The Goddess Athena Visits Her Dad by Rosemary Johnson, ouzo

 ‘Dad, it’s me, Athena… Dad?  Where are you?  I need to speak to you.  Urgently.

‘Dad… Dad… Wait a minute.  I don’t like what I’m seeing right now: your robe and a woman’s robe here on the floor.  You’re with one of them ‘virgins’ that hang around the shrines by the Acropolis, aren’t you?  I realise that you’re Zeus, and king of the gods and everything, and I’m not judging, but, you know, there are people going off to Mount Olympus and making sacrifices to you.  You need to think about that.

‘Oh, now I see you.  You know, this you turning into a swan thing is not even funny.  Dad, seriously, I need to talk to you.  Mum, she wants to send me off to live with Auntie Penelope in Thebes.  Just because yesterday she found me with Jason.  Okay, she saw me with Perseus the day before, but whatever.  I don’t want to go to Thebes, Dad.  I’d die of boredom out there.  Auntie Penelope’s well old and all she does is do her knitting… maybe it’s weaving… all day.

‘Listen to me, Dad.  Can you actually hear anything through those black dots which swans call ears?  Just use them for a moment.  You’ve got to do something.  Mum’s ordered me a pegasus for Thebes tomorrow morning.

‘Oh Dad, stop squawking.  For your information, swans don’t squawk.  They’re silent, until they’re dying when they sing a… der… swansong. 

‘Pleeese, pleeese stop that awful noise.   You never listen to me.  I hate you.  I really hate you.  You’ve never loved me.  I used to love you but I don’t now.  I hate you.  I hate you…

‘Oh, Dad, please don’t cry.  Please.  When you weep, it’s like thunder and lightning and your tears are like hailstones.  Dad, stop.  Just stop.  You’re making your beard all wet.  I can't stand it.  I didn’t mean it.  Really.  No… no… honestly.  I love you very much.  And it’s so good seeing you as yourself again, as Zeus, not a stupid swan.

‘You will talk to Mum?  You’ll tell her you need me in Athens?  Oh, thank you, my darling Daddy, thank you.  I love you so much.  I’ll be round to see you at Mount Olympus every day.’

About the author 

Rosemary has had short stories published in 'Friday Flash Fiction', 'Paragraph Planet', 'The Copperfield Review', 'Scribble', 'Mslexia' and 'Fiction on the Web'. Her novel, Wodka or Tea With Milk set around the Solidarity trade union in Poland was published in September 2023. Rosemary lives with her husband in Essex. 

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