Ariadne

by Jennifer Saint

had sacrificed everything she knew for a love as ephemeral and transient as the rainbows that glimmered through the sea spray.

however blameless a life we led, the passions and the greed of men could bring us to ruin, and there was nothing we could do.

But for me, the true gift was to watch them work and talk unconstrained. No men chaperoned them here, in this space sacred to women and to the goddess. I could watch the animation light their young faces and I could hear in their breathless, excited conversations the echo of two sisters who had loved each other all those years ago on Crete.

They seemed to be animated by a simple joy of living;

Mortals may age, but the gods are prisoners of their own infantile whimsies, never capable of change and never knowing what it is to love, because they dare not risk the suffering of loss.”