Icarus, retold

"In my bravest, most reckless vision, everything was doable, and I was the one to do them."

A sequel to “Wrath, wrath”, this one’s about pride:

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At my most desperate, I tried to strike a deal with God—the one who schedules the collision of galaxies—to make my empire reign until time goes blind.

Before I made my offer, I first reminded Him of all the favors traded with great leaders who came before me: temples built in exchange for cities to be alleviated of disease, petal-soft newborns plated like amuse bouches, sacred deers and beautiful virgins for a good harvest, precious gemstones the size of ostrich eggs to save dying heirs. I, Prometheus Bountiful, the monarch of emeralds and the arbiter of splendor, thought I knew exactly what would make me match His supremacy.

With the millions of years left in me, I will take what is mine and what’s yet to be mine, because that is right, that is just, that is owed. I am Absalom with hand stretched over Jerusalem, shadow larger than Moriah, taming lions and flying close to the sun.

That’s why I took the wings and went for the sky. Hubris for you, chutzpah for me. Why should my glory be hidden? Kept locked in a reflection in the lake, radiating immaculate perfection because it collected all the praise I never dared to take?

I was ecstatic. This was the day I had dreamt of for years, the way I would fly across Heaven’s yawning mouth, see eye-to-eye with that angry yolk, its golden arteries of light spilling across a comatose, dream-drunk sky. I looked down and watched everyone beneath me choke on their smallness—those cowards who die many times before their death. In my bravest, most reckless vision, everything was doable, and I was the one to do them. A puritan’s piety, sheepish submission, was rarer in my brave new world than white bears in the Mediterranean.

Little emperor, colossus in the Colosseum—Goliath, victorious. Lady Fortuna, impressed. Jupiter, shocked. Atlas, at last, shrugged. The question isn’t who’s going to let me, it’s who’s going to stop me. No master, no fear of annihilation. Mirror, mirror on the wall, who is destined to have it all?

LOOK ON MY WORKS, YE MIGHTY, AND DESPAIR! Then I felt a great, furious tongue lick my downy back between the shoulder blades. Even when the wax gave way, the unbearable delight of flight, of knowing—not suspecting or hoping, but knowing—that I was greater than the sum of Father’s warnings was enough for me to die happy. Even when the sea rose to swallow me whole, still, I would not have swapped my pride for servitude.

Romulus on Palatine Hill, I am twice—now thrice—the size I was yesterday. Let oceans part, let tectonic plates shift, let the world make room and let it make room in the shape of me. From moonrise to snowfall, all things shall be at my command. Let the meek wait for their inheritance, because that goat-hoofed faun promised I’d live deliciously and I’d have everything today, I’d have it now.

And when I crash, will the world catch me? And if the world cannot bear the weight of me? Then let the world break.

Finis,