Retelling of Pandora's Box
2 min
The Spirits
Erina Rejo
Time, the curse that plagues all, should have been trapped within these confines. The spirits had been whispering for ages. Some pondered over their release for countless millennia.
Despite their skepticism, the spirits used every known path to try and escape the box's walls. Since the beginning of time, they had been waiting.
Everyone knew it was coming. It was just a matter of patience.
Death seemed to characterize that trait the most. They kept to themselves. Hunger rarely heard Death's voice.
Despite their lengthy entrapment, Hunger did not know how many spirits roamed beside him. He would feel a presence brush past him, not a breeze, but a curse that lingered on his fingertips for moments before vanishing. He shivered in anticipation of the beings that were soon to fall.
Soon.
War seemed to know everyone. Her presence was constantly gnawing at the silence Hunger attempted to grasp. Poverty and Disease often followed War, practically on her toes the way they emerged one by one.
Those spirits were boastful. They counted death and pain as one and betted on who would achieve more until humanity's downfall.
But, Hunger moved slower. He savored the mental aspect more than its physical one. He relished in the hunger that tormented a being's mind. A drug, so potent, flooding their heart and morals with actions one would normally never perform. Hunger was never satiated until the time for redemption was long gone.
Madness befriended Hunger. He stood on the precipice of becoming an outcast. War did not pay him heed. He was one of the lesser consequences of its evil. Madness plagued few, but it was beyond any other evil imaginable for those infected.
Madness and Hunger discussed their thoughts at length on the days War seemed to be taking her rounds more than usual to drown out her presence.
"What will release us?" Madness questioned on one particular day.
Hunger was taken aback. "I do not trouble myself with these questions." He thought back to Death's presence. Death was never rushed no matter how those chose to believe it. They had been planning the deaths of humanity the moment the world began.
"Do you imagine it to be a failing of Zeus?"
"You fool," Hunger spewed. "He is the one who sealed us within these walls. Whenever we are released, it shall be at his will."
As Hunger predicted, Zeus finally granted them relief.
None of the spirits questioned the light pouring in, a hesitant hand clutching the lid and widening the gap between all of mankind and the evils that were to seep into their lands and remain.
None of the spirits hesitated–except for Death.
As Hunger followed the light peering into the box, he heard Death whisper two words before disappearing into the air.
At last.
A scream echoed in the distance but the spirits were long gone before the hand could move to contain the box's contents.
Hunger felt all of their presence for the rest of time, even after the humans left and the spirits and Gods were left to their affairs.
He always questioned the hunger that must have clawed at the being who opened the box. What inclined them to open it? This was not the doing of Zeus himself.
It seemed he had spent too long in the company of Madness.
This was an entry for a writing contest held in conjunction with Center for Fiction and The Decameron Project
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