| 9 | A feather quill |
| 5 | Someone with a severe coffee addiction |
The feather quills were scritch-scritch-scritching across the parchment, like a pair of small creatures attempting to dig for food on the stone temple floor. Of course, if there were such a creature, it wouldn’t have much luck, considering the temple wasn’t actually made of stone, any more than the prayers and responses on Calliope’s desk were actually written in print. The scritchings weren’t in unison, but in a sort of syncopated rhythm that harmonized with itself, probably due to the fact that one quill was being moved by the hand of the goddess in freestyle responses, while the other danced seemingly of its own will on the other side of the desk, always in the same predictable rhythm, with the same words scrawling over and over each sheet that slid beneath the inky point.
Calliope had always been fond of using quill and parchment, ever since she had upgraded from the old stylus-and-clay-tablet method of reviewing and answering prayers. That was in the early days, of course. In this shining Modern World, several of her sisters preferred to work with computers, or phones, or metal-and-glass tablets, rather than clay ones. The other Muses always like to tease Calliope for being old-fashioned like that, championing epic poetry and monumental tales when most of the world preferred their Art in short snippets on tiny screens. Thankfully, there were still enough artists in the world craving the Great Stories, though these too were only excerpts from the infinite tapestry of Art that was always spread before the Muses’ eyes. Prayers for inspiration and glimpses of true Art manifested as slips of parchment, piled like snowy mountains all throughout Calliope’s temple, and in her judgement each one deserved a response.
Hermes invisibly delivered the blizzards of parchment, but often included a large pink-and-orange paper cup filled with steaming black coffee materializing silently on her desk, always replacing the one that was nearly empty. Calliope hated to be in debt to anyone and would never ask for such a thing, but either the messenger god himself or someone giving him orders had taken such pity on the Muse, with her endless workload and centuries-sleepless eyes, that they constantly sent caffeinated offerings from the human world. She had to pace herself, of course; she couldn’t risk her hand jittering too much as she wrote, less the intended recipient misunderstand the inspiration she was trying to deliver (too many awful stories had found their way into human hands the few times that happened). But it kept the Muse’s eyes open and her mind sharp enough to deliver the vision of Art to her supplicants, though for every prayer she answered it always seemed ten more had been delivered to her.
She did, at times, send some off to her other sisters for help. Thalia was always willing to add jokes and lighten the mood of stories that needed it. Likewise, Melpomene was much better at touching the tragic and sentimental details, when compared to Calliope’s big-picture perspective, which could, she acknowledged, be a bit unfeeling at times. Occasionally she would ask Clio for help as well, for those writers and artists trying to remain true to the historical record, though if writers thought Calliope could be unfeeling in her narratives, they’d find Clio was absolutely brutal in her insistence on truth.
And Erato…well, Erato had been a very busy girl since the advent of the photograph, moving picture, and internet. But you couldn’t say she didn’t love her work.
Calliope didn’t have much to do these days with her more musically-inclined sisters—Polyhymnia, Euterpe, and Terpsichore—but she had heard that their workload was still healthy enough. Whatever may have become of the other gods, the Nine were still as active as ever, though the manifestation of Art had changed drastically over the millennia. Changed…but not vanished. Poems may not be epic any longer, scenes were rarely painted on vases, and songs were usually dedicated to anything but the gods. But the people of the world still valued visual beauty, stories, poetry, and music, and many still sought to Create.
But then there was Urania. Poor Urania. She had always been the odd one out of her sisters. She wasn’t much for narratives, or songs, or really Art in general. But she knew the stars, and she knew how to study and learn. A patron of science and technology, the inspiration she delivered to supplicants wasn’t part of the grand vision of Art, but something she called Progress. Like a second Prometheus, she never hesitated to pass on knowledge of the world to those who prayed to her for guidance, and being a curious goddess herself, she was always finding new things to share. For better, or worse.
Clio had said that other gods who’d gone quiet blamed Urania for bringing too much knowledge to the world. That in seeking to bring light to the people, she was effectively putting out the dark, and with no dark, how could one see the stars Urania loved so well? How could Mystery fire imagination if all the Mysteries were solved?
Worst of all, Urania had tried to give the people their own Muse, an artificial and mathematical scion of Progress. Rather than beseech Calliope, or Clio, or Thalia, or Melpomene for inspiration to Create their great stories and songs and poems, Urania had taught the people how to ask machines to create art for them. Not Art, as bestowed by the gods and made to last in peoples’ hearts and minds for thousands of years, but just plain old art: something neither good nor bad but just there, currently existing, but ready to be forgotten in less than the length of a human life.
“I did it to help you all!” Urania had said to her sisters when they’d scolded her for her actions. “The people won’t trouble you with their avalanche of prayers anymore. Or at least, the untalented ones won’t. The true artists and writers and musicians will still pray for inspiration, but they’re the ones who deserve it, don’t they? And the others…all I did was make it easier for those who want to dabble, the ones who just want to enjoy the creations; more creations, you know, or very specific ones. The machines won’t help the ones who don’t wish to Create for others.”
Perhaps it was because Urania had always been farther from Art than the rest of the Muses that she didn’t understand the breadth of what she’d done. Still, Calliope had risen to her full height and looked down imperiously at her youngest sister, callused fingers balled into fists and eyes burning with heretic fury.
“The Muses do not exist to serve artists, sister. We exist to serve Art. And your actions have betrayed that duty. When the people can please themselves with things that are not art, why should they spend their short lives pouring their hearts and souls into creating true Art?”
Urania had no answer for that, nor anything else after. None of the Muses had spoken to her since.
Calliope comforted herself that her temple was still full of prayers, and from what she heard (from the sisters she was still on speaking terms with), so were there other Muses’. But she’d noticed that when she dared to partake in such unnecessary luxuries as sleeping and eating, or even stepping outside of her temple to breathe the fresh air, some of the piles of prayers that came after were just-noticeably smaller.
It was to be expected, she supposed, for if the people believed the Muses had abandoned them, then why shouldn’t they turn to Urania’s infernal machines for their false creations? Better a poor story than no story at all. But Calliope was determined. She drank coffee after coffee, and hadn’t slept in ages, nor eaten anything other than the occasional container of chocolate-covered espresso beans Hermes had delivered her a few times. The replies to her supplicants’ prayers came constantly, though to the chief of the Muses it never felt fast enough.
Hence the second quill. It would only write one message, over and over again, as soon as the prayers came through:
From the Desk of Calliope:
Replies are delayed
Inspiration forthcoming
Your are not forgotten
Do not give up
Replies are delayed
Inspiration forthcoming
Your are not forgotten
Do not give up
It wasn’t much, but it was better than silence. Calliope knew it wouldn’t save all her supplicants, but maybe Urania would be right about one thing: the true seekers of Art would keep the faith, keep trying, never stop trying to Create. The weakest amongst them might turn to the machines, or just give up entirely, but even though it hurt the Muse’s pride, she herself had said it: Muses serve Art, not artists.
She took another drink of coffee, then grabbed the next parchment from the stack.