It’s Called Middle Ground
Juniper was a mermaid. And I, I was a god of poetry. There were several of us. But only a fair few could lay with mermaids under the stars. I didn’t have a name, but Juniper liked to call me Verse. She would come when she wished onto the beach of Sagittarius. We’d sit by a fire I would write out of my quill. We’d speak of Middle Ground, where everything was balanced and not at the same time, where life and death would conjugate, and exist and cease at the same time. Middle Ground was a spot for the rights being wronged and the wrongs being righted. Often, gods and demons would have conventions there and the writers and poets would prepare the books of fate.
Juniper and I had spoken of visiting Middle Ground, but you could only go there by invitation. You’d imagine I’d be invited, being a god and the sorts. But I was too far down the food chain of gods who could be invited to such glamorous events. I also had a lousy reputation. I’d once been working under a fate writer god, who had asked me to arrange the pages of a certain mortal’s tale in order. But Juniper had summoned me then and I would have to do two things at once.
You can’t do two things at once when a mermaid is involved. You can only do one. I had ended up writing the wrong page numbers due to lack of time. The mortal’s life got rather too chaotic, even more than what Chaos would have enjoyed. I’d been banished from the higher-level gods since then. Now I worked on my own and took up projects that were astray. I would compose poetry for mermaids, centaurs and lower level gods when they hired me.
But Juniper never had to hire me. All she’d need to do was write my name in the sand on Sagittarius beach. And I’d appear like the obedient god I was. I didn’t know what we would talk about this time. Juniper was wearing her hair golden brown that night. Last time, it had been violet. But my favourite were her flaming red tresses. They would go quite well with the silvery stripes on her eyelids.
Juniper’s hair changed colour as quick as her whims. She would ask me to tell her tales when she wanted, how she wanted, and I’d deliver.
“Tell me a tale in verse,” she said that night. “Sing it to me.”
I was a god poet, of course. But I was no singer. Mermaids were good singers. She would hate my singing, I knew. For a moment, I imagined she had forgotten that I didn’t have a voice. I only had a quill. Our conversations were always on parchments.
“You can write yourself a voice, can’t you?” She asked, gazing at me with longing. Her head was gently resting on my legs.
I smiled. Shook my head to deny. Gods could do several things with their powers, but when it came to ourselves, we had very little agency. Only another god would be able to give me voice and sound.
“Write a tale in verse then,” she said, caressing my neck. “I’ll sing it.”
The parchment hung before me, waiting for ink. I wrote. Juniper sang.
If I had to illustrate your whims,
I would sit down and count my sins;
the demons and I, we share some drinks;
controlling the stars,
controlling your fancies,
sketching desires and fantasies;
the demons and I, we know your whims;
we sit with them; think losses and wins;
we cry with them; joy comes in hints;
ballads are rare, there’s not much to think;
wars fight each other, end as we blink;
You once had a weapon; it was made of ink…
When I wrote and Juniper sang, mortals would dream. We could spin multiple tales in one. Sometimes, some mortals would have the same dream. Fate writers enjoyed those days. They’d end up writing rather interesting fates for those mortals. The kind that were intertwined and candid.
There was one verse that Juniper loved to sing. It was about mermaids and sirens and singing ravens.
And ravens when they sing for me,
they sing of dark red seas;
of sirens kissed by mermaids and
pirates hung by the feet;
They sing of wrecked ships, and they
sing of the dying breeze,
of ballads written over stone
and tales of grieving thieves;
They sing of stolen souls, and they
sing of the siren’s tease;
of nails sinking into flesh,
devouring souls in heaps;
They sing of hollow skulls, and they
sing of the falling leaves
over the corpses of pirates
and of their burnt dead fleet;
They sing of betrayal, and they
sing of the violent beasts;
of sirens kissing mermaids and
becoming starving beasts;
So ravens when they sing to me,
they sing of scorned seas;
those seas, filled with lust to quench
the thirst of she who reaps.
Juniper and I once wrote a dream about a sorceress who seduced a mortal. This mortal, who had the dream, ended up leaving his family and became a recluse. He wanted to chase after the idea of that sorceress. The demon fate writers enjoyed that one. It turned into a fate battle between the gods and demons. The poor mortal got caught in the crossfire for a rather long time. The writers couldn’t find an end for his tale. He would travel to woods and mountains, searching for the sorceress he had seen in that dream. So the god fate writers asked me for help. They asked me to write a sorceress outside of the dream. I did. The mortal and the sorceress met in reality, and the mortal became a poet. He wrote for some decades. Death brought him to the realm of the gods of poetry and song. We immortalized him and the sorceress. One of his verses now sits in the museum of godly and demonly tales.
She wove a web, deeper
than the depths of perdition, her
song, like the wound left by a scalpel on
my mind; she kissed fire, and
her lips slipped away from me, like sand
that hastened away while, I was
breathing
her scent of lavender; the touch
meeting
my open soul; her bright, flaming eyes
enchanting, as the nightingale’s voice
approaching from her mouth, held me
in an embrace of death, that set free
my breath.
Juniper once wanted me to compose something for a mortal who had had a rather mundane death. She wanted me to build a fantasy around it. So I did. For I would do anything Juniper asked of me.
I
Once upon a night of winter,
I ran into Aphrodite;
She said nothing I hear is true,
That there’s no perfect deity.
II
On the same blue and chilly night,
Lustful Zeus waved his thunderbolt;
Cried, as I waded through the woods,
Loathing the King of Underworld.
III
I walked on in the cold, dead frost,
Then came out of nowhere Hades;
He laughed and looked up to ask,
‘Why do you get all the ladies?’
IV
I shrugged and kicked on in the hail,
Thought why Poseidon hadn’t shown yet;
And sudden came a rippling voice,
‘There’s leakage, my home is wet!’
V
I continued on frozen sea,
An owl, Athena flew along;
She stopped and asked me where I go,
Then said the path I took was wrong.
VI
I cared not if the cool floor broke,
Persephone had not yet come;
But here she was to tell me that,
A ferry waited for my bum.
VII
Now I knew why summer was cold,
Soon Cerberus gave a loud snarl;
The ice beneath me tore at once,
Voices said, ‘You’re dead now, Carl!
That night, I couldn’t finish the verse that Juniper had asked me to compose for her. There were so many rhymes in my head, but I couldn’t think of one to hold on to. I only wanted to hold on to Juniper. I decided to leave it incomplete and wait for the next time she would summon me. I would finish it for her then. But I never saw Juniper after that night. I still wait for her inside my tomb in the demon tombyard. I wait with the rhyme I’d like to end it with — a rhyme that knows she won’t call again.
If I had to illustrate your whims,
I would sit down and count my sins;
the demons and I, we share some drinks;
controlling the stars,
controlling your fancies,
sketching desires and fantasies;
the demons and I, we know your whims;
we sit with them; think losses and wins;
we cry with them; joy comes in hints;
ballads are rare, there’s not much to think;
wars fight each other, end as we blink;
You once had a weapon; it was made of ink,
your voice, an unrequited lover;
eyes, a song I’d listen to forever;
hands, gentle in violent weather;
You and I, we embrace your whims;
we lie to the gods; we quietly sin,
now I stay quite lost; I’ve drunk all the drinks…
Perhaps this verse is still unfinished. I don’t know how to end things with Juniper. Just like I don’t know how to end any of my tales and verses. Perhaps Juniper and I will someday meet in Middle Ground and I’ll get to end it and not at the same time.
