Red New Day

by Angela Slatter

The chariot awaits, but I cannot leave.

As long as my husband lives he will follow me.

The axe is sharp, bright and washed clean of my sister’s old blood. This is the weapon she used against her husband, and the one her son used against her in turn. I bade Orestes abandon it when he fled the Furies.
‘You will never be free while you carry it.’

I hid it for many years, until I had need. It is heavy in my hands, but I swing it, find my rhythm, feel my muscles hum with effort and recognition; I am, after all, a daughter of Sparta.

Though I look not a day over eighteen, I am old. The blood from my father is a god’s, but in my bones I feel old. The years weigh on me.

I heft the axe again, hear the whoosh of it slicing the air, watch the sunlight of the red new day flash against the great double blades. For a moment I am blinded. I think of other battles, other stained weapons.
Memory takes me.

Paris, petulant adolescent, did not like the word ‘no’. When Menelaus left his palace and wife unattended, the Trojan boy struck.

I did not consent, no matter what they say. I did not say ‘yes’. But I took life and limb from seven of them before I was overwhelmed. They dragged me to their ship covered in the blood of others.

And ten years in a gilded cage, rich with Trojan contempt. Watching as the black ships dotted the shore, watching from the high towers as both sides died, all in my name. Until sly Odysseus came, disguised, past rotting corpses the Trojans no longer had the heart to bury. I sent him away with an idea. When at last Menelaus stood there, unable to kill me even though he blamed me, because that would set me free.

In the bottom of the chariot, the scrolls, my history and Troy’s; how it burned, its children dashed against stones, its women parcelled out. How its men allowed destruction within its walls.

I take my bright axe and walk to where my husband lies in half-slumber. I think of my sister. I think of escape, of dark caves where I might hide, or shadowy cities where I might wander. I think of my future and it holds shadows.

The Dancer, the Door, and the Ordinary Stain

by Daniel Braum

The door strains to open with a groan worse than the metal fatigue of countless fathoms pressing on the hull of a submarine down too far, its man-made shell barely restraining the force of the deep.

A silver, ethereal tang mingles with perfumed soap from the bathroom and crisp clean linens. Mara sits on the huge bed, the room service next to her untouched.

She thinks of Christoph from Prague who stayed only as long as the money flowed. His touch, everything about him- his chiseled form, gentlemanly demeanor and beautiful boyish face- was titillating. But the thrill faded minutes after he departed, as she knew it would, leaving her unsatisfied and hollow as ever.

She considers calling another young plaything. Maybe the rock and rollers in Bonn. Or the captian of industry in London. She knows they desire her not just for her physical presence and charm, but for her razor mind that answers thier questions and unties the complex knots of thier lives, like no other.

She considers returning to her family and to her many friends. She hears her sister telling her the life she despises and berates as a life so oridinary is really a life fit for a Queen; and that the love she has is a rare thing to be cherished and nourished. And she knows her sister is right.

Mara wonders why she yearns for this chaos. But she has no answer, only the knowing, the gnawing in that hollow that wants to two-step into oblivion, and rub her ordinary life out like a stain.

Beyond the etchings on the floor, past the blood and ritual items of summoning, water slowly drips into the tub. Something about the sound, and the smell of clean reminds her of home and how the embrace of luxary feels. She thinks she will pick up the telephone to call her sister.

Yet she wants the deep water. She wants to feel the pressure on her hull as she is crushed.

The air rumbles and fills with that awful groan. Mara knows when the door opens fully and the thing on the other side says, “shall we dance?”, she will say yes and take his hand as he steps through.

– END-