Category: Fantasy Publisher: Spire Publishing
ISBN-10: 1926635183
Pages: 324
Copyright: May 2009
ISBN-13: 9781926635187
The much misaligned and misunderstood Pan, often incorrectly believed to be the youngest of the gods and the only deity to have perished, returns with a vengeance. Armageddon approaches, but with one major ingredient missing. Without El, who is no more, there can be no second coming - no hope of salvation for humankind.
Enter Pan. Enter a mystified young man from an orphanage.
Enter the real world of tomorrow - our tomorrow.
And enter all the Hell that awaits us!
This story is taken from the future.
Should you search for its time,
don’t look too far ahead.
Nothing will be there.
Excerpt
Taken from Chapter 22.
“Presumptuous of me, I know, but being left on the orphanage steps when only hours old, I too am of probable dubious origin, so I checked up on the day that I arrived into the world, and guess what? The planet was passing through an extremely large meteorite shower. Apparently it was a spectacular sight.”
“You’re certainly thorough, I’ll give you that,” Pan chuckled. “So what is your train of thought on all this?”
“I’m not sure. I know I need to find the Holy Grail because it is likely to be an invaluable weapon. I know that long after Jesus it landed up with Arthur, and both of them were born under bright lights in the sky. Myself being born under similar sky activity is the only comfort I have at the moment. Throughout history comets, meteors and meteorite showers lighting up the sky have many times been referred to as fire-breathing dragons, and somehow I feel there is a connection, but exactly what is still eluding me.”
“Think of the Holy Grail, and then think of who you really are today,” the boy suggested. “The answer to finding what you seek lies within that which you already know.”
Damon thought for a while, still not seeing the connection.
“Things are not always as people perceive them,” Pan said after a while, then holding Damon’s hand: “You like art, don’t you?”
“Only what looks real. Lifelike. I don’t like a lot of the modern stuff.”
“Do you like this oil painting?” his brother asked.
Blinking, Damon realised they were now standing in an impressive art gallery. “Where are we?” he asked, looking around him.
“Los Angeles,” Pan replied. “The John Paul Getty museum. First floor, West Pavilion to be exact. Take a look at the picture in front of you. It’s called: ‘Justice and Divine Vengeance Pursuing Crime’. The French artist Pierre-Paul Prud'hon finished painting it in 1805, and for a long time it hung in the criminal courtroom of the Palace of Justice in Paris. Do you like it?”
“Oh!” Damon exclaimed, taking his first real look at the magnificent piece of art. “How? That’s John holding the flaming torch, and me — I’m right behind him with the sword, though it looks a bit like I’m a woman. How? How is it possible our faces are there if it was painted so long ago? That is definitely the two of us! Without any shadow of doubt, it is!”
“Let’s just say Pierre-Paul was inspired,” Pan laughed. “John is portrayed as Truth lighting the way to the murderer, and you as Nemesis, the goddess of divine retribution in mythology, about to perform justice. Don’t worry about looking female in the painting, that’s only because humans have to deal with gender, even stupidly using it in many of their languages as well as allocating it to their gods. It doesn’t really mean anything, we do know you aren’t effeminate.”
“Thank goodness for that!” Damon replied, before adding: “If John and I are in this painting, then who are the other two guys? The murderer and the corpse?”
“That’s for you to work out, brother,” Pan told him. “They are answers I am not allowed to give you. But I can tell you there is a lot that is relevant in this painting. I suggest you download a copy of it from the internet later. There are dozens of copies of it on there. Make sure you find a good one. You will need to study it well.
“Let us move on to another picture, this one is in the National Gallery of Scotland in Edinburgh. I’ve been watching you studying copies of Leonardo da Vinci's famous painting, The Last Supper, for clues. I’m afraid you are wasting your time looking at that one. Like many others, it is totally inaccurate — in the time of Jesus people didn’t sit up at tables to eat like you do today in the western world. And for whatever reason, Leonardo also makes an incorrect statement in it by changing the disciple Jesus loved into a woman. No, though it may be fashionable, that one is utter rubbish. This is the one you really need to study. It is far more accurate.”
Damon looked at the dark picture now in front of him. “Who did this one,” he asked.
“This is one of two on the Last Supper painted in the 1640s by Nicholas Poussin. The other one, very similar and also kept in Scotland, is just as accurate but not finished off quite so well. Note the tricline furniture and relaxed posture of the apostles. Tricline is the typical Roman, squarish U-shaped set up with the outward facing divan-like sofas used at the time depicted. Guests would recline on the three sides, leaning over or kneeling up to the sofa backs to reach their food on a table the rear of the sofas enclosed. The open side was left for filling and clearing the table. You will also see in this painting the apostle with his head lovingly resting on Jesus, in fact almost lying in his lap, is indisputably male. He is John the Evangelist.”
“Was Jesus really gay, then?”
“It’s that sexual hang-up you people have today, isn’t it?” Pan laughed. “No, he wasn’t. But only because people didn’t slot one another into categories like that in those days. Then, as with most of the animal kingdom throughout all time, having sex happened naturally between dominant and submissive people of either gender. Cows have always mounted other cows, and dogs mounted other dogs too. It is natural and the way of things as El intended. All the other animals still manage to control their numbers perfectly well. It is only humans having adopted some peculiar ways, linking that natural sexual activity with morality to create something seen as wrong and dirty, which overpopulate.
“In the days of Jesus it was considered quite normal for a man to have sex with another man, a slave, or even a boy. It was nothing unusual at all, not even to be frowned upon. This whole idea of marriage to a member of the opposite gender and only having sex with that one person, being faithful as it is called, is in historical terms a comparatively new state of affairs. Whilst a commitment to a mate with a requirement to support the offspring has often been necessary to ensure survival, for most of humankind’s time sexual enjoyment has not been restricted to being solely within those bounds. Once, anything consensual was permissible, and as that often occurred with the same gender in order to prevent spurious offspring, it went a long way towards preventing overpopulation. Your religions cannot accept it in the blinkered world you live in today, but in all respects Jesus would have been quite normal for his time. Well, almost.”
“Almost?”
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