The Cult of Kronos (2 page)

“
There's nothing certain in
man's life except this: That he must lose it.”

-Aeschylus

II.

Rain
beat down hard on the windshield, distorting the road ahead. Every
heavy drop on the glass was thunderous, and the sounds of their
impact blended together to mimic the roaring applause of a stadium.
The highest setting on the wipers was not enough with its rapid,
rhythmic
chug
chug chug
to
keep the windshield clear. Visibility was minimal, and Celene Davis
gripped the wheel tightly, ready for anything as they drove along
U.S. Route 90.

Her
daughter, Penny, bundled-up in a too-big black hoodie featuring an
illustration of Death from
The
Sandman
,
sat in the passenger's seat with an enormous bag of M&M’s (the
kind that was so big that it came with a zipper). She munched on
chocolate candy as she listened to the radio—an NPR interview with
a current, trendy, self-help author.

"It's important,"
the author said, speaking in a soothing baritone, "that we
identify the sources of our troubles. The source of our anxiety, our
stress, our insomnia. It is control—the human need to exercise
control. Once we surrender control, we can be our best selves. We are
golden."

"Are you listening to
this?" Penny asked her mother.

Celene shook her head, "I
can hardly see the road, never mind listen and drive."

"Should we pull over?"

"So someone can careen
into our tail lights on the side of the road?"

Penny pressed the button for
the CD player. The dull drone of the radio interview was replaced by
the wail of an electric violin. The tumult of the rain died down.
Though the storm persisted, Celene could now see the two-lane highway
ahead of her. "Oh thank God," she said, "the monsoon
is over."

Penny's eyes moved from her
bag of candy to the road, and she saw a silhouette up ahead. "Mom!"
she shouted.

Celene turned the wheel
sharply to the right and slammed the brakes. The wheels spun on a
thick layer of water and the car continued forward. Penny braced her
arms on the door and center console as they careened toward the man
in the road. His bearded face was briefly lit up by the headlights.
He was calm. His hands caught the hood of the car as it struck him.

Penny closed her eyes,
expecting to hear him roll over the hood of the car. Instead the car
lurched and the world seemed to flip. They were in the air,
upside-down, and then they came crashing down.

Penny opened her eyes.
Something was wailing—the car horn. Hot blood dripped up her
forehead; Penny was hanging upside-down in her seat-belt. The ceiling
of the Volvo was filled with broken glass and M&M’s.

"Mom?" Penny turned
to see her mother hanging in her own seat-belt. Celene turned off the
car and took the keys out of the ignition.

"Stay calm," she
said. "We'll be fine."

"We hit someone. Why did
we flip?"

"Shh," Celene said.
Penny heard footsteps and crunching glass. The rain was still beating
down hard outside the car. Penny squinted, trying to see through the
spider-webbed windshield. A pair of large, black boots stepped beside
the driver's side window.

"Help," Celene said,
"There's two of us in here."

The wearer of the boots
crouched down and reached in through the broken window. His large,
strong hands grabbed Celene's around the middle and pulled. The
seatbelt strained. It pulled at her shoulder and caused Celene to cry
out in pain. Finally, the mechanism that fastened the seatbelt to the
interior of the car snapped, and Celene hugged the steering wheel to
avoid falling on her head. The large hands pulled her out of the
vehicle, scraping her arms along the fringes of broken glass.

"Frank?" Penny
asked, realizing that the seat-belt should not have broken that
easily, but the skin was too fair and the boots were to small for it
to be Frank Guerrero.

Celene shouted. The man who
had pulled her out of the car laughed. Celene started to kick and
fight, but Penny could only see her legs.

"Mom!" Penny
shouted. "Let her go!" She fumbled with the buckle on her
seat belt, trying to get out. There was a crack and Celene stopped
screaming. She stopped moving. Her body fell and hit the wet
concrete. Something was wrong. Her head was twisted the wrong way.
Her eyes were wide and empty. Penny screamed.

The boot started to move
around the car, passing by the windshield, nearly opaque from all of
the cracks running through it, and approaching Penny's side of the
car. A hand reached in through the passenger's side window and
grabbed at Penny. She bit it. The attacker shouted and then reached
back into the car, grabbing Penny's wrist and twisting. She felt the
bones in her right arm crack and split. The pain was almost
unbearable, and the edges of her vision darkened. Penny grit her
teeth and forced herself to stay conscious. She couldn't defend
herself if she blacked out.

High beams flooded the road.
The hand withdrew from the car and vanished. Penny was left with the
beating of the rain and the broken car horn.

"Hello?" a woman
called. Penny could hear car doors slamming. "Is anyone alive in
there?"

"Help!" Penny
screamed. "My mom! My mom is hurt!"

"Jesus, Kyle, call 911,"
the woman said.

"Holy—" a man
mumbled. "What in God's name happened here?"

"Just stay tight,"
the woman said, leaning down to look in the window at Penny.

"Did you see him?"
Penny asked, "Did you see the man?"

A pair of black Chuck Taylors
stopped next to Celene's body. The man crouched down next to her as
he spoke to the dispatcher. "I'm out on ninety, just outside of
Miami," he said. "There's been a wreck. A car flipped. Some
guy ran from the scene."

The woman started cutting
Penny's seat-belt with a small pocketknife. "How old are you?"
she asked, trying to keep Penny's attention off of her mother.
"Fifteen?"

"Sixteen," Penny
said.

"Yeah? Which high school
do you go to?"

"Yeah, there's a teenage
girl, she's conscious. And a woman," the man said. "The
woman… I think her neck is broken. I'm pretty sure she's dead."

“
Praise virtue.”

-Delphic Maxim

iii.

After the gods left the
house of Lycaon,

their hearts were weighted
by the darkness of man.

And so it fell to Philemon
and Baucis

to redeem mankind.

Zeus and Hermes took the
frail forms of beggars

and appeared on the elderly
couple's stoop.

The pair were poor and had
nothing to offer

but welcomed them still.

Baucis scraped together a
plain, humble meal

with the last of the eggs,
dried figs, and olives.

His wife set to preparing
their only bed

for the strangers' rest.

With his heart warmed by
their hospitality,

the goblet of Zeus began to
fill itself.

When Baucis recognized this
sign of the gods,

he fell to his knees.

As it is in the control of
the gods

to change the shapes of
their selves and surroundings,

Zeus showed his gratitude
by shaping their home

into a temple.

For their sacrifice,
Philemon and Baucis

were set aside from harm
and died together

some years later as keepers
of the temple,

the favored of Zeus.

“
Boys throw stones at frogs
in fun, but the frogs do not die in fun, but in earnest.”

-Bion of Borysthenes

III.

Zach Jacobs carried a
cardboard box filled with his wife’s books to the car parked in his
mother’s front yard. June followed behind him, carrying a hanging
garment bag with the suits and jackets that just couldn’t afford to
be folded. They had few possessions; the couple had sold and donated
a lot of their things back in March when June’s father had kicked
her out of the house. There just wasn’t room in the small bedroom
of Zach's mother's house for all of the junk they had collected in
their eighteen and a half years of life. Mrs. Jacobs had told them
that it was a mistake, that there was still time to get the marriage
annulled, but after a long late-night conversation the night before
Peter's funeral, she had realized that young couple was not going to
budge and decided to support them.

Now they were off to college.
Zach deposited the box in the trunk of June’s Mazda station wagon.
His own car, a green Tesla Roadster (that his father had
impractically given him nine months before to try and make up for his
absence) had no back seat and hardly any trunk. Their luggage would
be limited to what June could haul in her car.

June hung the garment bag in
the station wagon and sat down in the hatchback. She brushed her red
bangs, moist with sweat from being so active in the blistering August
heat, away from her fair skin. June's style idols were all wives of
Presidents, but in this heat, even she opted for a tank top and
shorts. Zach offered June a hand to pull her to her feet. “One more
trip,” he said.

They walked back into the
house, June rattling off their to-do list for comfort, and stopped
for a minute to enjoy the air-conditioning. Zach opened the
refrigerator and plucked out a bottle of strawberry lemonade. June
leaned on the counter and watched the eight-inch TV that was mounted
under the cabinet. Some generic morning show was on.

“
We have a week and a half
before classes start,” Zach said between gulps of juice, “after
we get there. What do you want to do with all that time?”

“
Unpack?” June suggested
as the hosts of the morning show brought out some self-help phenom.

“
For a week and a half? We
have one room worth of stuff.”

“
Well, there’s furniture
shopping, right?”

“
And then?”

June shrugged and turned away
from the TV. “I guess we drive around, get used to the city. Learn
our way.”

Zach crinkled the now-empty
plastic juice bottle and threw it in the trash. He pulled his t-shirt
away from his chest and let it fall back. Zach went to the kitchen
table, the spot where they had staged the boxes the night before, and
picked up the last box. June followed him outside. He placed the last
box on the stack. June sat down on what little bit of carpet was left
with all of their worldly possessions packed into the car.

“
How much fit in your
trunk?” she asked Zach, reaching for his hand.

Zach, tall, unshaven (well, he
had shaved, it just never mattered much because his beard grew so
quickly), and glistening with sweat, turned and placed his hands on
either side of her. “Just my football stuff.”

“
That’s it?” she asked,
wrinkling her nose.

“
At least you don’t have
to smell it for five hours to Gainesville.” He leaned forward and
pressed a kiss to her lips, lingering there and enjoying the moment.
The warm early-morning sun beat on his back, and the air smelled of
orange blossoms. They were getting ready to start the next phase of
their lives. Zach had a scholarship to play for the Gators, and June
had an academic grant that paid for half of their apartment. Zach’s
father, who was getting out of paying tuition, was still obligated,
according to the divorce settlement, to provide twenty-thousand
dollars a year for books, food, and housing. Zach anticipated four
years of paradise. “I’m glad you’re coming with me,” Zach
whispered.

“
Well, we are married.”

“
I know, but Brown and
Harvard,” Zach said. “That’s a lot to give up.”

June smiled. “Remember that
the next time we have a fight. And there’s always grad school.”

A cool breeze suddenly swept
in, chilling Zach’s back. He stood up and turned around, nearly
whacking his head on the tailgate of June’s car.

Lewis Mercer stood behind
them, the wind from his wake rustling the bushes all down the street.

“
Lewis,” June snapped, her
teeth gritted. “How many times do we have to tell you not to do
that in public.”

Zach could see, however, that
something was terribly wrong. Lewis’ eyes were red and his almost
permanent smile was nowhere to be found. He swayed uneasily on the
spot, and Zach could tell from the way he flexed his fingers and
shuffled his feet, just wanting to run at full speed and never stop.
“What is it?”