EARTH, THOUGHT APOLLO as he parked his white Porsche across two parking spaces, you’ve got to love it. Take his car, for example. As a method of transport it was clearly ridiculous: cramped, inefficient and outrageously expensive. It was also flamboyantly brilliant, intoxicatingly pleasurable to drive and a lay-down-misère leg opener, if you were into that kind of thing. And yet, paradoxically, it had emerged from the most boring collective consciousness on Earth. Olympus was much less contradictory and as a consequence, much less challenging. And if there was one thing that Apollo craved in life, it was the sense of self-belief that comes from easily clearing a set of moderately elevated obstacles.
Returning to work at the studio after all these years was giving him a surprising semi-erection that was only enhanced by the sight of his own statue, rising above the olive trees in a flash of eyeball-searing white. Apollo had never really liked that particular statue. In his opinion, it reversed the ‘scale adjustment’ of his nose and cock, a measure used by most classical sculptors to offset the curious effects of perspective on certain male protuberances. That was the theory, at any rate. In reality, ‘scale adjustment’ was merely a code used by prudent sculptors to disguise the concessions made to particularly vain subjects: a group of gods, sportsmen and politicians that included, at last count, all of them. Unfortunately for Polyglobulus (404 – 356 BCE), his devotion to ‘truth in art’ not only cost him a number of lucrative commissions, it resulted in his permanent disfigurement when Apollo appeared before him in the form of a giant rooster and asked him to choose which appendage, from a list of a possible two, he would prefer not to have pecked off.
Still, a monument was a monument and while Apollo wasn’t exactly proud of his actions, he was proud of his buttocks and in that area, Polyglobulus had excelled.
‘Good morning, sir,’ said a nervous intern as Apollo strode into the office of his brother and co-producer, the war god Ares. Of course, on Earth, his brother was more like the god of fake blood and tit-shots but that hadn’t stopped him from laying claim to the best corner office and commandeering all the hottest interns. At least, that was Apollo’s assessment of the human resources situation at the studio. In reality, Ares only had eyes for his executive assistant and the unpaid staff that Apollo had superficially deemed ‘hottest’ were in fact no better or worse looking that their colleagues in other departments. They were, however, extremely wary. Apollo had done nothing whatsoever to inspire this nervousness, other than to simply be. But that was enough. With a four thousand year history of lechery, he gave off an aura that even porn stars found unnerving.
Rubbing his hands together, Apollo paused outside Ares’ office. Or rather, he corrected himself, his office. Backed by the iron-clad authority of an Olympian decree, today was the day that he officially took over the newly created division of ‘Fun and Romance’, while Ares and his outmoded genre were relegated to some dusty back lot to finish off post-production on that shrapneled embarrassment, Foxhole Fury. The door was locked, but that only set him back a few seconds as he pulled out his Olympian army knife with its universal key.
Once inside, Apollo surveyed the interior with a twitching upper lip, vacillating between derision and delight. Just what you’d expect from a soft-cock like Ares, he thought. With a sweep of his forearm he cleared the surface of the desk, depositing the detritus into a squat cardboard box. RECYCLABLES ONLY, said the box. That was a joke. Apollo fished around in the box for a moment and pulled out a peanut M&M packet containing a single piece of candy, a dehydrated banana peel and a mint green sticky note. Of those three items, arguably only one could be considered ‘recyclable’, unless you counted eating something you found in the trash. Apollo was no stranger to hypocrisy, but as he munched on the last M&M and smoothed out the sticky note into a shape that vaguely resembled a squirrel, he made an executive decision: the bogus environmentalism would be the first thing to go when he took over as head of division.
He was on the verge of sending the squirrel back to its destiny as a paper cup for eco-conscious hipsters when he idly flipped it over and noticed the letter V, lovingly and repeatedly rendered in Roman calligraphy.
Unless Ares had developed a sudden fascination with the number five, he was still clearly obsessed with that purple whore. And she, Apollo decided as he crushed the squirrel in his meaty but well manicured fist, would be the second thing to go.