After Afterthought

When a god, in this case Zeus himself, presents a gift, there are two considerations that should be taken into account. Epimetheus only accounted for one; that refusing a gift is the same as declaring war.

What he didn’t consider was that the gift was his to keep.

Pandora was his woman, and not to be shared. Nor was she to be sent away, that could get him a one way ticket to Hades.

It must have been great at first. Not only did Pandora know more about the ways of pleasure than this woman or that woman, she turned his camp into something more than a place to eat, sleep, and get laid.

There were looms and yarn and the tools she used to make the rugs on the floor and hanging on the walls. They made the place look better, and they helped keep the weather out of their…cabin.

There was more color in his life. When he was away drinking and fighting, or drinking and hunting, he missed the new aromas that permeated the air where she lived with him.

Very soon, and before Epimetheus realized, “now” became more than his point of existence; suddenly “now” was a deadline. Quite by accident he learned that the more he did for Pandora, the better off he was, and that the opposite was also true. If Pandora needed him to trade her fabric for flour, eggs, or even a few chickens -- now. He would do it now, with a smile.

Of course, the list of things she needed only grew longer.

It may have been when Epimetheus found himself plowing a field to grow the flax Pandora needed to make linen, or perhaps it was when he was half way through putting a proper roof on the house he’d promised to build that he started to itch for the time when nothing mattered more than now.

Oh, for the time when his muscles didn’t ache, and the sun didn’t burn his neck and his crop. 

He missed the time when sex was just another trophy of the hunt. What was the point after all?

When Epimetheus died, he would be just as dead. Then what? His answer was the same whether his muscles ached or not -- Epimetheus would be no more.

Fine time to consider, the trigger was tripped. Pandora was pregnant.

That was the last damn thing Epimetheus wanted, a noisy kid. That is until Pandora opened the jar.

The child inside her was his child, and the answer to his question: Then what?

Epimetheus could live forever through his offspring. His children would build the future he started, but only if husband and wife were exclusive to each other.

It turned out that Pandora wasn’t given a jar --

Pandora was the jar,

Pandora de Kelly

What Pandora released from her jar wasn't the ills, hard toils and heavy sickness she's blamed for. Those were the by-products of what man did with the motivation Pandora's revelation gave them.

The hard work and heartbreaks Epimetheus experienced on his farm was nothing compared to the miseries caused by mankind's new ambition to build bigger and travel farther in the name of the hope that remained in the jar -- the possibility of securing their future through their children.

And if their children were to build the future, it should be glorious.

Peace Out Y'all