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i. PROLOG
Who am I? It’s not important, but I am a little garden genius, and I’ve been around since ancient Roman times. I’m at least 3,000 years old, but I don’t know how to count, so I have no idea if that’s a long time.
I do know there was a library slave named Marcellus, who was young and had a good sense of humor, and his boss, a sour-egg named Polybius, who was in charge of all the libri (children) and used to yell at Marcellus. Then there were all the little child slaves, who were fun to play with in the garden until they had to go eat lunch or grew up, but always new children came and we had a good time until the barbarians came, killed our Lord Ulpian and sold his family into foreign lands, burned the library and all the books--and then for a long time the garden was all choked up with weeds with nothing in it but spiders and garden snakes. And now here we are (is this your garden or mine, fat-head?) and I’m ready to drive you nuts.
I wish the word "genius" did mean I’m very smart, but I’m just your garden variety spirit who likes to drop a bee in your drink or spray the hose on your behind when you bend over to pick a weed. That’s right, genius simply means spirit. That’s before all those fancy gods and their poems arrived from Greece. I liked it better the older way, because it was fun. No pomp, no guilt, no yelling. What’s the point? For people who live such short lives, you sure do make a lot of noise about nothing. I’ll be around long after you’re gone, and I’ll be driving your descendants crazy long after you are in the closet with the wax masks of your ancestors--frowning, of course. What else do you do? Humans always make everything so miserable.
The ancients had the house spirits too, the penates. That’s from penus, which (ya-ya! Doesn’t mean what you think! Ya-ya!) means ‘cupboard.’ All through ancient times, the Latins had their cupboard gods, who drove them nuts indoors like I did them in the garden. Before all those ridiculous Olympian gods came along, we were there, the nameless spirits--good and evil, laughing or scary--the lares and the penates, the genii of the doorways and the windows and the crossroads. The ancient Romans were a somber lot anyway, lighting candles and celebrating the spirits of the crossroads at night, as the modern Italians still do when nobody is looking. The Romans always threw a crust in the fireplace when they ate, to keep the cupboard gods happy. A pinch of salt over one shoulder kept the numina away. They kept death masks of their ancestors in a shrine in the entrance hall to scare everyone--even me. I never went indoors because of it.
Speaking of Janus, you may know him as the god of doorways, and there are lots of stories about him from later, but the earlier stories have him as a her--that’s Jana, who is related to Diana, who is a friend of forest animals and virgins, and kills (I mean mutilates and tears apart in a rage!) the occasional hunter who happens to see her naked when she bathes in a pool. Then, later, her clone morphs into a he-god in charge of such things as the departure of the old year and the arrival of the new; you can picture me hiding by the doorstep as the old grouch shuffles off in his black cloak and pointy slippers, with a hat pulled down low, and just as I think he’s gone, I come out--and there he is, grinning at me from that other face on the back of his head. I nearly wet my nimbus in sheer fright!
As you may have guessed, I’m a bit scrambled in the head, but I know how to enjoy myself. The ancient Romans had short, miserable lives, but they made the best of things, and I’ll bet they laughed just as much as you self-righteous pumpkin-heads, and maybe more so. Ha!
Oh, you’ll never catch me, but you might as well believe in me. You can hear me laughing when I make you step in dog poop or make you trip over a sacred stone. I like to let the dog out when you think you’ve latched the screen door, and I giggle when he runs around the yard with you huffing and puffing after him. The more you yell at him, the more he thinks you are playing, and I egg him on. The cat knows I am here, and she and I don’t get along too well, but we respect each other. You see, the cat has her genius, and the dog has his. Everyone and everything has its genius, even you, dummy. The ancient Romans are quite misunderstood these days. I don’t mean those sour-looking ones in the togas, or the insane emperors whose eyes roll around in their skulls. I mean, those were just a collection of nuts. Their problem is they forgot about me and my kind, as surely as you have. Oh everything is so serious, and you’re going to hell if you laugh a little, and you’re eaten up with guilt for eating a donut. Get real. Is that living?
Want to go back and take a look at how things really were? Forget all the propaganda from those preposterous, self-important puffnoggins who run your world? What have they accomplished, after all? Nothing but war and disaster, children without health care, lots of big fancy cars but nobody is really happy. See what fools you are? Ha ha ha…no wonder I laugh at you. There! I’m going to put a bean in your cola, and when you suck on the straw, your face will turn purple. Serves you right, you pompous ass. I’m just a little garden spirit, and I’m never going to grow up!
Uh-oh. Okay, I admit it, I have a boss too. I actually have too many bosses, and sometimes I run around the yard hiding here and there to escape also. There is the god Robigus (sometimes Robigo, goddess, if whimsy served the moment) a very important deity who prevented crop blight, or too much heat on the maize fields. See how practical it all was, in the days before the Republic or the Empire? There were countless deities, like the Oscan and Sabine tribes’ Mamers, guardian of cattle and a good harvest, who eventually morphed into Mavers and later Mars, and became corn-fuzed with the bloody Greek war god Ares, who himself is named after--you guessed it, farmland. Whenever you talk about hectares, that’s 100 ares. How that got twisted into "let’s go kill our fellow humans" is something only you dopey people can figure out, maybe; or maybe not.
Like I said, I can arrange a trip back to Rome for you, so you can see how it really was. You’d like that? Okay, consider it done. Meanwhile, I have to tell you, people were just as confused back then as you are. What’s even more hysterical, they were confused about the same things that you are. Yes, scratch your head, you laugh-deprived melancholy horse-face. Do I dare say it? Obmutesce! Stupefacte! Mutissime! In plain Latin: Dumb! Dumb! Dumb!
Uh-oh! I’m being summoned. That means I have stop sitting here insulting you. Hey, I didn’t mean it. Don’t rat on me. Listen, I’ll spill the beans about the old days. As I said, I’m a little scrambled in the noggin myself, but I’ll get help from a few geniuses who are--ha ha ha!--smarter than I am!
Soon you will receive a mysterious summons from a dark genius who has a foot in at least three eras of time. He and the beautiful but very strange Amalthea need your help on a mission to ancient times. What you may remember when it's all over, and when you may or may not return, I do not know. But I can say this for sure: you will brush the hinges of history with your finger.
If we are destined to meet again, I’ll be right here where you left me, under the flower. I’ll be the smiling sun on the sundial. I’ll be the barking when there is no dog in your yard. I’ll be the footsteps in the doorway when you aren’t expecting anyone. I’ll be the voice you have not heard since your childhood. I have power beyond anything you can imagine, and I can make you laugh or cry as easily as you turn the garden faucet. And don’t blame me when things go wrong--after all, ha ha ha!--I’m just a dumb little garden spirit and nobody can catch me. Don’t even try, numb-numb. Oops! It’s time for me to hide, and time for you to go on your trip.
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