A Simple Bond of Friendship

Mariusz Lewandowski

In the middle of the lake was a flame: the water was as still as glass, with the light skimming upon the reflection; at its side dipped branches from the holy tree, and standing at its stone walled edge was Jupiter.

“Going back already?” asked a voice from behind.

A golden pinecone came hurling past him and into the water breaking up its cosmic plate.

“Robin, what has brought you all the way here?”

“Concern Brother, concern. For I see you in the World as vulnerable and tossed around. It cannot be good for the high Heavens, nor for the son of a god, to do as you do.”

He continued: “Are you not asleep there most of the time anyway?”

Jupiter looked truly stung by these questions, and the blatant accusation he had been wasting time.

“No god ever wastes time”, he replied in a lordly, unfamiliar tone - almost cold.

“Don’t be like that” Robin said admonishing him yet further. “I say this because of our fondness for one another, and I have seen how the world corrupts so much and so many, and I cannot stand to think of you interred as you have been, and physically harmed, as you are. It is time for you to give this up methinks,” he persisted.

“First, it was you, and then my mother left, and to wit, I know precisely where she has gone and my heart is glad for her. And it will come the day, when then I will join her. However, I cannot sit in this in-between land ad infinitum - Paradise is purgatory without love.

“Surely you must understand - of all the gods - that the Earthly Sphere is a wild and interesting place: it is a realm where one feels alive no matter what form one takes. I am still greatly amused there and cannot give up what I have known of it, and I agree - I agree that it has all gone wrong from the beginning … I do not know what happened to the form - something changed on that particular leap I made, and it ended up as it did - but let me tell you, I do not regret any of it.

“A simple bond or friendship … it is a joy to me … and Robin, you must know this well. I see you - you have such familiar relationships also with the mortals and I know you crave it too.”

Robin of course acknowledged that this was all correct; he did not mean to chastise Jupiter, yet he felt responsible for him and would continue to care for him anon.

“Very well then my dear Granoldi, I shall see you again in the Fall.” 

-Gabriel Brunsdon, Finding Self - Second Guesses- Azlander Series