Sisyphus and Argos found themselves alone together again, on a winding spiral staircase grown out from a central silver fir tree. In some friend groups, the split along gender lines was natural, girls seeking girl-time, and guys gravitating to guy-time. But these two, once again, were seeking very different things in life.
“Small-town secret,” Sisyphus told him eagerly; “the best parties happen in forests. Hard to find it when there's no address, but you follow the music. I was around when Satyrday Nights were just becoming a thing.
Goat-people get the most wicked drum-circles going. And I mean drums, in a circle, around the mosh pit. You haven't felt the bass til you've danced to it in surround sound.”
Argos glanced away, as if making eye contact would be mistaken for expressing interest. “Then I pray that this indoor forest is the quiet kind.”
“All I know is the girls said Dryad Gardens, and there's a couple satyr round here, so, let's see which of us gets lucky.”
“We do not know enough here to calculate our odds,” Argos corrected. “This setting is unfamiliar, unpredictable… which has been quite vexing for me.”
“You don't like those things, and you want to find a date?” Sisyphus teased. But then he took it upon himself to coach this chaste colossus while their roles were reversed. “Tell ya what. Take it from a guy who has asked out almost 100 women.”
“Asking is hardly a measure of success. Tell me your success rates.”
“I mean like…most of ‘em didn't stop talking to me for asking. And most of them went on the date, and didn't leave early. And most of them I got a follow-up date from after that!”
“Mmmmmmh,” Argos pondered. Then: “there is no harm in your advising me. I hereby seek your counsel, Date Scholar.”
“Ooh, Date Scholar,” Sisyphus felt out the new title. “I might wanna work that into my intro.”
At the end of the stairs, the branches under their feet led seamlessly to the top floor. At least an acre of rolling hills was held in by the walls. It was clear he land was either tailored by man or sculpted by natural magics,, for the mounds and valleys were all formed into the smoothest of spheres, half-circle domes and scoops. In between curved the walkways, brooks, and hedges that tied them all together. There were enough hills near the front to leave the spheres beyond peeking out enough to want to be explored.
Argos found himself holding his breath, as if even exhaling would disrupt its fragility. He had once been not just a guardian of the gods, but their gardener. He had sowed many of the first seeds into the barrens of the early world. The Earth wasn't only his mother symbolically; she had given birth to him herself.
Sisyphus had already started trotting ahead, arms held wide as if ready to give anyone available a bear hug. He kept turning his head just enough to get Argos’ attention.
“Check this out! This place is like a weird dream! Are these watermelons growing on a tree - oh it’s like the vine’s wrapped all around the tree, I get it. Whoa, these squash - the patterns literally look like a campfire, it's that orange. And does this hill have a little door? …Hey! Check out the lounge chair…lounge! For lounging!”
Argos cleared twice the ground in each step and caught up with him. Over the first hill were a series of pools. One poured down in a waterfall so smoothly that it almost didn’t seem to be moving. The pools below linked just enough for the waters to flow between them, before meandering in a stream that disappeared between the hills.
But Argos had found himself called to something else.
A dryad was gathering squashes into a cornucopia strapped under her arm like a satchel. Even at work, there was an air of rest about her.
“Are these for the feast?” Argos asked, crouching and speaking softly to her.
The dryad looked up, puzzled, then nodded.
“Then I shall ease your burdens. I can carry your weight in gourds.” He dropped to one knee, the blackened loam welcoming his knees and his feet like sand. His weathered palms, that had broken through walls for the crew, worked gingerly plucking gourds from their stems.
“You don’t have to,” the dryad told him, her voice as soft as one speaking to a sleeping child.
“I want to,” he reassured her, hiding away his extra eyes to avoid needing to explain them.
A few minutes later, Sisyphus heard an entourage come up behind the next hill.. Alllll right then. Wingman time.
Sis scouted the crowd for girls who looked single enough. The group of six seemed like one alpha female, her groupies fanned out behind her, and some new chick she was talking to who held herself like she was nervously out of her element. Sisyphus hoped the others would give one of them space to stay behind and talk with Argos once one of them clicked with him.
He popped up his shoulders and turned up his vocal pitch to hype up his message.
“Hey! You guys! Have you heard the news yet?”
They turned their heads to him and looked around like flamingos.
He held out his hands as if prepared to hold back an armada of fangirls. “There’s somebody new here tonight. You’ve heard of him. He’s kind of a big deal, literally the landlord of this entire town…and he’s right over there. Introducing, Lorrrrd Argos!” Patting his own thighs for a drumroll, he swiveled and pointed both arms at the unsuspecting giant. Most of his eyes blinked open in surprise. He’d been watching the buildup, but hadn’t caught up with where this was going. He rose to his full height, upper robe holding easily a dozen squashes above the belt.
The group’s chatter was incomprehensible as they gathered around him like carnival-goers. Their alpha stepped to the front to address him, wearing her status on her sleeve with golden clasps and jewelry. Moment of truth: Sis had meant to rehearse some with Argos beforehand, but the giant seemed formal enough to at least start things off right. Argos’ frame squared itself directly towards them, as he introduced himself as only he would:
“I am Argos Panoptes, son of Gaia, once the personal guard of sovereign queen Hera herself. How might I serve you?” He slid back to one knee, one arm held across it in front, and bowed his head to it until his face was hidden in submission.
“Isn’t he humble, folks?” Sisyphus rushed to his side to reframe the situation, tapping Argos’ hand for him to get back up. “Real managers ain’t afraid to get their hands dirty, eh? Here, lemme help you with that, sir.” Sis busied himself rummaging around in the garden behind him, trying to look busy.
“The Lord Argos?” The alpha addressed him, her tone rich with refinement. “I must compliment you on your estate, sir, it is simply…magnanimous.” She bowed to him just enough to appear respectful without seeming submissive.
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Sisyphus whispered near his head while tapping the gourds for background noise, and told him: “Milk it! Milk it for all its worth!”
“I assure you, I have earned no credit for this palace nor this city,” Argos told her anyway. “All of this is new to me, and I have yet to find my place in it.”
No! Confidence sells, so go project confidence! Don't be real-modest, be fake-modest! “Tell ‘em it's not a big deal like it really is a big deal,” he hushed.
“It is not a big deal, like it really is a big deal,” Argos recited before he could process the meaning.
Sisyphus reached to slap his own forehead, but dropped a gourd on his foot. He bit his lip to hold back all but a few angsty consonants.
“Well, whatever the size of deal it is, perhaps I can offer you one myself,” she proposed - Sisyphus called it, she was about to do her rich person spiel.
“Gerda Gilead of the Gilded Girls Guild,” she gloated, but gingerly. “Oh yes - now accepting Gentlemen. We gather the gaudiest, most glamorous golden goods of this generation, but generally just jewelry.”
Argos eyed her from head to toe, with the eyes from his head to his…heel. Sisyphus peeked from under the crook of the giant's arm. Layered on top of sleeves so blue they assaulted the eyes, were rings, bangles, cuffs, necklaces, earrings and a nose-ring, all of them gold. Thin-braided chains, or strings of the stuff, hung and swayed where they joined each bit of jewelry to the next.
“Everything I'm wearing can be found in our catalog,” she advertised herself, arms curling up from her sides daintily. An attendant rushed over to the front and knelt with a small torch to capture the gleam.
Argos held a finger across his mouth as he scoped out the details. “These…are not just fine chains,” he observed; “these look like golden fleece.
“You certainly have an eye for detail,” she flattered him. “We started a conservation program for the rams that grew the original. They are… not fond of being shorn, however, so we have to offer the shepherds a lot of paid medical leave. It pays for itself. The rest of our supply is still mined the old-fashioned way. If you do know any alchemists who crack the code on creating it…do let us know. We’d like to keep that to ourselves.” She chortled like that wasn’t an ominous plot to silence anyone who threatened her market share.
“All I can tell you of that is, I mined to survive for the last eighty-three years in Tartarus. You will not find gold in the underworld, and of what you have in life, you cannot take it with you.”
Sisyphus should’ve known he’d say something painfully practical like that. She hired people to mine; he was demoting himself from a god’s landlord to a grunt worker! Argos had an eyeball by his shoulder blade watching Sisyphus bite his lip and cringe. That didn’t stop him from saying it.
Gerda Gilead gave a deflated laugh, like she had been preparing it for some more socially-acceptable comment. “Dear me - a manual laborer and a convict,” she murmured, as if not sure which one was worse. “Well - it is good to see you’ve made it up in the world. Now, whatever say you may have in this sizable estate…”
Sisyphus shushed Argos not to say anything to downplay his status any lower, not sure how to word that without snapping at him. Argos shut his back eye, but stayed silent to humor him.
Gerda continued. “Clearly you have friends in the highest of places. And if this to be your monument… there is no a substance on Earth that captures the heavens like gold.” She said it in a breathy mix of advertisement and reverence.
Argos wasn't saying anything. Sisyphus was relieved. Gerda took it as a sign of interest, even as he showed no signs of anything at all; she wasn't the first woman to assume that about a man.
“...picture this.” She hushed her tone, only to start twisting her wrists out like a theater kid really feeling the scene. “Facets of light under the dome, gleaming like stars stolen from the night sky. With your resources, you could be the only one on Earth to boast his own…entire tower of gold. Why, such a man would truly be the world's greatest showman.” She had leaned in intimately as if whispering a fantasy in his ear. Her eyes shone with the precious metal down her arms, basking in her own vision. She reached for it like one who had always sought to reach for more, but for whom it would never be enough.
Argos made only a murmur to show he was processing it at all. Then he hinted at where he stood.
“It is not a very practical metal, though, is it?”
“Begging your pardon, m’lord?” she asked, her voice lurching with the unexpectedness. Sisyphus wished he could have pardoned it himself, but he wasn't the one talking.
“Gold. I have watched mortals squander their lives for pieces of it, just because they know others would want it. They choose to idolize the metal, when it is one the weakest of the ores.”
“W-w-w-well, I would think being wanted by others is most of the appeal of it, yes…” Ms. Gilead fumbled, as if surprised that were the only point she could make.
“Armor is functional. Some clothing protects fragile mortals against the elements and therefore is practical. But jewelry? A frivolous distraction from the great works upon which civilization has been built. An attempt to earn the admiration that should have been earned in the service of one's fellow man.”
Ms. Gilead stammered, stuttered and sputtered, as the atlas shrugged away her life’s work in under a minute.
“Why, I-I-I-I assure you, that is… that is reason enough for most people to like it!” Her voice rose to a squeak of desperation. She stepped back, crossed her arms, and retreated from the conversation, having suffered heavy losses.
“Then I pray your life finds a higher purpose before your years are over,” he replied, as if sending her on her way with a blessing.
Gerda Gilead made a forceful “huff!”, then hoisted the corners of her gown so she could trot more quickly away. The rest of her people followed her like ducklings, over the hill and far away.
Sisyphus practically marched his way to Argos’ front. He didn't know where to start. He held off until the knot in his chest loosened enough not to scold.
“I just watched so much money walk away just now,” he lamented.
“Perhaps you missed the part where I said it was worthless,” Argos reminded him.
“I mean, you grew up with the queen of the universe,” Sisyphus pointed out. “It's easy to say you don't care about money when you have everything. We could use a little of that.”
Silence again.
Sisyphus switched back to the mission. “Okay, Date Scholar session, starting now. First off: you've gotta be a salesman, and you're the product. So when someone likes something about you, don't keep saying it's worthless!”
“She believed I was the Baron of Dionysus’ estate. It would only disappoint her later if I had misled her any longer.”
“Yeah, I mean, clarify eventually, but don't put all your energy into making sure people don't think you're good.”
“Then perhaps I might teach you the virtue of humility.”
“I mean…it's more like you're humiliating yourself. Ok, too strong a word. Uh. Shaming. Like you're ashamed.”
Argos’ eyes winced at the word. But his chin dipped down to his chest to ponder it.
“Like, you know we like you,” Sis reminded him, eyes softening as much as his straightness would allow him. “You just do so much for other people, and then don't want people to like you for it. We just kinda want you to get the credit, y’know? It'd be fair.”
Many of Argos’ eyes searched back and forth along the ground as if skimming the grass for an answer.
“...I do not do it for the credit,” he finally decided. “And so it feels wrong to receive it. I am simply doing what I would think any man should do.”
Sisyphus felt a nervous squirm in his gut. That happened sometimes when someone tried to hold him to a higher standard and tell him what he should do with his life. He was ready to drop this topic real quick now. “Well– good job, big guy. ‘Preciate it. Uh. Next lesson: there's this expression I've heard a few times: ‘Don’t Boo My Yay.’ It's like, let people like things, y’know?”
“She was in the grips of a lifetime of greed and vanity. I had only a few minutes to try to set her free.”
“Yyyyyeeeah, I don’t think she knew you well enough for you to tell her that.”
“I would hope she would trust my rank and my age for wisdom.”
“...I haven’t decided whether you being a millennium old is a good thing or a bad thing for girls yet. Like, they can kinda look up to the older-and-wiser thing and feel like they’re trading up by being with you… but you’re also old enough to be their great grand…ancestor of all life on Earth?”
“I suppose it would be hard for one to think of me as an equal. It will be hard for me to find an equal myself.”
“Well - can’t help you there, pal. But this may be one of the better places on Earth to look. Looks like there’s a couple immortals in the crowd here. And they’re uh, rich and powerful. If you’re looking for a strong woman, rich ladies could be the most independent, or the most…dependent.”
Sisyphus felt the last of his breath leave his lungs, as he finished trying to do the subject justice. Giving pointers to this wise guy was like pulling teeth. Sis could honestly have said “this hurts me more than it hurts you.”
“Aaand class dismissed!” Sis shout-sighed, already throwing himself into his first steps away from work. “I’m gonna go get painted or something. There’s a still life fruit bowl over there with my name on it.”
