Pandora's Gift (Part 8)

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Click here to start at the beginning.
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I took her to art galleries and libraries. We stood looking at sculptures in the middle of a park. We walked through bohemian areas of town, and then took the bus out to the suburbs. We strolled along beside carefully mowed lawns, and watched children play-acting. We explored the less attractive parts of town, where women sold themselves to feed their children beneath giant graffiti murals. We walked that city till our feet ached, and then we sat at the top of a tall building and watched the lights come on.

We sat silent for a long time. Eventually, she sighed.

"OK, I give. What was the point of all of that?"

"You don't understand?"

She shook her head. "Unless it's something like the diversity of human life, and the fact that that diversity is only possible because of choice? Always assuming you're trying to make me feel better."

"You can take it that way."

"But it wasn't what you were going for?"

"Well, maybe, but it is more than that. You gave humans much more than just choice, Pandora. You gave them the ability to create."

She frowned.

"One follows from the other, you see. Look at that, out there. Those lights. This city, and all cities, are full of people finding ways to create. To make things from nothing. They tell stories. They make art. They grapple with science and find new ways of doing things. Prometheus gave them fire, but you gave them the ability to learn how to harness it properly. Without the choice, and without the obstacles you let loose, they wouldn't be able to do that."

"You're saying it was a good thing?"

"It's a bittersweet gift, to be sure. You showed them their mortality. By taking away fate as an excuse, you made them responsible for themselves, and for each other. Some of them hate you for that. It is a terrifying thing to know that life really is what you make of it. It scares them, because it means that they have to make something of it. There are many reactions to that. Some of them desperately accumulate wealth and power in an attempt to escape that mortality, and it results in injustices and imbalances. But others approach it as an opportunity to make something beautiful. You gave them that option."

She was intent on my face. I smiled.

"In many ways, you're the goddess of artists."

That made her laugh. "I've never thought of that. Without choice, without adversity, there would be no art."

"Not just art, Pandora. Their mortality makes them do things, feel things more intensely. Without it, there would be no love."

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I left her there. walked away into that wild city, just another invisible bag lady. But there was a sense about her that was different - a sense of possibility.

Zeus will be mad when he hears about this, I thought. But it didn't matter too much. That story, and others like it, needed to be retold.

As I shuffled down an empty 3am street, lit by streetlights, I thought,with a smile, Maybe the world's about ready for a new 'Once upon a time'...

Pandora's Gift (Part 7)

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Click here to start at the beginning.
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"And still you opened it?" I asked, surprised.

She looked askance at me. "He didn't only tell me what Zeus knew. He told me the rest too. And I think you know what I mean. I also think that's why you're here. Because you thought I didn't know."

"what did I think you didn't know?"

"That it was about choice. That box had all the evils of the world in it, yes. Disease, pestilence, plague, the works. And, of course, the infamous hope. But that's not all it had. It had choice. For mortals. Or, rather, the understanding that they have choice." She smiled wryly. "And all the accompanying drama."

"Ah." I smiled quietly. She'd gone part of the way. I just had to push her through the rest of it.

"So you deliberately gave them choice at the cost of everything else?"

She dropped her eyes to her now-cold coffee. "I have to admit, I have wondered sometimes if it was worth it. At the time, because of what Heph and I had talked about, it seemed like the right thing to do. It seemed that it was a worthwhile bargain. I had visions of people free of Zeus' tyranny, the tyranny of fate. People free to make their own lives. I thought..."

"You thought they'd thank you."

She nodded.

"But they didn't. Quite the opposite."

A tear fell.

"Still hurts you, doesn't it?"

She shrugged, dashed the tear away, and sat up straight.

"So maybe I chose wrong. At least I chose. They make some terrible decisions a lot of the time. But sometimes they get things right. And that's always beautiful to see. I do doubt my choice, but I don't regret having it, and sometimes that's enough."

I felt a pang of sympathy for this strong, broken girl. I stood.

"Come with me."

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