MEDUSA II
It must be cool to be a hero. What does it feel like to come out of the battle victorious? Hold the enemy’s head in your hand as a trophy, laugh at the face of the weaker, take what’s yours?
And you were scared, I know. I could smell your sweat, I was next to you, in my mother’s womb, sleeping on the waves of her ocean. But you stank so much of fear that I woke up. Do you think you got to the island unnoticed? You just couldn’t imagine how you stunk. Even stones turned away from you while you were walking towards her. And she did not sleep. She was waiting. Already aware about the betrayal of the gods, but hoping for mercy.
A hero does not have to be merciful.
And what was so heroic about what you did? You came to retrieve your insulted pride at the expense of the weak and innocent. You were told to kill. Did you just obey? It doesn’t matter who – there is an order. All the more when you can always shield yourself with patrons. What is difficult about a feat when Athena and Hermes are covering your ass? You think, if you are the son of Zeus, that everything is allowed?
You are depicted as beautiful at the time of the murder. But this is all a lie. I was there, I saw it. Your eyes were darting around, like a hustling hare unable to locate the entrance to his burrow, with a hawk circling him, ready to strike. Your nose turned red with tension, the arteries on your wings burst, blood gushed out from under your skin, transforming your nostrils into a blue frog. Your hair fell out, and what remained stuck together miserably. Your lips curled and curved under your tongue, which popped out of your mouth, rubbing against teeth and cheeks, fawning like a puppy, begging to back away, then begging to come back. Hands clung to your weapon so hard that the skin under your nails cracked and streams of pus started flowing out. And it all stank of fear for miles. Even the gods shut their noses, watching you sneak up on my sleeping mother.
That’s what kind of hero you are, Perseus.