Life of Alectryon—I
Being a rooster has its perks, though they certainly do not outweigh those that come with being a man. How I got here still puzzles me, that I could make such a mistake as the one I had that fateful, horrible day. But I am coming to understand it more each day that passes.
Before I met Ares, I hated my life. My wife was endlessly upset, my children were unbearably ugly, and I was hardly the man I wanted to be. I thought switching careers from office management to law enforcement would up my ego, but it only made things worse. I was not assigned a big task or a hard post. Each day for a little over a year, I was positioned at a Giant Eagle to make sure that no children got away with stealing candy bars and no adults got away with stealing toilet paper. It was embarrassing, to have a job that seemed so pointless and inconsequential. But soon word got out that the police had hired an incompetent, nervous little kid to keep watch at Giant Eagle (I am nearly 30, mind you), and soon, robberies started to occur with more frequency and increasing severity. I would have noticed in the beginning, but because big lunches have a big impact on a small man like me, I was often asleep when they happened, and by the time the crimes had reached a certain level of magnitude, it was not sleepiness that kept me from doing my job as much as the fact that I had little experience, little courage, and little lack of clumsiness to handle the duties that come with enforcing the law.
And so one day, while I was on watch, determined to redeem myself for what lousiness I had let come over me, I stood on lookout for any suspicious figures and finally noticed a large, muscular man—who, for some reason, had no shirt on—stealing some large piece of meat. I took out my gun as he approached the exit, squealing at him to drop the meat. But how big he was, and how gallant and strong, that I quaked with fear, and, holding the gun in my shaking hand, I accidentally set it off, shooting another, rather fat man straight in the ass. (He did not press charges, as the ass was so massive it blocked the bullet from reaching any further into his body and instead stayed in the ass as a little memento mori.)
I lamented the loss of my job for some time, but it was not long before I got a knock at my door and was greeted by none other than the gallant man that I had caught stealing the meat.
“What do you want?” I asked him.
“I’m not who you think I am. I’m Ares, the Greek god of war and courage.”
“Ares…but, if you’re Ares, what were you doing stealing meat from a Giant Eagle in Cleveland?”
“Well,” Ares responded, “it has been over a thousand years since anyone offered a hecatomb to me. Even a little goat or hare! And then that new guy, Jesus Christ, was receiving all the glory and had such power that I could not even rage against the people of earth anymore without him curbing my efforts! When he started to recede in power, I thought my time had come again to wage my rage, but the people—they’ve found new idols! Who could blame me for my theft? I have not even enough power to catch my own food anymore….But you,” he said, becoming even more emotional now, “you made me remember what it is to be a god again! that there is still a man in the world who could fear me! And that is why I spared you your livelihood, by curbing the bullet to only hit the man sideways in the ass, and with minimal damage.”
“You…you curbed the bullet into the butt?”
“Yes, I did,” he replied. “I did curb the bullet into the butt—as it was in my domain to do so (being the god of war and all, I have power over bullets). And now, it is my hope that you can help me with something.”
Of course, I knew that an anthropomorphic god’s request was a dangerous thing. But if the god of courage could only make me more a man, was it not worth it?
And so I helped him with his dilemma, which was something like this: Though he be a god of war, Ares was at that time engaged not in war but in love with Aphrodite. However, their love was not easy to manage, for Ares was afraid that Helios, the all-seeing sun god, would catch Ares and Aphrodite in the midst of lovemaking and then tell Hephaistos, Aphrodite’s husband. Ares therefore furnished for himself a little house in Cleveland, Ohio—the last place on earth anyone would go looking for gods, the city that received the least of Helios’ sunrays—for his lovemaking sessions with his mistress (which did not come without complaint from his lady). But he needed a guard, someone who could keep watch to ensure that Helios would not stumble across their house. And so he enlisted me as his guard, for he knew that I feared him and would not dare go against his word.
For the first few weeks, I kept my post dutifully, sitting each morning on the porch by the door to the love-house of the war-god like a lounging-nothing, watching few people pass by. Never did Helios even give a peep, though I honestly couldn’t tell you what he looked like.
Then, I started to become careless. Though I was so nervous I didn’t eat the first few weeks on the job, I started to grow less nervous and more bored, and when I get bored, I eat. And when I eat, I sleep. So, a few weeks into my post, my wife cooked me up a rather large lunch, and as you know, a large lunch has a large impact on a small man like myself, and the second I finished the last crumb of my sandwich on that fated Cleveland porch, I fell into a deep, dark sleep unlike any I’d ever had after a lunch.
“Alectryon!” I was shaken out of my slumber. Alas, it was Ares, looking less in the mood for love and more in the mood for war. “What are you doing?!” he fumed. “Did Helios come?!”
I stuttered, and finally, understanding what had happened, I told him, “No, no, he didn’t! I swear! I was just starting to nod off.”
Meanwhile, sneaky little Helios was hiding behind a bush a few feet away, giggling his little giggle and revving up the engine to his chariot. And within a day, Hephaistos made his anger known to the conniving, adulterous pair for which I had been tasked to keep watch.
Naturally, I understood that I was in trouble shortly after I had lied to Ares and so immediately bolted home to convince the wife to skip town. But, as per usual, she was too busy being upset with me about something else, and, as I packed bags, she unpacked them and found a million reasons to fume about my shit folding job.
Doomed. Doomed I was, yes, and eventually, I just gave up. But I didn’t understand yet what was in store for me, not until he came to my house, and, furious that I had been so negligent, he made me what I am today: a rooster.
“Alectryon, Alectryon—who can be a man if he knows not his duty, and who can be more than a chicken if he merely eats and sleeps and can’t even keep guard for his own sake? And for that, may you become what you truly are: a chicken.”
Naturally, the wife was more upset than usual, though the children remained just as ugly. But how I miss them all now that I live as a beast, incapable of giving the woman I tolerate and the children to whom I gave birth the love that makes a man more than mere creature. How lonely I feel, that I cannot speak the thoughts in my head but merely crow and holler when I see the sun, Helios, when he shows his face in golden rays at the break of days, the memory of the time when I was kept in a deep asleep.
And so began my second life: a life of contemplation, dreams, adventures, and, always on guard, sleeping with one eye open (as all chickens do).