Shargo the Strong
by Jansen Estrup
One of the most important characters in my book, Starlight On Stone NORTH, is Shargo the Strong.
His great physical strength is also a tremendous liability, for much like his fellow mythological hero, Midas, he is cursed with a 'talent' beyond his control. Whereas everything King Midas touched turned to gold, something truly useless for simple survival, Shargo's strength carries the relentless threat of his own destruction.
Shargo, like Heracles/Hercules (Glory to Hera) and other strong men, has a reality based counterpart. Recently young children have gone viral demonstrating incredible feats of strength, vivid projections of classical heroes such as Atlas, Gilgamesh and Samson.
Nowadays this extremely rare condition is called myostatin-related muscle hypertrophy, an extraordinary ordering of skeletal muscles. Rare as this condition is, Shargo has a further complication, a twin set of abdominal muscles which, when over exercised as in battle, work violently against each other. Often, without warning, this results in a painful, total paralysis of his entire body. Thus he is both divinely strong and fatally vulnerable.
As a small child I knew such a man, and his wife. They lived on the Florida West Coast, on Siesta Key. Unfortunately their names are lost, but I do recall that they were 'smallish' people. As a four or five year old, they did not seem so big to me and my parents, at 74 and 68 inches tall, towered over them both. They were white-haired and once, while I was there, I witnessed one of her 'fits' of paralysis. It was horrible to watch and everyone seemed powerless to help. For you see, both husband and wife had this truly odd physical affliction. It was how they met and how they lived. The story, as a five year old remembers, is that a young man saved a damsel from certain death by chasing down and hauling in a carriage drawn by brace of horses run wild in the streets of New York. It occurs to me now that this couple might have been circus people for the Ringling Bros., Barnum and Bailey Circus wintered not so far away. I do not remember much more about them, except that they never had any children.
The character of Shargo, then, began to evolve from these long ago memories and my curiosity about such a life. What loyalty does a companion warrior hold for one who fights so bravely and well, but requires half a dozen more in order to protect him when he inevitalby falls? And no matter how they might wish it, what real friendship can such an unequal relationship develop? Either he far exels his peers or they outdo him in his peril. Either way, savior or burden, he dominates. Shargo may just as well be a spirit, like Humbaba of the Forest, or Gilgamesh's wild willed brother, Enkidu. Few men can be truly trusted. How can such a man develop a lasting friendship?
Shargo, a seaside Luwan, finds such a friend in another outcast, the disgraced Hurrian prince, Attili. Shargo is a quiet, almost dimmur presence. Attili, for a long time, wondered if the strong man was also mute. Their friendship is rare, fast and tragic.
Shargo ... still lives.
