“Many of you have never considered that these well-known, apparently benevolent and powerful gods could have been something entirely different than what their sycophants and worshippers wanted them to be. My point, ladies and gentlemen, is that these revered gods had the image of monsters,” he roared as he pointed at the painting of Zeus in command of Mount Olympus. “Gods are…” he stopped to rephrase, “…were never humanoid. In fact, they were merely given human names and form to justify their callous and hideous intentions with which they imposed their powers on mankind. They were formless, deliberate aspects of human emotion. Within us they hid, using our God-given faces to soothe their hideousness, controlling our moods, our choices, and destinies. Ladies and gentlemen, gods are not people, they are things.”
Costa took a drink of water while the audience reacted very barely, some shifting in their seats, others looking at one another. The professor saw this and thought to pacify his own passions for the sake of the gathering. He chuckled, “You have to excuse my seriousness, my friends. I have a fervent need to correct misunderstandings. You should see me at a wedding!”
The audience responded with a resounding bout of laughter, much to their relief. But Costa was only getting started. Now that he had given them some respite he carried on with his baring of truths.
“Right, where was I? Oh yes, that gods were things,” he stated, making a conscious decision to use past tense for those who found the thought of their existence a tad too much. “Gods were forces, relentless entities of energy that could warp the logical mind and steer the meek of will to do what they needed for their particular charge. Let’s take Aphrodite. Aphrodite was depicted as a beautiful young woman with an innocent appearance, when in fact that image was just a representation of the lust and vanity she instilled in mortals,” he explained, not once looking at the two students in the front area, spellbound by his words.
“Let’s take Ares, god of war. He was not some suave warrior with an impeccable six-pack,” Costa explicated eloquently in a boisterous revelation as a mild muttering of mirth hovered over the amused audience. “No, you see, Ares was just a name given to a terrible emotion or urge in mankind, a malevolent need for destruction, subjugation, and murder! There was nothing beautiful about him! Aphrodite and Ares, among others, were simply the monsters of mankind, representing our sins and urges to corrupt, ladies and gentlemen,” he calmed his vehement accosting somewhat.
After another gulp of water, he started mildly again. “We need to understand that mythology’s monsters like the Minotaur, the Sphinx, and the Cyclops were the victims of the gods’ cruelty, yet history gave them faces of abhorrence and to the gods were given glory and beauty.”
And after an hour of heated delivery regarding the ruse of exalted gods’ appeal and the suffering of those who saw them for the reprehensible forces they were, Costa came to the end of his lecture.
“Look at the atrocities mankind committed throughout history, doing the bidding of their gods, and tell me what is fair, what is beautiful about these evil properties. Look at the Huns, the Roman Empire, the Nazi’s, and tell me what their gods made of them,” he challenged the gathering of scholars and laymen. Costa took another swig of water.
“Thus, ladies and gentlemen, I urge you to think about the role gods play in your life that turns you into a monster. And when you look at the so-called beauty of these powers and forces, remember that the only beauty they exhibit is that of the mortals they wear,” he said, looking at Sarah and Abbie once more, reveling in Abbie squirming under his eyes.
“I thank you for attending tonight,” he concluded, “and thank you so much to the Edinburgh University for having me. Good night!”
The audience gave a standing ovation, completely taken by the charming and passionate dark horse who disappeared into the dark exit as quickly as he had appeared.
Chapter 6
Professor Helen Barry spent the night cataloguing a new shipment of relics that had just arrived from the Hebrides, by way of Sweden and Orkney. The museum had closed for the evening, but she was still hard at work in the storage rooms. Her assistant, Gail, and two maintenance men were helping her move the new inventory and label the pieces.
“It is almost post-Apocalyptic, isn’t it, Professor?” Gail remarked with an unsettled look on her face.
“What is, dear?” Helen asked.
“The museum. After hours, when it is all lonely and empty. Without people here it is almost as if the artifacts are still in their tombs as if the whole place is a portal to an ancient time and we are trapped here,” Gail recited dramatically to entertain the nerves of the two workmen who unsuccessfully tried very hard to ignore her.
Helen laughed. “That is quite true, you know! It does feel like the end of the world… or the beginning, actually.”
“Have you worked late before? Alone?” Gail asked as she prepared four cups of tea for them all while the men quietly unpacked a crate onto the large table in the center of the store room.
“Oh no! And I don’t think I ever would,” Helen shrieked. “No, I always have a few people working with me. That way the work gets done much faster than if one person had to do it all. Besides, I could never lug those big pieces like the granite griffins or the marble columns by myself.”
“And you don’t want to be alone when one of these things start walking the halls, hey Professor?” one of the men said.
“Damn right about that, Burt,” Helen sighed anxiously, looking about the store room and its vast collection of disquieting items. The others chuckled at her admittance, but inside she knew it to be true. She could not imagine being stuck in the museum for an entire night.
While they took a break shortly before 9 pm, a faint hum could be heard from nowhere in particular. The four of them perked up and listened, passing uncertain glances among them to ascertain if they all heard the same thing. It was undeniable. A low roar emanated from all sides, prompting them all to jump to their feet, ready to run. Gail stood against Helen while the men put their cups down.
“Feel it under your feet?” Burt asked.
“Aye,” said his colleague, a quiet young man called Manfred. “Under us. It is under us, whatever it is.”
“But there is only a basement floor, so what could make that noise?” Gail scowled. Her hands slowly curled around Helen’s arm as she sought support for whatever was coming.
The entire building seemed to shudder as the ever-present growl grew louder among the clinking and clattering of glass and pottery on the shelves. Suddenly the lights flickered everywhere on their floor, sporadically failing altogether. Gail yelped in fear as darkness enveloped them in the loud bellow of the quake.
“Burt! Manfred! Please don’t go out there! We are safer in here, together!” Helen shouted above the ruckus.
“I just want to see if it is localized, Professor. In case we can move to another part of the museum,” Manfred told Helen as he glanced back at her.
“For Christ’s sake, man, does this sound localized to you?” she shrieked as several items plummeted from their stations and smashed on the floor. Gail had sunk to her haunches now, terrified and panic-stricken, clawing at Helen’s pants. “It is everywhere! We are not going to outrun it, so get your ass back in here and wait until it’s over!”
“Yes, Madam,” the men yielded. They had to obey the curator, but they still thought it a bad idea to remain in the storage area.
“It’s only getting worse, Professor!” Gail cried. “I told you we had an earthquake on the way.”