom of Crete and I reign among the heavens. I have slept; now I awake. Behold!”

Then He threw up His arms, grabbed a handful of lightning from the air, and cast it earthward. When my eyes could focus again, a white bull had appeared. It was about twice the size of a normal bull but He leaped without effort upon its back. Zeus was ripped, muscled like—well, like a Greek god—and a lot younger than I expected. He looked to be in His twenties. His hair was blonde and curly and though He was unshaven, it was more long stubble than the traditional flowing beard. I realized then that this was either the real thing or a hallucination; a damn good hallucination, but the kind you don’t recover from. Or maybe an impostor. A very very effective impostor. Any way you sliced it, I knew it was wisest to play along.

“That’s very impressive, Your Majesty. What did You say about sleeping?”

He looked around for a moment, at the supermarket parking lot full of automobiles and shopping carts and plastic bags flapping in the breeze. I noticed the sun slip behind a cloud.  ”Ah,” He said, “I see. I have slept longer than I feared. Does My Temple still stand? Does oracular Dodona still speak for Me at Epirus?”

I shook my head no.

He looked skyward now. He let His gaze linger on the straightedge contrails that run east and west in this part of Ohio’s sky. Then He cast His eyes across the street; His kingly, golden-yet-sky-blue-at-the-same-time eyes upon the UDF gas station across the busy asphalt street.

Have you ever heard a god sigh?

He gestured, and the clouds covering the sun vanished, “for that much still I can command,” He said mostly to Himself. He and His mount turned back to face me. “You have knowledge now, and power. You have mechane in which you fly, and you fly not like Icarus nor Phaethon, but like the eagle. You have chariots pulled by no horse, fed by a golden fluid containing the very energies of the Sun. The very ichor of My kin. And what of that Sun? And of the Moon?”

I dreaded my answer but could not avoid the demand of even His now-diminished presence. “We’ve been there, Sire. Man landed on the Moon. Apollo 11.”

Now He chuckled. “Apollo, eh? So we are not forgotten then. That is well, that is well.” With that He raised His scepter, and His great bull stamped beneath Him. But He stopped before calling the lightning in which He travels and spoke once more. “Child,” said He, “though I may sleep, though I may fade, I am immortal. To Me the lives of mortal humans are as brief as an eyeblink. Yet I imagine that, to you, those brief lives are nigh unto eternity, for they are the entirety of your existence.”

I nodded my head this time. “And too short, also. Far, far too short.”

“Indeed. But consider, mortal, that even a god may lay down to sleep and wake to find Himself passed by, obsolete. While I slept the cosmos kept moving. If such may befall the gods, can mortals be immune? My Aegis has no power here, I think, but if My will be done I would ward you from the danger of sleep. Sleep not too long, for the world does not sleep while you do. Thus do I serve as an oracle to Man!” He laughed again, but wryly now, and with a final flash He flew into the heavens.

I stood for a while in the parking lot, then beeped open my car and headed home. I have to admit I didn’t sleep at all that night, and barely for a couple nights after. Too excited, and more than a little frightened for my sanity. When I finally settled into a new sleep routine I found myself waking up with the dawn.

And whenever I feel like I’m making no progress, marching in place, sometimes—just sometimes—out of the corner of my eye I catch a magnificent golden eagle in the clear blue skies. I swear it’s watching me.