Letters to a Dying World

"You loved the herdsman, shepherd and chief shepherd

Who was always heaping up the glowing ashes for you,

And cooked ewe-lambs for you every day.

But you hit him and turned him into a wolf,

His own herd-boys hunt him down

And his dogs tear at his haunches."

--"Gilgamesh VI" in Myths from Mesopotamia by

Stephanie Dalley.

A mysterious book appeared on the shelves of every bookstore the world over, translated into every language. Its title hinted at our deepest fears: “Letters to a Dying World.” The author, Actaeon, claimed to be an extraterrestrial traveler from Lelantos, a moon world orbiting HD 38858b in the Orion cluster. 

Thumbing through the pages, with descriptions of an alien hunter race hell bent on wiping out mankind, I wondered at the author’s inclusion of entries containing forgotten human folklore and mythology the author had collected over his two-thousand years walking the earth. I hated the idea of dying at twenty-five-years-old having never written a book, hell, having never even sold a poem for that matter. I’d also never been loved by anyone, and that was a real let down. But my crippling anxiety and despair about how things would turn out for me which tormented my every waking hour, was suddenly gone—gone, gone, not better, just gone.  And I had become low-key obsessed with my theory that the decision to include these folk tales was “nostalgic” and I wasn’t so sure that murderers or prosecutors indicting an entire people would be harboring “nostalgia” before an execution.

The Guardian headline read, “End of World at Hand.” The New York Times editor went with, “Unearthly Message of Doom.” Yomiuri Shimbun ran “E.T. Alarm: Alien Invasion Imminent.” My favorite was the Chinese Reference News headline: “Cosmic Warning. Actaeon Heralds Destroyer of Worlds.”

I am Duncan Newkirk, a twenty-five-year-old book clerk at the Argosy Bookstore on 59th Street in New York City. I’d hoped to have a chance to write my first novel before the world ended and to see that name in print, and perhaps be able to point at it on the shelves to the envy of my co-workers, but now it doesn’t look like I will get the chance. I honestly don’t know how I feel about it. As I place “The Letters” on the shelves, I wonder whether the choice to bind the volume in the most durable calfskin leather leaves room for some hope. Byron Parkes is hedged-in by a stack of books and assorted packing materials, preparing mailers to send out to readers who’d purchased copies of “The Letters” online.

“Why would Actaeon include his favorite lost folk tales,” I asked. 

Byron said, “maybe it was just his way of summing up a civilization-spanning project. Perhaps he grew fond of us and felt he had some kind of duty to issue a final warning before he went. I dunno, maybe he thought a nod to our art might soften the blow?”

“Sure, sure. But why warn us if we can’t do anything about it?”

“I’m not equipped to puzzle out the motives of a demigod Duncan, are you?”

“I just can’t help thinking there is something we’re missing.”

The book arrived under the strangest of circumstances. The publishing details were absent: no publisher, no year of publication, and no place. The book had no ISBN. Yesterday, I had cross-examined a delivery driver and went through his shipping manifests, but I was unable to search out a clue there either.

Strangely, no bookseller could recall ordering the volume, yet it materialized on shelves daily, seemingly flying off them. “The Letters” occupied prominent spaces in bookstores worldwide—shelved in end caps, local author showcases, and the “staff favorites” section at every bookstore (which is where I had placed this copy). It was all anyone could talk about. And rightfully so.

Here is the first entry, which everyone was talking about on the news, in Congressional Hearings, in the upper chambers of the Argosy bookshop, and pretty much anywhere else people were gathered:

“We are that hunter in the dark forest, that huntsman that hunts the hunters. Any potential threat to our dominance is our prey. We don’t worship gods: we are masters of our own fate. Unlike you, we have no loftier purpose than supremacy. Dominance is our birthright and sole ambition. We have been called ‘pitiless butcher.’ But we see our purpose clearly, we are the purifier of the cosmos. We are the blue star, Kachina. We are the “Day of Purification.” We are annihilation. We are the flail of the gods. The immutable decree of our law is to raid the stars and level galaxies. In the watery worlds we have wrought all the seas, in the lofty skies of gas giants we have clipped the wings of all that soar, and now—my gracious hosts—we stalk the terrestrial planes to rid the land of all the beasts that roam. If we can tame the oceans, subdue the skies, and bridle the plains, dare you doubt that our inexorable march will reach your doorstep? And so, if a Lelantian should ever reveal himself, know this—you have come upon Armageddon and your hour is at hand.”

I was up in the map room stealing away some solitude and immersed in “The Letters” when I was rudely disturbed by Eliana Huchens. Eliana wore her curly locks parted and they reached down to her mid-ear, reminiscent of a boy’s bowl cut. A smile tugged at her lips and pulled up her sharp triangular jaw line a bit, rounding her cheeks. Now, Eliana was a real nerd and was a first-class know-it-all who no doubt had already finished “The Letters” and probably outlined them to boot.

She pulled off the circular glasses she was wearing and said, “Happy End of the World to you Duncan!” 

“Same to you Eliana,” I managed.

“What are you reading?”

“Just trying to figure out what this alien thing is all about,” I said refusing to look in her direction in the hopes that would cause her to disappear or at least prevent her from giving me the spoilers. And that was when the idea struck me. 

To understand why this particular insight would come to me, of all people, you have to know the most interesting thing about me. And that is that I don’t know where I was born. I’m an orphan. I’m the kind of orphan that doesn’t know who their parents are or even where they are from. My best guess is that I’m from Romania, even though I was given a Scott-Irish name at the Harlem Dowling West Side Center. Growing up in foster care, occasionally with different foster families, I was raised by Catholic priests and faculty members at All Hallows High School in the Bronx, rather than by a traditional family.

I had a persistent fantasy that my real parents were special people who had left me alone in New York City to protect me from a terrible fate but continued to watch over me, with plans to return one day. I didn’t come up with this on my own. I was big time into myths and the story of Zeus’s birth really hit home for me—how he was raised in a cave by nymphs so his father wouldn’t eat him (as Chronos had his five other children)—in an attempt to subvert the prophecy that one of Chronos’s children would overthrow him.

“Eliana—what is that cave where Zeus was raised in Crete?”

“You mean Mount Aegaeon,” she said raising her voice at “aeon” to accentuate her ability to produce the right answer to a question completely out of left field like she had seen it coming.

“Do we know where that is by any chance?”

“It is on Mount Ida.”

“How would we get there and how long would it take?”

“Counting the stop-over in France, my guess is about a full day.”

“Hey, this might sound strange—you want to go there with me?”

* * *

“Entry: “Myth: Lord of Darkness. Names: Erebus or Ratri or Nott or Nox or Nephthys or Tezcatlipoca or the Aztec Council of Nine. Origin: Erebus entity is without form and void. Out of chaos, the dark shadow gave a space to be alit. At once created as empty, silent, and endlessly dark—this creature fell madly in love with Nyx, embracing her in a veil of shadows. Aether was born from their union and brought the daylight that brightens the world. Story: Erebus looked out on the suffering of the hunted, tortured, and put up for death. Seeing Prometheus in agony, Erebus lamented the pain of distress. Thus, Erebus used his powers to darken the lenses of the eyes and dull the light of the mind, so as to shorten the time that one suffers. And from that time forward, Erebus lurks in shadows and dungeons and foul places to give relief to the suffering and to give peace to the tormented. And Erebus, it is told, was once deployed to darken the midday sun.”

* * *

From Heraklion, we journeyed South and West toward Mt. Ida. And passed the time looking out at the line of pyramid-shaped mountains before us bordered by a white desert of hills and limestone. We talked about “The Letters” and looked back at the haunting coast behind us, as we travelled to the Cave of Zeus.

We had been climbing on a twenty-degree grade for over two hours on a well-marked trail with a stone path, when we reached the ridge and the summit ascent. At the top of the mountain pass on the flat saddle of the range was a square hut made out of stones with a small door. 

Looking into the cave, was a long descending stone path and a winding staircase that made switchbacks into the moss-covered depths. Stalagmites hung down and oozed in the green light, obstructing our path. Finally, we reached the great hall in the bottom of the cave but saw nothing. The green lights shone on the cave-ceiling overhead but in the well of the cave, we were eclipsed in an eerie darkness, unable to see the contours and outlines of the cave walls.

* * *

“What did you think we were going to find here,” Eliana said.

“It is just that Actaeon is an orphan. And he is obsessed with Greek myths.”

“Duncan, you brought me to Crete. Explain to me again why you think this alien is hiding in a cave on an island.”

“If you read what he wrote, he was obsessed with the Athenian Gods of Mt. Olympus. Zeus was their King. And Zeus lived as an orphan on this Minoan Island until he reached manhood. He was raised by nymphs who acted as his caregivers and nursemaids.”

“So, you are using your orphan whispering skills to conclude that this is where he’d be hiding?”

“ACT—AE—ONNN!! ACT-AEO-NNNNNN!!” I shouted, “come out if you’re here—we mean no harm.”

* * *

Seated on a stone, Actaeon resembled an older Alexander Skarsgård but he had a Bruce Campbell voice with a low gravelly rumble that occasionally chirped up with a sharper baritone. 

His features were Nordic. He wore a full length black and gold Corinthian helmet with black and gold horse-hair plumes. His torso was covered in black and gold armor with a cuirass entirely of black except for off-facing dragons above the chest plate and a central rounded lion’s head at the solar plexus, flaring at the waste with black tassels and gold lion’s head buttons. On his arms and legs were gauntlets and greaves of leather, with gold metal coverings. In his left hand, he held a three-foot-tall round shield with golden embroidery and a golden Medusa’s head in the center. Both the bowl of the helmet and the body of the shield were silvered and patinated to appear like blued steel. Across his lap was a golden javelin that glittered in other worldly green.

His eyes looked out from beneath the ovular hollows of his mask, as if transfixed on unspeakable anguish. He turned his regal head toward me and looked at me for a long time.

“So, you read my book,” he said in a sad and melodious voice.

“Uhh, I think pretty much everyone has. It wasn’t subtle, if you know what I mean.”

“Hrmph. I mean, you really read it. You must have. Or else you would never have thought to look for me here.”

“Sir…uhh… master of the hounds… ahh… I’m not sure what to call you. You see, I am an orphan too and it occurred to me you might identify with Zeus being orphaned in a cave. That’s what made me think you might be here.”

“Very, very good. You were exactly right. But why have you come?”

“I suppose, sir, uhh, what I was thinking was, is there any way our world might be spared?”

“Nothing lasts forever, kid. I’ve really grown fond of this place, but it’s smoke ‘em if you got ‘em time, if you catch my drift.”

“But there must be some way?”

“Here kid, maybe this will help—but I can’t guarantee how things will come out. Luna is coming, my hounds are coming, the whirlwind is coming—and there’s f**kall anyone can do about it now.”

Actaeon had handed me a thin pamphlet that contained a final verse, that I decided to save and read on the way down the trail. I thought I’d read it aloud to Aliana while we planned our next move.

“There’s something else kid, for you and your girlfriend.”

“Excuse me! I am not anyone’s girlfriend—I am Eliana Huchens if you must know—I was the one that knew where this cave is, not Duncan.”

“Wooee! A real firecracker. A spirited independent woman. You remind me of Luna. That woman will always be one step ahead and never back down for anything.”

“Wellll,” Eliana began, “did you ever consider just letting her win?”

“Mwahaha. We are Lelantians. You want me to let her win. Are you mad! She might blot out a whole galactic neighborhood for cheating her out of an honorable victory.”

Eliana raised her hand as Actaeon shook his head and looked in my direction, shooting me a glance that meant to say what is she doing here anyway. Eliana kept waving her hand and said, “Over here, Mr. Houndman—you weren’t listening—didn’t you say you’ve been living among us for two-thousand-years, sheesh. You can’t possibly be this dense.”

“Excuse me?”

“I said, let her win. I didn’t say that you had to let her know about it.”

“You know, I hadn’t thought of that.”

“That’s why I brought her along, sir,” I said, “she is the smart one—she always has the right answer.” Elaina shot me a loving glance like she wanted to kiss me.

“Tell you what, kid. Wear this bracelet. You’ll be able to reach me. This is ‘emergencies only,’ you get me. And I’ll call if I need you.”

* * *

Walking down the mountain, I read the verse in the pamphlet:

“My lord, Luna (who your myths refer to as Artemis or Cynthia or Phoebe or Diana), is the most ruthless of us all. She was my playmate and at full age my lover. We two were protégés of Lupa (who your myths refer to as Chiron). But Luna was highborn, whereas I was a countrified orphan foundling adopted by a noble house. Despite my lowbred station, I excelled even above Luna in the art of tracking and the stealthy kill, for I am the doyen of hounds. Our rivalry spanned eons and star systems. I strove to prove myself by bringing her under the submission of my prowess, bringing her ever more exotic and elusive prey and the prizes of galactic game auctions for her to display in her temples. She sought to dominate me by arresting and chaining my heart with beguiling deceit and finesse, with cunning zero-option challenges that could test the honor of the immortal one himself if she had but a moment’s audience. This past week, we rendezvoused on an ocean world. I came upon her bathing nude in the luxurious aquamarine waters of a sundrenched and endless sea. In my ardor, I made my petition that she fulfill my yearnings and join with me in the hunt. I told her that I was helpless like a deer panting for water—would she satisfy my deep thirst at last? Whatever affection she held for me could not compete with her ambition. ‘Loutish prole’ she said, ‘how dare you! I will not deign to come when called. I am not some trophy to be pricked by a hunter’s arrow. I am the wraith of shadows that travels on moonbeams—the muse of the toxophilite whose aim is guaranteed.’ And in her outrage, she made me a devil’s bargain. I could reveal the location of the world I had been scouting—your Earth—so its destruction could commence, or she would turn me over to my own hounds. Do not despair, you will be pleased to know that your world is safe for a time… until I am laid low at least, I’d expect. Alas, she has marked me as prey for my own hounds with a mark that cannot be expunged. Though I be the maven of concealers, my bloodhounds possess all time in their droopy jowls and will flush out death itself if it is marked for them to do so. And now that they are on my trail, my days are numbered, and if you read these words, my number is up already.”

Reading it aloud, I wondered if Actaeon might avoid his fate, if mankind might also, and I was determined that it would be so. I finally had a book worth writing.