Cupid's Childhood and Love's Tribunal

by Atomdancerrr

Cupid's Childhood and the Expulsion hearing that got him kicked down to the Mortal Realm told in his own words! : Funny, sad, and warm. Note my promised "Cupid's Daughter Delightful, Goddess of Serenity" is almost finished. Bear with me.

This is one of Three parts.

Cupid's Childhood and Love 's Tribunal

It is a complete story by itself. The three parts together will tell the Cupid saga from his childhood all the way up to Delightful Adulthood on Alpha Centuri millenia in the future.

The other two parts will be

The Therapy of Cupid and Psyche

and

To Infinity and Beyond!

Cupid's Childhood and The Tribunal of Love!

By

Trevor Cupid Pierce

Author's note. No one believes these stories are autobiographical. Everyone thinks I'm nuts especially by beautiful Lady Shrink! But the following is the truth! Even though I may seem merely a cheerful Barkeep a few fries short of a Happy Meal, I am really Eros, also know as Cupid and a thousand other names. Like all gods I have a thousand faces and can play a thousand rolls. But what you want right now is a cheerful Lunatic so that is the roll I am playing. We were created by you to serve you. We are hardwired for that, so what you want is what you get and what you want is a cheerful, wise Crazy!

I am really not a demented Barkeep though I am a great Barkeep too. I really am the Greco-Roman god of love! I am three thousand years old (though that makes me a mere spring Chicken compared to the other gods)!

This is the true story of my child hold and the tribunal that lead to my being cast down to the Mortal realm and my slow and gradual triumph back up to being divine again over time. I won my way back with my Psyche beside me because I simply refused to give up and I had her to stabilize me!

As Johnny Cash said, "Because she's mine I walk the line.

Flash back to my childhood. I was a little Kid here, a mere six hundred something, years old. The reason we gods know the future is because Time circles. I was able to be a Trekker millenia before the show as produced because my Grandpa Zeus had kept episodes from his second trip around the Wheel of Time. This is his third, my Father's second and my first. Also inside of our Olympian god-keep, time does not flow as it does outside of it. It has its own time that only vaguely correlates to Mortal's passage of time outside of it. Since you Mortals prefer science fictiony type explanations instead of what would have satisfied your Ancestors, 'its magic,' think of it sort as you would Doctor Who's TARDIS or that Narnia wardrobe, or Snoopy's dog house that seems to have a suite in there despite its small size. Just keep in mind technobabble is no closer to reality than Wizard speak. I lack the language in the Twenty First Century to explain the real truth. I am doing the best I can!

Space the final frontier! These are the voyages of the Starship Enterprise! Its five year misss... watch it! That was an asteroid!

"Ah, sorrrry Keptin!"

"We have got to miss those things!"

"They won't hurt us. Future Mortals built us better than that!"

"No but if this chair smashes into one of them you know our Goose is cooked. It's not a god. It's not rock proof!

"They are so black, teeny tiny and hard to see so by the time I notice them we've bumped them..... It's not my fault Vulcan's wheel chair wasn't made for deep space travel!".

I whined, "I only wanted to 'borrow' it for a few hours to pretend it was Captain Kirk's chair so you could push me to Epsilon Eridani and pretend to be the rest of the starship Enterprise and its Crew so we could look for Planet Vulcan even though I know it's not really there. I don't intend to destroy it so we have to be careful!"

My Uncle Mercury shook his head. He was beginning to be disgusted. This had been a very bad idea! "Eros why do I always let you talk me into these things? You know Vulcan is going to be so mad his hair is going to be sparking and that's if his chair makes it home in one piece!"

I nodded, "He's gong to be hopin' mad even though he can't really hop. So I guess this really was a bad idea. I admit it. I admit it. And yes, that's even if we get his chair back to him in one piece. But it makes such a great Captain's chair Uncle Mercury. It's just so much exactly like it!"

Uncle Mercury sighed, "No it's not. Its a wheel chair with straps on it so Vulcan can strap it to him when he flies somewhere. Its not a Captain's chair and there is no real Planet Vulcan waiting for us in Epsilon Eridani and it is absolutely ridiculous to be going at these slow speeds, (what did you call it warp factor 8)? I feel like I'm crawling along!"

I explained, "This is fast is the Starship Enterprise can normally go."

My Uncle was disgusted! "Well it's not as fast as the god Mercury can go. Eros have a heart! Let's go faster and get there sooner before I die of boredom creeping along this slowly!"

I explained with logic born more out of desperation than reality, "The faster we get there the faster I see Vulcan really isn't there and that will break my heart, then the faster I go back to our Vulcan and face the music and it won't be a melodic tune!"

Uncle Mercury stared at me. He was starting to wonder about me! "You know you are nuts don't you? You know Planet Vulcan isn't real? You knew our Vulcan would be madder than a wet feathery Mortal if you took his chair! You know a wheel chair is not a starship's Captain's chair and that you aren't really Captain Kirk no matter how much you want to be him and I am not the rest of the crew no matter how much I try to act like it for you and you know your Father and the rest of the gods are going to be furious with you! And yet you persist, and you are so persuasive you talk me into these things too!"

I whined, "But you are not the one whose Father is the god of war and whose Grandfather is Zeus himself. So no one really cares about your behavior like they do mine! I'm the one who has to be in the spotlight all the time! Uncle Mercury it stinks! I should be allowed just as much freedom to be me as all the rest of the gods!"

(I am the ultimate Military Brat, PK, lonely only Child and throw-away Kid all at the same time)!

Uncle Mercury sighed, "Believe me Eros you are you all the time and no one can take that away from you! It is just you are soooo. Well I wish there were a way for you to get professorial help. Cause you ain't right, boy!

I protested, "Now come on! I really do know Planet Vulcan isn't really there."

"But you persist in looking for it anyway!"

I burst into tears! "What else do I have to do with my time? It's not like there are other gods my age to play with. I get lost in these fantasies because there isn't anything for me worth doing in Reality Space."

Uncle Mercury wasn't feeling sympathetic, "Well there will be now. You're going to be handling Olympus's garbage now until the real starships fly!"

In the soul of the god of erotic love the Sun came out again! I shrugged and grinned. That possibility didn't scare me one bit! "I already am! I've been punished with garbage detail for a hundred years each time for my last twelve punishments, and I haven't finished the first one yet. So even if I never got in any more trouble (and we both know that isn't going to happen) I'll be collecting and hauling garbage down the Mount for the next twelve hundred years." Suddenly I got a blissful expression on my face from thinking about the glory of garbage! "The irony is it doesn't work as a punishment for me because I don't mind. I like to work! Garbage is interesting! Sometimes I look inside those cans and you don't want to know what I find in them, well yes actually you do. For instance did you know that Uncle Apollo uses hair dye? Yes he does! Those wavy black locks of his come out of a tube!"

Uncle Mercury sighed, "Cupid you are supposed to be the god of erotic love not the god of sanitation!"

I, the littlest god was insistent, "Ah, well I can do both."

Uncle Mercury shook his head and frowned, "I don't think so! There is something distinctly NOT romantic about being made to fall in love by the deity who just a few minutes earlier was clanging trash cans around!"

I suggested cheerfully, "We could switch to plastic baggies like the Mortals."

Uncle Mercury shook his head, "It will be a snowball's play day in Tartarus when Mars allows that. He's mad enough about the eco-damage all that plastic the Mortals use is doing to Gaia. It's endocrine disruptive and you know it! Plus it isn't an improvement from the psychological viewpoint of it. Really it would not be! Not at all!"

We reached Epsilon Eridani and spent a few years looking around the star system. A few years was a pleasant afternoon's diversion to us gods.

Sure enough Planet Vulcan wasn't there! Uncle Mercury has since told me there was actually a disappointed look on my face. Uncle Mercury stared at me trying to figure me out! It seemed as even though I had to know full-well the starship Enterprise and its inhabitants and Planet Vulcan and the rest of the Trekiverse would not be brought into Reality Space until the decree of future Mortals for billions of years yet. But on some deep, tragic level I had actually expected it to be there!

Finally my Uncle had had enough! He said, "Now turn around like a god and go face your punishment, Eros and step on it! No more of this Snail-crawl warp factor eight! You ARE going home and you WILL be there in five seconds and that is that! Because I'm getting hungry!"

Suddenly there was a very L*O*U*D intestinal growl!

The stomach of the Mercury the messenger god had spoken and the stomach was god of the god!

So Uncle Mercury picked little me up, wheel chair and all and flashed us back to Olympus.

Five seconds later we were home and there was an entire tribunal waiting for us!

This time I was not assigned more garbage detail. My punishment this time was to repaint Zeus's temple. Why it never dawned on them that Eros is love and love express's itself in action, no one can tell. They thought they were punishing me. They were instead setting loose a force of nature that champed at the bit like a Stallion to be set loose from a confining fence, like a forest fire and hurricane winds upon the Multiverse! I love to work!

Like Hercules cleaning out the stables of the gods this little god labored all night at my assigned task. The look on my face was one of contentment and determination to do the very best I could, not resentment at being "punished."It was a BIG temple but I was a dedicated and fast little god, not as fast as my Uncle Mercury but hundreds of years of trying to keep up with my pal who remember is the god of speed had made me pretty fast!

But I did not skimp on the work. I was careful to cover even the hidden parts with paint, getting it into every nook and cranny of the Greek column's intricate olive leaf carvings, even the parts that no one would normally notice. Oh yes I did a grand job! And what a grand and glorious thing to it was to behold when the virtual Sun rose like Homer's 'rosy fingers of dawn' in the Olympus god-keep the next morning!

And what a grand and glorious look on the faces of the other gods when they realized the mighty Zeus's temple was now a very, very, very VERY dramatic shade of Hot, hot, hot, hot, PINK!"

Spring in Olympus is like Walt Disney and the Big God and Thomas Kinkade got together when they were having the happiest, most creative day of their lives and they decided to make a big, little town and the surrounding country side together. In fact far in the future when you Mortals resurrect yourselves and give our Neighbor His Kingdom that is actually what did happen! I was seven hundred years old and full of snips and Snails and Puppy Dog Tails and the very atmosphere and floweriness of our virtual nature was singing to my soul. For once I was happy! And not just happy but full of the joie de vivre I came to know almost all the time later as a Mortal deeply in love with Claire. I stood at the door of Mommy's palace with my hair rumpled, my robe ripped to shreds and a cheerful all-boy expression on my face and with my right arm torn off, bleeding from multiple deep Tiger bites and claw swipes all over my body. I had been rough housing a bit with my Pet. I was also terribly thirsty. All that blood loss had taken its toil.

Our aged but happy, eternal Siberian Tigress, Sasha walked beside me with was was left of my torn off arm in her mouth, purring and rubbing against me affectionately. I petted her with his left hand since she had taken full possession of what remained of my right arm. Like any Cat she loved fresh meat.

My Mommy, Venus met me at the door, "Whoa young man! You are not walking in this house in that state! You'd get blood all over our lavender shag carpet and I'll never get it out! And look at your clothes! I swear Eros I can't keep you in clothes! You are growing so fast I no sooner have you a set spun than a hundred years later you've popped out of them and I have to have Arachne spin you another set. And now I do anyway because these are ripped beyond repair. Just what am I going to do with you Cupey? You are growing faster than an Oak tree!" She bent down and kissed me on my forehead which was a one of the few places I wasn't bleeding heavily. She smiled at me, "Go sit under our favorite Olive Tree and watch something until you heal and I'll bring you some baklava and honey. The Bees have been generous so we have plenty for once."

"I'm thirsty!"

She said gently, "Well that is why the Mortals who built our god-keep gave us garden hoses."

My Mother was and is the most beautiful Woman in the Universe! Claire Bears comes a close second though there are those who dare say she surpasses my Mommy. I was only seven hundred years old but I was already under my Mommy's spell as I am under Claire's also now. And I always will be! I would have have cheerfully disassembled the Moon one quark at a time and laid it at her feet and the thing is I could really have done so! But all she asked was I not permanently stain her beloved shag carpet. How do I feel about her 'callousness?' There was none! And I feel fine. I am a god. I was fully loaded back then. A torn off arm and some blood loss was nothing and we both were well aware of that. Even Sasha was in no trouble. Cats will be Cats.

So I smiled and nodded and turned around to gulp down a huge, cool, fresh drink from our hose, turning the little wheel to make the water flow and then picking up the hose, both with my left hand, then dropping the hose and then turning the little wheel off again with my left hand. The still purring Sasha followed me, still carrying my ripped off arm, her tail flicking every few seconds.

A bit awkwardly not used to having to do it with just one hand I lay down under the cool, green olive-smelling shade of our favorite "viewing tree" and flipped through the channels of the entire Universe trying to find something worth watching. That was difficult sometimes. In the end some Earthworms in Lansing Michigan making worm-love held my attention for a few moments. My shallower cuts and bites were already starting to heal and a little stub of a hand was starting to branch out like a fleshy white plant from my shoulder socket.

Sasha continued to nuzzle me with her head and purr and she gnawed on her treat. I was the happiest and littlest god in the Universe!

My Mother brought the promised Baklava just dripping with orange blossom honey! Between her motherly kindness and kindness and rare generosity of the Bees, the love of Sasha and the love be-smitten Earthworms and the smell of the cool green garden I continued to feel that rare moment of perfect happiness. Life doesn't get much better than this! If in a life however long one can have just a few moments like these, it makes up for all the other millenia of misery.

Suddenly my Father the god of war shadowed over me! I felt his stomach lurch. What had I done now?"

But my Father was smiling at me!

Aries said, "Eros I want you to look here! Follow my mind cursor towards California, towards Paramount studios. You see that?"

I was puzzled, "What are they doing?"

Aries sat down besides me on the other side from Sasha and with a rare moment of tenderness playfully touched my new arm which almost had a fully formed elbow by then. It was fresh flesh and it was sensitive so that tickled and I giggled.

My father the god of war, said with amazing gentleness, "Guess what they are doing, Eros!"

"I see cameras. I am guessing the Mortals are setting up to film something."

Mars didn't smile at me very often but when he did it was a powerful, deep smile that glowed as the blazing Grecian Sun. He nodded proudly, "You are correct Eros. Keep watching."

I did so. It took quite a while for television productions are often mostly 'hurry up and wait' but when Jeffry Hunter and Leonard Nimoy walked on the set I KNEW! "Oh Papa they are filming Star Trek! It's started! It's really started!"

Aries nodded, "Soon you will have new fresh copies of this dear old treasure to watch instead of those faded copies from all the way around the Wheel of Time your Grandfather saved. No more static and scratch marks drowning out the dialog and details! We'll find out what happened in those parts that faded so badly we can't see and hear them any more and that I can't remember. I sort of recall some of it but it's been so long! Anyway actually seeing those parts will be better than having your memory challenged Pops trying to explain it to you!'

For the next three years father and son sat under our favorite Olive tree watching the entire making and first few airings of our favorite TV show. Sometimes Mommy would join us and we would munch on baklava and/or olives and/or grapes and drink new wine and fresh home baked pizza with melted cheese, Greek peppers and peperoni. And we would make funny or profound comments about what we were watching! For a few precious hours we were actually being a real family just like so many Mortals I had spied on and envied in the Mortal Realm! My Father was and is the god of war so he had to leave sometimes being very busy, futilely trying to keep the Vietnam war going. But in the end you 'darn Mortals' managed to make peace again as you almost always eventually do and my Mommy did the best she could again to reassure her Husband he really wasn't slipping and 'he would start plenty of fun wars in the future!' But whenever reality space would let us all four of us, Mommy, Papa, pet Tigress and geekey, misfitting, lonely little boy watched the making and first few airings of what later would be retro-named Classic Trek together. If only it has lasted longer! Three years is nothing to us Immortals. Classic Trek was one of the precious few things that drew the god of war and the god of love together as a real family having enough of both. It was one of my few comforting childhood memories, in fact my best and the only time my Father had really, really REALLY loved me and spent quality time with him since I was a Toddler!

No this time the littlest god did not get in trouble!

I was 900 years old now, the equivalent in emotional, mental and physical development of a small but precocious nine year old. That isn't completely accurate. I had already been sexually active being precocious in that area too which is natural considering who I am and who my Mother is. It was with a Mortal too, naturally, since there were no other gods my age. But unlike the other gods I had not left my Girlfriend. She had just died. She had starved to death because of a plague of Locusts. That's why I hate Grasshoppers.

But in many ways I was still just a tired, lonely and heart broken little Boy. And as was the truth quite often, I was bored.

So the name of the game was bonk the Tigress! I had a basket full of olive pits scrounged from my garbage duties and was tossing them with perfect accuracy at Sasha's nose.

The Tigress was batting most of them away before they could hit her nose with her lightning fast paws. But the ones that made it past those powerful paws hit her sensitive scent-sensor every time. She was a bit annoyed but not the point of swiping at me. If she had, remember the cuts would have sidelined a Mortal but healed in me in a few minutes. So no one cared. I certainly didn't. I was bored as usual but having a little bit of fun. I had a life of scraps! They were scraps that glowed with divine light and were spun as silk as spun by the divine Spider Weaver of the gods, Arachne and they were gold and purple and soft as spider silk. But they were still scraps! I did the best I could to make quilts.

I was small for my age and my wings were way too small in proportion to my body. I was also way too chubby to fit in with the other gods. All the rest of them except for Vulcan were strong, tall and muscular. Also being thousands of years younger than the other gods and having no peers to play with was taking its toil on my mental development. My dark hair was thin and for a being based on the ruddy Greeks I was very pale. I had a definite hormone problem of some kind. But Dr Hippocrates had done what he could for me. It was far from enough to allow happiness but life went on. It did not stop for chronic illness and like all the chronically ill I struggled painfully and exhausted at Turtle speeds surrounded by Race horses who did not understand that my slowness was not willful laziness. I had loved to work. At that point in my life span I temporarily no longer did. But I kept up with my garbage collecting "punishment" out of a sense of responsibility and will power alone. Someone did need to collect the garbage. Garbage of the gods or not it didn't make its way down the Mount by its stinky self! It was important work that I was doing!

There is a myth among modern Mortals that all us gods are healthy for all eternity. But if that were so, explain Vulcan and his disabled right leg and foot! Our immortality is only potential. We gods can and do kill each other on occasion and a bad enough accident or health problem severe enough to overcome the ability of our third strand of DNA, (our regeneration strand), to do what it needs to do, can sicken or even destroy us. And unlike Mortals once dead we have no where to go! John's Cube did not admit those who were technically hostile Neighbors, though neither side has ever harmed the other (only their followers). We can become the worst kinds of ghosts and spirits to wander the Earth! I was in slight danger of that.

Aries stood at the doorway behind me watching my incredible accuracy! He had never even noticed my special talent before!

I was unaware of my Father's attention. We are little g gods not the Big Guy. We have only selective omnipresence not total and my mind was totally on my Tiger-nose bonking attempts.

Aries was amazed! He was thinking, that was incredibly accurate tossing! Was there hope for his sick, misfit son after all? Time to start his military training!

My centuries of getting into mischief and cheerful, nosy, garbage detail was over. I had just been drafted!

Basic training went on for five hundred years. I was sick. But my father showed no mercy. My thyroid related, "baby fat" did come off and my screaming, over-challenged adrenals managed to half way adapt though depression and exhaustion took the place of my usual joie de vivre for hundreds of years. I marched for thousands of miles forced to go as fast as I could, carrying more than Atlas had, it seemed at times. I fought my Father and under the god of war's skillful tutelage there was not one kind of hand to hand combat I did not master and I could and can switch from one to the other without warning. I was trained to fire every kind of weapon there is and ever will be. I learned to construct nukes from the basic particles of the Universe, one little particle knit together with all the other particles. I figured out how to knit together really great ham sandwiches while I was at it. That brought me some rare praise from the other gods and I started being invited to lunch a lot. But my father seldom praised me. He was the ultimate perfectionist. Though looking back from an Adult perspective I suspect secretly he was very pleased.

I had and still have the most amazing talent! I can hit anything with anything! Darts, arrows, hand guns, machine guns, ray guns, phasers, zap guns, death rays, it didn't matter, I seldom EVER miss a target as long as it is not alive! It goes beyond the ability of the gods! This talent of mine is not god magic! This is an incredible, intuitive, Rain-man like grasp of the laws of Newtonian Physics! It is my own powers that came from a place deep in my mind that is beyond comprehension and it is an ability that will NEVER be taken away from me though antipsychotics did dull it temporarily. Because what could my family do when they cast me down? They could take away my magic powers without harming my ability to function in the Mortal realm but if they had taken away my grasp of the laws of ordinary physics I would have perished quickly. And it's not my fault or theirs I'm just so very good at flinging things!

In the cool of the Mortal Realm sunset, ancient Father and much younger Son stood in a vast Indian Paintbrush and Blue Bonnet filled field on Earth. Sapphire mountains rose to kiss the ragged, purple skies far in the distance. It was a wild, wild place you Mortal Humans had not discovered yet, pre-Native American North America. As I said Olympus has its own time and we can enter yours in any period that we choose.

Aries had rigged up a clay pigeon shooter. It shot not one clay pigeon into the air at once, but hundreds. I took the automatic machine gun my father had handed me, braced myself and fired at them. I missed only a few.

Papa was very, very pleased! He beamed at me. I was no longer fat. I even had a few muscles and though still small for my species I had shot up six inches. My wings were ragged suggestions of what they should have been due to constant exhaustion but that was no real problem. They are merely symbolic anyway and not necessary for flying. Why the Mortals who had first written us into existence in ancient times and then created us for real far in the future even thought this one little god needed the silly things is still a great mystery. None of the other gods have wings at all. Neither do most Angels. Only Cherubim and Seraphim's have wings. But they look like Creatures too weird for Star Wars anyway. They aren't created by Mortals as we gods are. They are glorified ET's who had joined Christ's Kingdom despite most ET's in the general locality of our galaxy being on the wrong side. They are some of the "Birds of the air" who had "nested in the Mustard Tree's branches." They are way beyond what we gods are. But we are aware of each other and they leave us alone because we are pretty harmless to them. Why bother Ants living deep in a national forest so to speak? The Universe is plenty big enough for the both of us!

I was exhausted and depressed from being driven beyond what my endocrine system could handle and I stayed that way for centuries but I lived for my Father's sudden, unexpected interest in me! I was running on what was left of my adrenal glands and my beyond-measure desire to please! I would have cheerfully died for my Father!

But I could not kill for him!

Aries beamed his pleasure at what he had thought was a worthless progeny! It was time for his amazing young student-soldier to learn a new trick.

Aries had brought a basket full of cooing Doves. He took one of them out of the basket now, gentle in his handling of her. He stroked her pure, white feathers. He said, "OK Son. It is time to learn to aim at and hit something alive. The time for clay targets is past. I will throw these Doves up in the air and you fire at them. You will find live targets are much more unpredictable than clay but you are so good I suspect you will do almost as well."

I was horrified! "Father I can't be killing some cute little Dinosaurs!"

Mars said reassuringly, "Son our Neighbor to the North East has Jurassic-parked the operating systems of every Dinosaur who ever lived and who ever will live from the first fledgling Ancestors of the T Rex all the way up to the Intelligent Descendants Mortals selectively bred to take over certain environments, into that grand 1500 mile long god-keep and Mortal-keep of His. His motto is, 'Not even a Sparrow falls apart from the Father.' You know that. You aren't really destroying their self awareness. You are really releasing them to fly in our realm. So fire away. The pain you will cause them is for a moment. Their joy will be for Eternity, all the way around Time's Wheel for all its turning!"

I said, terrified to be defying FATHER, but having no choice! "I cannot do it!"

The Sun on on the war god's face towards me and went behind a dark, shadowy cloud and it never came out ever again!

Ashamed and thrown away forever for the horrible flaw of feeling reverence for Life I turned and headed into the wilderness to be alone for a time. Forever after even when surrounded by crowds I will always have an aloneness in my heart that will not ever go away but from that pain a lot of my un-god-like compassion comes from. My military training was over! I was a failure! I was the sissy I had been told repeatedly I was! I was and am the greatest Lover of all times. I am Erotic Love Incarnate! But because I can not kill, my Father will never accept me!

Rejection by my Father combined with my virtual hormone problems was the beginning of my fall into what at times was true madness. I was never delusional about being a god, but I need Claire anyway!

I started deliberately firing my arrows at couples who had no chance of staying together. It became a game to this disturbed love god. I would laugh and giggle for hours at the mischief I wrought but there was no joy in my eyes at having done so. My eyes were as empty and dark as a soulless monster and my laughter that had been melodic and as fresh as the warm sea breezes over Greece became hollow, mad, and insane. In your Mortal realm the divorce rate soared and Children became disturbed from lack of stable Parents. AIDS and other sexually traumatic diseases became fatal forest fires of epidemics as soulless, purposeless sex spread viruses from one being to another including to Chimps and Dolphins. Human Mortals started killing their Babies right in what had been the protected sanctity of the womb. The gods, Angels and the Big God heard their silent screams because being cut up with whirling scalpels without anesthesia HURTS! And worst of all was the loneliness! Permanent pair-bonding is the will of God and gods because it makes Mortals the happiest! Living the single, swinging life only brings temporary pleasures. When the partying was over many of you hapless Mortals went home alone and prayed for relief even though many of you didn't even realize you were praying. Your little Mortal operating systems were hurting from loneliness in numbers they had never hurt before and at levels beyond what had been believed possible in the past! My family and the Big Guy were not pleased! There are no words to describe just how unpleased they were! All the rest of my considerable mischief had been sort of fun. It had livened the place up. Without Loki, Olympus would have been Dullsville. But this was severely harming folks of both realms!

They had never respected me before due to my silliness, younger age, small size, sissy little wings, and geeky ways. But now they were scared of me!

Because I am one of the few gods who have power over the other gods. My golden arrows which cause beings to fall in love and my black arrows which could have caused even George and Gracey to fall out of love work on my huge, noisy, dysfunctional extended family too. And I was using both sets irresponsibly!

My family discussed what to do!

Eros was mad! He was out of control! Something had to be done!

Nine Eleven completed my fall. I had been so sure that at least the Americans and their happy go lucky party behavior and desire to live and let live would have won even my Father's admiration and reprieve! They are the best kinds of Mortals! But no! Even they were but test subjects in my Father's fanatical, desperate and futile attempts to keep Mortals from taking over the Multiverse! You will replace us. The Mortal Singularity is coming just as the Machine Singularity is coming. But it is supposed to happen! Why can my Father and others not see that? I have faith in you! You wonderful wonderful, amazing Mortals who are so much better than you think you are! That you will not hurt us, that you will let us live! After all you created us in the first place in a Universe that existed several BigCrunch/Big Bangs ago. I don't think you will second guess yourselves. I have faith and faith makes things turn out alright!

Virtually speaking the day after those airplanes hurled themselves into the World Trade Center and damaged the Pentagon and fallen harmlessly (but fatally to its Passengers) to a field 65 miles Southeast of Pittsburgh, my Paternal Grandmother Hera, also known as Juno (yes like the email), my Mom, Aphrodite also known as Venus, my Father Aries also known as Mars and most of the other gods stared in disbelief at my Father's war trophy storage warehouse. It was my mischief dejour and my Final Glory in that area! My Pop's huge building had been covered in peace symbols in a rainbow of colors and white Doves in several different styles! The artwork was good and I had done it with amazing quickness in the darkness of the Olympian god-keep's virtual night. They were thinking, Oh that boy was sick! He was calling out for help.

Someone had to answer his call!

My grandmother and Mother discussed what to do.

Zeus had been trouble enough to Mother and Daughter Hera and Aphrodite. But the lord of Olympus's mental deterioration was organic and half responded to Indian Snake Root hidden in his food and drink when he would not take it voluntarily. What was wrong with me was a matter of a broken heart not damaged neurons (though those could go too in time from constant stress literally burning out the neuron paths). What was wrong with me was going to take therapy. But that was not a skill our glorified Mortal Doctor, Hippocrates possessed.

Because it was beyond the gods to help their own they did what most beings do when they are trouble beyond their own ability to solve. They looked to their creators for help. That's you guys, like it or not!

The Big Guy created you Mortals (after you evolve into Him due to circling Time). But we little g gods were made as dead-end but fun experiments by future Mortals. So it was to the Mortals the I would have to go for help for my damaged mind and soul.

There is more than one way we gods can keep our operating systems/souls safe. Inside our Olympian god-keep which is a nice sized small town with a lot of territory around it in a virtual way but the size of a soft ball sized pyramid in Reality Space, we are pure energy and we have the illusion of having bodies and being able to do everything beings with bodies can do including feel exhaustion, sickness, and pain. Outside the god-keep we can convert that pure thought and energy into flesh beings not that much different than an ordinary Mortals except for us having three strands of DNA. The third strand keeps our body continually and forever repaired up to whatever limitations the Mortal creators had placed in each of us. (For instance Vulcan will never be able to walk very well. He can limp a few feet. That is all and that not without pain.) In this form we can mate with Mortals and hurl cute little thunderbolts. Those thunderbolts can be fatal but they aren't as deadly as the Ancients painted them. There will be an actual incident in the Twenty Third century after the existence of the gods will be discovered by you Mortals, of a god getting angry at some Paparazzi who would not leave him alone. He attacked! The two Mortals who were a Man and Wife team photog team took refuge in an antique, yellow, Toyota pick up truck. The rubber tires protected them from the electrical jolt just as it would have from any naturally produced lightning strike. Their Grandmother knowing the laws of physics saved their lives. She told then to jump from the truck in such a way they never became a conduit for the electricity. That is they never touched both the truck and the ground at the same way so the electricity could not travel through them. They succeeded in successfully jumping and had no problems other than the shock of having a god mad at them and attack them. (It also earned them a best seller, a Pulitzer and lots of talk show attention). The angry god was hauled off for therapy from Claire who by then will be made into a goddess. (No this time it wasn't moi. That god will remain anonymous due to Doctor-Patient confidentiality. You only hear about yours truly because in the interests of advocating for the mentally ill I give everyone permission to know my problems. This other god successfully mastered anger management training and wishes to keep his privacy).

My family wanted to cast me out but if they had so in this physical form my powers would have came with me. I could have hurled thunderbolts, floated stuff like Luke Skywalker and even taken off for Epsilon Eridani like I did as a Kid, again, if it had tickled my fancy. They wanted me depowered and they wanted me trapped in the Mortal Realm. Well, there is one other way we gods can keep our operating system safe.

We can possess one of you like the worm like Goa'ulds do in the fictional TV show 'Wormhole X-treme' which is actually based on fact, or more accurately like the harmless and loving dremers from the PLANET K-PAX. In this form we are the elemental spirits St. Paul warned early Christians to stay away from and with plenty of good reason! Obviously since we little g gods (and Space Aliens) are just as messed up as you are it is just as dangerous and foolish if not more so to invite a little g god or spirit guide to come live inside of you as it would be to go out on the streets and invite the first Stranger who wanted to to move into your living room to just come right in and make himself at home! (No if you want that kind of experience and want to really know what it is to be loved from the inside out in a way you can never otherwise know stick to asking Jesus in. His ethics are way better)! I suppose I shouldn't be plugging the so called Enemy Camp. But He's been merciful to us and pretty much leaves us alone as much as possible other than to curb some of our meanness. And I was just a thousand years old Kid when He took over. His ways seem saner to me than my crazy and cruel Grandfather's. I think you Mortals just got really, really lucky! If one of us other Olympians had decided to take over Zeus's place due to his incapacitated state, or one of the Valkyrie or the Inca and Mayan Pantheon you'd have been in deep doo doo! As it is you are doing nicely and will even more so in the Grand Future when the Body of Christ spreads more amongst you and folks like Claire Bear do their bit.

Most of us little g gods do not ask permission before forcing themselves into Mortals and your mental hospitals have entire wards of the resulting damaged Human operating systems. So are your mean streets and your ruling governments and places of industry and scientific research. Mortals would be amazed if the psychic veil that keeps you sane were lifted for but a few minutes and you saw the spiritual realm which is all around you, tucked right there in one of the tiny, dimensions your Quantum Physics has recently discovered, It is just as close to you as the hairs in your ears and as far far away as Star Trek's Mirror Mirror Universe. Due to the war between good and evil the spiritual realm around and within the Milky Way Galaxy has become a miserable place with occasional fortresses that provide a refuge for its lucky inhabitants (god-keeps and Mortal-keeps) such as John's Cube, hovering in geosynchronous orbit over Mount Sinai, (what the superstitious Ancients called Heaven but it will really be build through technology in the future by Mortals and given as a well deserved gift to the Galilee Carpenter). And Olympus and Asgard and quite a few others scattered around the Multiverse. All the god-keeps can survive the lake of fire the solar system turns into and all can survive the Big Crunch/Big Bang again when time recircles.

But there are not anywhere near enough keeps! The rest of the Spiritual Realm/Dimension 7 in this solar system is Purgatory waiting for that nova/lake of fire to start.

But my Mother and are are really weird gods. We are just as much prisoners of our biology as any of the other gods or any Predator in the Multiverse but unlike most of them we have a non-god-like horror of stealing some poor Mortal's body away from you. My Grandmother Hera didn't see the point of such queasy oversensitiveness to beings whose life spans were but a blink of an eye. But she respected my Mom and my beliefs about this.

I thought it was the worst experience of my life! It turned out it wasn't. The worst experience of my life was standing before a Mortal Judge I thought was only going to give me a few thousand hours of community service I would cheerfully have performed, and hearing her instead (and I almost fell down in a faint and the Bailiff had to catch me) commit me to a mental institution for 90 days, or longer if Claire hadn't come to my rescue and I hadn't learned to lie!

No. Hearing I was to be cast down to Earth was only my second worst experience of my life! My Uncle Mercury who may actually be my biological Father and my Uncle Neptune were the only ones who spoke in my favor. All the other gods were for casting me out as quickly as possible. In his defense my Grandfather was too incapacitated by his madness or senility or whatever it is he has, at that moment for him to participate. But maybe that is a good thing. I know he does love me in his more lucid moments. But we are talking about someone who chained a poor bloke to a rock and caused his liver to keep regenerating while Vultures kept devouring it over and over again. And all this poor Mortal had done was was watch Vulcan start a camp fire by hitting a a chunk of iron with a piece of flint! My Uncle Apollo had to distract Zeus with a marathon flute and poetry session while Hercules rescued the poor bloke! So maybe its a good thing my Grandfather Zeus wasn't present at my trial!

After it was over and I was sobbing my little god heart out and clinging like a drowning man to my Mother who had been the chief instigator in this decision to cast me out as she tried to explain to me that it was for my own good. "That I would be able to get help in the Mortal realm that was impossible for me to get on our family Mountain. That it was bound to happen because I would stick out like a sore thumb like the proverbial Fish out of water and Mortals would notice and they would hopefully be kind enough to help me." I would have none of it! I felt betrayed but I clung to the only one who had ever given me any comfort even though she was the one who had done it!

They stripped me of my god-powers and yanked my bow right out of my hands though I tried to hang onto it with all my might. That was futile! Cupid against my Father? Come on! The guy is Mr. Muscle and I was Mr. Flab! While I was fighting to hang on to the bow my Mother slipped my arrows off of me. I turned around when I realized she had done it and gave her a look of agony. "E Tu Mommy?" When my back was turned Grandmother ripped those silly little wings off of me. Good riddance to those because they itched and made dressing really difficult! But about the rest I was sobbing so hard I could hardly see! Uncle Mercury was in tears too. And Uncle Neptune was close to it! So were our little old next door neighbors the Fates who though their weaving of folks destinies was why it was being done to me anyway! How they separate their personal life and feelings from their professional duties I do not understand. But they manage! Just the day before they had baked me one last plate of ginger snap cookies and thanked me for all the centuries I had watered their roses. I should have realized from serious way they did it (as if they were saying good bye to me) that something was up!

Anyway now Hera and my Mother had to find someone to put me in.

At one point in your history it was common to offer one's self up to be an Avatar. But it isn't exactly easy these days to find a modern soul who asks for possession from a Greek god! But I demanded it be voluntarily with my last vestige of sanity and social consciousness. As if it were a last request before an execution the other gods respected my wishes and granted me that one accommodation. My family waited and they watched. There are 6 billion of you now. In modern times our classical religion has been mostly supplanted by Christianity and other forms of monotheism towards the Big Guy, (the Ancient Greeks "Unknown God" who even they knew made us Olympians), and with plenty of good reason, obviously. Why worship beings as messed up as we are and so sick we need YOUR help? Plus you make us in the future long before you evolve into that "Unknown God." The term 'supernatural' only means futurenatural.'

But six billion beings provide a lot of chances for variation on every theme including religious beliefs. One day my Grandmother Hera found a willing host and right in the United States of all places!

The burrow of Queens has the biggest Greek population in the world! There are more descendants of People whose Ancestors lived in Greece living in Queens than actually live in Greece. One of those Inhabitants decided one day for reasons we won't get into here due to his desire to remain private that he was sick and tired of living and found a novel way to commit suicide. He offered himself to the Universe for possession by his ancient Ancestor's Religious Beings! The psychiatric profession would say he developed Multiple Personality Disorder or the new term Dissociative Identity Disorder. That's what Claire pegged me with. Sigh. But that pseudo-scientific psychobabble. It is you Modern Mortal's futile attempts to explain a phenomenon know about since ancient times and not at all understood. The poor guy was as rebellious a soul as I was and every once in a while he surfaces enough to enjoy what I am up to and goes back under again satisfied I guess that I'm running his show better than he could. It didn't matter that he was surrounded on all sides by various kinds of Christians and the occasional salt of the Earth Brooklynese Jew. He had never prayed to anyone before but now in the throes of self hatred and disgust at what his life had become he took a strange leap of faith and prayed for help from not gentle and wise Jesus but from that slowly going crazy soul in that god-keep on top of that far away mountain, the Lord of Olympus! It wasn't exactly Zeus who heard his prayers. (Zeus was too busy working on causing global warming due to his madness). But my Grandmother had taken on most of her Husband's duties and responsibilities so it was she who heard and answered his prayer. And her answer solved both his problem (sort of) and my families! Now they had a place to send their wayward problem Child for mental health care.

Because just how long do you think someone claiming to be the Greco-roman god of love is going to avoid the attention of the mental health care industry? Hera and Venus and Mars and Uncle Mercury and ex husband to Venus, (Vulcan) knew what was going to happen. They were not Casandra but logic told them what would happen. It was only a matter of time!

I however had no idea due to youth and stupidity an unstoppable combination that guarantees I will indeed get my two hundred Mortal's matched! But I am still shocked. How could you Mortals possibly forget us this quickly? It's only been two thousand years, a measly two hundred of your generations. That's like the blink of an eye to the Universe. Of course we still exist. Duh! We are immortal! Just because you found a better God to worship did you really think we'd go away like that Star Trek episode insinuated? That was science fiction folks! Fun! You betcha! I love Star Trek! I am the oldest Trekker of them all except for my Father and Grandfather and I have the biggest Star Trek memorabilia collection on Mount Olympus. Which isn't saying much. I have the only Star Trek memorabilia collection on Mount Olympus and because I would not steal I was limited to what I could find that Mortal Trekkers threw away, and that's not much! But Star Trek is not reality! Do you think ships out in the vacuum of space really go 'whoosh' when they sail by also? The reality is we are alive and well and still on that mountain in Greece and we are driving each other nuts from not having near enough to do any more due to the New Administration! But that is what Claire Bear is trying to solve!

My folks gave their problem child every penny of Mortal money they had, most of it collected over a great period of time from coin return slots, all 175 dollars of it. (It's not like you give us offerings of money anymore). And they kicked me out, down, down, down, DOWN, right into the back of the brain of our nameless Mortal Human Host.

I thought I was going to be miserable!

Instead I discovered I was delighted!

I suddenly found myself in a healthy body for the first time in my 3000 years of existence! Kind of ironic that. Usually it's sick Mortals who find themselves freed of pain and exhaustion upon being glorified. I did the same thing but in the other direction. So the first thing I did was run with suddenly renewed joy de vivre through the streets of Queens. I almost got hit by cars twice and almost ran down five other Pedestrians. But I didn't care! The exhaustion and depression my flawed god body had cursed me with with was suddenly gone and the bubbly never stoppable personality that had been there all along eclipsed out of sight by my boocou health problems finally was free to fly (symbolically). I lost the real ability to physically soar through space but my soul could finally fly on flights of fancy and gossamer strands of hope!

When I realized I was no longer tired and hurting I danced in the streets and whooped with joy except the back of my neck itched. I pulled my 'Virginia is for lovers" T shirt off, found a tag from a local habitat for Humanity thrift store still attached, pulled it off and responsibly tossed it in a public trash can. "There now, one problem solved!" The fact I did that, tossed it in a can instead of just on the sidewalk was a sign I had subtly changed right from the start. My streak of irresponsibly and bitterness was over. I wonder how much of it was really biological? I started thinking as an Adult right from the first instead of the immature, never growing up Peter Pan of a god I had been. I knew I needed to unite couples but I also needed to find a job first. Mortal bodies require places to lay themselves down for a somnolent periods every 16 hours or so. And they must eat, and they must have Teddy Bears and other important stuff to keep them happy. And a place to store all that. And they must pay taxes. Even Jesus paid taxes. That takes money! And one hundred and seventy five dollars was not going to last me long!

At that moment I was perfectly sane and even competent. Losing the pain and exhaustion I had been in and being given a smaller realm that I was much more competent to handle than godhood had had saned me up. It is true my judgment of modern Mortal sensibilities and beliefs was way off! I thought Folks would believe me about being a god! But there was never any reason I had to be locked up for 90 days. I just needed someone to talk to and guide me a bit. That was all. And Claire was so pretty I'd have followed her to the Moon and back if I'd still been able to. I am plenty willing to listen to her.

In time she will become Psyche and follow me to Olympus and start the eternal never-finished (but considerable progress will be made) task of helping us colorful, messed up, self centered experiments in immortality that probably should not have been done!

It is your responsibility to help us you know. You made us. You deliberately made us entertaining not mentally healthy. Then you just about abandoned us to the madness immortality eventually causes and it is a fitting thing one of your own would be granted goddess-hood to try and straighten us out!

Yes in the future Claire gave up her chance to go to Heaven to help us and there are those who say she practically made a deal with the devil to go to Olympus instead of John's Cube. But Olympus is not Hell and I am not the devil! I'm only a little g god. Have some mercy! I do the best I can! The burning up solar system becomes Hell. Olympus isn't John's Cube and does not have eternal bliss but it's still a very nice place with beings who however messed up still love one another, and I know she never regretted her choice. She's really helping us and there is joy in service too!

Besides our Daughter Delightful will like it.

We had a very depressed economy at that time. Arie's little stunt with the air planes and the clinically insane Muslims had taken their toil. Tres Equis along with hundreds of other grand little restaurants were failing. But Tres Equis had location and a great environment and should have done splendidly. But it had another problem; Felix's lack of ability to promote. So he put a room up for rent desperate for just a little more cash. It had been his store room and his Dog's play room. It ended up going from a Dog's room to a god's room and storing my stuff instead of Felix's!

I was in the same position all illegal emigrants are in. I had no green card, no legal documentation and no proof I was who I said I was. Many potential Employers will believe some Wetback who claims to be 'Pedro' or 'Antonio.' But to my despair I soon found out no one would believe I am Cupid!

After a few failed attempts at finding work that ended in derisive "get out of heres" due to my proclaiming I was Eros, this fallen love god struck pay dirt when I tried at Tres Equis. Felix simply misheard me. He thought I said 'Ed Ross' not Eros. Felix could not pay me anything but the tips I could collect because he didn't even want to have to admit he had another Employer and pay the required taxes due to his rapidly sinking budget. But it came with that room. Though even for that Felix charged me a little rent! I was desperate by then. Night was descending. I let his mishearing of my name slide. I figured I'd correct his misconceptions after he knew me a little better and saw how hard and willing I was to work! And Felix was also desperate by then. He needed another Barkeep who would work cheap, hard and long. I was am illegal emigrant and I worked like one! He didn't ask too many questions and his strange but cheerful new Employee was not providing him with any answers. Not even to the one he did ask did I give him any answers that made any sense to him! But he had to admit I could could Barkeep! That was until I disappeared after just one week and left no notice of where I'd gone. But he gave it back to me. He was that desperate and I was that persuasive!

I was just across the street locked up in Sachs-Gordon's psychiatric ward. I was in the B wing, the harmless ward. But do you think I was going to call new Boss and tell him his brand new Barkeep had landed in the looney bin! Of course not! Because I really am not crazy! I knew better! Neither was I going to tell anyone at Sachs where I had been working. If I decided I needed to escape (and it would not have been hard; the Orderlies didn't know about my marshal arts training), having a job they didn't know where to find me at would be an ace in the hole.

At least Dr. Greeley ascertained my true nature right from the start, that I am and always will be a god and Person who just wants to get along and not throw either thunderbolts or insults. So I was put in the harmless ward not disturbed or Heaven help me, the violent ward! This was an accurate assessment of my real personality. I have never really hidden my true nature from you Mortals. I really am this mild mannered. I'm not doing Clark Kent here. My Mother and I used to hide when we saw the other gods get into their angry modes. Does that make a me a coward like it has been insinuated many times or just wise​? Because what possible good would it have done to anyone to just get all riled up and throw more thunder bolts around? What would that have accomplished other than making me look more macho?

I think Delightful and my satisfied Wife proves I'm macho enough! I'm the only god who managed to reproduce in my generation. In fact Delightful may be the end of the line for us gods. You Mortals kind of forgot about us and haven't written any more of us into existence. It remains to be seen if Delightful can reproduce without having a Mortal script to guide her life. I have my fingers crossed I will have Grand Kids someday because I sure would love to be a Grandpa! (Yes I know Who crossing one's fingers makes reference too). But I am a god and my family of gods are helpless in this matter. So Who do I pray to when I need to pray?

By the way some have asked why I picked bar tending of all the professions instead of what I could have picked because my aptitude scores were off the chart. (Naturally. We gods are sort of Homo Sapians 2.0). Here are II reasons.

Number I A bar makes a great front for my assignment to match couples. I have actually gotten beads several times for doing nothing more than being a Barkeep!

Number II Due to an interest started by watching Quark on Deep Space Nine I had watched Barkeeps down through the centuries. I had learned their trade by zen learning. I knew how to mix drinks and even do tricks with the bottles. I have a loving personality, being the god of love after all, and I am wise and hardwired to make Mortals happy. I love Mortals and now that the craziness is gone I will never again try to hurt one ever again! I serve drinks responsibly and listen to my Customer's problems with sympathy and occasional flashes of insight and wisdom. The other gods look down on Cupid the Barkeep and feel envy! They were thinking "How had that silly loony so managed to fall on his feet?" Because while they are mostly forgotten about their problem child has managed to get himself into a situation that every god on Olympus has been starved for ever since the New Administration had taken away so very many of our powers and most of our worship! I have the chance to serve Mortals! I am being loved by Mortals and listened to by them and I am even being worshiped again due to the karaoke sing alongs I start!

And I set about doing the task I had been assigned, uniting Mortals without the use of my bow and arrows and other magic/future tech. But I was still Cupid, as mischievous as ever, unable to understand there was more to Human relationships than the hormones I had so sorely lacked myself and thinking the rules didn't really apply to me since I am not only a god I am Cupid and I had been a spoiled brat! Are you even surprised I got in trouble yet again?

Part two will be told mostly from the viewpoint of Dr. Claire McCrae.