The Valkyrie by Charlotte Vassell Read Free Book Online Page B

eventually Prometheus went
a little too far. He committed two crimes that he was never really
forgiven for.
    ***
    Prometheus was
pushing his luck already. Back in the days when the mortals had the
sense to worship the Olympians they used to make animals offerings.
Now this wasn’t necessarily a good thing for the mortals as they
kept going hungry as a result, so Prometheus decided to fix it for
his favourite creations.
    “What have you
bloody gone and done this time?” Zeus said, thunder rattling
through the skies.
    “What the meat
thing?” Prometheus asked.
    “Yes the bloody
meat thing. You bloody tricked me you shit. What the heck do we
want with skin, fat and bone as offerings. We want the meat. That’s
where the power is.”
    “Well the
mortals need it or they will all start getting deficiency diseases
and die. They’ve no concept of vegetarianism yet. We’ve got quite
some time until that appears on their developmental timeline.”
    “Reverse it
now.”
    “No can do,
you’re stuck with the gristle forever now.” Prometheus said, cue
bluster.
    ***
    This all pissed
Zeus off so he stole fire from the mortals so they wouldn’t be able
to cook the meat anyway. No one ever called Zeus petty.
    “Why the fuck
did you have to go and do that?” Zeus asked. He was bloody
furious.
    “Do what?”
Prometheus asked. He was prone to nonchalance.
    “Give the
sodding mortals fire again.” Zeus was getting even angrier as he
knew that Prometheus was just playing silly beggars with him
now.
    “Oh that. Well
they won’t ever develop civilisations if they don’t have combustion
now will they?”
    “They don’t
need civilisations. They’re only stupid humans. They’re never going
to amount to much.”
    “Well being as
I invented mankind, I get to make that call. Everything’s fine, go
back to chasing after nymphs or something.” Prometheus had barely
looked up from his book during any of this discourse.
    “No, it’s not
bloody fine.” Zeus literally stormed out. As god of thunder and
king of the skies he nailed it. “That’s it. I’ve fucking had it
this time. Hera where the fuck is my fucking eagle?”
    ***
    So Zeus had
Prometheus chained to a rock and he charged his pet eagle the task
of pecking out Prometheus’s liver every day for it to grow back
every night. It wasn’t for some time that good ol’ Hercules slayed
the eagle and set Prometheus free. Zeus had felt that he’d done his
time and he was beginning to really enjoy the mortals (their
women). Prometheus and Zeus were basically Olympus’s version of
Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor: forever sniping but they loved
each other really and kept going back for a little bit more each
time. 

Showering
    Liberty returned to the Hackney
house. She went into the kitchen and rifled through the draw
labelled ‘anti-depressants’ and took a fistful or so of Xanax, well
at least enough to make an unhappy person resemble a happyish
person for a month, and swallowed them all. She had picked up her
post on her way in and sat at the table to read her correspondence.
The vase had been placed in the middle of the table whilst the poor
‘historical’ tome was left on the stairs for Honour to inevitably
pick up. Amongst the letters were the usual junk, a marriage
proposal from a cyclops and another from a troll, a few invitations
that she’d probably have to accept and to her horror another sonnet
from Apollo. She had started keeping a box of his poetry under her
bed (precisely underneath her pillow) just in case she ever needed
them i.e. avoiding being turned into a tree.
    From her room
Honour had heard the door go and had picked up her laptop before
going to fetch Bea. On their arrival in the kitchen they found
Liberty propped up on her arms staring into nothing. Honour was
anxious to introduce Bea to Liberty after Bea’s general awesomeness
at Valhalla that day. Liberty was tremendously good at seeing
through everyone’s crap. She was a difficult