Chapter 22 #5
Of course my mind braced for a second circumcision, as if Atropos was an ultimate mohel, which in a sense, she was—except Atropos didn’t slice foreskins, but life itself, and she was saying, “How many years, or minutes, would you like, and how many do you deserve?”
Jesus fucking Christ—and look how the Fates had treated that guy.
There are people, of every age, who can barely get out of bed, thanks to their preoccupation with death.
I’d been spared any significant farewells, only a grandfather I’d barely known and a schoolmate hit by a Lexus.
(As Jenn had said at the time, “You know, I’d rather be killed by either a hybrid car, because of climate change, or a Ferrari.
It’s embarrassing to have ‘run over by a Honda Civic’ in your obituary. ”)
Death was like a root canal or assisted living: something so far off that it might never happen, allowing my everyday compulsions to be lavished on why a director had called something I was doing “a choice, not a good one but still a choice,” or my local CVS running out of the little bags of potato stix I mainlined that weren’t available anywhere else, especially at 3 a.m. How could I fixate on death when my life hadn’t started?
This idiot ignorance is most likely what had drawn me to the Tuxes and protected me, out of sheer obliviousness: our enemies’ bullets, knives, and fists couldn’t harm me, because my youth and stupidity were like Kevlar, a credo only a privileged white boy would come up with.
Even that rock on that Roman street corner hadn’t knocked any sense into me.
But Atropos had a very real point. Whatever happened next, Reese would most likely have me eliminated.
If I demonstrated proof of the Diadem’s gifts, I’d have outlived my usefulness and become a witness to his misdeeds.
With his ever-metastisizing ego, my murder would be the most minor item on his to-do list, far below “presidential inauguration” and “seal all the borders.” He might even have Reata killed, or once he was elected, he’d lampoon the implausibility of her accusations.
(“I imprisoned you, in my cathedral? I ransomed you for a—what did you call it—a diadem? Really?”) But I’d been his test case, and lab rats never live very long.
Aunt Libby had once said, “There are only two ways to die: on-screen or off-screen. On-screen is better.”
Aunt Libby is right: I wanted my death to count for something.
To be memorable. Nobody gets a statuette for fading away while the rest of the cast overacts grief, fondling a stuffed puppy in a loved one’s childhood bedroom and shrieking, “Why? I loved him so much. Dear Lord, WHY?” The acceptance speeches write themselves.
“Okay, here’s what I’d like from you,” I told Atropos. “I’ll die whenever you decide, or the scissors slip. I’m good with that. But I’m taking Reese down with me and saving Reata.”
“So you’re making a demand,” Atropos countered, “as if you have a say in the matter.”
“Yes, I am,” I said because, in the words that would undoubtedly be chiseled onto my tombstone, what the fuck.
Atropos looked to her sisters, all weighing the slim thread of my lifespan.
Historically, the only other being who’d tampered with their logistics had been Apollo, who’d gotten them drunk, but I didn’t have time for a beer run, or to buy a keg of whatever goddesses prefer—hard ambrosia?
some ninety-proof elixir from an enchanted vineyard mulched by centaurs and cyclopses?
While not soused, the sisters did something almost unheard of, since their birth as the daughters of Zeus and Nyx, the goddess of the night, whose name also sounds like a diet supplement.
They smiled. I had amused them. But enough so they’d help me?
This wasn’t an Aladdin setup, where the wish-granting genie is contractually bound to obey.
The Fates had to be in the mood, or bored with the monotony of ruling mortal lives as if stamping passports or issuing summonses for traffic court.
Clotho giggled. Lachesis scowled at her, then helplessly joined in.
Atropos was rolling her eyes, like, “I can’t believe my sisters are such airheads.
” But then she uttered a short barking chortle, which is my favorite response in improv—when I can make someone laugh who’s obstinately resisting, folding their arms and frowning at the ludicrous and even offensive concept of enjoying themselves.
The sisters kept laughing, because it had been a long time since their last human punch line, or mortal moron, so why not have a lark, or an afternoon off from life/death/repeat?
“All right,” said Atropos, wiping her eyes and pulling herself together.
“My sisters are ninnies, so I’ll go along.
I won’t tell you what will happen, but we’ll do our best. Just don’t come back asking for any more perks, like beachfront property or a bigger dressing room with an espresso machine.
We’re not a game show with five hundred models holding attaché cases on a tropical island. ”
“I completely get it. And thank you, and I trust you, and what do you need me to do?”
In my head, a sonorous voice was intoning, like the narrator of a Twilight Zone?meets?Black Mirror elevated horror series, “Let’s see what the Fates have in store, for Andrew Birnbaum and Mr. Reese Dantine. Shall we?”