The Untold of Tantalus

Listening to: Jen's cooing over Nickkhun biting a napkin.
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Random Thought of the Day: TIME TO STUDIESSS!!!


this is a story i wrote like.. sometime last year, to a flash fiction challenge. Flash fiction is when they give you a one word topic, and you ahve 60 minutes to write a short story. This is, I believe, the second I've ever written, and I really liked it, for some reason. I really like it when people take popular/well known stories, and write backstories, a la Wicked, and I tried to play off that. Enjoy?


The Untold of Tantalus

Do you know what they never told you about prison? That you are forced to reform because there is so much time to think about what you’ve done “wrong.”
I’ve been here six hundred, eighty four days, give or take a week. I spent the last, almost two years in various uncomfortable positions in my cramped cell, and I have thought endlessly of why I am here.
You know, they never really reward the saints. Those who do good are ultimately cast into flame, to be put on a pedestal and worshiped after death. For example, look at Joan of Arc, and where saving France got her- the funeral pyre, where she was tried and executed as a heretic. I am another of those saints of sorts; perhaps in a decade or two, after they give me the electric chair, I too will be immortalized and proclaimed as a hero.
I am here because I have gone about doing good the wrong way. Perhaps in forging my path to a better life for my family has caused me to go grossly off the road of righteousness.
But I am not sorry.
My son is better off now, and that is what I was aiming for. At all costs to myself, I have managed, finally, to provide for him what I could not before. And I know it may sound strange to you, hearing about it now, perhaps grimacing at what you perceive as an atrocity, indescribably horrible, but you will come to understand.
I was a caring father, you see. My children were the joy of my life. I worked hard every day in the mines of Phrygia, raising a fortune for them to spend. Niobes was my favorite son- I gave him everything he wanted, and sometimes, much, much more.
There was one dream of his, though, that I could not hope to achieve.
My ambitious son, recklessly envious of my birth – for I am the son of a god – claimed that it was his right to be as the gods were: immortal. I tried desperately to convince him that no good would come of it. His family would wither while he bloomed, his loved ones and friends would all die while he prospered and none would share his triumph, and any small amount of grief or ecstasy or success would be trivial, for he would have an eternity of them to spare; and what is the essence of life but those small shares of grief, ecstasy, and success? But he heeded me not. He demanded that I find a route to his immortality, and I could not refuse. I admit that in the course of his upbringing I have spoiled him, and thus caused him to believe I could produce anything he wished, if only he had a true longing for it. He had a pure, unbridled, ferocious longing for immortality.
There was no way around it. I could not let myself fail my son, so I tried my hardest to procure for him a way to achieve his dream.
It started with the ambrosia. Being half-god meant I was frequently invited to dine in Olympus, where ambrosia was plentiful, and where, I thought, no one would notice if a droplet or two went missing. Ambrosia is the food of the gods, and thus I believed it would develop god-like qualities in my son if he were to partake in the holy feast. I borrowed one goblet-full of nectar, for I had the intention of returning it in the form of a new god.
My son drank it greedily, saving less than a quarter of the precious liquid for his mother and other brothers. His form grew brighter and the life in him flared, his eyes shone with the light of success.
Alas, two days later, he fell sick. The richness of ambrosia was not meant for mortal mouths, and it overwhelmed his body. He grew close to death, spoke in his dreams of terrors and monsters and swords, screamed of failure. When he recovered, he blamed his ailment on me, that I brought the poison which almost killed him. I could not reply- I thought it was his greed that wrought his plight, and it was lucky he did not drink the whole cup – but I thought it would be better to hold still my tongue.
For the moment, Niobes was too afraid of further repercussions to bid me try another way, but with time, his caution faded and his lust for immortality grew. Thus, I was told to make another attempt.
It was around the same time that the gods scheduled their call on me. Having not heard from me in the three months proceeding that dinner, and having gotten over their anger at my misbehavior, they decided to check up on me, per say.
It was my son’s idea, you see. I could not be moved to end my own son’s life, for to shed his life-blood would be to shed my own; to carve out his heart would be to cast the match on my funeral pyre. I knew that, knew it surely as I knew his plan would succeed.
I am a devoted father, and I would do everything for my child.
And so it was, on the eve of their visit, I boiled this devilish brew that would give my son his greatest wish. With every stroke of my knife, I shed countless tears that my hands were stained with his blood, that his flesh now graced my cutting board, that the hellfires of the stove would consume what was my son. It was not his sacrifice, but my own. He would not know how it tore my heart to be the taker of his life, but he had insisted, and I could do naught but comply.
I knew the gods had seen our deed, but blind sighted by their warped perception of justice, I was the persecuted. I did not complain, for I had foreseen my punishment; as I watched from afar the resurrection of my son and his newly achieved immortality, I was appeased.
I have discarded every shard of morality and of faith in order to provide the most I could for the ones I loved. Here, now, I am alone. Niobes, carried by the euphoria of his achievements, forgets he has an old, sickly father rotting in jail. My wife has forsaken me, for she believes that I am selfish, that I treat the favor of the gods above my own child’s life. My other sons, angry that I would not sacrifice so for them, have deserted me in spite.
You see now, I am utterly alone. You are the only one I may trust with my confessions, the one person who knows that I was not wicked. When I am cast into the Underworld to be forever taunted by Hades’ cruelty, you will be the bearer of my one redemption.
You believe me, do you not?