If I Had Words

Back to chapter menu     
Chapter 89      Chapter 91

Psyche’s breath caught as a scene stretched out before her. Aphrodite had touched a delicate finger to her forehead, pulling them both into a shared vision. 

Together, they stood before an innumerable host of mortals. Some were laughing, some were hugging. There was so much love and beauty. 

The vision grew dark as a shadow of suffering and pain covered the joyful scenes.

Pandora. 

Or, well, uh, Zeus.

“Imagine, Psyche,” Aphrodite said standing next to her and examining the scene. “Everything had been beautiful. People had been loving and good. It was perfect. As soon as evil came into the world, pain and suffering now constantly overshadow my love and beauty.

“There is nothing that can put things right. There is no way to put back the evils released by Pandora.”

Aphrodite looked sorrowfully at the world. 

Then her face hardened. 

“Look,” Aphrodite said forcefully, bringing into focus a horrible scene of death and disease.

Psyche shuddered. 

“Look at all my beauty!” Aphrodite said. “It’s been replaced by the unsightly and grotesque. Only death remains!” 

Psyche stood for a moment thinking. Psyche had seen death in her kingdom many times. It was a natural part of being mortal. 

“But,” Psyche said. “There is even beauty in death.”

“Does this look beautiful to you??” Aphrodite said, pointing at the scene.

“Not here,” Psyche said. “These are just their bodies which return to Gaia. Their souls reach the plains of the Underworld and eventually to the Elysian Fields. There they enjoy their eternal rest. They are happy.” 

Aphrodite frowned and changed the scene.

Psyche screamed and instinctively crouched down as a warrior, wearing the fresh blood of a defeated foe, charged towards her.  

He harmlessly passed through her. 

Aphrodite laughed. 

Before them lay a vast wasteland. Dying fires burned among the dead and dying. 

“War destroys everything in its path,” Aphrodite said. “The efforts of Demeter and Persephone? All gone. Hera and Hestia mourn the early departure of husbands and sons. You may brush it all away, Psyche, saying that souls end up in Hades’s realm, but are they prepared? You care for them, don’t you? Imagine how these souls arrive. 

“The destruction of minds and hearts lasts for generations. The hatred remains among those who survive and is easy to rekindle. Enemies remain enemies. Swords fall by other swords, only to be taken up again by their children. 

“Conquerors are insatiable. People follow blindly, fed promises of revenge and glory.”

Aphrodite showed Psyche scene after scene. The cycle of war was neverending: ambition, violence, death, pain, loss, revenge, and more bloodshed. 

Battle after battle.

Generation after generation.

Psyche could feel herself getting swept away by the barrage as Aphrodite continued to conjure image after image. 

“We are powerless against it,” Aphrodite said, slowly walking towards Psyche as the images flashed.

Psyche fought the impulse to look away from the scenes of blood and carnage. She knew there had to be a way to help. There was always a way, always something she could do. 

Psyche grabbed hold of one of the images as it flashed past her. A young man was standing over the body of an enemy, panting. He was still angry, still hungry for revenge. 

Psyche could see he had been deeply hurt. They had killed his father. They had murdered his mother and sisters. 

Nothing could ever replace his family. They had been everything to him. He would take life after life until they paid for what they had done.

Psyche reached out and touched him. 

He turned to her, eyes blazing, sword forward. She backed away slightly. 

Stop, she pled with him. Please, stop.

Why should I? None of them stopped. Why should I spare them? he answered.

Psyche touched the fallen enemy lying on the ground. She brought the image of his family mourning his death for the young man to see. 

They have families too. Now you are the murderer. The only answer to your pain is love. We must show love, even to our enemies. 

The young man softened and let the sword fall to his side. 

“Do you think I haven’t tried that?” Aphrodite said angrily, arms folded as she watched from behind the young man. “Do you think I haven’t tried changing hearts and minds? Giving love and beauty to soften the hate and anger? This is one soldier. There are millions upon millions more.”

“It takes more of us,” Psyche said, stepping through the vision towards Aphrodite. “It takes more of me and you, more possessors of love and beauty and care to help people understand the uselessness of war.”

“It’s a fool’s errand, Psyche,” Aphrodite said. “You cannot change people’s nature.”

Psyche looked at Aphrodite, searching. 

“Ares,” Psyche said, catching a glimpse of something.

Aphrodite glared at her and made all of the images disappear. 

“You know nothing,” Aphrodite hissed.

Aphrodite stepped away from Psyche and spread her arms wide, revealing images more horrible than war. 

Greed, abuse, lust. 

Psyche’s stomach lurched and she shuttered at these new scenes.  

“It doesn’t matter how much beauty or love we give,” Aphrodite said. “It makes them want more. They beg at first. Then they take. They take and take until they choke on their lust.” 

Psyche noticed an image of Eros. 

“You see,” Aphrodite said, with a haughty air. “He’s had so many. In the early days he took whatever he wanted.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Psyche said. 

“Oh, but it does,” Aphrodite said. “You want to be one of us, don’t you? You hope to live among us? Do you imagine you can bear the horrors created by the gods themselves? We create horrors of unimaginable proportions. You’ve met my twins.”

Aphrodite created images of Deimos and Phobos. They had done unspeakable things. 

Psyche felt herself instinctively shrink back. 

But they had helped her. They had used their powers for good. 

“Even they have potential,” Psyche said. “There are other ways for them to use their powers.”

Aphrodite scoffed. 

“There is good within even the most horrible,” Psyche said. 

Psyche noticed one of Aphrodite’s images included a man standing over his mountains of gold. 

It reminded her of a king.

“King Midas was blessed with the golden touch,” Psyche said. “His greed was not unlike this man. He felt frustrated when his food turned to gold, but it wasn’t until he lost his daughter that he begged for the gift to be removed.

“The love he had for his daughter was the answer to his greed. We all have good within us. Love can unlock it.” 

“Daughters,” Aphrodite said scornfully. “They don’t love you. They reject your gifts. They disappoint you.”

Psyche pushed aside the images. 

“This isn’t about the weight of the world,” Psyche said, stepping closer to Aphrodite. “This is about the weight you carry.” 

“You could never understand,” Aphrodite said, turning away from her. “Your weak mortal mind would be crushed in the depths of the agony and pain that comes with being a goddess.”

Psyche waited as Aphrodite stood quietly for a moment.  

“You’ve had your little shrine. Healed a few hearts. Changed a few minds,” Aphrodite said, turning back to her. “You’ve played the goddess, but you have had no real power. 

“You lit the lamp and lost your husband, opened the box and went to the Underworld. You failed and what did you do? You shrugged and moved on. 

“There is no moving on from the failure of a goddess.” 

“I didn’t shrug and move on,” Psyche said. “I kept doing my work. I kept spreading good in the world and kept making things better.” 

“Do you think I haven’t tried??” Aphrodite seethed. “Do you think I haven’t offered the world the best that I have? Haven’t tried to get ahead of the destruction of war? Haven’t tried to touch and soften hearts?? Everything I’ve created has been taken and ravaged. It’s been consumed and still nothing changes.

“I’m not fool enough to think I can do it all on my own. I have tried gathering more to my ranks to help improve the world. Each has been a hard lesson of betrayal, destruction, or disappointment. 

“Beauty is seen as a prize to be won. It’s seen as brainless and heartless. It is seized and taken without permission. 

“They walk past our efforts and ignore our cries. 

“They take and take and still — they want more. We give and we give and we give until there’s nothing left. We’re punished and shamed for being beautiful — for being loving.”

Psyche could see pain in Aphrodite’s eyes. Psyche reached out with a reassuring hand. 

Aphrodite pulled away.

“I don’t need your pity,” Aphrodite said. “I am a goddess, built for the tasks before me. You? You don’t know what it is you’re wishing for, Psyche, in wanting to be a goddess; in taking up this work. You haven’t the smallest idea.”

Aphrodite hated this mortal. Psyche had stolen her son and turned him against her. She had convinced even some of the gods that her weak, mortal frame was somehow worthy to be a goddess. 

“If you refuse to recognize how weak and insignificant you really are,” Aphrodite said, extending a hand towards Psyche, “I will make you.”

Back to chapter menu     
Chapter 89      Chapter 91