Grains: On God and Evil

The Moirae Conversations - Question

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Atropos strides to the bar and takes a seat. The bartender, a wiry man with salt-and-pepper hair, glances up as she taps her fingers against the counter.“What’s your poison?” he asks.

“Hourglass,” Atropos demands.

“I’m sorry,” The bartender shakes his head. “Don’t know a drink by that name.”

“Fuck,” Atropos murmurs. “I have to do everything myself. I need your oldest whiskey.”

“Of course.” The waiter retrieves a bottle from the top shelf and removes the cork.

Pop.

He pours the liquid into a martini glass as Atropos opens a tiny white wrapped package. She slides out two small sugar-cube shaped blocks. 

Atropos steals a stirring spoon to crush the cubes into a powder. She grinds her finger against the counter. A few shimmering granules cling to her fingertip. She places them to her tongue. Her pupils flinch.

“What are you doing?” The bartender lowers his voice.“You can’t—.”

“Oh, but sweetheart, I am,” she replies.“If my boss finds you doing drugs,” he starts, “things will be bad for us both, becau—”

“Then stop me,” Atropos huffs.

He stares at her for a moment and then returns to wiping the bar.

“I have a question for you.” She pinches more granules and drops them into the spoon. “How many grains of sand do you think make a pile?”

The bartender’s eyebrows raise. “What?”

Atropos takes another pinch. “At what point does the bad become too much? Better yet, how much suffering before the spoon bends?”

“How does this have anything to do with what you‘re doing?” the bartender shakes his head.

Atropos continues dropping grains into the spoon. “One grain? A lost job. Two? A miscarriage. Another? A shooting. Cancer. War. Genocide. Keep adding. At what point does it tip to excessive?”

“I’m sorry. I think you’ve had enough,” he chuckles nervously as he reaches for the glass. “Apollo would—”

Atropos stops the drink by the rim with her empty hand. “I’ve had enough of gods trying to apologize for the mess they’ve left behind. I’m bored of being told it’s somehow for humanity’s own good,” she says, as the glass comes to rest on the bar, a thin trickle rolling down the side from the sudden motion. 

Flick. Flick.

Atropos strikes her lighter. She holds it under the spoon, watching the powder melt into a thin, green liquid. She swirls the drink, slowly adding the contents of the spoon. It circles the solution like a drain, turning it green. 

“Ma’am,” he starts again, “I think it is time—“

“You asked what I was doing here. Listen.” Atropos stares through him like he’s already a ghost. “A man, foolish like you, once was damned to push a boulder up a hill only to have it roll down for him to start again. A punishment, given by the gods for defying death more than once.”

The man swallows hard.

“He doesn’t push the boulder because he believes there’s meaning at the top. He keeps pushing because there is nothing else to do.”

“And these gods,” he inhales, “they…”

“You think that they sit at the top of their mountain of stupidity, sipping wine and devouring ambrosia. Watching from their comfy couches. But instead, they built a boulder of misery, a grain at a time, until it was too heavy to lift. And then they gave it to humanity and called it mercy.” She tips the rest of the drink back, swallowing hard. “That’s the consequence of asking stupid questions.”

The bartender opens his mouth, but she waves him off.

Her pupils dilate. The green glow within the glass recedes as her mind folds inward. A quiet pause.“Ever hear the sound of a shadow being torn from light?” she whispers. “It screams. Screams like shears dragged across glass.”

He blinks. 

“We pulled light from shadow,” she leans closer. “And it’s never stopped hunting its twin.”

Images flicker behind her eyes like damaged film.Aeon hums in the dark.

The control room. Bright switches. Cold steel. Screams behind the observation glass.

Light fractures. The rim glows like a dying star.Darkness collects. The remains sink like ashes in an urn.She shakes free of the recollection.“We called it destiny. We became fate.”

She stares at the counter.

She laughs. A dry sound. “Two decades, and… I’ll tell you memory isn’t fragile. It’s cruel. It waits.”Another flash. Another fragment of memory.

Kronos slices time into slivers.The reaper of false moments.

A series of failed attempts scatter between her neurons.The cradle of the Gaea project.The death of Rhea’s research.The birth of Eris’ revenge.She slaps the counter. The bartender jumps.

“Every time around, she ruins me. Every turn of the window, she wins.” Her hands thrust from her body, knocking the empty glass over. 

“Shit,” the bartender grabs the broken glass. “Who are you?”

“Another stupid question. Who are you?” Atropos smiles.“You. You are a byproduct. We need you as much as a pile needs another grain of sand.”“Sand?” The bartender asks. “Is that what you call it?”“Grains of sand running through the hourglass as a reminder that we are ensnared by time. Grains of sand in the eyes of the gods. A dream and nothing more. A nightmare for those of us who know what dreams may come.”

A final flash across the grooves of her mind.

Black sludge stitched into memory.

She pushes herself from the bar to return to the dining room.

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