Who: Dionysus and OPEN What: Trying to control his uncle’s power but only managing to water the grass. When: Late afternoon Where: MacArthur Park, near the lake Rating: TBA Status: Incomplete
There came the sound of rushing water, bubbling at the surface and then sloshing as it moved toward the shore line in large rippling waves. The liquid, unsettled and shaken out of its stillness, was clear and blue and thrashing violently with the force of the god’s concentration. Dionysus extended his hand to it, fingers grasping at the air, trying to beckon the water closer to him. It obeyed his command and traveled in fluttering sweeps.
The movement of the lake’s center was clumsy and without stability. It had the image of something that was trying to gain balance and couldn’t, on account of it not having the kind of legs that it needed if it were to stand up and take a step. The stirring could be called anything but graceful and one of his summoned nymphs rolled over onto her naked stomach and beheld the attempt of Dionysus with a tilted head.
In the sky a flock of birds flapped their white wings against the wind, cried out and circled against the current of air. Hearing them but not breaking his attentiveness, Dionysus focused on a patch of water, blinked at it once, twice, three, four, five times. Reacting to him, the wave twitched, gave a creaking roar of disapproval and shot up into the atmosphere, a bullet from a gun that shouldn’t have been fired in the first place.
It was too early to pull that trigger. He wasn’t prepared for it and when the water ascended his hold over it backfired and with the appalled squawking of the birds his arm fell to his side. Big mistake. Dionysus reeled, feeling the water come down to race dangerously close to his face and to the nymph who yelled her shock while lifting herself off the ground. Making a sprint for a nearby tree, his companion flung herself up into the canopy and Dionysus, who unlike her, hadn’t moved, felt himself fall back to the earth. The disarrayed gust of water collided against him, crashing into the ground and spreading out around him.
On his back, soaked through his clothes, Dionysus coughed and retched up the water that had gone down his throat. Around him the grass had become soggy and soft and in the lake the rest of the contents were pressed back into a composed slumber, content now that the god was no longer aiming his power at it. Flat on the ground, Dionysus listened to the chirping and the whistles of the small animals, in the clouds, in the bushes and the trees.
He wasn’t feeling the prodding stings of discouragement or anger, despite failing to make the water do as he had instructed it to do. He wasn’t feeling the urge to rip something apart with his bare hands, or to cast a bolt of lightning down on the people in the further end of the park. Something about the city lulled him. He was a less violent entity when he was in Los Angeles and he wondered if the girl who had been in love with his human side, would willingly come into his arms now.
When he rested his head to the grass and stared up at the sky with sated, heavy eyes, he almost missed the familiar faces that were but memories to him now.