they say medusa was once a beautiful princess, innocent, like the water she loved to walk along on the shore. she would sometimes take her little brother, hold his small hand, and show him the mollusks, crustaceans, and little guppies in the water that would instantly flee with the flick of a finger splashing no more than 6 drops of water. water droplets so pure that it can be the only true origin for life, a force that can bring destruction to a species in one mighty swell. they say she walked alone when the water took her, entered her but did not clean her. we all refused to believe her story, that it was the god of the sea. poseidon is a figment of her imagination. they say medusa was a beautiful princess, that her beauty stopped men cold. a femme fatale. a she-who-must-be-obeyed. a beauty that left men dazed and forced women to look away. now her look punctures and her eyes fling outward like a scream, her hair hisses and is wild, straggly like electric fibers drawing static moving outward from her eyes. she is not hysterical, she is crazy like the rage of wombats in hell. poseidon, she says, raped her. that's what she thinks, said the men in crete, the politico. that's what she thinks. and sometimes they would chuckle. medusa was a witch, they said. she had hair like serpents and would turn men into stone.
[john]