A Gamble of the Gods

“Love conquers all.”

It was a cheesy line, Aphrodite knew, but even after thousands of years as the love goddess, she still knew it to be true. Love could lift cars off of babies, travel over land and sea just to see a smile, keep a marriage bound through hell and highwater. Aphrodite had seen it happen, time and time again. She had seen the effects of her touch on a heart, and she reveled in the strength that love could give a human. Aphrodite loved her job.

The other gods were not so enamored.

Up on Olympus, the gods mocked her. “Your job is easy,” they would say. “Try reigning the seas. Try summoning lightning. Try urging crops to grow in a drought.” Try watching a young girl fall in love, Aphrodite would think, with boy after boy who did not love her back. Try touching a young mother’s heart, just for Hades to rip her newborn child away. Try consoling a soldier on Ares’s battlefield who just watched his brother-in-arms take his final breath.

Aphrodite’s job was not easy, but it was fulfilling. The laugh of a child holding her new puppy filled Aphrodite with all the strength she needed to push through the pain she had to cause, to live in symbiosis with the other gods. Without love of the ocean, the sailors wouldn’t sail Poseidon’s seas. Without love of country, soldiers wouldn’t fight Ares’s wars. Without love of each other, well, even Hera herself would be out of a job.

Without Aphrodite, the heavens and the earth would cease to function. The other gods must have known this, but that didn’t stop their teasing. 

“Love conquers all,” Apollo mocked one day, legs slung up on his Olympian throne. “What an absolutely ridiculous catchphrase.”

“Shouldn’t you be out steering the sun?” Aphrodite said, not even glancing up from her book. [As humanity aged, they began to forget the gods. Zeus and Apollo and many of the others raged at the lack of sacrifices, heating the land and sparking monstrous storms in what the humans would come to call climate change. Aphrodite, though, was content with the direction humanity had taken. Each sickly sweet romance novel they wrote was a tribute to her, whether they knew it or not.]

“The sun can steer itself,” Apollo said. “I told the horses to fly just slightly closer to California today; with luck, it’ll catch fire again.”

Aphrodite hummed noncommittally.

“I’m serious, ‘Dite. ‘Love conquers all?’ Love can’t conquer all. If Hephaestus throws a human into a volcano, will love allow them to swim unharmed in lava? If Dionysus afflicts a man with insanity, will the love of his spouse make him sane again?”

“Love will draw an elephant through a keyhole,” Aphrodite quoted.

“Okay, fine,” Apollo said, sitting up straight. Aphrodite sighed, for she knew that glint in his eye. “Say love could do all that. Aren’t there limits to love? Say, for example, people couldn’t see each other, or interact. Could love still draw an elephant through a keyhole?”

“Love will always find a way.”

“Aphrodite, girl, please with the sappy quotes.”

“They’re all true.”

Apollo sighed. “Alright, let’s place a bet. I’ll inflict a plague on the whole world. Nobody will be able to see each other to love each other for, I don’t know, a couple years at least. Not to mention the unspeakable volume of death, hopelessness, all that good stuff. If love prevails, you win. If humanity gives up on love, I do. Deal?”

“Humanity will never give up on love, and I don’t need a plague to prove it.”

“I’m sure you won’t mind if I entertain my doubts anyway,” Apollo said, and shot a plague arrow down to earth.

***

James sat in the school cafeteria, surrounded by his friends. The coronavirus had just reached America— everyone knew it would happen sooner or later, but now it was real. A real, live plague. It was almost exciting. James was living through history; he would be able to tell his children about this one day. He got shivers just thinking about it.

Thinking about the meantime was not so exciting.

The cases so far were low; a few cases here and there in the cities, but they would spread fast. How long before schools had to close? How long before he couldn’t gather with his friends like this anymore? And how long would it be before the whole virus was a distant memory?

But every time James began to worry, an indescribable feeling sparked in his heart. He could only imagine it was love. Love, that kept him in this moment, laughing and smiling with his friends. Love, that kept hope alive in his heart. Love, that brought a feeling of adventure to his chest.

Love let him know that everything would be okay.

***

“It’s just a bad flu,” James complained. “This quarantine is bullshit.”

“You sound like such a Karen,” Sonia said. “Go play Animal Crossing and be quiet.”

Sonia knew her brother didn’t mean it. James was nothing if not careful. He was the type of guy to spray Febreze at anti-maskers in a Target. Sure, his motives were skewed; he didn’t necessarily care about people getting sick and dying, he just wanted to rehearse with his theater friends again. But after two months of quarantine, Sonia couldn’t blame him. She’d sacrifice the world just to see her girlfriend Josie again.

Over the past two months, Sonia’s world had drastically changed. The concept of social distancing which, at the start of the pandemic, had seemed strange and foreign, now governed everyday life. Masks had also once seemed strange and foreign, but now seeing someone without a mask was like catching them with their pants down. And sure, the world may not be divided into good people and Death Eaters, but it now was definitely divided into good people and anti-maskers. 

But every time Sonia began dwelling on the inherent stupidity of humankind (God, she could write an essay on it), an indescribable feeling sparked in her heart, and she would think of all the good the pandemic had caused. Without it, she would still be in school, with significantly less time to play with her dogs. Without it, James would have never unlocked the confidence to become the anti-Karen Febreze-wielding ninja he wanted to see in the world.

Sonia had to admit that there were things about the pandemic that she loved, and that was what would get her through it.

***

“It’s only the first two months,” Apollo said. “Give it a little time, and they’ll forget what they love about quarantine.”

This declaration was met with a chorus of Olympian boos. Even they were bored of the pandemic.

“All I’m saying is that if you sit in heaven for a bit too long, it turns to hell.”

“As wise as that may be,” Athena allowed, “why bother teaching it to the humans? They’ll learn that well enough once they die.”

“This isn’t about the humans!” Apollo moaned. “Well, it isn’t about what is or isn’t hell to them. It’s about love, and how long love can endure.”

“Brother, please,” said Artemis. “Send the humans the cure. This has gone on long enough.”

“Yeah, they had to cancel football!” Ares roared. Zeus and Poseidon nodded in agreement.

“Football aside,” Athena dismissed, “we all know that love will endure a test of stamina. Look to Penelope, who waited twenty years for Odysseus to return from Troy. Apollo, you must know you’ll lose.”

“That’s why on top of quarantine, I’ll add violence. Ares, prepare the race war!”

***

“Mom says we can’t go to the anti-racism protest,” Sonia said. “Do you think it’s because of the global pandemic ravaging the entire world, or do you think it’s because we might get tear gassed by riot police?”

“Thank you,” James said, “for reminding me that we live in a literal, actual dystopian YA novel.”

“For a dystopian YA novel, life is goddamn boring. Is this what extras in, like, District 4 did? Katniss is storming the Capitol, and children are killing each other every year in the Hunger Games, and you’re just like… out fishing.”

“Ooo, I caught a big fish in Animal Crossing the other day.”

“Oh nice, can I come to your island?”

***

“I just… feel numb,” Sonia said, and her therapist nodded. “The other day I was telling James how it’s like being an extra in The Hunger Games. All this awful stuff is going on around you, and people are dying and rioting, and all you can do is go about your daily life. I can’t go out and protest because of corona, and James’s asthma, and I can’t… What can I do? I’ve been signing petitions like crazy, and donating money, but it doesn’t feel like I’m accomplishing anything. I want to… I want to go riot. I want to throw a brick or set something on fire, I’m so angry.

“Am I angry, or numb? I just don’t know anymore. I think I’m so angry so much of the time that my brain’s stopped feeling it. There’s so much I want to do, but I feel helpless. I need this all to be over. I need to get my hands dirty and fix things, but I can’t. I need… I need… I don’t know.”

“Love,” her therapist said. “You need to renew your faith in love.”

“Yeah, I guess. I watch footage of the protests, and there’s so much love in it all. Out of the hatred of racism, people of all colors have banded together under the flag of love. And the hate tries to stifle the love, but the love pushes back, and that’s why people are still out there protesting peacefully and even rioting, despite the fear of the pandemic, and despite the hate we get just for demanding an end to the death. It’s so dystopian, but even in a dystopia there’s love, I guess. Love conquers all: it’s true in fiction, and I have to believe it’s true in the real world too.”

***

“Eww, she said the thing,” Apollo said.

“She knows as well as I do that it’s true.”

“She doesn’t believe it, though. You have to know she’s just saying that, hoping for it to be real.”

Aphrodite smiled. “Apollo, dear, I think it’s time for my counterattack.”

***

James could not believe that the day was finally here. He and Sonia and their family had stocked up on enough food for two weeks, not leaving the house once for a fourteen-day quarantine. Their friends had all done the same. And now, they would all meet at a cabin in the woods, far from people and pandemics. It would be like corona wasn’t even a thing.

James could burst with excitement.

Was there still some risk of catching the virus? Of course. Did James care?

...Of course he did. But he was sick and tired of being away from the people he loved, and he knew Sonia was too. Sonia needed her friends and James needed his friends and there was no god in the sky who could prevent them from the much-needed socialization that this weekend promised.

James and his friends gathered out in the woods by the lake the first evening, and acted out Romeo and Juliet with no props and bad accents. Sonia, Josie, and a couple other girls from the volleyball team watched. When James, as Mercutio, died overdramatically in a stick fight, Sonia laughed harder than she had in months. James couldn’t keep the smile off his face, leading to a poke in the gut, and a, “Verily, the villain hath not died!”

“I’ve died! And now I take my final breath,” James grinned.

“You’ve died before your final breath is take… taken. Took? / What sorcery! You’ve turned my tongue to prose!”

“I’m surprised you held the iambic pentameter that long!” Josie called.

“Only theater kids,” Sonia said, and nuzzled her head into Josie’s shoulder.

***

Apollo was scheming something particularly cruel, Aphrodite could tell. It was the same glint in his eye that sparked the plague to begin with, and Aphrodite imagined that whatever he was planning next would end it all. 

Aphrodite had held the hand of humanity throughout the pandemic. When they fell to despair, she filled them with love. She touched every heart that was open to her, urging them to protest, to donate, to wear their masks and stay inside. There had always been people she could not reach, those too deeply corrupted by greed or hate. Those remained as distant as always. Yet even the humans receptive to her love began to lose faith, and when they did, she would give them something to love again. Perhaps to one, she would give a puppy, or to another, she would suggest an engrossing hobby, or to another, she would offer a safe gathering of friends. 

It was hard. 

Spreading love in a dark world was the hardest thing Aphrodite had ever had to do. It wasn’t the first time that a city or a country or a continent had been afflicted with war or plague. This time, though, it was the whole world. Aphrodite’s influence was stretched so thin, and every human on earth was thirsting for more of her. She was so tired. Yet, she would not let herself lose hope, because Aphrodite was hope. If she abandoned humanity, humanity would fall. 

So when Apollo got that glint in his eye once more, Aphrodite left the room and wept. Perhaps weeping was the only way to counter the hopelessness, because once she was done crying, Aphrodite was prepared to overcome any challenge Apollo could throw at her.

And Apollo let one last arrow fly.

***

Where love once rested in Sonia’s chest, an empty void now sat, ravenous, sucking at the happiness she had left. Nobody knew how James had caught the virus. But he hadn’t stood a chance. Four days after he had tested positive, Sonia and her parents watched him be lowered into the ground.

Sonia was out of tears.

What do you do when you’ve lost your only brother? What god do you curse? If you’ve done everything you can to keep your family safe and healthy, who can you blame when you fail?

It didn’t matter. Nothing did, Sonia decided. Life was cold, and death was senseless. There was nothing worth holding onto, because everything would one day be lost. None of these thoughts consoled her, and Sonia understood, definitively, that the only solution to life’s pain was to never love again.

***

It was five years since James’s death, and Sonia was sure to visit his grave at least once every month. There wasn’t a day her thoughts didn’t stray to him: his smile, his humor, his stupid little theater friends and their constant Wicked references. The gaping hole in her heart where he once inhabited was still empty, yearning for his return.

But the edges of her grief weren’t as jagged.

Sonia traced the outline of his name on the gravestone. The lines weren’t yet weathered, but one day the indentations would smooth. Yet James would never be erased. That was the thing about her brother: he left a James-shaped impression on every life he touched. He powered every room with love.

That love was lasting. Sonia understood that now. No matter how long since she had seen James’s face or heard his voice, his love was still all around her. It was in her mother’s smile, and her father’s hugs, and the little good deeds all three of the family did, knowing it’s what James would want them to do. Love was eternal, even if those who spread it were not.

“2020? Did the coronavirus take him?”

Sonia jumped. The woman beside her, veiled in white, must have appeared out of nowhere. She nodded.

“Oh, he was so young, too. I’m sorry.”

Sonia wasn’t sure what to say. “He was my brother. Did you... lose anyone?”

“I almost lost myself,” she said. “I almost lost faith.” The woman paused for a moment, contemplating. “Sometimes, right when you think your time is over in the world, the deathless love of others pulls you back onto the ledge. Even in the darkest times, there is so much love in the world, don’t you think?”

Sonia nodded. “Yes, I do, and I think James would say so too.”