They called it Morgellons disease. When I told the doctors about the vines that had begun their march through my veins. The grapes that had begun to swell under my skin, creating bulges and ulcers that stretched my skin, pulled at my joints. My pimples began oozing wine instead of pus.

I was twenty-two.

They wanted to institutionalize me, but I had finals the next week. I didn't have time to be hospitalized. I had so much to do.

I took my finals. And I bombed them.

And it was only after my English teacher handed back my 13% grade— in what had previously been my best subject— that I finally admitted I was losing my fucking mind.

I devoted my life to my madness. Worked hard to fulfill the role that had been set out before me: the crazy bum living in abject squalor. It became a goal: to be as much of a caricature as possible. I threw out every attempt at aid. I drowned in the wine that I knew was running through my veins. You could've cut me open and drank my blood like it was straight from Dionysus himself.

I was an english major, but my specialty had always been the ancient greek myths. Homer and Hesiod were my muses, my idols.

I knew all about Dionysus. How he'd turned sailors into dolphins, driven sane men to madness.

I knew it was him who had set out this path for me: the path of a madman. And I was determined to follow it.

Just maybe, at the end of the road, I'll gaze upon him. A reward for my toils. My life of madness will lead me, in my final moments, to divinity.

I'm 48 now. An unholy cocktail of substances has both kept me alive and doomed me to a premature death. I could feel it. The vines grew fat and wide in my veins. The grapes began to swell into my throat.

The end is near.

Now, I could finally have the answers: what prompted me down this path? Was it a curse? A blessing? A punishment for a sin I cannot remember?

These thoughts only intensified the swelling agony under my skin. A pain so complete it forced my eyes shut, clenched my hands into fists, sped up my heart of its own accord.

And then it stopped. My heart stopped. my hands loosened. My eyes were no longer squeezed shut with tears leaking like juice from an orange.

I was dead.

I expected a bearded man, a crown of vines, deep black eyes. I expected the Dionysus that I had seen in statues, in myths. Strong, powerful.

What I got was an abomination, an incomprehensible mass of flesh and vines, thousands of blinking eyes, a nonexistent mouth that formed Ancient Greek words that I could only half understand.

I screamed with the raw terror that only a dead madman can produce. The sound seemed to feed him, to stabilize the roiling mass of flesh into something distantly resembling a face, if you squinted.

His many eyes watched, and waited.

Finally I could no longer scream. The terror had abated into a kind of distant, manageable dread.

I looked down and I saw nothing. No vines pulsing under my flesh. No grapes swelling at the edges of my bones, bursting at my skin. Just the wrinkled, yellowed skin of an addict.

"Tell me," I asked him. "Why?"

Dionysus rolled his millions of eyes and his malformed face surged towards me.

"Was it boredom? An impulse? An obsession?"

"As if I'd ever be obsessed with the likes of you," Dionysus sneered in twisted English.

"Punishment, then? for what?"

Dionysus cocked his head to the side, his eyes misting over .

"I see," he says. "You don't remember."

"Remember what?"

Dionysus smiles.

"You used to be quite the partier, Everett."

Saying my name stirred a memory that I didn't recognize. Tried to taste the memory of parties. Tried to remember the last time someone, myself included, had used my name. Found that I could not. All I knew, all I could remember, was madness. At 22, my life began. Everything before that had been consumed into a darkness that I could not understand. I didn't remember my parents. My friends. Only the madness.

"You stumbled into the wrong party," Dionysus said. "One populated not by your typical Greek Life, but by actual Greek life."

He chuckles at his own joke.

"Of course, you were unaware. To you it was just another house party. Your best friend Marty invited you. Marty was one of my satyrs. He saw potential in you. Of course, after what happened, he was killed."

"What happened?"

"You found one of the Maenads. Vicious ones, they are. But you were the vicious one."

"I... was?"

"You dared to lay hands on one of my followers. Prompted by the wine, which I believe your friend Marty warned you not to drink. But you did. You humans always drink the wine."

"I... I wouldn't. I couldn't."

"Alas, you did. And this is your punishment."

"What now?"

"You'll go to Hades like the rest. Fields of Punishment for you, no doubt."

"B-But that's not fair."

Each and every one of Dionysus's eyes lit up with fury.

"What do you know of fairness, Everett King? You dare to face your sin with indignity? This is your burden. You must bear the consequences of your actions."

The dread was intensified into terror again, but this time the terror cut too deeply to formulate a scream.

"I couldn't," I gasp. "I wouldn't. I don't remember."

"Your memory cannot change your actions, Everett. Goodbye."

His form began to dissolve, eyes shutting, flesh fading into the darkness. fading alongside me, alongside my body, alongside the vines that never really existed.

And thus ended my madness.

~ I wrote this several (and I mean several) years ago. I went through and fixed the grammar but I can't say this is the best piece I have ever written :) Just thought it was a fun take on this prompt.~

“In my defense, there was NO way I could have known about this,” I said remorsefully to the angry leaders standing in front of me. “It’s not like I am omnirescent or whatever.”

“Omnipotent, and yeah, you are,” Athena said angrily but again I just shrugged and continued looking out at the damage.

“Are you going to do anything, or just stand there and watch?” I heaved a sigh that said it all: Why do I have to do the thing? The caring thing?

“Fine, give me a moment, I can make it worse.” I thought that was the right thing to say but Puck threw his arms in the air angrily, oh wait. “Was I supposed to say better?” I am never sure what these pantheons want from me: the Fae just like to party and occasionally save trees, the Greeks and Romans tend to have arguments and cause wars, and don’t even get me started on the Hindu guys- they are seriously messed up. But at the moment, all 126 pantheons seemed in agreement that I am an idiot. I just love to bring the family together.

“For the sake of all that is...” Hades stopped and looked around, “Guess holy isn’t really appropriate in this case. But can you please do something? This situation cannot become any worse.” Hades immediately stopped talking and glared at Karma who just grinned and waved.

“Can we kick her out of here, she doesn’t belong to any of our pantheons, she just causes trouble!” A particularly chubby house elf shouted, still staring at Karma like she was the devil... well that guy never showed up so I guess she could play his part.

“Did you just say she doesn’t even go here? 10 points to Slytherin for the Mean Girls reference!” Hades blinked but I saw Puck cover a laugh. “I also do not belong to any pantheon and I would rather watch the amusing cat eating a carrot than sit here and listen to you argue.” With that, I began to walk out but Persephone called for me to stop and I did. But only because I didn’t feel like angering her annoying mother and ending up with a frozen house straight out of a Frozen movie. Seriously, the girl ran away with the bad boy, who didn’t see that coming? Yet her mother punished the planet with winter, well except for the tropics but that was entirely selfish.

“Listen, you may not have seen this coming but it needs to come to an end. The human race will go extinct otherwise, and then where will we be?” Persephone asked calmly.

“We could bring back the dinosaurs, those guys were awesome," I pause to remember the large beasts but sigh. "I see your point, without humans, there would be no cat tube.” The thousands of eyes focused on me all did the simultaneous blink that was so scripted. I heaved a morose sigh but slowly turned back to the window. “Anyone got any ideas on how to fix this?”

"You did it! You fix it!” Aerobel called out while angrily brushing her hair.

"I didn’t do it,” Then I started laughing.

“That is proof of guilt!” Puck pointed at me in accusation, “I would know it anywhere, I do it all the time.”

"I merely laugh because this was ingenious, seriously. Whoever did it step forward and I swear I only wish to congratulate you!” More sighs and mumbles.

“Why does the most powerful of us all have to be insane?” Set muttered from his pyramid throne.

“Trust me, look into my mind and you would be the same,” I said in a false moment of lucidity, then started to laugh again. “To fix this I shall become human and Descend.” This time the room became so quiet you could hear the breaths of the pixies on the balcony. Quite a feat for a cavern with more than a thousand different deities.

“No way, that is so incredibly stupid, not even you would remember who you are and we wouldn’t be able to get a signature to decide which of those humans you were. You hold the cement together, without you here the world would end much quicker than it already is.” Athena yelled angrily and many more voices piped in.

“Aw, I just love hearing how much you all care about me.” I quickly spread my wings and flew up in the air so everyone, including the leprechauns forced to the back, could see me. “It is the best decision, I will stay on Earth with the humans for a year; hopefully by then, one of you will have located me. Bring me back here and I will know everything I need to settle the Earth.” I settled my feet back to the ground and again looked out the window.

“Why does she keep looking out the window? There is nothing there but a brick wall,” Loki ‘whispered’ from behind me. I just kept staring, he should know I wasn’t focused on the wall. The Earth’s pain called out to me through the void my consciousness was settled in, and while I did truly think that what was done was an amazing accomplishment, I also knew that it couldn’t be allowed to continue. However, I couldn’t keep up the charade of carelessness around the pantheons for much longer, soon the planet’s grief would overwhelm me. Hades and Athena were correct in stating I needed to fix this. I was the only one powerful (stupid) enough to stop what had been set in motion. The End of Times, Ragnarok, Armageddon; it had many names for those down below but it all ended the same way: the humans dying and the blue planet with them. I forced myself to turn away from the window and face Pinga. With a slow blink that appeared to make her nervous, I released a sigh, then muttered under my breath.

“What?”Arawn asked from behind me, shadows leaking out of his cloak, “What did you say?” I released another world-weary sigh.

“I said, I really want a donut,” Turning on my heel, I pushed through the angry and confused gods and goddesses and made my way out of the gaudy conference room. As soon as I pushed through the barrier into my private rooms, the Pantheons thought they were safe to speak, but I could hear them when they began complaining of my lack of morality. Several brought up the debacle of my last Descension. At least they weren't the ones that ended up on a cross.

THE ENCOUNTER

“Stop, you’re killing him!” Penny screamed, dismissing his screams in lieu of the overpowering sound of Harper's arrhythmia.

“It’s not me, I tell you!” Rhea screamed back. Then, “Stop, stop!” Rhea agreed, to this doppelgänger, her apparent champion.

The hauntingly beautiful face pivoted her head toward Rhea and, while maintaining the deadly circling of her unnatural sexual technique, spoke directly to her. There seemed to be no exertional connection between the calm face and the bizarre speed of the rest of her body. Her flexed knees bounced with the blur of her pelvis, adding crushing blows to a ridiculous listing animation over him.

“I won’t kill him,” she said peacefully with the magic voice which cut through all of the distractions clearly. “It is not a smiting, but a warning.”

“Please!” Harper howled. Penny and Rhea, separated from Charybdis, the maelstrom where the Furies were born, collapsed against the door that offered escape. Instead, they listened.

“A warning,” the magic voice continued, “that the mingling motion of the foam is not to be violated. Sex is as remarkable as it is intimate. It is not a weapon! You violate me when you violate intimacy!”

“Who are you! Who are you!” he demanded to know in his agony.

“You are warned by Aphrodite herself! From the foam you are admonished. From the Creation Horizon you are forbidden to revel thusly.” The blurred onslaught continued. His screams continued.

“Why can’t I finish?” he shouted to her. He could feel the plates of his pelvic joints slip. He screwed up his face to get out the next words. The blur over him continued, like an eraser attempting to smudge him completely away. “Why can’t I finish?” he repeated. "It’s you, isn’t it? You won’t let me finish! I want to finish!”

“I’ve drawn you out to the peak and have you dangling from it. You slip as you try the one last grasp of its point that would have you finish. Your hands do fumble, unable to hold it fast. You are as Sisyphus. The ebbs withdraw and resurgences mount—you want them—but I have brought the Creation Horizon to you, and you have not been prepared. And that is just. And the pulsatile pinnacle slips away—You can’t finish—I won’t let you! I’ll hold you dangling in that one contractile abyss that begs to relent for the next pulse. I’ll hold you there and draw you out until you burst. You want too much? This is what is too much. And it is only a warning. Fret over what dying by my flesh would mean. Or worse, a visit from my sisters.”

His eyelids fluttered as if he were about to pass out. And then morality rolled in like a cleansing mist, slowly inundating the area, like with a blanket of fresh, clear dew to wipe away the filth. Everything stopped.

AFTERMATH

The doctor who saw him moonlighted as the Assistant Coroner, to some a glamorous-sounding title, but in fact a drudgery that brought him some extra income that was especially hard-earned. It did, however, keep him abreast of the latest cruelties and kinky traumas. This is why he found Peter Harper so interesting. Such injuries could blur the line between medical care and police forensics.

“How are you feeling, Mr. Harper?”

“Hurt,” he hissed through the oxygen mask, biting down on his tongue to distract him from the pain in other parts of his body. “It hurts bad. Give me something, please,” he implored the doctor.

“You’ve already got a morphine pump going."

"Why is he in so much pain?” the nurse asked.

“Mr. Harper had both of his testicles forced up his inguinal canals,” Dr. Vincent explained. “They’re trapped at the fascia just at his abdomen. He’ll need surgery if the urologist can’t milk them down by force back through the canals. I’m sure he won’t be a good sport for that maneuver. He has sustained second and third degree burns of his suprapubic area—see the pubic hair is matted where it’s been actually burned. He’ll need plastic work and some grafting on the skin here. His penis, which is hard to miss, has multiple contusions; the tunica is ruptured and there are extravasations of blood into the spongiosa where an artery’s been ripped apart. The swelling has clamped off his urethra, so now he’s got some bladder nerve damage from overdistension. He’ll need a suprapubic catheter pretty soon. And it’s hard to say where his cardiac arrhythmia fits into all this.”

“My goodness,” said the nurse, sorry she had asked.

“Yea, well, the cardiologist doesn’t feel it’s a dangerous arrhythmia, but it is strange. Almost as if the entire electrical pathway of his heart’s been re-routed. Additionally, he’s got a collapsed left lung, his sacroiliac joints have subluxated and are separated on both sides, and he’s got his pelvis fractured in three places. He’s a mess.”

“Was he hit by a car?” the first nurse asked.

“Oh, did I mention he’s passing flatus from his penis. It’s the only thing that’ll come out. I have to tap his bladder every two hours until he gets his suprapubic catheter. And—oh, car? I don’t know. No one’s talking. He was hit by something, though, that’s for sure.”

Aphrodite: she had come from the foam first. Because from her all procreate forth. But her sisters in the foam are the Erinyes, the Furies. Like most deities, Aphrodite has a vengeful streak, and she has this need to punish those who misuse her qualities. Her most recent consort had discovered what it means to love too much, to be cleansed of the hubris of womanizing.

In the hospital Peter Harper was undergoing a general anesthetic. His testicles were pressed along the paths of his inguinal canals until they reached the final bottlenecks that reminded the Urologist who milked them down of a biblical passage.

“It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than it is for a rich man to get to Heaven,” he said under his breath as the second one also stopped at the inguinal ring.

“What?” asked the anesthesiologist.

“The eye of a needle,” he repeated more clearly as he placed a gloved thumb on each bulge where each of Harper’s thighs flexed against his hips. Instructing the nurses to flex them passively for him, he pressed the gonads, squeezing them forward until they finally popped through, allowing them to fall into their familiar resting places.

“Those are surely gonna be some sore balls tonight,” the urologist said, handing the case off to the orthopedic surgeon, who prepared the plaster of Paris to immobilize the pelvic ring for the next six weeks. After this was accomplished, back went on the ice packs to try to reduce the swelling of his genitals that sat exposed through holes cut away in the cast. Next the urologist returned and placed the suprapubic catheter to rest his bladder until his penile urethra was navigable with anything more viscous than gas; and finally, using the very last hole in the cast, the colon and rectal surgeon identified the source of the rectal-bladder fistula via a proctoscope and sealed it with an absorbable endoscopic procto-ring.

In the recovery room, after the sputtering and suctioning and tidying up of saliva and other comatose indiscretions had been attended to, Peter Harper tried to utter his first words.

“What?” his nurse asked him, leaning her face close to his. “Speak clearly, Mr. Harper,” she encouraged him. “You’re out of surgery and are doing fine.” He spoke again. Once again she couldn’t understand him. “Try again, Mr. Harper, O.K.? Cough first.” He coughed and then groaned from the pain.

“Who was that woman?” he finally uttered clearly, albeit raspingly.

“What woman?” the nurse asked. “Who are you talking about? Cough again.” He coughed again. He groaned again.

“That woman,” he repeated. “I have to find out who she is.” He coughed yet again. “She was fucking fantastic.”

He drifted off after that.