That God of Anxiety

          Olympus erupted from the valleys of Valhalla, its uttermost peak grazing the surface of Heaven’s shifting floor, sometimes ripping a tear in the clouds wide enough for the land-based mythos to glance up the robes of passing angels. The first Sunday of every month the gods and heroes of Valhalla ascended the flanks of Olympus, where they joined the Balkan gods for a barbeque, some poker, and a few hours of dedicated peeping tommery. It had been a more frequent occasion, but six or seven eons ago—no deity was really sure which—Dionysus stumbled into Local Myth Pizza with a harp jutting from his forehead. No one had peeped alone since, which was why Anxiety was here this day, accompanying Apollo on a divine panty raid.
          The Farsighted Prince, a dedicated “stargazer,” had, not three weeks past, looked up to see eyes, the color of lightning in the rain, glaring back down.
          “Where do you get off?” asked the angel.
          “Why, right here,” said the God of Wisdom. “In the same spot I get turned on, as it so happens.”
          She squinted. “You’re Apollo.”
          “Yeah.”
          “Zeus’s son.”
          “Yeah.”
          “I could tell Jehovah to tell your dad about this. They’re having a golf game on Tuesday.”
          “Tattle-tell,” said Apollo.
          “Peeping Tom,” said the angel, and the clouds shut, swallowing up her face. Apollo waited for the clouds to open again, but when they did, the angel who’d insulted him was gone. The god had fallen very much in love.
          “I waited for her, night, day, night and then day again,” the handsome prince had told Anxiety.
          He’d invited the younger god to the upper echelons of the mountain, and sat with him sipping ambrosia at the edge of Quiet Cliff. Quiet Cliff was the model for every romantic spot a man ever brought a woman, and the prospect of Apollo putting the moves on him made the God of Anxiety fidget.
          “But she never returned. I know not what to do, but I must see her again. I love her, cousin, and I need your assistance in wooing her. Will you help me?”
The God of Anxiety had nodded, coughed, and sneezed in the same movement.
“I would be honored.” He stood up and brushed the dust from his thighs, but Apollo didn’t move, so he sat down again. “I mean, cool, yeah. So what did you want to do?”
Apollo looked up. “I must see her again, whatever it takes. I’m going to Heaven to get her.”
          “What?”
          “Tonight.”
          “Heaven? But, cousin, there are rules—“
          “You’re coming with me.”
          Ambrosia spurted from the anxious god’s nose. “Me? Tonight? Heaven? What?”
          Anxiety once was an intimidating aspect of Hades’ persona, a power to be feared on both the immortal and mortal planes. However, with the advent of psychology and its dedicated following, the fracturing of governing personalities was inevitable. Science had a similar effect on all theological genus. The God of Earth, once the elemental deity, was now an atrophying federation of geology gods, like the God of Sandstone, the God of Micah, and the God of Irradiated Uranium. Humanity, in its wild, reason-driven attempt to illuminate the unexplainable, had driven the very deities it sought further into uncertainty, the only shadow in which such things grow.
          “Let’s go,” said Apollo, and started up the face of black obsidian and snow. Anxiety jumped to his feet so fast he almost fell off the cliff, and then ran after his brother.
          Olympus was an awkward coalition of human imagination and practicality. The basis of its existence relied upon it being larger and more imposing than any mortal could conceive, which, back in the day, was acceptable. But modern humanity could imagine much more than it once did, and so the mountain grew and grew through the ages. It became a serious problem when even swift Hermes couldn’t ascend it without cramping. Zeus, Jehovah, and Odin held a meeting, and agreed that it was necessary to limit the imagination of humanity until another solution could be found. That was centuries ago, when they still had the power to do so.
          They reached the peak before Apollo noticed that his cousin had shut his eyes.
 “Anxiety, are you scared of heights?”
          “No, I’m scared of grounds. One cannot quash himself upon heights.”
          “It is the most wondrous view in existence.”
          “I think I caught a case of panoramicvistaphobia in Hades the other day.”
          “Then look up! I’m sure even you bear clouds no fear.”
          “Agoraphobia, the 24-hour strain.”
          “Fine. Just give me a boost.”
          For those that’ve lived beneath it all their lives, Heaven is a bit bright.
          “I should’ve brought my shades. I look better in shades.” Apollo covered his eyes with his hand.
          “How is it up there?” yelled Anxiety from below.
          “It’s like Heaven!” replied Apollo. He pulled his hand down.
          Heaven stretched out forever in rolling knolls of cloud. Cumulus columns grew from the whipped-cream floor, rainbows wrapping like vines up the length of their milky, satin structure. The pillars supported planes of stratus far above Apollo’s slack jaw, levels of tissue thin cloud that spanned existence. Angels with harps, singing gospel music, made Apollo turn. A black reverend, sweaty forehead steaming due to the altitude, hit a note somewhere between B sharp and tires squealing on hot pavement. Apollo figured he was nearly three minutes into the third syllable of           “Hallelujah.”
          “Impressed?” Apollo turned around; there was his angel.
          “Yes,” said the god of foresight. “It’s almost as beautiful as you.”
          She laughed. “I knew Hell would freeze over before I’d give into that line again.”
          “It froze?”
          “El Niño.”
          Apollo shaped an “Ah” with his lips. “So,” he said. “Can I buy you a drink?”

Chris Malmberg is a strikingly handsome English major at Wenatchee Valley College. En route to the glories of wealth and sugarplum joy, he plans to avoid all Jabberwocks and Jubjub birds and make every day a frabjous day.