Zeus is going 60 in a 45 mph zone when a siren screams and a booming voice orders him to pull to the side of the road. He stays in the car with the window down a crack as a cop comes up and asks if he knows why he has been pulled over. Almighty Zeus, the immortal, capable of turning the cop into a gadfly with a wave of his hand, says yes, officer, I was driving too fast. The officer, inscrutable behind his sunglasses, says well you understand I’m going to have to give you a ticket now and goes back to his car to print one out and hand it to Zeus who has to contain his wrath to keep the paper from bursting into flames. I am being punished by a pint of clay, he thinks, but does not summon a thunderbolt and reduce the man to dust as he may have done back in the day. He knows full well that the rules have changed since the gods sold Mt. Olympus. Instead he waits for the patrol car to drive off, lights still spinning, before snapping a picture of the ticket and sending it to his brother Poseidon with the text, “Release the Kraken.” lol, is the prompt reply.

Ian Willey is a communications specialist from Ohio riding out the storm in the inland sea area of Japan. When not writing academic articles and grant proposals he has fun with poetry.

Photo by Diomari Madulara

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