The Myth of Endymion

Several years ago, I wrote a short story inspired by the Greek myth of the goddess Diana’s (aka Selene the moon goddess) love for a handsome young shepherd. The story received the Mariner Award (Bewildering Stories Annual Review) in 2011.
One evening as the goddess was driving along in her chariot, she spotted Endymion asleep on a hilltop, his face glowing softly in the moonlight. The goddess was so taken by the youth’s beauty that she floated down to his side, slowly leaned over and placed a kiss on his lips.
Endymion, partly awakened by the goddess’s kiss, opened his half-sleeping eyes and caught a vision of the hastily departing nocturnal diva. That one fleeting glance of divine beauty was enough to ignite an erotic passion in the shepherd. He awoke with a start and gazed up at the moon. “It was all a dream,” he thought, but such a lovely dream that he went back to sleep hoping the vision would return.
Queen of the wide air; thou most lovely queen
Of all the brightness that mine eyes have seen!
As thou exceedest all things in thy shrine,
So every tale, does this sweet tale of thine.
Keats


As their passion for each other grew, the moon goddess couldn’t bear the thought of the youth’s beauty being marred by the ravages of age, worry, toil and illness. Therefore, she caused an eternal sleep to fall upon him and carried him off to Mount Latmus, where she concealed him in a cave. Thereafter, she visited him each night to gaze at her “sleeping beauty” and place one kiss on his unconscious lips.
My version of the myth is set among the ‘rich and shameless” trendy elite of contemporary Chicago. It’s not romantic, at least not in the commonplace sense. Rather, it’s darkly humorous and macabre. So perhaps it is “romantic” in a postmodern Gothic Byron/Poe sort of way.
My Endymion is available for free on the Bewildering Stories website (see below). The story is accompanied by classical paintings inspired by the myth.

http://www.bewilderingstories.com/iss...