GRANT SABLE

The Exile of Iohannes

I came to the altar to worship a religion I don’t believe in, to discover the truth of myth.

Along the stone walls of the shrine pose paintings of the pantheon: gods and goddesses of war and peace, of birth and death, of home and hearth. There are no windows to the outside world. It would be pitch black if not for the candles, clustering heaviest in front of the supreme deity’s icon, offering flames to illuminate the curling clouds of his domain. Flickering fires labor the beauty of his husband, of his wife. The candles are left to record past prayers, burning brightest before the favored of the faithful, and the smoke spinning from the reverence of those few titans chokes out the air around them.

In the corner, sunken in shadow, is a portrait of a minor deity, god of mistletoe. There’s evidence of only a single candle, long since melted into the cracks in the floor. It’s grown cold and damp in this part of the temple, and cockroaches scatter beneath my steps, their hissing the sole noise in an antiquated silence. Only through the nearby embers crowding a painting of fated lovers can I witness this god. Dust flecks his canvas and cobwebs string his frame. Scant details are brought into the light: shimmering blues, sculpted arms cradling a golden shaft.

Is he wielding a trident at sea? Gripping the reins on a chariot in the sky?

I close my fist around a candle, slowly raising it, elucidating the fringes. But my fingers stop short, holding the simulacrum out of sight. I set the candle back down and reach into my satchel, grasping for acrylics, brushes, and a canvas of my own. Crossing my legs, I sit in front of his portrait and squint at the morsels I have to work with.

I dip my brush into blue, into white, into black, depicting echoing fractals that glint and reflect the sweat winding down the ridges of his abdomen. I paint until my muscles are stiff, until my colors blur the borders, until every detail is rendered in loving clarity. When I was younger, I would read of festivals held in honor of minor deities, study busts sculpted in their image, and wonder why anyone would swim in fountains when the sea was in their backyard; I paint until I know the answer.

My portrait withers in the umbrage, but stands sharp in my mind’s eye. The god of mistletoe toils in a sapphire mine, swinging a golden pickaxe, sentenced to harvest the very gems he once coveted. A stoneless ring encircles his finger, scars carve into his skin, and blood pools at his feet.

I title it The Exile of Iohannes and light a candle.