The rock, beyond those of mortals, inaccessible to corporeal deposits of animate matter, its sacred stone stained an inch thick with black-crusted bile spilled at the behest of stubborn Zeus sitting solemnly in the heavens sipping soma. He views these stains from eagle eye view, mottled with gray growth long dead and green moss gaining sustenance from the leaking organs of the throttled god lying chained and impotent there to experience the forever event of his punishment.
It is little known that Zeus ever improves upon his torments by small increments. For instance, he now allows Prometheus a few newfound freedoms which only make his torture more tedious. Left arm unchained and beside its body it wanders about to search for something other than rough rock, anything else really... what is this? He lifts the smooth object forged of glass and metal found blindly by his nomadic arm. He brings the thing, an iPad, before his face and taps the Facebook icon with his nose. Page loading... page loading... (Data service is astoundingly slow upon the rock, though by intentionally hellish design.) 12 hours later it finally renders the page, sidebar says "Events" and under it: "Liver torn out by tense talons sheathed in godblood and left to rot simmering in the sun!" A morbid feeling compels him to click on the event to see the description, and at the top of the page in foreboding letters, it says, "You are attending". Yet to his chagrin there are no options to change the status. His fate resonates particularly grimly within the god, who had long since lost his ability to discern irony.
Now to check the baseball scores. What? How could this be? ESPN.com is actually loading?! Ok, well, maybe this is a slip up... but how are them Yankees doing? Final scores let's see here, Yankees: Fuck you, Marlins: bastardcunt [.gif of a little bearded man giving the finger].
He honestly couldn't tell if the scores were indeed genuine, it having been so long since he had been walking upon the earth amongst men, and who knows what strange conventions might develop while he was away. Being an optimist he decided that it was the actual score and pondered on whether a "Fuck you" or a "bastardcunt" was the higher of the two and if the little angry bearded man perhaps denoted a no hitter; however, the strange scores were, of course, a result of Zeus' hand.
At this point a message appeared on the iPad which said, "As part of your user agreement you have agreed to purchase a minimum of $50 worth of apps from the app store per week, as you have not fulfilled this contract iPad will now shutdown. Goodbye!" Prometheus considered the message and immediately determined that it was a very intentional aspect of his punishment; however, it was just a perfectly normal iPad. Zeus had purchased it one day at the mall, having been cajoled into buying the cursed thing by a twenty-something salesperson with thick-rimmed glasses, a tattoo of a Yorkshire terrier wearing a skull cap and monocle dragging a tiny covered wagon emblazoned with "Pabst Blue Ribbon or Bust" in English written phonetically in hiragana, and a mutual interest in OK Go youtube videos though they were both quick to mention and to agreed that their music was only middling at best, like definitely not as good as OK Computer, hehehehehe. Such men tempt immortals, both our personal Gods1 and those who make Olympus their abode.
Diodotos showed up just now, often he would arrive early so they could shoot the shit and enjoy each other's company.
"Hey there 'metheus, awful sunny t'day, hope ya don't sweat it too much."
"Ah, old man 'dotus, how was your day, friend?"
"Alllrriight," Diodotus said as he took a pack of unfiltered Lucky Strikes from under wing and extracted a cigarette with practiced precision, tapping it end down on the rock and taking it gently in his beak, handling it delicately as a doctor tying off a vas deferens with surgical forceps, before producing his trusty Djeep and lighting it unhurriedly to let it rest between two claws slanted upwards, smoking like a stick of incense. Then he turned his neck upwards squinting at the sun.
He offered the pack to Prometheus, who gladly accepted with his free hand. The gods are not so worried about cancer as mortals, and verily it has become sort of a hip thing to sport a particularly large and inoperable malignant tumor in certain cliques. (These growths are typically manipulated into intricate shapes and forms à la bonsai.) Yet as soon as Diodotus lit it for him, a single large drop of rain fell to intersect with its ember; storm gods have their ways. Prometheus tossed it away, slightly bemused that Zeus would not allow him even a single puff.
"Well, it was not meant to be, 'dotes, that will teach you to bum me a cigarette, ha ha! Have the chicks hatched?"
Diodotus took a long drag and said, "Yeah yeah, me an' da missus have got ourselves a handful of 'em squawking fer bacon, never shut up. Nice and healthy considerin' the state of the planet these days, did I tell you I took up Silent Spring by that ol' en-viren-o-mental coot, what'ser name... goddamn Rachel Carson, thassit!"
"I don't think you did."
"Well, lemme tell you, that there book was writ in '62 I think, and damned if the DDT fallout ain't still a scourge on birdkind. Terrible, terrible stuff, shells crackin' 'fore they hatch, it's the worst feeling fer a birdmother, makes her feel all kinds of ill inside, 'cause they feel it's them thats cracked their own eggs, only it's the shells that's too thin, not enough calcee-um. Then they's got to go to councilin' and that's a whole other bill to pay. And it hits us tertiary predators hardest, it ain't too easy being on top of the food chain all the time, you know. Terrible stuff, that."
"It is... It's a good thing that they came out healthy. I would have you feed them my liver if it wasn't ordained to be left to rot."
"You sure are a sweet feller to say that, but it's no matter, just 'a matter of checking the labels at the supermarket, buying free-range and ethically raised meat... you know, it really kills me sometimes that it ain't in my genes to be a veger-tary-eran, but I guess it don't worry me too much. I don't waste no meat."
"You're a kind spirit to feel that, but nonetheless I don't think it would be too healthy for you or your chicks to eat sprouts and lentils."
"Yeah, that does seem to be certain. Wish it weren't so, though."
"I wish a lot of thing were not so, but so they are, and so I try not to worry about it too much either."
"I figure you're meaning that to mean I ought to get around ta what I came here ta do."
"There's no hurry."
"Alright, I guess I won't wind this out any longer than I should... and ya' know this ain't exactly peaches fer me neither."
"I know you do not enjoy what you do, but if you did not, some unscrupulous eagle would take the job, and I doubt I would enjoy talking to him as much as I enjoy chatting with you. I am honored to consider you my friend."
"Aw..." He tucked his head briefly under wing... but I didn't tell you he did it to shed a tear. "Well, 'metheus, it's been a pleasure and if ya don't mind I'll shake yer hand, claw ta paw, and get to business."
"Oh, shut up and give me a hug, Dotes."
The two embraced wings over arms, somewhat awkwardly, and again you didn't hear from me that the bird shed a couple more tears, hastily shook off. Diodotus took a step back, stubbed out his cigarette and took to the air coughing, he circled up high once and then shot through the air arcing up at the last second, ripping out the targeted organ with a minimum of peripheral damage and dropped it nearby to simmer in the sun. He flew off swaying uncertainly side to side, more like an old buzzard than the strong eagle he was, such was his grief even now, on around the ten billionth excision.
And though livers are not meant to be seen outside of insides, Prometheus had a beautiful one, as all immortals do.
Notes
1See Julian Jaynes' The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind for clarification on this remark.
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