Eternity Touch (Part 9)

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It's uncanny how fast a person can get used to things. It wasn't even a year since I had been taken by Hades, yet when my mother said that Zeus wanted to meet me, the idea wasn't as strange as it could have been. Of course, that may have had something to do with how distant everything seemed except the desire to see Hades again. But still, you really oughtn't to be so nonchalant about meeting the king of the gods. Especially when you know what an easily angered god he is.

The thing about the gods which still amazes me is how ordinary they look when you meet them for the first time. Of course, it's not real. I mean, what you see isn't really what they are, but still. They can take any form they like, but they never seem to make themselves particularly striking. (Except for Apollo, but he's just vain.) Zeus was no exception. He just looked like a sweet, harmless, grandfatherly type. It's deceptive. You find yourself thinking, what a sweet old man. Meanwhile he has so much power he doesn't really know what to do with it.

I gather he liked me. We had tea (if you can believe that!), and chatted like normal people. He wanted to know how I felt about the situation. I had to refrain from telling him how desperately I wished to be back with Hades. He wanted to know if Hades had been kind to me. And how my mother was doing. It was strangely surreal - like you imagine visitation rights of fathers to be. Although Zeus wasn't my father. That, clearly, was part of the problem. And at the end he asked me what I thought he should do.

"You do know that Hades has asked me to make you immortal?"

He asked in the same tone of voice as he would have asked if I took sugar with my tea. My head spun with the possibilities of immortality.

"Well, yes…" My mother had told me this much, but I was uncertain what I was meant to say about it.

"What do you think of that?"

"Well, to be frank…." I trailed off for a moment. "I don't really know. I mean, that's quite a serious proposition."

He chuckled.

"You could say that." He looked at me keenly for a moment. "Do you love him?"

I faltered. Was this desperate desire love?

"Well, I'm not sure. I enjoy his… company, certainly. But love him? I'm not sure that it's possible for a mortal to love the king of the Underworld."

He laughed this time. I hadn't meant it to be funny, but gods are strange that way. I shook my head in bewilderment.

"To be honest, I don't think I can answer that. And I don't think I can tell you if I want to be immortal. And, to be really frank, I don't think what I say is going to make the slightest difference to what you decide."

He laughed a third time.

"I like you, child." He stood up, suddenly all business. "I will talk to your mother about it."

And that was all. Dismissed, as at the end of an interview. In retrospect, I suppose that was what it was, although I had no idea what I was being interviewed for. Had I known, perhaps I would have gone about it differently. Or perhaps not. It's hard to tell.

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