Where Were You All These Centuries

Where were you all these centuries? I asked Athena, my goddess and my love, feeling that I must have loved her as soon as I knew that I was as alive as a tree.

I was expecting your question since our first kiss, even before to be exact, as I knew that you would ask it, Athena replied. I was asleep dreaming of unimaginable things, and then I saw you, in one of those dreams, talking to one of the statues that were erected to honour me. You seemed so sincere in your declaration of the love that M had for me that I awoke and decided to listen to what you had to say more closely. I did not see anyone else in my dreams speaking to me so earnestly and with so much love and from someone else towards me. I even followed you to your room and watched you preparing to end your life. Yet you returned to my statue and kept beseeching me to come down, so you could tell me how much M loved me. It was strange to see a man talk about himself as if he was someone else, Athena had continued, caressing my heart with her words.

Even Glaukopis, her owl and now my friend, was listening attentively and looking at me with one eye, as if measuring how long it would take for me to collapse. I should have closed my eyes but I wanted to see her beauty while she spoke her wisdom, knowing that she would save me if my wooden heart suddenly stopped because it could not withstand so much of her in such a long instant. I was even ready to die, knowing that she would try to bring me back, and even if she could not, I would have died happy to have known her so intimately and down to my core. She sensed my imminent downfall, of course, and put her hand over my heart before anything tragic could befall me, and us, since she loved me. Please continue, I entreated, when I felt better after about a minute, closing my eyes this time, to allow her to speak her mind without the interruptions of a mortal, no matter that I was much more than that for her, my beautiful Athena.

I even saw you crying one evening, not caring that others had seen you, completely absorbed by my statue, as if you were trying to revive me and turn me from stone into flesh. Yet I was near you, looking at you from every possible side and angle. Your sincerity touched my mind and then my heart, cascading into every part of me, even my pussy that you love so much. I also like the word. It has a pleasing sound to my ears, and I know that you say it with love, and never in any other way. You have showed me how much it can be loved before any final act. I was even surprised once or twice. No! Three times. Actually, there was also that one time when you made me crazy with anticipation. So, on four occasions you had me asking for more. There will be a fifth, of course, and surely more after that. You always find a way to surprise me. When you write all this, you could skip some parts, but you do not have to on my account. You are free to write whatever you wish as long as it is true and not a lie. I leave it all to you, my love.

They say that words can move a heart; tears too as we all know too well, at least those of us who have lived at least half a century. But words and tears at the same time can bring back a goddess gone for two thousand years. Men should learn to cry. While it is not as liberating as laughter, it is uplifting from other parts unaffected by laughter like the liver and the fingers that wipe the tears away. I never felt ashamed or anything similar when I cried watching Star Trek, especially when Mr. Spock died. Even just writing these words brings tears to my eyes. When a fictional character can bring tears so many times, one probably knows that the character is immortal. The only other individual who never fails to bring me to tears, but this one is, was real, is Charlie Chaplin, and not only when he played the Tramp so eloquently and heroically, but the man himself. His eyes! I never saw such eyes in a man. No one made me cry more than him and yet he is mostly known for making us laugh. I often laughed and cried at the same time, watching him. I cried and still do about serious things, but here I am just expressing my feelings about a single individual and the effect and affect that can manifest from something said and done whether fictional or real.

Love works in mysterious ways, some say, and repeat until it can be perceived as the truth. Even Goddess Athena does not hold the Truth, and I understood that it is worth knowing. Our species will continue to look for It, mostly amnesic that Love is the Truth. They are an inseparable couple and as immortal as the Cosmos. May love always triumph, I wished at some point in space and time, however relative it is, was. Gravity is the most beautiful law of the Cosmos.

-----

Please note that our conversation was in Greek and that I translated it as well as I could. I can assure you that it was more poetic in Greek, except for the word pussy that has no equal as far as I know in any other language.