River of Time

“Then Cloacina, goddess of the tide, whose stable stream against the city glide, indulged in a modish flame- the town she roved; a mortal scavenger she saw she loved.”

Bright colors filled the clouds as the Sun began to rise over the beautiful blue skies of France. Lights that were previously off began to fill the atmosphere, their faint yellow hues bouncing off of the purples and oranges of the sunrise. Each building was its own soft brown hue on a spectrum of greys. Once upon a time, this sunrise was Apollo riding his great chariot, and before then, Sol. Now, it was simply a big ball of gas in the sky and a planet rotating around it.

Cloacina even remembered when it was Usil, holding giant fireballs in his hands, rising out of the ocean as he brought forth the same bright hues of orange and purple, sometimes even a soft lavender or a hot pink, burning like fire. But alas, Usil was dead, along with Apollo and Sol. It didn’t matter. No matter what the people believed, the Sun would always rise, and the mortals of the world would awaken, ready for the next day in their tragically short lives. The world would always spin no matter how they believed it did - and their lives would continue. 

Cloacina’s would not. 

She looked up through the little slits in the sewer cover, watching the Sun rise above the exquisite city of Paris. She hadn’t been there long - only a few centuries - but she still felt an attachment to the city, with its beautiful buildings and people alike, and its skies clear enough to see the sunrise in all its glory. She would never have the same attachment she’d had to Felsina, or even Rome, but with Paris’s great catacombs, she felt right at home. Paris was like a new Rome in some senses - it was a city of art and culture, of fiction and reality. It was grounded, but it also flew above the world, floating on its own little palace in the sky, for there was no place truly just like it. 

And, of course, it had catacombs to rival Rome’s Cloaca Maxima, the sewer system Cloacina was named for, the system she once thrived over, offerings given to her above and peacefulness below, where she watched over the sewers and made sure they were all in service. Where she could be one among the tide and the water going through the great system. Where she was truly alive. Where she was at home. 

Paris’s catacombs were different, but they were just as great with their history and reality.  Sometimes, when she went deep enough, Cloacina could find the old bodies of those buried there once upon a time. Sometimes, she could find little things dropped down below, things like purses full of money or even the little devices people carried with them. They evolved over the time she had been there, but she distinctly remembered being able to hear music, sounds, and melodies only for her ears, sounds no one else could hear. The gadget had broken, and the music was lost, but Cloacina still remembered it nonetheless. 

She clung onto that memory, along with the others she could think of, the memories of Rome and Felsina, her two homes, the two places she’d always love above all others, though Paris was coming close. She clung onto her memories of those places in hopes that someday, she’d be worshipped again like she used to, that she wouldn’t die along with Sol and Apollo and all those other gods and goddesses, deities forgotten about in time, lost in translation, like the flowing river she was caught in, the flowing river of time and memory. As long as that river flowed, she’d eventually come to the end of the stream. And once she came to that end, she’d be caught, but the water would continue. Time would go on without her as she was slowly forgotten about. She’d be caught in a spider’s web, caught and never let go. 

Cloacina didn’t know what would happen to her when she was forgotten about; it was quite like how mortals didn’t know what would happen when they died. The only way to know was either to have faith in your heart of one outcome or to die yourself. Both ways only ensured your own knowledge. She assumed she’d go to some afterlife, but she didn’t know which one. She didn’t even know if the afterlives she had grown old with were still around the way they used to, with the gods dying like herself. 

She didn’t know what would happen to her, but she knew it was coming, coming close and closer each passing day, as the river of time continued to flow. 

A pair of small, bright pink sneakers stepped over Cloacina’s face, dripping mud from the previous day’s rain. 

“Watch it,” she said, feeling a little annoyed. This happened often, but Cloacina rarely said anything. She was a goddess after all. A little annoyance was nothing in the grand scheme of things. But today - maybe it was just that she was thinking about her inevitable death - today, she spoke up. 

A young girl turned around, peering down at the pavement.

“Who are you?” asked the girl, curiosity shining through her smile. 

The girl was short, but with the sunrise behind her and her angle above Cloacina, she looked taller. Her eyes were a light shade of brown, matching the hue of her ruffled, wavy hair, cut to her neck. She looked to be around six or seven years old, barely old enough to understand the world around her. 

“Who are you?”, said Cloacina, dodging the question. 

“I’m Romy.” Her voice was singsony and bright, just like her eyes. 

“Like the city of Rome?”

“Nah,” the girl said, crouching down to the pavement close to Cloacina. “It’s a nickname for Rosemarie.” 

Ah, right. She lived in France, years and years after the fall of the Roman Empire. Of course she wouldn’t be named after Cloacina’s old home. Of course this young girl with the sun behind her and in her eyes wouldn’t remember her. 

Cloacina realized she was speaking French. She knew all of the world’s languages, but despite her living in the city of light, she rarely spoke its language. Everything was either in her original Estruscan or Latin. Both languages were dead to the rest of the world, but they would still be continued with her memory. 

As long as that memory lasted. 

“What are you doing in the sewer?” Romy asked, her head tilting towards the clouds. 

“What are you doing out alone at sunrise?”

The girl sighed as she started fiddling with a stick next to the sewer. “Trying to run away.”

“Why?” Cloacina asked, feeling a smidge of sympathy for this girl. After so many years of no being in contact with anyone, she was pretty numb to human emotion, but she felt something towards this girl. Perhaps it was the lack of human contact for so long. Perhaps it was that she was so pure, like the old Cloaca Maxima in the city she shared a name with. She didn’t know.

“I just make people sad.” 

“Oh,” heaved Cloacina, deeply sighing as she thought again how forgotten she was. “No, you don’t.”

Romy pouted. “Yes, I do.”

“You want to make people feel better by running away? You want to be forgotten? You want to spend each day in a place vaguely reminding you of your home? Somewhere where you’re not considered special at all, somewhere where you know you’ll cease to exist altogether sooner and sooner, while you just sit in the sewers patiently waiting?”

The words slipped right of Cloacina’s mouth. She thought that she loved Paris - and she did, she assumed. She loved the sunrise and the sunset, the air and the buildings, but she couldn’t love the people like she did the Romans or the Etruscans. She couldn’t love them because they couldn’t love her. She’d never mean anything to them. She was filth beneath their feet, like the sewers and catacombs she watched over. 

The girl leaned down again, patting her hand over the sewer cover. “I’m sorry, lady.”

“It’s Cloacina,” she said, shooing away Romy’s hand. “You can call me Cloacina.”

“Okay, Cloacina. I’m sorry.” She paused here, thinking about what to say next. “But I still wanna just leave.”

“Why?”

“Because,” Romy replied, “People just get sad when I'm around”

Cloacina thought about this. Of course, there was pain in being remembered, but that didn’t mean there wouldn’t be any pain in being forgotten. Especially not for someone like Romy, who would actually be able to survive it. 

“I don’t think so,” she said, turning her head down as she reflected. “It might make you sad, but that doesn’t mean you won’t ever be happy again.”

“And,” Cloacina continued, “It doesn’t mean that you’ll never feel sad again, either. Both are parts of life. Besides, running away doesn’t ensure being forgotten. It’ll just make people worry more about you.”

“Nah,” Romy said, getting back up. “They wouldn’t really care.”

“Why not?”

Romy sighed, brushing her hair out of her face dramatically. “Well, everyone’s always fighting, anyway.”

Cloacina sighed, thinking about what to respond with. “Do they fight about you?” she finally settled on. 

“No.”

“Do they fight with you?”

“No.”

“So, what’s the issue?”

Romy crouched down again. “You don’t understand.”

Cloacina’s cheeks turned bright red with anger. Didn’t this girl see the value in being remembered? Didn’t she understand what it was like to be forgotten? To live every day, every single day, thinking it could be her last, and be cursed to have that feeling for many years to come? Couldn’t she see that?

“I think I do. I know what it’s like to be forgotten.”, Cloacina said, thinking about that feeling, that immense sadness she would always feel until her inevitable death. 

“No, you don’t.”

Cloacina sighed. “Think of it this way - I had two families. Both died. I’ll never exist to them again, and I rarely did when any of them were alive, either.”

Romy’s face started to drop, as the sun behind her began to settle down into the sky. “Both are gone?”

“Yes.”

She fiddled with her hair again. “But do you just hurt them?”

“I don’t know. And I can’t ask them now.” The young girl dropped her head towards the ground, looking at the pavement thoughtfully.

Cloacina sighed again, as she sulked back down into the sewer, removing her face from Romy’s vantage point. “So, are you going to go back home now?”

The girl smiled as she started to get up. “Only if you get out of the sewer.”

“I can’t do that.”

Romy laughed. “You still wanna stay away?”

“No,” she said, “It’s more complicated than that.”

“Doesn’t sound like it.”

Cloacina thought about that. She could leave the sewer if she wanted to. But she’d still be forgotten. There was just no point. 

Unless…

“Okay.” she said, reaching to take off the cover. “I’ll leave.”

Cloacina took Romy’s hand, as the young girl helped her up. Thankfully, Romy didn’t blink an eye at her being perfectly clean despite all her years in the sewer. 

Cloacina sighed again as she reflected on this great decision she was making. But it was the right one, she decided. It was right for her.

The two people - both mortal - walked straight towards the sunrise as Romy started directing Cloacina towards her home. She dropped her off by the door, watching the great streets, streets she never thought she’d ever be able to walk on again. The Sun shined brightly, but now, Cloacina felt like she was a part of it, not like she was just watching from below. Now, she was a part of everything, the busy streets while the shops opened up. Now, she could breath clean air, and she loved every bit of it. Now, she was simply human, just another mortal among mortals in the beautiful city of light, and she would be until she was completely forgotten about.

The spiderweb she found herself caught in loosened, but until she was finally unstuck, she’d continue to flow through the great river of time. 

(Author's note: Another mythology story, though this one is a little bit more indirect! Also, thanks so much to Rhonny for editing this one up a bit! If you all like my myth stories, please let me know, so I can keep writing them! Also, I want to thank you all for 100 followers. I know that isn't a lot to all of you, but it means a lot to me that my writing is reaching 100 people. Thanks so, so, so much!)