Week 2, Storytelling: The Becoming

(Deucalion & Pyrrha Repopulate the Earth. Photo Source: Wikipedia Commons)

Jupiter was flooding the Earth from above with rain. He had become so impatient at the time it was taking to flood the Earth that he called on his brother, Neptune, to help him flood the Earth with more water from below. Only two people made it out alive: Deucalion and his wife, Pyrrha. In the aftermath, they looked around and realized they were alone. They appealed to the goddess, Themis, to help them. She replied that they should throw the bones (rocks) of their mother (Earth) behind them. They began to do this and one by one, my kind was created from the bones of our mother. After landing, we would soften and morph into a human form, and after a few minutes, we were free to walk, talk, and live. I was euphoric when I was thrown. This was my first moment on Earth. As I began to morph, I felt my bones being created and hardening, I felt my skin stretching over my muscles. I felt my eyes forming underneath my eyelids. I was Becoming. I was slowly opening my eyes when everything stopped. At first I thought maybe this was what was supposed to happen before I took my final form, but I knew that this was not right. This was not normal. Something was wrong. What had gone wrong? What had I done wrong? This was as far in the process of becoming a human in the re-population of the Earth as I was allowed to go.

I have spent thousands of years trying to figure out why I was not allowed to Become. No one answers me, no one can hear me. My soul is stuck in this slowly deteriorating form. No one noticed me after the Becoming. Everyone moved forward as Deucalion and Pyrrha threw the rocks, moved forward, and threw more rocks. I was left alone for a long time before someone found me. A young woman who had been wandering through the woods, half lost, was the first one to find me. She walked up to me and looked me in my half opened eyes. I thank the goddess every day that I had gotten my eyes open this far before things went wrong. To be immortal and blind would be the final sick twist to my situation. She slowly reached out to me and rubbed her hand down my arm. I could feel her, but I could not respond. I was screaming, trying to move a millimeter, but nothing would happen. After slowly moving around me, she grabbed both my shoulders and said she was taking me home with her. I was so relieved to be moved. No matter what happened, at least I would not have to stand out here in the cold, dark, nothingness by myself.

After leaving me for some time, the young woman returned with men. They all looked me over, trying to figure out where my base was. I wanted to tell them that I was not a statue, that I was supposed to be a human. I was supposed to be like them. I was supposed to Become. After prying my feet from the ground, they carried me gently to her palace. The young woman would stop and stare at me sometimes, like she knew there was something different about this statue, but she was always going somewhere else, never staying long enough to follow her hunch. The young woman grew into an old woman, who had young women of her own. I stayed on the palace grounds for a very long time. I saw countless wars, famine, empires rise and fall. At some point, I just became a part of history. Over the next millennia I have been moved from museum to museum, from storage to storage, from person to person. I have lost limb and head, but I still remain.

(Unknown Statue. Photo Source: Wikipedia Commons)

Authors Note: The story Deucalion and Pyrrha is about how the god Jupiter decides to flood the Earth with the help of his brother Neptune. Deucalion and his wife Pyrrha survive the flood by landing in their boat on the top of Mount Parnassus and become good pagans who worshipped the gods and goddesses and made offerings unto them. After appeasing the goddess Themis, she decided to allow them to repopulate the earth. To do this they were to pry rocks up from the ground and then throw the rocks behind them. When they would do this the rocks would soften and morph into a human like form and then would become new women and men. I first thought this myth would be a good one to adapt into a story about one of the rocks who was to become a man or a woman that didn't quite make it all the way to their human form. I thought about what would happen to them if they were stuck half-way between “becoming” a human. The flow of the sentences in the first paragraph is supposed to be choppy, to show the urgency and to mimic how I thought becoming a person would happen, in short spurts.

Bibliography: Story source: Ovid's Metamorphoses, translated by Tony Kline (2000)