Heresy Above

All this talk of stars and movement made him nauseous. Or was it Galileo’s voice? The fool was droning on about the earth revolving around the sun. A ridiculous notion; and if it wasn’t nipped in the bud some nutbar might eventually question Genesis itself.

The Pope glanced at his sundial. His next audience was with a delegation of Bohemians pushing Saint Barbara for patron saint of miners. Jesus. A woman—what next? 

     “Just kiss the ring and go,” he told Galileo curtly, wondering what he would tell the faithful at the “Make Rome Great Again” rally later that afternoon.

Inspired by Starry Night. Image: Galileo before the Holy Office by Joseph-Nicolas Robert-Fleury

Chamæleon

“You’re probably not going to know anyone,” said Nick, as they walked up the drive. “So, maybe just relax and be yourself.”
     “Are you kidding?” said Cam. “If nobody knows me, I can be whoever I want.”
     “You’re telling me you’ll just walk into a party full of strangers and lie?”
     “Just enough to blend in.”
     “And if you meet somebody else you like?”
     “Jeez, Nick, maybe tonight I just want to be somebody else. Maybe tonight I just want to get drunk on somebody else’s beer. Maybe tonight I just want to get it on with somebody else’s girlfriend.”

Photo by Israel Orlandi.

Cepheus

All Mr. King wanted was a break from the wife who didn’t want her daughter arriving at the party with those “little sluts” from the swim team . . . from his daughter who, after promising not to drink and drive, came to him.
     “I need your help again, Daddy.”
     And so Andromeda will take her mother’s car, past the kitchen window, with Mr. King hiding low in the front seat. He’ll drop her off, drive it back, and park two blocks from home, as instructed.
     And even all this, he figures, is a pretty small sacrifice for a little peace and quiet.

Painting from The Little King December by Michael Sowa. Rewritten for Magpie Tales 86 where you can see how other writers have interpreted this little king.

♉ is for Taurus

The Rape of Europa by Félix Vallotton

I know this might get me in trouble, but let’s for a moment look at this story from the man’s point of view. Because, according to some of the accounts I’ve heard, it was she who caressed his flanks, it was she who mounted him. And, yes, I’ll admit he was pretending to be something he wasn’t; but really, the two of them were already well on their way before she even began to have second thoughts. He took her to Crete and made her a queen. He showered her with gifts, and now she cries rape? I call bullshit.

Sagittarius

As teachers go, Mr. Chiron was about as cool as they come, without it too getting weird. He had a way of talking to kids that somehow made them listen. He liked the same music, and never shied away from showing off his skills at the latest first-person shooter.
     What they didn’t know, of course, was that he’d skipped a grade in high school and, even with two years of teaching behind him, still wasn’t much older then most of his students.
     In fact, the other teachers bored him . . . and the girls in his classes were driving him crazy.

Microscopium

“Hey, Mr. Wizard!” came the call from the doorway. “Everyone else is long gone.”
     Nicholas looked up slowly from his slides to the empty classroom, as if hoping the girl might be wrong.
     “You know,” she said. “No matter how much extra work you do, it couldn’t get much worse than having Mr. Chiron trumpet that perfect midterm of yours.”
     “Actually, this is a personal project,” said the aspiring teenage biologist, impressing no one. “Why aren’t you at lunch?”
     “They don’t have anything I want . . . So, Nick, are you going to the party tonight?”
     Speaking of experiments in teenage biology.

Apus

“Look at them all,” cried Atalanta as birds spilled from the cliffs in a black, swirling mass, skimming the river and back to the sky.
     “What’s going on?” asked Hermes.
     “Well, it’s been said swallows hold the spirits of dead children and so can never stop flying, except to nest. Their legs have shrivelled to little hooks and their wings have grown so long they can’t beat them well enough to take off from the ground, and so they must throw themselves from the cliffs . . . and now you’ve got to tell me what kind of bird you would be.”

Eridanus

     “I don’t get it,” said Hermes. “Who would want to be a bird?”
     “Ask the guy who ploughed his father’s sports car through the guardrail up there and into the river—they got the car back, but never did find the boy—or his poor sisters who waited forever on the riverbank with the paramedics. Or ask his boyfriend,” said Atalanta, “who dove right in after hearing the news and searched all night until they had to drag him away. By then, they say, he really believed he’d turned into a swan.”
     “Must be a homo thing,” said Hermes.

Painting by Marina Moevs.

Pegasus

     “Look at all this beer!” said Atalanta. “Why aren’t you drinking?”
     “My father drank,” said Nick.
     “Shit, I’m sorry.”
     “Don’t be,” said Nick. “It wasn’t the booze that killed him, it was the cigarettes; but when he got drunk, he got dumb, and I hate being dumb. Drunk he got bitter. Drunk he was full of stories about how my mom had bled him dry.”
     “He was a pilot, right?”
     “Just private,” said Nick. “But all that mattered was that plane of his, and that was all he asked for. Drunk he was dull, but sober he could fly.”

Equuleus

Dad loved flying the coastal route, but it pained him to see how quickly the shoreline was deteriorating. So, whenever he could, he’d set out to document all the damage himself, 1500 feet at a time, then back again to the beginning, like he was running out of time. When I was old enough, I got to sit right up in front of him and shoot out a hole he’d rigged in the port window. My job was to keep track of where we’d left off, call out the landmarks, and make sure all the photos were properly framed.

Musca

So, one day, in the middle of a particularly bad run, my dad throws the plane into a climb that’s way too fast and way higher than he’s supposed to go. But when we finally level off, I can see farther than I’ve ever seen—the land is green, the ocean blue, with nothing but a ragged silver thread holding the two together—and in that perfect moment, my cornball father says, “Some day, son, all this will be yours.”

     And maybe it could’ve, if not for the movie star who didn’t like us taking pictures of her beach.

Images excerpted from Flying Down by David Salle, © 2006.

Leo

     “You’re nuts!” said Corvus. “Didn’t you hear what he did to those kids last week?”
     “He’s not so tough,” said Krebbs.
     “No, only five guys catch him alone in the wrong neighbourhood and he stares them down. I heard he just singled out the biggest and said something like: ‘I don’t care what your ugly friends do to me, but I’m going to get you. I’m going to shove my fist down your throat, and I’m going to hold it there until you’re dead.”
     “Big deal. He never even touched them.”
     “Tough and smart . . . and you’re asking for trouble.”

Hydra

They caught up with Hercules at the arcade downtown, holding court and pumping quarters into an old Hydra machine.
     “The girls here drive me nuts,” he boasted. “They get it into their heads somehow you might be the answer to all their problems, and who knows, maybe you will end up having a bit of fun, but you never want to get to where you’re thinking you’ve got them all figured out, because you never will.
     “So what do you do?” asked Corvus.
     “I just cut them off,” said Hercules. “Burn ’em and leave before something serious crops up.”

Corvus

“But isn’t that the problem?” said Corvus, finishing another of the beers he should’ve been delivering. “No one gives a fig these days for anyone else but themselves.”
     “The real problem, “said Hercules, “is that you’re probably too drunk to be driving.”
     “Crap! If I don’t get this stuff back like two hours ago, I’m fucked.”
     “Let me think . . . how about I punch you in the face a few times, and you can say someone jumped you while you were loading up?”
     “Or . . . ?”
     “Plan B is always the same,” said Hercules. “Just do your best and tell the truth.”

Crater

There’s a gas station just before the first bridge into town where you might hang around for a while if you get tired of walking.
     “Hey, Krebbs!” came the call from an old Buick as it pulled up to the pumps. “How old are you, really?”
     “I never get carded, if that’s what you’re asking.”
     “That’s exactly what I need,” said Corvus. “What I have is a trunkful of empties I've got to turn into fullsies. Think you can drive them into town with me?”
     “I got something to do,” said Krebbs. “ But I could use the lift.”

Sextans

“You’d expect every girl to be different,” said Hercules. “But in a way they’re all the same. Like a dream where you wake up somewhere you’ve never been but still know where everything is. A few adjustments, maybe, and you’re soon headed in the right direction. Some things are a little closer together than you remember, others further apart . . . higher or lower, a bit harder to find, more difficult to get into . . . ”
     Okay, thanks . . . but what’s there to do when you’ve still got to start somewhere with someone, and all you’ve got is not a clue where to go?

Ursa Major

Heaven knows he was never an easy child, but from the morning I first woke to him frantically scratching my breast, I somehow knew he’d end up a crook . . . or maybe a cop.
     Perhaps it was the so-called father who disappeared before I had the chance to tell him not to make any plans for the next twenty years, or maybe later the calls from school and the interminable “anti-bullying” workshops, but at some point I figured I’d done all I could to lick the kid into shape, and it was time to get on with my life.

Virgo

     “And what kind of question is that?”
     “I was just . . . ” said Nick. “I mean, I’ve always assumed, since you did have a boyfriend . . . ”
     “A girl can say no,” said Atalanta. “In fact, most of the boys I meet make that way too easy.”
     “But what about Hermes?” asked Nick.
     “I like him, but no.”
     “And Hercules?”
     “God, no!”
     The fire was fading against the cold sand, and the wood was running out.
     “Okay,” said Atalanta, “so what about Nicholas Lacaille?”
     “Only you,” said Nick, looking into the coals.
     “But we haven’t even . . . ”
     “I know,” said Nick. “So . . . maybe you?”

Reticulum

He wandered through the smoke and the noise and settled finally near a group he knew, more or less, with enough of them in the confusion that the sudden sight of her caught him off guard.
     He’d seen her in a swimsuit, for heaven’s sake, but something about that particular dress on this particular night made him feel as if something inside had come loose. Or was it the lipstick? Or the touch of colour around her eyes that set off the constellation of freckles that had settled upon her cheeks.
     Ten to the east and twelve to the west.

Andromeda

How’s this for timing?
     I’m walking off the effects of the last, bad, we-need-to-talk date with the worst girlfriend ever; walking the beach holding my new shiny shoes, all dressed up amongst a crowd of beach rats, watching 110 pounds of sand and fury kicking the crap from the monster of all muscle-beach boyfriends, except he’s just sitting there taking it crying, tears clearing tracks through the dirt down his face.
     And yes, that is sad.
     Except, did I mention she just happens to be the most beautiful girl I’ve ever seen, and me newly single for maybe 45 minutes?

Image of Cetus the Monster from Urania’s Mirror, engraved by Sidney Hall, circa 1825.

Auriga

Andromeda was way out of his league, but tonight just drunk enough to give the poor guy a break; not too drunk to let things go too far, but just a bit slow when they did.
     “Omigod!” she screamed, pushing him off and onto the sand. “What the fuck did you just do?”
     “But they said you . . .”
     “I don’t give a fuck what anyone said, just give me your fucking towel . . . My suit! . . . Fuck! It’s everywhere! . . . You’d better just pray none of this gets inside me, you big fucking freak, because I am not having your fucking freak baby!”

Fornax

Nicholas Lacaille kept to himself. He was good at school, not so good at making friends, and completely helpless with girls. But he had one special talent that broke through all that and even gave him a certain level of schoolyard cred: He made things burn . . . in elaborate and dangerous ways.
     So, on the beach, where most of the fire pits tended to come and go with the tide and the season, there was always one guaranteed to gather a crowd, whenever Nick happened by with the latest trick he’d discovered on the Internet or received through the mail.

Coma Berenices

Atlanta would wait until dark for her swim, her white legs slipping into the still, black water, her long amber hair flecked with stars.
     “A natural redhead,” said Hercules, smiling.
     “And you know, how?” asked Nick.
     “Nothing like that,” said Hercules. “A party by the river. She showed up late with some dude, it was really hot, and they were already drunk enough just to strip right away and dive in . . . ”
     “Can we talk about something else?”
     “. . . a remarkable sight, really, considering what most girls end up sacrificing down there for guys just looking for a little tail.”
     Anything else.

Photo by Christophe Gilbert.