Glorious Exploits

by Ferdia Lennon

Gelon heads straight for Homer’s chair. A rickety piece of shit the blind bard is reported to have sat on during a visit to Syracuse a few hundred years back. It’s stuck in the corner, a bronze inscription above that reads Homer’s chair. Is it Homer’s chair? Well, there are many Homer’s chairs scattered across Syracuse and can they all be Homer’s chair? Why not? The arse is capricious and does not wed for life, and so perhaps, yeah, it is Homer’s chair.

Dismas takes out a dark bottle with orange chips in the claylike flames and barely fills the cup. “That all?” “Trust me. Just try it.” I knock it back and immediately start retching. “Fuck,” I sputter. “What was that?” “From Scythia. Mostly I use it for cleaning, but you looked like you needed it.”

“You can read?” says I, surprised. She nods and takes a sip of wine. “They teach women to read in Lydia. I used to read a lot, but the best thing I ever read was those pamphlets. Athens is here to free you. It was probably lies, but any dream will do.”

True?