The Jar

I wrote this yesterday, as part of a prompt, "Hope". It's inspired by the myth of Pandora, which was first recorded by Hesiod, though it's likely the story is older than that. There've been many interpretations of the story, and much discussion of the idea of hope being left within Pandora's jar; I'll be writing something about that once I've done the pomegranate post for Fairy Tale Fridays.

*

It’s small as a butterfly, and bright, bright like the inside of a daffodil.

Across the way, he sleeps, his breath heavy, his stomach heavier. The others, dark, hungry-looking swathes of red-tinted blackness hover about him.

Yesterday, they had been harmless, just small patches of grey, dust grey, belly button grey, shadows I could see if—when—I held the jar to a flame.

Now, they are real.

“Epimetheus.” His name is still thick against my tongue, and I stumble over it as if my mouth is coated in honey. The blackness draws closer; my breath catches . In the jar, the brightness flickers, casting small streams of silver into the dark. Breath falls out of me, slow as a summer rain, and my heart slows. “Epimetheus.”

He rolls away. The blackness rolls with him.

In the jar, the streams of silver grow thicker, twining themselves into rope. I step forward, left foot, then right foot, left foot, then right foot.

The blackness stills.

Left foot, I tell myself. Right foot. Left foot. Right foot.

The blackness shifts back, back, back.

“Epimetheus.”

He rolls toward me this time; the blackness shifts behind him, oozing toward the window.

“Epimetheus.” I set the jar on the bed, then sit next to it, next to him. The silvery rope is even thicker now; the centre is bright, bright like the inside of a daffodil.

He reaches toward me, lets his fingers come to my brow. “Pan? You look—”

Ashen, I think. Worn. Frightened.

He shakes his head. “I thought—I hoped you were—” his hand flutters downward, rests on the bed. “I thought you might have wanted me.”

In the jar, something flashes; I reach for his hand.

“I did.”