Grumpy Old Gods: Volume 1 by unknow

Author:unknow
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Publisher: Stormdance Publications
Published: 2019-03-30T00:00:00+00:00

Zeus Really Needs to Go

By

Shawn Klimek

The hallway wallpaper depicted cloudy blue skies and white-capped mountains overlooking an olive garden, viewed through a repeating pattern of marble-columns. Contrastingly mundane, were the endless numbered doors the fluorescent lights overhead. These sights seemed to sail by as a female attendant, dressed in white, pushed the wheelchair for a sour-faced old man of Mediterranean extraction, whose pale face was grizzled with white stubble.

“It’s my brother’s fault,” he groused. “Poseidon tries to flush too much toilet paper.”

“Well, Mr. Zeus, you wouldn’t need another roommate if you could just make things up to your sister. The marital suite bathrooms are the best in the ward.”

“Bah! Don’t remind me. Hera’s always mad about something. She’ll come around.”

“In the meantime, I’ll just take you to the public bathroom here in the Olympian hallway. It’s not far ahead.”

The man groaned impatiently. “I should have never traded desserts with Apollo. Would you believe my own son swore to me that his custard was ambrosia? Figure of speech be damned, he knows I’m lactose intolerant. Push faster, can’t you, please, woman? My insides are bursting. Damn this prehistoric prostate.”

They reached an intersection, and she wheeled the retired god around a corner.

“Please call me Edith, and we’re just about there, Mr. Zeus. …Oh, no!” Her tone sank like a deflating accordion.

“Blast it!” railed the retired Sky Father. “There it is again, always blocking the nearest, public toilet after breakfast. That same, winged aluminum walker. Every time!”

“That’s obviously your son’s walker.”

“Of course, Hermes! That’s the culprit. One of my bastards with that Pleiad nymph. Fleet-footed whippersnapper always gets here first.”

“He must have escaped the rehabilitation ward again. Dionysus mentioned that he hasn’t been sleeping in his bunk. I’d wager he’s probably in there, shooting up crack, right now.” She sighed. “I can call security, but he’ll probably be in there a while, sir.” She sidestepped towards white courtesy phone.

The retired sky god raised a threatening finger and raised his voice. “We don’t have time for that now, mortal! Wheel me to Valhalla, quick, or you’ll feel my wrath.”

“Right away, Mr. Zeus.” Edith returned to the chair, spun it around sharply, then pushed him along the corridor briskly until the wallpaper pattern began to depict countless shields.

“Maybe we can roll past that pretender, Thor’s room, so I can zap him with a lightning bolt,” he grumbled. “God of Thunder, my sagging, immortal butt.”

“Thor’s room is not convenient, sir, and we won’t casting any lightning bolts in this facility.”

“I’m an immortal! Begotten by titans! What can they do to the almighty Zeus?”

“They can take away your TV.”

“Oh, bugger.”

Coming to a halt in front of a pair of doors labeled “Rekkr” and “Kvenna”, Edith parked the wheelchair to one side and knocked on the door displaying the silhouette of a Viking pissing while standing.

The old man gestured impatiently for her to open it. “No one’s in there!” he insisted.

She reached for the knob and jiggled it. “How odd! It seems locked,” she said.

At the intrusion of

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