Untitled, like usual...
an excerpt

The Atlantic ocean is cold, far colder than I expected to be, given that it’s the height of summer. I was expecting - I don’t know - something like warm bath water. Even though the sun is hot, I’m shivering and I cling to a hunk of red, painted wood. We must be about half way between Cuba and the tip of the Florida panhandle. Home. Of course, my real home, my land is a little further inland. I am bobbed up and down by the waves, although they aren’t too bad. If our boat had broken up during a storm, I’d be screwed. Of course I’m still pretty screwed but my end will at least be a little more tranquil. It would be even more tranquil yet if Odin wasn’t circling me like a fat, lazy, bearded shark.

He’s about twenty feet away, doing a slow, lazy backstroke, just indolently wheeling his arms through the water, one at a time. Reminding me that he’s got all the time in the world. The asshole isn’t even kicking. He seems to be much more buoyant than I am. I don’t know if it’s because he’s a god and the rules don’t apply or if it’s just because he’s much chubbier than me. His face has turned pink in the sun whereas mine is already burnt and probably peeling. I can feel the heat radiating from my cheeks but I don’t want to release my grip on my plank of wood; the sheer volume of water below me is horrifying. I’ve never been a strong swimmer. I can see one of the life vests from the boat floating a ways off but I’m too chicken to try and swim to it. And I’m certainly not going to ask Odin to go get it for me.

I hear a screech overhead and look up to see his two ravens Hugin and Munin (Thought and Memory but I can never remember which one is which) chasing and bullying the seagulls who are circling overhead. Assholes, the lot of them. Odin at that point decides to roll over onto his front and in a few easy strokes has paddled over to me and stops, treading water beside me. He’s wearing cargo shorts and a white shirt with palm trees covering it. The shirt billows away from his body in the water. I can see where sea water or sweat has evaporated in the heat, leaving behind a white residue.

“Nice afternoon for a swim. Why are you clinging to that plank? You didn’t get to the part in swimming lessons where you can let go of the flutter board?”

“How about you go fuck yourself?”

He makes a tsk and says, “You should be more polite to me. I’m the one who can get you out of this.”

“Who’s asking for your help?”

He looks at me for a moment and then reaches over and shoves my head under water. I lose my grip on the board with one hand and cling with the remaining so tightly that my nails dig into it. I’m trying to fight him, to kick out but water forces everything into slow motion. And anyway, he’s a god. What am I supposed to do? He holds me under for seems like hours, until I hear popping sounds and see flashes in front of my eyes.

When he finally lets me up, I suck in ragged gasps of air between coughs.

“What the fuck is wrong with you? You’re trying to kill me?”

“Now see right there, “ he jabs a finger at me as he speaks, “That’s the whole point.”

“To kill me?”

“For someone who said, an hour ago, that he had come to terms with his mortality and was ready to face death, you were sure struggling.”

“If I have to go, I don’t want it to be by your hand is all.”

He smirks at me, his face crinkling like some hard-drinking, lunatic Santa Claus.

“It’s what I’ve been saying for all these years. You’re not natural. It’s not right. You’re nothing but a freak of nature.”

“It’s not like I asked for it or spent years tromping through swamps looking for it. I’m not Ponce de León. My dad bought the land fair and square and I just inherited it.”

He snorts at that, kicks a few feet away and then dives under. He comes up a few seconds later, shaking water from his beard and long hair like a dog. “I read in Reader’s Digest that a kids inherit the gene for alcoholism from their parents. Doesn’t mean they should take up drinking. You should have realized it wasn’t right. It’s Man’s destiny to die and messing with fate is like messing with gravity. Pointless and in the end you just end up with a broken neck.”

“This from the man who poked out his own eye and still couldn’t stop Ragnarok.”

“Fuck off. That’s god business.” It was a bit of a low blow on my part. The destruction of the Norse pantheon is a touchy subject with him. Probably understandably so. He was being a dick, though.

“So the only reason you’re sticking around here is so you can watch me die and say ‘I told you so’?”

“And to make sure it gets done. You’ve overstayed your welcome on Earth by two hundred years. I’m going to make sure things are set right.”

My throat is raw and sore from coughing and the sun is giving me a headache. Probably heatstroke. Squinting my eyes and looking north, I think I can see coastline. But maybe it’s just a mirage. Will the tide bring in? Or am I too far out and stuck in a current that will drag me further out into the ocean. I don’t know anything about tides and currents, certainly not what direction they flow in the Gulf. You would think two hundred years would be plenty of time to learn just everything. But it isn’t. It really doesn’t seem like that much time at all.