“I’m awake! I’m awake!” Hep said.
Scroat paused for a minute, then hit him anyways.
“What the fuck was that for?” Hep yelled, indignant.
“Take a look around, motherfucker, our house is full of weird trinkets, critters and other tokens of some one or other’s esteem. While you were passed out we must have had one hundred and thirty more sacrifices show up. We just started stacking them over by the door,” Scroat paused and pointed, “and then we thought that maybe we oughta wake you the fuck up and get you to stop this stuff from showing up.”
There was a popping noise, and an odd little statue of a muscular man with withered legs appeared. On closer inspection, it was apparent it had been carved out of apples, and shellacked.
“That’s my favorite sacrifice yet,” Scroat said. “Whoever carved it did a really good job of capturing the breadth and depth of your ugliness.”
Pan came into the living room then.
“Hey, you’re awake. You know, you gotta do something about this before you hit the big time. We won’t be able to keep up with all the shit people are sending you,” he said.
“What do you gentlemen propose I do, then?” Hep asked.
“I say you go find the guy whose deck you finished and tell him to get all his new little followers to knock it off. After a divine deck intervention such as the one you gave him, I’m sure having an ancient greek god, thought to be nothing more than a myth by most of the world, show up for tea and conversation will hardly freak him out at all.” Pan said.
“Why do you think he has followers?” Hep asked.
“Because anytime any person has a miraculous experience, there are a bunch of people lined up to bask in the glory of his or her holiness. And, in this case, to have beers on his divine deck and maybe grill up some holy burgers,” Pan answered.
Hep figured it wouldn’t hurt to try, so he got up and prepared himself for the trip by grabbing his walking staff out of the hall closet and changing into a more appropriate t-shirt. He didn’t know what this Dan fellow would do if a god appeared to him wearing a White Castle t-shirt.
There was another popping sound, and he heard Scroat say, “Hey, anybody want some pizza?”
With that, Hep began to concentrate on Dan. The sounds of the house faded away, and he felt a lightness or weightlessness, then a squeezing sensation. It had been a while since he had traveled by thought, but it had also been a while since he needed to take immediate action.
Hep opened his eyes, and saw a portly man in his mid-thirties. He had light brown hair and a peculiar facial expression that let Hep know that Dan had, in fact, shit his pagan pants. Hep looked around at the room. Apart from all the sacrifices piled up – apparently they’d all followed Hep, he’d have to work out that problem later – it was an ordinary living room. There were quite a few books, a small tv, and now a menagerie of sacrificial animals and tokens.
“How’s that deck working out for you, Dan?” Hep asked, conversationally.
Dan stammered and stuttered, but couldn’t actually form a coherent sentence.
“Ah, you must be confused about who I am. My name is Hephaestus. You might know a little bit about me. It’s a pleasure to meet you.” Hep said and held out his hand.
Dan blinked several times, remembered his manners and shook Hep’s hand.
“P-p-pleasure,” he said.
“Dan, I’m here because you had to go and tell everyone about your deck. I helped you out because, really, I haven’t had much to do for the last couple thousand years, at least in terms of dealing with you people. But now I’ve got far too many people sending me stuff and asking me for things and generally being a pain in my ass. It needs to stop, before my roommate freaks out. If many more sacrifices show up, he might actually draw a line down the middle of the house and tell me to stay on my side.” Hep said.
Dan stared at Hep. He reached out and poked Hep’s arm, then drew his arm back as though he’d touched something hot.
Hep looked at him like he was a complete idiot.
“Let me simplify my request for you. No. More. Sacrifices. Dig?”
Dan nodded. He opened his mouth to speak, but then there was a loud POP. Dan jumped back. Hep looked down at his feet and saw a sandwich bag stuffed full of something green. He picked the bag up, smelled it, and laughed. Dan looked simultaneously confused and curious, and Hep held the bag out to him.
“You want some divine bud?” Hep asked.
***
Sarah had come over to Dan’s house to run some new ideas for their next ritual by him. When she arrived at his house, she was surprised to hear bluegrass playing inside at what must have been an ear splitting volume level. She knocked on the door and rang the doorbell several times before she realized she’d have to wait until a break in the music.
As soon as the last notes of the song died away, she started pounding on the door and ringing the doorbell at the same time. Just to make sure Dan would notice.
The music started up again a second later, but the volume was drastically reduced only a few seconds into the song. Through the window, she saw Dan coming to the door, watching his fingers wiggle in front of his face. She heard him unlock the deadbolt, and Dan opened the door. A strong smell of burnt leaves nearly overpowered her.
“Do you think banjo players spend the whole day wiggling their fingers to get ready to play?” Dan asked her.
“Um, I never thought about it, Dan,” Sarah replied.
“I bet they do,” Dan said. “I wonder if the vibrations make their belt buckles ticklish.”
Sarah looked closely at Dan and noticed his eyes, normally half-lidded anyway, were bloodshot to an incredible degree. As they walked into Dan’s living room, she saw a sandwich bag with a few clusters of green leaves inside. She smelled the bag and looked closely at the contents “There’s not much here. Did you smoke all this?”
Dan tried to look innocent, then coughed and started giggling.
“It was a divine gift, to me. I couldn’t refuse it,” Dan said. “Hephaestus came and asked me to get everyone to stop sacrificing to him, because the sacrifices were annoying his roommate. I’ve spent the whole afternoon on the internet in forums telling everyone to stop bugging Hephaestus for stuff. Do you realize what this means?”
He started getting into a one-sided discussion that was half theological theory and half stoner mysticism. Sarah was still trying to decide whether Dan had gone nuts or not. A god appearing and giving him a huge bag of weed? It seemed unlikely at best.
Sarah noticed Dan had stopped talking to her, and was now staring at her with a comically solemn look on his face.
“I could totally go for a pizza right now,” Dan said. Then he resumed speculating on the nature of the divine and whether Scooby Snacks were a stand-in for manna.
“Stop,” Sarah said. “Hephaestus, the god, came here?”
Dan looked at her as though she were a simple child. “Yes, I told you that already.”
“You mean he was here in the flesh, not just a hallucination or a vision?” Sarah asked.
“Yes, I told you that already. He came, asked us not to sacrifice any more stuff to him, and gave me this glorious herb.” Dan said as he held the baggie aloft as though it were a priceless relic.
“And I poked his arm, just to make sure he was real. He was. Really real.” Dan said.
“Well, what did he look like?” Sarah asked.
Dan paused as if trying to come up with a way to explain the divine.
“He was one ugly son of a bitch,” Dan said.
***
Hephaestus thought his talk with Dan had gone pretty well. The number of sacrifices popping up around him had decreased drastically as the day went on. Now he just had to figure out what the hell to do with all the sacrifices he’d already received. He’d tried drinking the beer and eating the food he’d been given, but the second he was finished consuming something, it would reappear, whole and as if he’d never touched it.He had to admit, he liked having a never ending supply of frosty cold beer.
The real problem was that all these things followed him around. He’d leave a room, and when he turned around there were a multitude of animals, food and things there right behind him.
Having consumed a lot of beer that afternoon, he eventually had to use the toilet. As soon as he walked in to the small bathroom, of course, everything tried to follow him in. The animals and sculptures jostled for a place in the bathroom, and soon Hep barely had room to unzip his pants.
In frustration he yelled, “Everyone out of here!! Stay in the damn living room and quit following me, will ya?”
To his amazement, all the sacrifices did exactly as he said. Hep had an idea.
He flushed the toilet and went back into the living room. Once there, he looked around and said “Everyone, follow me to the garage.”
He led all the sacrifices outside, and opened the garage. Hep said “Everyone remain absolutely still.”
He went back into the house and brought Pan and Scroat out to the garage.
“Help me stack this stuff,” Hep said to them. The three of them set to work organizing and storing the various sacrifices.
“Scroat, you know better than to try and stack a goat on top of a chicken,” Hep said. “Use your head.”
Soon they were done and the back wall of the garage looked like some kind of bizarre modern art, or a landfill, with the odd animal leg or head sticking out here and there among the boxes and carvings.
Hep admired his solution for a moment, and then the three of them went back into the house.
Sitting in the living room, Hep said, “Shoot, I should have kept the beer in here. I could sure use a frosty bottle of suds.”
Seconds later, they heard a thump outside, and a bottle of Pabst Blue Ribbon smashed through one of the windows in the living room, sending glass flying all over the carpet. The beer landed on the end table next to Hep, and the cap popped off on it’s own. Hep picked up the beer, looked at it, looked at the window and went outside without a word. Pan and Scroat followed him.
Hep stopped in front of the garage. In the door was a beer sized hole.
“I guess I need to watch what I wish for,” Hep said.
***
Tim was practically bursting with joy. The last talk had gone amazingly well, and a few hundred people more than anticipated had come to hear him. People had been standing in the aisles. The organization now had several dozen new members thinking positively and ready to help him achieve his goals.
What’s more, he’d been able to get the word out about his desire to find Pan, without giving away his intentions (there would be time for that later) , and he had the entire organization primed and ready to act if one of the members should spot Pan.
Tim had promised a sizeable reward for helping him find Pan, so he expected one of the commando vans would arrive with the slippery devil bound in the back rather quickly.
Tim sat back in his chair and put his hands behind his head. Yes, thing work working out very well, as he knew they would. He was mildly surprised at how quickly his organization was growing, but really, how could it be anything but a success. He gave people hope, happiness, and a sense of power over their own destiny.
Of course, their destinies would involve helping the organization in any which ever way they were best suited, but he didn’t expect too much trouble from any of them. Things would work out. They always did.
Someone knocked at his office door. Tim was feeling particularly energetic, so he hopped out of his chair and walked to the door to open it.
Outside was a young woman in a green track suit. She was carrying a large pile of old books.
“Here’s everything I could find at the library, sir,” she said.
“Ah, perfect. Thank you, Beth,” Tim said.
Beth shifted her weight from one foot to the other. Talking to Tim simultaneously thrilled and terrified her.
“What do you want with all those old religious texts?” she asked. “You told us that religion was for the weak-minded, and they were just control systems to keep people from living up to their full potential.”
Tim smiled at her, “Just a bit of light reading, dear. We don’t have to believe in witches and trolls to enjoy the fairy tales.”
Beth smiled back. “I see. Bye!” She turned and walked down the hall.
“Bye, dear,” Tim said. He closed the door and stopped smiling. He’d have to start taking care of gathering materials for his private research on his own, he decided.
He took the books over to his desk and sat down. He looked at the titles briefly then picked up the book on top, a narrow volume bound in green leather, and began reading.
He stayed in his office for the rest of the night.
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