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“Not at all.”
A smirk returned to Jamie’s lips. A sparkle danced in his baby blue eyes.
“Prometheus… the god who stole fire!” His hands shot out in front of him as he emphasized each word in the most animated way I’d ever seen from anybody. “And for his punishment, Zeus chained him to a rock… and sent an eagle to eat Prometheus’ liver. Every. Single. Day.”
“Every single day?”
“Yup. ‘Cause his liver would regrow. Again. And again. And. Again.”
“That doesn’t sound like a fun way to spend retirement,” I said, feeling a bit cheeky. Plus, it sounded like a funny thing to say.
Jamie cocked his head at me for a second. His lips parted and mouth formed into a crooked smile, almost like he wanted to laugh. But he didn’t.
“Eternal hell is more like it,” he said. “Eternal fucking hell.” His eyebrows raised on both sides and two lines formed across his forehead. He pointed his index finger toward the sculpture. “That’s why… strangling the vulture was total justice.”
I mulled over his statement. Yeah, yeah, I understood where Jamie was coming from and everything but… I also liked to argue. Especially now. During a time in my life when arguing with my own words was the one thing I seemed to have any control over.
“I dunno,” I said. “Maybe Prometheus shouldn’t have stolen the fire in the first place. The outcome sounds pretty logical, if you ask me. He committed a crime. Zeus put him in his place. Criminal Justice 101.” Of course, that was the other class Jamie and I shared together, so he should’ve understood where I was coming from with this.
Jamie scoffed. “Put him in his place? No, no, no. Prometheus was a revolutionary. He brought fire to humankind.”
“A revolutionary? In your narrative, maybe. But to me, he broke the law.”
“As do the greatest revolutionaries.”
“And people who are narcissistic assholes… who areself-proclaimedrevolutionaries.” I took a deep breath, watching him narrow his eyes at me in interest, his smile dangling as if he eagerly awaited my next words. “What if… that vulture is just a victim of emotional gaslighting? Maybe Prometheus manipulated the poor thing into letting its guard down. Until he could get the upper hand and strangle it. When I look at this, I see animal abuse.”
Of course, I didn’t see animal abuse at all. But for the sake of my argument, it sounded like the sensical conclusion to draw here.
Jamie let out a high-pitched laugh and covered his hand over his mouth. “Did you just say… animal abuse?”
“Oh, I went there.”
“Uh, yeah. Okay. Wow.” He snickered through his nose and then shook his head. “We’re gonna have to agree to disagree majorly on that one.” He bit down on his lip, grinned, and kept on shaking his head. “Animal fucking abuse.”
“If I were to give PETA a call—”
His mouth widened into a giant oval. “She’s bringing PETA into this, everybody!” He threw his hands into the air again, motioning the space around us as if we actually had spectators.
I cleared my throat, trying not to grin from how ridiculous this sounded even to myself. However, I couldn’t let go of my side of the argument now. “If I were to call PETA… and propose a hypothetical to them about a man strangling an innocent vulture… how do you think they’d react?”
“Are we really having this discussion?”
“Are you going to answer my question?”
“No. Y’know what. I’m not.”
“On what basis?”
“How about… on the basis that… I’d love to see you call PETA. Like, right now. And tell them that a god is strangling a mythical creature. And see what they’ve got to say about that and animal rights.” He reached into his back pocket and pulled out a grey flip phone. As he held it out to me, he said, “I goddamn dare you. Call ‘em.”
I pushed his hand away. “I’m not going to actually call PETA. What’re you, nuts?”
“What’re you, scared I’d win the argument?” He lifted the phone back up and tilted it back and forth in front of me. “Go on. Call ‘em.”
“I don’t even know PETA’s number.”
“Not. A. Problem.”
