Re: second class smoking room
The twisted leg did not give beneath him once again when he was stood and for that the heavy-headed god was grateful, he was no Heracles to labor beneath the sick pleasure of the fates. The vulcan was malformed metal, the slag of virtuous work left alone to cool and twist. The eyes burned as strongly as coals, seeking the inevitable pity but when there was none, Hephaestus stood true.
“What do men learn but from the folly of their gods?” His voice was bleak. All portents were cast in doubt and questions, trials for mortals who forgot their wisdom between generations. Hephaestus did not sound prophetic but thoughtful, the figment of consideration re-examined. Their love affair, his sick induction into the coupling-off on Olympus, the bad temper of a war god drawn down upon his head at the gift of strife placed at his door, her head upon his pillow, what was it for but this?
He thought the man would be clearer on a love fought for and won or even lost. Memories were sent to plague those who would go on. Now there was nothing of Aphrodite’s gasp of shame at being given to such deformity. Only the blissful lies from coral-colored lips, the sweetness of soft body white as sea foam. “Who is she?”