PANDORA AFTER

Pandora was laced in the arms of her husband. His warm body comforting her trembling figure. He murmured his forever love for her as she rocked, eyes tightly closed from the horror she’d unleashed. Hours past on the cold bedroom floor. Her trembling subdued as the sun peeked it’s face and returned the light blue to the sky. She slept, the gods laughing at their inevitable invention and sounds of the first guttural cough echoed throughout the city.

Days later, news reached the palace ears of a village child with contorting limbs and spine. No one had seen an infliction quite like this. The young girls tears were not of feeling but of pain and mortal suffering, that went beyond the cut of a knee occurred falling down in a game of chase. Pandora knew that the whispers of curses were all wrong, the gods had not punished the girl with the wide smile and a goofy fascination with insects. Pandora’s own curiosity had. 

‘There is no evil sitting in a little box’ Eri had jested. He had meant it as a comfort to Pandora and yet she would not let him peer inside of the mundane clay gift, from Zeus himself, as she herself had days before. Eri did not believe that his wife had met true sorrow, that she had unleashed it from it’s four walled cell. He had put Pandora’s cries of evil down to nightmares rattling in her head and laughed at the storm she had seen escape its lips. In short, it was just female hysteria brought on by the moon or lack of sea air.

As soon as she could, Pandora slipped out of the sheets that bound her to Eri and stumbled towards the palace gates. She felt a heaviness in the air as her bare feet padded along the rocky path, still warm from the glory of the day. She followed the servants brief directions to the tiny house, which sat upon the farthest hill in the east of the village. It stood alone, a shack hanging onto the cliff edge. As she approached, the wind bade her to go back, tugging at her hair and licking at her nightdress. She insisted on knocking on the peeling door.

She met the child at the foot of her bed. A small girl, with messy ginger hair and tiny auburn freckles. She slept whilst her siblings played happily around her, chasing one another with dolls made from straw and sticks. The mother informed her that Errol, the afflicted girl, was to have the bed which they all shared the floor. Naturally, the other children took this as a liberty to never settle. The still girl, against the radiant joy of her sister and brothers, saddened pandora. 

‘This is the best of it’ Said the mother, her eyes wired open as if propped up by imaginary toothpicks. ‘When she sleeps, at least she is still’.

‘I heard about the convulsions. I’m so sorry. I pray to Zeus that this storm shall pass’ Pandora replied, barely able to meet her gaze.

‘People think that it is fable, a source of entertainment, but we need help, we need a doctor. She can’t go on like this. When she wakes, she cries and her body throws itself about, bit by bit. Her neck twists. Her eyes bleach white. What can we do, there has never been anything like it…’

‘There will be a way’

‘This would never happen to a guest of the palace’ The mother whispered as she scurried away to attend the boiling pot she had nestled on the fire. Pandora felt the words bite her in the chest. She had seen the poverty of the town but never felt the eyes of the poor scold her with such malice. For the first time in her life, she felt ashamed of her stance in life and privilege of being a princess. She carried the weight of guilt to the bedside, where she brushed aside the damp hair from young Errols face. She sat there a brief hour, silently praying to Zeus for pity, when the girl opened her grass green eyes. 

‘You’re leaning on my hair’ She groaned. Pandora quickly re-assessed her stance around the young girls bed, suprised at her sudden conciousness.

‘Hello Errol. I’m-‘

‘I dreamt of a fairy last night. She looked a lot like you’

‘Oh really? What did she say?’

‘She gave me a gift. A little butterfly. A golden one. Is that what you’ve brought me?’

‘No. No I haven’t, but I have got you this’

From her breast, Pandora plucked all the finery from her neck and jewels that hugged her fingers and adorned the young girl.

‘These are good luck charms. They were owned by strong women. Women who held the world in their hands. They fought monsters and negotiated wars.’

‘I don’t want them’

‘But why, they look far better on you’ 

The girl looked at her new treasures as you would look at a faraway star. 

‘Keep them. For me. Please’ Pandora begged. ‘It’s all I can think to do. Errol I am so sorry for the state of your condition. It might sound silly but I feel almost responsible’. 

But the faraway look in Errol’s eyes had reached out and grasped onto the abyss of white. Her head twitched to the left, crunching her neck and contorting her spine. Her legs jutted out, kicking the air in protest and the world went silent for a bit.

Five nights on her knees in prayer and every piece of gold in Pandora’s reach, exchanged for the service of the best doctors, did not stop the Fates from taking Errol. Her funeral a bleak affair, not worth mentioning in any short story.

Guilt took Pandora to her husbands ear. ‘I saw the thing from the box escape that girl’. But Eri only shunned her for leaving the house without permission, requesting she see his trusted advisor to talk through her struggles. ‘I think that girl died because of me’. She told him, and he prescribed her herbs and sleep to rest her weary head.

She saw Errol in her dreams, chasing a butterfly into the little clay box, every time her eyes closed. 

She questioned why the Gods had given her such a weighted gift, questioned whether what they had given had even been real. Still, she wouldn’t open the box again. Curiosity had killed Errol easier than it had the cat a week later. Shortly after, the dogs became enraged with rabies and then the humans started to argue, which built into a riot.

Over the next few weeks, Pandora would look in the mirror and see freckles splatter her face. They danced in the sun and evolved day by day. Her hair dulled to auburn and her eyes reflected the green of a eucalyptus leaf. The image that stared back told Pandora to seek justice. So she walked to the police station and demanded punishment, and when that failed she looked to the river and debated the worth of her life as a sacrifice to the Gods. 

It wasn’t until a young girl, much like Errol, ran past. In her hands were the bottles of the apothecary, fizzing with healing potions. She watched the girl, barely different from the young boy who apprenticed the healer, run with such determination. She was running towards a life of dresses and children and watching pain without ever learning how to heal it; Ever being able to do more than meet her maternal nature. It made her angry, too angry to sit still, she wanted to move, to convulse, to kick like Errol at the impotent nature of the human disease that was gender. She took her anger and held it, centred in a heart shaped box to the left of her body and kept it there until windswept autumn gave way to new ideas.

‘A Doctor?’ Eri asked, for the third time.

‘Yes, yes, yes Eri I’m going to become one’ Pandora said, packing her sturdier clothing for a weekend in the West Village. She had heard the rumours of a man who studied bodies and had an interesting outlook on disease from his work.

‘That is ridiculous, there is so many better things for you to do’ He said, carefully stroking her arm. ‘These things will upset you. I’ve seen the way you are when people die, you are far too gentle for that kind of work.’

‘I will learn not to be’

‘That’s not something you learn darling. Don’t loose who you are. Your sensitivity is such a brilliant part of you.’

Pandora fumbled underneath the bed to grab her travelling gloves when Eri let out a gruff sigh.

‘You’ll last a second and then I’ll have to come and get you. I think you should stay’

‘No’

‘All this to cool your guilt. I swear to you Pandora, you have nothing to atone for’

He stood, a man sweating in a sea of concern. Pandora felt her stomach drop at seeing his unease.

‘I love you’ She said. He had always seen her innocence, had wanted her to have an easy life, but he knew nothing of the frustration that she felt. And with that, she kissed him gently and squeezed his trembling hand.

On her way out, in the secrecy of a secluded storage room, Pandora retrieved the clay box that had held the spirit of all her grief. It was warm to the touch and when she first clasped it, a warm glow seemed to spill from it’s lid. The warmth swam from her hands into her shoulders and embraced her body like a shield of armour. She felt safe as she fit it comfortably into the breast of her jacket and headed to the West. 

On her way through the wooded path, the box rattled and Pandora wondered; She swept away the Image of evil that once lay inside and worried for the possible rodent or small creature that had snuck itself inside for a free journey through the village. With concern, she opened it. Out flew a tiny butterfly with shining wings. Its softly fluttering body glowed in luxurious golden light and landed, gently, upon Pandora’s nose before escaping into the trees. It’s soft touch had felt fleeting but real. She watched it lazily fly away. Pandora looked into the empty box, once filled with fear, and then forward to the future ahead.