Cupid's Arrows ~~ 2018

"Hey Cupid! Where have you been hiding?"

"Hey Mercury! I have been busy in my laboratory."

"Oh? Whatever for?"

"Two things: I developed a new, more potent potion. The mortals were getting insensitive to the last one. As you know, just about every five thousand years, there is a genetic mutation in the mortals and it spreads rapidly as those that are immune begin to overwhelm the others, leading to a world war."

"I never understood that..."

"It is easy. You see, the genetic mutation occurs every time there is a case of overpopulation or a population explosion."

"I get that, but how do you decide what constitutes a population explosion? And why is it that diseases and famine do not control the population?"

"The mortals usually have three to eight children, with some having up to twenty. In the big families, they lose about half of their progeny before five orbits of their world on average. But lately, the infantile death has dropped, so they now number eight billion. That is way too much. The pressure is such that they are close to annihilating each other with the power of our Father, Zeus."

"What? They have mastered nuclear fusion?!"

"Mastered is a big word. In reality, they have had several accidents, and have developed weapons using Zeus' power. I have not told Zeus, and please keep it under the belt, Mercury. You know Zeus: He is jealous of his power and would not hesitate to flatten the Earth if he found out!"

"It's not flat already?"

"Oh, come on, Mercury! You know better! Anyway, back to my work. As I told you, I developed a more potent potion. But that potion must be delivered to the butt because it is an intramuscular shot that must take time to diffuse in the blood stream. If I shot it in the heart, the mortals would have a heart attack."

"Okay..."

"I had to find a way and it took me some time. I studied Dad's main weapon, you know, that thunderbolt? It is made of three parts: the sonic boom, the electric charge, and the light strike."

"Does Zeus know you studied his tool of the God Trade?"

"Certainly not! You know him! If he ever learned someone knew of his secrets, especially the plasma gun he uses to generates the zap, he would blow a gasket!"

"Plasma gun?"

"Ever noticed how he uses his index to deliver the strike? On that index is a ring, the Ring of Power, made of pure gold, that acts as focus for his Godly Energy."

"I cannot say I studied him when he uses his power. Generally, I am too busy hiding under the Altar! Cupid, you got more guts than all of us combined!"

"He neglects me for most of the year except on February 14, so I am free to observe. I might as well be invisible to Zeus."

"The advantage of being his last born?"

"Yes! I think I could piss in his ambrosia and he would not notice!

"Do not tempt Fate, Cupid. One day, Zeus will wake up to your shenanigans!"

"Maybe, but I will go in a flurry. I have had an enjoyable life, over the last three hundred and sixty thousand years. If he knew how many of his Priests I have hit with my arrows and made them desire things they would abhor otherwise!"

"Uh?"

"They have had sex with just about every hole available: Each other, animals of all sorts, and in all sorts of positions. I created a whole slew of perversions, just to attract his attention, but the dim wit seems blind to everything I do!"

"Uh?"

"Mercury, I am beginning to figure out why the Gods use you as a messenger. It would never cross you single-celled brain to read a message!"

"Read? What is that?"

"Oh, brother!"

"Yes?"

"Grr! Since you seem to lack even the most basic imagination, I will explain. My first tempering with the 'natural' order of things was making males like males and females like females. It did help reduce the pressure for some time, especially since for quite some time, it was cause for termination."

"Termination?"

"Death, dim wit! Then it got so widespread it was accepted and I introduced the mortals to animals. Where do you think the Minotaur comes from, Jupiter? There were other instances: goat, sheep, horse, and quite a few chickens! At the beginning, I allowed thing to complete themselves, producing a plethora of hybrids. Things were getting out of hand at some point, so the next love potion I designed sterilized the hybrids. I finally realized it was not enough, because the mortals so liked sex with animals they were producing the hybrids faster than death took them. I adjusted the love potion and reinforced the inter-species barrier. It works now... mostly."

"Mostly?"

"Well, some inter-species breeding is still possible, especially between cattle and bison, and cats and felines, and do produce fertile offsprings. However, most inter-species breeding that produce something are usually sterile, as I intended. Such is the case with the mule."

"I think I am beginning to understand..."

"Finally!"

"But you said you were working on another thing?"

"Oh yes. I developed an arrow that uses the light aspect of Zeus' thunderbolt. It delivers the love potion though the butt, as i told you, and distributes it in the muscles. It then begins to activate. By and large, within a week of the shot, the person  can no longer go about hating another person."

"Anyone?"

"As you know, my arrows are always delivered in pairs. One for each member of the couple..."

"Except when you manage to miss!"

"Shut up!"

"What can I say? I still remember the poor guy that kept having sex with a tree because you hit the pair! That is where the expression 'nailing' came from!"

"Get lost, Mercury! Go play with yourself!"

"You wish, pervert! Anyway, Zeus just called. Bye!"

 

February 14, 2018.

 

Cupid spread his wings and began his delivery. Twenty-four hours to stop a World War. His work was cut out for him. Things seemed to work nicely. Oh, as usual, there were a few misses, but nothing to write to Zeus about. What Cupid had not tested was the effect of mirrors on his light arrows. Since his last visit, mirrors had become much more sophisticated and reflective, Furthermore, quite a few shops had nice, highly reflective windows. And to complete things, metals were everywhere and also supplied highly reflective surfaces, some even splitting the light like prisms and creating rainbows. As Cupid went around the world at the speed of light, flooding the mortal plane with his arrows and all intent in making people love each other, he did not notice that the arrows were diverted from their intended targets more often than not.

 

Six weeks later...

 

Zeus was watching from his Throne a group of mortals that were supposed to play Aussie football. He loved the manly tumble of the sport and was an avid fan. As he watched, he noticed something odd. And for a God to think something was odd, it meant it was ODD! The two teams walked into the field, wearing their uniform, and aligned themselves as expected, but then the unthinkable occurred: instead of the war simulation the sport was based on, the members began ass-grabbing on the field! What the heck was going on? Zeus changed channel, and selected another field. Again, he saw sex on the playing field, not the expected game. Disgusted, he tried a hockey game and saw the teams melting the ice with hot sex! GRR! Boxing was the same! As he was getting desperate for his testosterone fix, he was visited by Mars, whom literally blew the front door of the palace on Olympus. Hot was the understatement of Mars' temper tantrum.

"What has your knickers in a twist, Mars?"

"You know quite well I am bare-assed under the war dress! So keep your knickers to yourself! As to what is up, I will tell you what is up! I had been working on a nice little genocide in Rwanda and, this morning, when I sent the warring parties to cut each other up, they made love! Disgusting love! Then, worried, i visited North Korea, and the oppressive regime was being nice to its people, so nice I puked! I visited the White House, expecting the nutcase to be his usual self and playing with the nuke buttons. But oh no! He was playing with himself watching a porn on the big screen!"

"Tell me it was straight sex?"

"Well, if you consider fucking a flesh-light straight..."

"I wonder what is happening..."

"Finally! You realize there is a problem!"

"Your problem is minor Mars! Mine is far worse! Now, no one is competing, being virile! All I can fall on is people enjoying each other. Not even a case of BDSM on TV! I need my testosterone fix!"

"And my problem is minor, he says! I am the God of War, damn it. I thrive on blood and guts! You are just a pervert using sports as a substitute. I do not even have that option!"

"That is the ransom for overspecialization, Mars!"

"You are supposed to be omniscient, you old geezer! Find out what happened... And fix it!"

 

Zeus was pissed off. Omniscient he was... as long as he paid attention. However hard he tried, he could not remember what could have happened today. Nothing was out of the ordinary. No God had used unduly Divine powers. The goddess of love was busy enjoying her last conquest, and seemed totally enamored by te frizzy blond hairs that encircled the poor mortal's boy toy. Cupid was wing-skiing on the Australian coast and had been at it for the past 24 hours. That kid had a one-track mind, more intent in enjoying his own tool than making babies, not that, given he had never aged beyond four, he could. Freaking out, Zeus decided to visit other pantheons, hoping to discharge the responsibility of this disaster on the ass of another group. Unfortunately, Yahveh was his usual self, and acted all superior, laughing to his face. Allah had the effrontery to ask to see if his penis had been circumcised before allowing him to talk about the issue. Upon finding that Zeus was not cut, the insufferable god pulled a knife to practice the sunnat (circumcision) ritual. Zeus barely escaped with his foreskin attacked to his body. Barbarians the lot, he yelled. "Dirty old geezer!" was the reply in duo of Allah and Yahveh. He paid a visit to the Sumerian gods, only to find that they too practiced genital mutilation. A visit to Africa make him puke, and the he visited the Australian gods, to fall on a circumcision ritual. This world was sick! A visit to the Aztec gods nailed the coffin: they were busy pulling the heart out of a human sacrifice and eating it raw! That was too much! He returned to Mount Olympus, disgusted! And we think ourselves superior, he though. What a disillusionment!

 

As he walked in his palace, despondent, he heard a chat between Mercury and Venus.

"... and Cupid told me he developed a new love potion and a new arrow style."

"Cool!"

"Not so cool, I think. He copied Zeus' weapon principle, using light to carry the potion!"

"A new potion and a new way of delivery... in the same run? Cupid is playing with fire!"

"If it was only that, but copying the thunderbolt to get the potion delivered is not going to be well-received by Zeus. I wonder if he found out? He was in a really bad mood when he left Olympus this afternoon...

"I wonder how Cupid managed to deliver the potion under the nose of Zeus?"

"Oh, very simply: in plain sight, on February 14. The potion was a delayed-action one."

Zeus left for his Throne Room, fuming. Thunder flashes circled his head, and everyone ran for cover. Someone was going to be cremated!

"Mercury! Get me Cupid!" he bellowed, shaking the Mountain to its base.

Mercury ran off to Australia, to find his little brother surfing on the waves, without even a surfboard.

"Cupid?"

"Yes?"

"Zeus calls you..."

"Oh? Do you know why? The old geezer does not even remember my name on New Year's day!"

"Err... He was in a very bad mood... He almost destroyed Olympus...". Taking a breath, Mercury continued: "I think he found out... About your experiments."

"That is bad... Very bad."

"You can say that again."

"Are you deaf, Mercury?"

"No. It was a figure of speech."

"Get going, Mercury. I will be right behind you."

"Okay. I will wait at the entrance to the rainbow bridge to Olympus. That way, Zeus will think twice before blowing a gasket."

With that, Mercury returned to Olympus, waiting on Cupid.

However, Cupid was no fool. He knew Zeus. The old geezer would blow up, Mercury or no Mercury. The only solution so keep his ass intact was to find refuge somewhere. But where?  After some thinking, Cupid rose up and took a ride to the Sun's corona on an express comet, hiding in its core. It was cold, but Cupid knew that the Heliothropes that inhabited the corona of the Sun did not hold Zeus in high esteem, finding him cold, diamond-hearted, and a whole slew of other pejorative adjectives. Six hours later, Cupid was safely nested in a rather warm ion cloud, but the temperature fitting him like a glove, given he was as nude as a newborn.

 

"Mercury? Where is Cupid?"

"I delivered the message, Zeus. I am expecting him any time!"

Zeus used his omniscient powers to look at the last few hours and realized he had been had by the little prick. As he studied the time-line he saw that Cupid was now safely ensconced with the Heliopaths. He decided to go visit the little pests and extract his wayward son from their grips.

Unfortunately, Zeus was beginning to show his age and he had forgotten the number of times he had insulted the sun's inhabitants.

He walked into the corona of the sun, acting all mighty and thundered:

"Give me Cupid if you know what is good for you!"

The result was instantaneous: Zeus was expelled with a kick in his butt by a massive coronal mass explosion.

"You forget your place! We control the flow of power that feeds your divinity! We can not stop it, but we can overfeed you, as you just saw! Get lost, old geezer!" replied a chorale of billions upon billions of voices.

Zeus returned to Earth and Olympus, the tail between the legs, and his beard severely singed.

"Cupid, one question?"

"Yes, Light?"

"How long do you plan to stay here?"

"Oh, that. About a year... for Jupiter that is. Am I an embarrassment?"

"No, you are not. We rarely receive visitors. But why wait a year?"

"Zeus is old, as you so aptly noticed. He suffers from Alzheimer's disease and tends to forget things rather rapidly. By the time I go back, he will have forgotten me... again. And I will be free to plan my next dirty trick. I could probably go back in a week, because, by then, he will have been distracted by other things. However, better be safe than sorry. I could fall on one of my brothers on Earth, and he or she could mention seeing me on Earth. Until Zeus has calmed down, I am better here."

"Given how he talked, you might consider opening a skating rink in Hell the day he does."

"Bah. I like it here. Warm bed, free food... and I am in a single piece. Dad is a bit abusive when he goes on a rampage. I want to keep my toys where they are."

"We understand. You can stay as long as you want, Cupid. You are fun to be around. And you put some action in our boring life."

"I just hope I do not put up too much 'action' in your life. Whenever you feel I have overstayed my welcome, tell me, please. I will leave without a fuss."

"Thank you."