It was a time where the Gods and Goddesses of Ancient Greece were all but forgotten, their presence was almost unnoticeable and humans no longer attributed everything that happened in their lives to the actions of the Gods. But still they existed… much more subtly than before but it was inevitable that some things in life happened due to the direct interference of the gods atop of Mount Olympus. Today was a typical, idle day, Zeus was visiting his brothers in the sea and the underworld while Hera attended numerous weddings in hope someone would mention her name. Apollo wandered the lands as per usual, shooting his arrows of pestilence while Ares and Athena were busy dealing with the warfare of the world. The other gods were situated here and there but Aphrodite, beloved of all was again on the search of impressionable mortal hearts on top of her favourite view point on Mount Olympus.
"Ah, Aphrodite! Reclining as usual, waiting for the chance to meddle with the humans again I suppose?" Artemis strode into the room, stately and tall. With care she removed her quiver from her back and hung up her gleaming bow by a golden hook. Her steps poised and weightless, she walked towards Aphrodite who was strewn delicately over a red couch. Aphrodite merely glanced at Artemis before she fixated her eyes upon the scene she was fully intending to disrupt. After all, life on top on Mount Olympus could become dull very quickly.
"Well… admittedly yes. Look down there." Aphrodite pointed to a room so distant that only the eyes of an immortal could behold. Artemis following her instruction peered down with a disinterested expression.
"Hm… bickering mortals. I've seen enough of them. It's ever so tempting to shoot them with my arrows." Artemis cast a wistful glance at her bow, the death giving twang of release always brought a smirk to her face. However though she killed as many animals as usual, the number of women she shot in childbirth had decreased dramatically. But that was something she kept to herself, after all the rather soft Aphrodite wouldn't understand the pure joy that came from slaughter and the hunt whether it be of animals or women.
"Hush dear Artemis!" Aphrodite waved an impatient hand over her face and folded her hands carefully underneath her chin. "This fun is for me and Eros…"
On Earth:
The building was sterile and unfriendly, dozens of university chemistry students were packed together, forced to work and tolerate one another. Four students to a table, randomly allocated. There was no room for error as these chemistry students were all competing for elusive spots in health science professions, medicine, dentistry and forensics.
Today the four hour labs were as intolerable as ever with impatience rife, after all nobody actually enjoyed chemistry… well, there were always a few odd ones…
"What are you doing?!" Jasmine Walker snapped, swatting away her lab partner's hand as he tried to grab the bicarbonate buffer from her. Akram Barakah scowled, and removed his hand. Defeated he grabbed a pipette and started to set it.
"Look. Who made you the Queen of Chemistry?"
"Hang on! I'm nearly finished OK?"
"Aren't we meant to be doing this together? Lab partners and all?" Akram asked, tapping his fingers impatiently.
"Yeah yeah… do me a favour and put on some gloves."
"Why?"
"'Cause the lab manual said so, it's for the next step! Honestly, don't you ever read it before you come?" Jasmine said, carefully releasing the pipette's contents into the conical flask. Akram rolled his eyes and sent a meaningful glance at his friend Hassan Jalal. Hassan sniggered and passed the box of gloves to Akram. Akram scowled at them, his dark eyebrows low as the grabbed two of them and struggled to slip them on. The latex gloves were noticeably tight and he could barely move his fingers in them much to his dismay. He predicted another earbashing from Jasmine especially considering the foul mood she seemed to be in.
"Got them on?" her voice boomed, startling Akram. He turned to face her, her oval face fixed with a determined expression. He nodded meekly. A slight smirk lifted the corners of her mouth. "Good… now you can put in the toxic stuff!" she said almost in a sing song way as she placed the flask onto his lab manual.
"Why can't you do it?" Akram asked indignantly, his eyes peering suspiciously at the cyanide compound that was due to be placed in. The yellow and black skull and bones label mocked him as he sighed, Jasmine wasn't a girl to be messed with. Not if you wanted your ears intact. Jasmine just hummed to herself as she cleaned a few test tubes. Feeling a kick from under the table, Akram spotted a folded note being not-so-subtly slid across the table from Hassan. Barely able to articulate his fingers due to the gloves Akram unfolded the note only to finish by giving Hassan a particularly nasty expression.
'Jasmine has you completely and utterly pussy-whipped. Loser.'
Scrunching the offending note, Akram chucked it at Hassan who ducked it easily with a smirk.
"What was that? Why are you chucking stuff at Hassan? Why can't you just concentrate? You're dealing with dangerous substances! Pay attention! I don't want to fail thanks to your tom-foolery!" Jasmine said, her voice rising in pitch. Akram frowned, who on earth would use the phrase 'tom-foolery' anyway?
"Oh for the love of… Jasmine! I'm getting there!" Akram defended himself, "If you would just -"
"We've only got half an hour left!" Jasmine intercepted much to Hassan's mirth who was thoroughly enjoying this little squabble.
"If you would just calm down!" Akram repeated, his hackles raised. "Trust me, I'll get to it."
"I am calm thank you very much! Now get back to work, hurry!"
"OK! OK! Leave me alone!" Akram gripped pipette and thrust a nozzle onto it. Uncapping the cyanide compound cap, he administered the correct amount into the flask. "It goes brown…" he commented as he gazed at the changes in the flask.
"Hmph… just brown? I wouldn't call that typically brown…"
"OH I GIVE UP!" Akram exclaimed frustrated.
Meanwhile back on Mount Olympus… Artemis and Aphrodite had Eros and Dionysus joining them.
"Eros…" Aphrodite purred, "Do you think you can shoot a few of your wonder arrows for me?" she batted her eyes. Artemis scoffed and looked over her shoulder at her own gold tipped arrows.
"There's nothing wrong with mine, and besides that black haired Jasmine would do with one of my hunting arrows through her chest." Artemis commented offhandedly, Dionysus sniggered and jabbed his thrysoi towards earth.
"She'll make a great maenad…"
"Oh shut up Dionysus, that girl just needs a bit of affection! She doesn't need to be raging around waving those silly sticks of yours being pursued by the phallic, lecherous satyrs you have so often in your company! Hurry up Eros! I'm ready when you are." Aphrodite snapped her fingers and gazed with lovely wide eyes down at the scenario on earth.
And with that, a loud twang rippled through the air and a dull bump confirmed that it had hit it's target.
Returning to earth and our hero Akram:
"OW!"
"Oi! Be careful Akram! It's toxic!"
"Something hit me…"
Jasmine gazed at Akram, an eyebrow raised. "Right…"
"No really…" Akram groaned, it was as if something had punctured his right shoulder. Rubbing it he put down the flask and winced.
"You OK mate?" Hassan asked, taking a break from his lab work.
"No! My shoulder bloody hurts!"
"Do you need to go out of the lab?"
"Don't say that Hassan! There's only 15 minutes late now… Akram, hold on OK? I'll take you to Student Health after the lab." Jasmine stated, flipping through the two remaining pages of the lab manual.
"Pussy-whipped." Hassan mouthed exclusively to Akram.
"Shut up! I'm fine… it's getting better, I'll be able to pull through." Akram confirmed as he patted his shoulder. He smiled slightly and peeled off his gloves, feeling a strange sensation race through his spine.
"Gee, don't say it as if you're going to die." Jasmine said sarcastically, "Anyway, next step we have to add 3 grams of ammonium sulphate crystals to the mixture, note the reactions, write the reactions and calculate the change in free energy using the chart. I'll go measure them out, it'll be helpful if you do some of these reactions." And with that, she left Akram's side with a small porcelain dish. Akram nodded and looked thoughtfully at the chart, wondering what should happen. Having absolutely no idea what would be formed, Akram watched the back of Jasmine as she queued to collect the crystals with a particularly sour puss.
Smiling, Akram found his eyes lingering at her chest, her arms were folded authoritatively under the assets he was noting with extreme interest. He'd never noticed how they looked before but maybe it was due to the fact that they were usually hidden by the straight-up-and-down white lab coat. But here… with her arms drawn to stretched the lab coat to show the curves… and so that strange sensation that was only travelling to his spine begun travelling to other places of the male anatomy. But maybe it was a natural part of being nineteen, after all the feelings of the opposite sex had been taught to be repressed since he was a child. His culture forbade it and it was only this year he shared classes with females but he saw them as annoying and temperamental.
"Hey, Akram. What's so fascinating about those nerds collecting the crystals?" Hassan asked, chewing his gum nonchalantly. Akram shook his head gently and turned his attention to his friend. Shrugging his shoulders as Hassan checked over his shoulder to see what might have been so interesting, Akram felt a surge of warmth seep into his face. Feeling strangely self-conscious he touched his cheeks and noticed a definitely rise in temperature in his skin…
When Hassan turned back to Akram he couldn't withhold the laughter. "Ha! You're as red as a pimple! What's up with you? Us Arabs don't go red for nothing. If you're really that sick I think you should run out on Miss Must-Get-Into-Forensics-Or-I'll-Die before she can object. Ditch that bitch!" Hassan said, sending a rather rude hand gesture at Jasmine's back as she weighed out crystal by crystal exactly three grams.
"No. I'm fine! Seriously." Akram said with a slight hint of breathlessness. He stared intently at his book trying to quell the feelings streaming through his mind. "Besides she'll stalk me down and kill me if I ditched her." He glanced at his watch, "It's not too long now… this is the last step."
Hassan gazed at him with a suspicious expression, "You're an odd one Akram. You wanna go to the kebab place after the lab?"
"Yeah sure."
Hassan nodded before returning to his partner who added the crystals into the flask creating a mini explosion. The lab demonstrator stormed up to the front of the class after witnessing this, visibly livid.
"Please be reminded that this experiment is best done under the fume cupboards!" she snapped before she strutted away to another student insisting help.
A split second later, Akram felt a tug on his lab coat. Looking up he felt his heart well up with a warm, bubbly emotion as he saw Jasmine's uptight as usual expression.
"Have you figured out the reactions?" she demanded.
"Uh…no."
Jasmine rolled her brown eyes, "You're hopeless." she stated simply before she gestured for him to come to a fume cupboard. Scrambling for a pen and his lab manual, like a puppy with his tail between his legs Akram followed Jasmine obediently. With every step he noticed how lovely she looked and how much leg he could see of hers underneath that spotlessly clean lab coat.
A few minutes later they'd finished their experiment and returned to the desk to pack up. Akram sighed as he watched her slim hands wash the flask with distilled water.
"What on earth are you breathing so heavily for? Have you got asthma or something? Stop being a freaky a-hole." Jasmine spat, but despite this Akram still found him hopelessly falling in lust for her, snake tongue and all.
As soon as they were released from the lab, Akram had accumulated enough feelings for Jasmine to do an idiotic act…
With his eyes peeled on her as she shrugged herself free of her lab coat to reveal a tight t-shirt, Akram with the bravery of a bull and the stupidity of Heracles touched her lightly on the arm. A thin film of sweat covered his features as he rummaged for words.
"Uhhh…"
"What? Do you want to borrow my lab manual or something? Don't tell me you didn't fill out everything!" Jasmine said impatiently, shoving her neatly folded lab coat into her satchel.
"No, I did fill it out… I was just wondering if you want to - well, have lunch with me?" Akram asked meekly, ordinarily he wouldn't want to have lunch with a girl who had such a vile temper.
"Are you kidding?" Jasmine demanded, brown eyes flaring at him. "Why would I have lunch with you?"
"Is that a no?"
"Yes!"
"'Yes' you will go out to lunch with me?" he asked desperately.
"No, in your dreams!"
"Oh… OK… well, have a good week Jasmine, I'll see you next week." Akram waved as she slung her satchel over a shoulder and stalked out huffily.
"Yeah, whatever." she shot back, disappearing among the throng of students.
"Hey! Jasmine.. You said you'll take me to Student Health! I'm still in pain!" But she never heard his cries, or she was effectively ignoring them.
Meanwhile Hassan watched wide-eyed at the proceedings. Did Akram really stoop so desperately low? He walked up to his crestfallen friend and patted him on the back.
"That hussy isn't worth your time mate." Hassan consoled, hitting Akram in the back with force. Perhaps he needed some sense knocked into him. Akram merely nodded, there was always next week, and the week after that to win the affections of Miss Jasmine Walker.
And so was the power of Aphrodite and her constant companion Eros.
Back to the immortals on Mount Olympus:
"Now what fun is that? Causing ignorant despair to that boy?" Dionysus asked as he rearranged his effeminate robes, "I might have to deliver a cask of wine to his flat if you're not careful… wine really does release all from their troubles!" Dionysus stated, curling a strand of his long hair around his finger. Artemis tapped her fingers against the couch which Aphrodite was reclining on.
"If you ask me, that was pathetic." Artemis sniffed, tall and imposing, this virgin goddess was not at all impressed with the romantic aspects of human life. "That girl proved herself to be a right beast! I don't understand how you could waste your time matchmaking disasters like those two!"
Aphrodite laughed, her voice sweet and clear to the air. "Oh Artemis, you're just jealous… just because no-one sacrifices their hunt for you anymore."
Artemis' eyes narrowed, "Times have changed Goddess of Love, where are your 'priestesses' who offer their bodies for your sake? No-one appreciates you anymore… mortals have forgotten that we're the origins to their natures… who brings them desire to procreate? Eros. Love and affection, you of course. What about the pleasures of wine and release from society? Dionysus. Do they worship us anymore? No! I wouldn't be as specific to suggest that I'm the only immortal that men have forgotten." Artemis said, folding her white arms across her chest.
Eros nodded, "Indeed times have changed… where they used to attribute the course of their lives to us, they no longer."
"Stop it!" Aphrodite demanded. "A few remember us, they speak of us."
"Oh dear Aphrodite, don't be so naïve… we belong to their mythology now. Not religion. Most believe in their own sky father, not Zeus." Dionysus said, coiling ivy around Aphrodite's head as a crown.
"Well, I'll show them we exist! I will descend into earth again and prove to them that we're as strong as ever. I'll show that Akram boy! I've had mortal lovers before, it's nothing to be ashamed of!" Aphrodite declared, flinging her golden curls across her shoulders. Artemis snorted.
"How uncouth! You really have no respect for yourself." And with a turn of a heel, Artemis vanished off of Mount Olympus to walk among her sacred forests.
Dionysus only shook his head, "I'm not going to try, introducing my cult was hard enough in the first place even when mortals did believe in us. Nowadays my religion would go nowhere and as you know, I don't react well to resistance…" He smirked, the memory of King Lycurgis tearing the limbs off his own child was still amusing.
"Oh don't underestimate the faith that still remains for the Goddess of Love." Aphrodite snapped and with a small spark she disappeared to descend among the humans who had almost forgotten about the existence of the gods.