MY NAME IS APOLLO. I used to be a god.
In my four thousand six hundred and twelve years, I have done many things. I inflicted a plague on the Greeks who besieged Troy. I blessed Babe Ruth with three home runs in game four of the 1926 World Series. I visited my wrath upon Britney Spears at the 2007 MTV Video Music Awards.
But in all my immortal life, I never before crash-landed in a Dumpster.
I’m not even sure how it happened.
I simply woke up falling. Skyscrapers spiraled in and out of view. Flames streamed off my body. I tried to fly. I tried to change into a cloud or teleport across the world or do a hundred other things that should have been easy for me, but I just kept falling. I plunged into a narrow canyon between two buildings and BAM!
Is anything sadder than the sound of a god hitting a pile of garbage bags?
I lay groaning and aching in the open Dumpster. My nostrils burned with the stench of rancid bologna and used diapers. My ribs felt broken, though that shouldn’t have been possible.
My mind stewed in confusion, but one memory floated to the surface—the voice of my father, Zeus: YOUR FAULT. YOUR PUNISHMENT.
I realized what had happened to me. And I sobbed in despair.
Even for a god of poetry such as myself, it is difficult to describe how I felt. How could you—a mere mortal—possibly understand? Imagine being stripped of your clothes, then blasted with a fire hose in front of a laughing crowd. Imagine the ice-cold water filling your mouth and lungs, the pressure bruising your skin, turning your joints to putty. Imagine feeling helpless, ashamed, completely vulnerable—publicly and brutally stripped of everything that makes you you. My humiliation was worse than that.
YOUR FAULT, Zeus’s voice rang in my head.
“No!” I cried miserably. “No, it wasn’t! Please!”
Nobody answered. On either side of me, rusty fire escapes zigzagged up brick walls. Above, the winter sky was gray and unforgiving.
I tried to remember the details of my sentencing. Had my father told me how long this punishment would last? What was I supposed to do to regain his favor?
My memory was too fuzzy. I could barely recall what Zeus looked like, much less why he’d decided to toss me to earth. There’d been a war with the giants, I thought. The gods had been caught off guard, embarrassed, almost defeated.
The only thing I knew for certain: my punishment was unfair. Zeus needed someone to blame, so of course he’d picked the handsomest, most talented, most popular god in the pantheon: me.
I lay in the garbage, staring at the label inside the Dumpster lid: FOR PICK-UP, CALL 1-555-STENCHY.
Zeus will reconsider, I told myself. He’s just trying to scare me. Any moment, he will yank me back to Olympus and let me off with a warning.
“Yes…” My voice sounded hollow and desperate. “Yes, that’s it.”
I tried to move. I wanted to be on my feet when Zeus came to apologize. My ribs throbbed. My stomach clenched. I clawed the rim of the Dumpster and managed to drag myself over the side. I toppled out and landed on my shoulder, which made a cracking sound against the asphalt.
“Araggeeddeee,” I whimpered through the pain. “Stand up. Stand up.”
Getting to my feet was not easy. My head spun. I almost passed out from the effort. I stood in a dead-end alley. About fifty feet away, the only exit opened onto a street with grimy storefronts for a bail bondsman’s office and a pawnshop. I was somewhere on the west side of Manhattan, I guessed, or perhaps Crown Heights, in Brooklyn. Zeus must have been really angry with me.
I inspected my new body. I appeared to be a teenaged Caucasian male, clad in sneakers, blue jeans, and a green polo shirt. How utterly drab. I felt sick, weak, and so, so human.
I will never understand how you mortals tolerate it. You live your entire life trapped in a sack of meat, unable to enjoy simple pleasures like changing into a hummingbird or dissolving into pure light.
And now, heavens help me, I was one of you—just another meat sack.
I fumbled through my pants pockets, hoping I still had the keys to my sun chariot. No such luck. I found a cheap nylon wallet containing a hundred dollars in American currency—lunch money for my first day as a mortal, perhaps—along with a New York State junior driver’s license featuring a photo of a dorky, curly-haired teen who could not possibly be me, with the name Lester Papadopoulos. The cruelty of Zeus knew no bounds!
I peered into the Dumpster, hoping my bow, quiver, and lyre might have fallen to earth with me. I would have settled for my harmonica. There was nothing.

I took a deep breath. Cheer up, I told myself. I must have retained some of my godly abilities. Matters could be worse.
A raspy voice called, “Hey, Cade, take a look at this loser.”
Blocking the alley’s exit were two young men: one squat and platinum blond, the other tall and redheaded. Both wore oversize hoodies and baggy pants. Serpentine tattoo designs covered their necks. All they were missing were the words "I’M A THUG" printed in large letters across their foreheads.
The redhead zeroed in on the wallet in my hand. “Now, be nice, Mikey. This guy looks friendly enough.” He grinned and pulled a hunting knife from his belt. “In fact, I bet he wants to give us all his money.”
I blame my disorientation for what happened next.
I knew my immortality had been stripped away, but I still considered myself the mighty Apollo! One cannot change one’s way of thinking as easily as one might, say, turn into a snow leopard.
Also, on previous occasions when Zeus had punished me by making me mortal (yes, it had happened twice before), I had retained massive strength and at least some of my godly powers. I assumed the same would be true now.
I was not going to allow two young mortal ruffians to take Lester Papadopoulos’s wallet.
I stood up straight, hoping Cade and Mikey would be intimidated by my regal bearing and divine beauty. (Surely those qualities could not be taken from me, no matter what my driver’s license photo looked like.) I ignored the warm Dumpster juice trickling down my neck.
“I am Apollo,” I announced. “You mortals have three choices: offer me tribute, flee, or be destroyed.”
I wanted my words to echo through the alley, shake the towers of New York, and cause the skies to rain smoking ruin. None of that happened. On the word destroyed, my voice squeaked.
The redhead Cade grinned even wider. I thought how amusing it would be if I could make the snake tattoos around his neck come alive and strangle him to death.
“What do you think, Mikey?” he asked his friend. “Should we give this guy tribute?”
Mikey scowled. With his bristly blond hair, his cruel small eyes, and his thick frame, he reminded me of the monstrous sow that terrorized the village of Crommyon back in the good old days.
“Not feeling the tribute, Cade.” His voice sounded like he’d been eating lit cigarettes. “What were the other options?”
“Fleeing?” said Cade.
“Nah,” said Mikey.
“Being destroyed?”
Mikey snorted. “How about we destroy him instead?”
Cade flipped his knife and caught it by the handle. “I can live with that. After you.”
I slipped the wallet into my back pocket. I raised my fists. I did not like the idea of flattening mortals into flesh waffles, but I was sure I could do it. Even in my weakened state, I would be far stronger than any human.
“I warned you,” I said. “My powers are far beyond your comprehension.”
Mikey cracked his knuckles. “Uh-huh.”
He lumbered forward.
As soon as he was in range, I struck. I put all my wrath into that punch. It should have been enough to vaporize Mikey and leave a thug-shaped impression on the asphalt.
Instead he ducked, which I found quite annoying.
I stumbled forward. I have to say that when Prometheus fashioned you humans out of clay he did a shoddy job. Mortal legs are clumsy. I tried to compensate, drawing upon my boundless reserves of agility, but Mikey kicked me in the back. I fell on my divine face.
My nostrils inflated like air bags. My ears popped. The taste of copper filled my mouth. I rolled over, groaning, and found the two blurry thugs staring down at me.
“Mikey,” said Cade, “are you comprehending this guy’s power?”
“Nah,” said Mikey. “I’m not comprehending it.”
“Fools!” I croaked. “I will destroy you!”
“Yeah, sure.” Cade tossed away his knife. “But first I think we’ll stomp you.”
Cade raised his boot over my face, and the world went black.

I HAD NOT BEEN STOMPED so badly since my guitar contest against Chuck Berry in 1957.
As Cade and Mikey kicked me, I curled into a ball, trying to protect my ribs and head. The pain was intolerable. I retched and shuddered. I blacked out and came to, my vision swimming with red splotches. When my attackers got tired of kicking me, they hit me over the head with a bag of garbage, which burst and covered me in coffee grounds and moldy fruit peels.
At last they stepped away, breathing heavily. Rough hands patted me down and took my wallet.
“Lookee here,” said Cade. “Some cash and an ID for…Lester Papadopoulos.”
Mikey laughed. “Lester? That’s even worse than Apollo.”
I touched my nose, which felt roughly the size and texture of a water-bed mattress. My fingers came away glistening red.

More update coming up

“Blood,” I muttered. “That’s not possible.”
“It’s very possible, Lester.” Cade crouched next to me. “And there might be more blood in your near future. You want to explain why you don’t have a credit card? Or a phone? I’d hate to think I did all that stomping for just a hundred bucks.”
I stared at the blood on my fingertips. I was a god. I did not have blood. Even when I’d been turned mortal before, golden ichor still ran through my veins. I had never before been so…converted. It must be a mistake. A trick. Something.
I tried to sit up.
My hand hit a banana peel and I fell again. My attackers howled in delight.
“I love this guy!” Mikey said.
“Yeah, but the boss told us he’d be loaded,” Cade complained.
“Boss…” I muttered. “Boss?”
“That’s right, Lester.” Cade flicked a finger against the side of my head. “‘Go to that alley,’ the boss told us. ‘Easy score.’ He said we should rough you up, take whatever you had. But this”—he waved the cash under my nose—“this isn’t much of a payday.”
Despite my predicament, I felt a surge of hopefulness. If these thugs had been sent here to find me, their “boss” must be a god. No mortal could have known I would fall to earth at this spot. Perhaps Cade and Mikey were not human either. Perhaps they were cleverly disguised monsters or spirits. At least that would explain why they had beaten me so easily.
“Who—who is your boss?” I struggled to my feet, coffee grounds dribbling from my shoulders. My dizziness made me feel as if I were flying too close to the fumes of primordial Chaos, but I refused to be humbled. “Did Zeus send you? Or perhaps Ares? I demand an audience!”
Mikey and Cade looked at each other as if to say, Can you believe this guy?
Cade picked up his knife. “You don’t take a hint, do you, Lester?”
Mikey pulled off his belt—a length of bike chain—and wrapped it around his fist.
I decided to sing them into submission. They may have resisted my fists, but no mortal could resist my golden voice. I was trying to decide between “You Send Me” and an original composition, “I’m Your Poetry God, Baby,” when a voice yelled, “HEY!”
The hooligans turned. Above us, on the second-story fire escape landing, stood a girl of about twelve. “Leave him alone,” she ordered.
My first thought was that Artemis had come to my aid. My sister often appeared as a twelve-year-old girl for reasons I’d never fully understood. But something told me this was not she.
The girl on the fire escape did not exactly inspire fear. She was small and pudgy, with dark hair chopped in a messy pageboy style and black cat-eye glasses with rhinestones glittering in the corners. Despite the cold, she wore no coat. Her outfit looked like it had been picked by a kindergartener—red sneakers, yellow tights, and a green tank dress. Perhaps she was on her way to a costume party dressed as a traffic light.
Still…there was something fierce in her expression. She had the same obstinate scowl my old girlfriend Cyrene used to get whenever she wrestled lions.
Mikey and Cade did not seem impressed.
“Get lost, kid,” Mikey told her.
The girl stamped her foot, causing the fire escape to shudder. “My alley. My rules!” Her bossy nasal voice made her sound like she was chiding a playmate in a game of make-believe. “Whatever that loser has is mine, including his money!”
“Why is everyone calling me a loser?” I asked weakly. The comment seemed unfair, even if I was beat-up and covered in garbage; but no one paid me any attention.
Cade glared at the girl. The red from his hair seemed to be seeping into his face. “You’ve got to be kidding me. Beat it, you brat!” He picked up a rotten apple and threw it.
The girl didn’t flinch. The fruit landed at her feet and rolled harmlessly to a stop.
“You want to play with food?” The girl wiped her nose. “Okay.”
I didn’t see her kick the apple, but it came flying back with deadly accuracy and hit Cade in the nose. He collapsed on his rump.
Mikey snarled. He marched toward the fire escape ladder, but a banana peel seemed to slither directly into his path. He slipped and fell hard. “OWWW!”
I backed away from the fallen thugs. I wondered if I should make a run for it, but I could barely hobble. I also did not want to be assaulted with old fruit.
The girl climbed over the railing. She dropped to the ground with surprising nimbleness and grabbed a sack of garbage from the Dumpster.
“Stop!” Cade did a sort of scuttling crab walk to get away from the girl. “Let’s talk about this!”
Mikey groaned and rolled onto his back.
The girl pouted. Her lips were chapped. She had wispy black fuzz at the corners of her mouth.
“I don’t like you guys,” she said. “You should go.”
“Yeah!” Cade said. “Sure! Just…”

I need a comment o

I wonder if you're really a human op, you're sure selfsame with Apollo. Love this stunning piece.

Epluribusunom:
I wonder if you're really a human op, you're sure selfsame with Apollo. Love this stunning piece.

Thanks. That's was a boost.

To #Epluribusunom:

He reached for the money scattered among the coffee grounds.
The girl swung her garbage bag. In mid arc the plastic exploded, disgorging an impossible number of rotten bananas. They knocked Cade flat. Mikey was plastered with so many peels he looked like he was being attacked by carnivorous starfish.
“Leave my alley,” the girl said. “Now.”
In the Dumpster, more trash bags burst like popcorn kernels, showering Cade and Mikey with radishes, potato peelings, and other compost material. Miraculously, none of it got on me. Despite their injuries, the two thugs scrambled to their feet and ran away, screaming.
I turned toward my pint-size savior. I was no stranger to dangerous women. My sister could rain down arrows of death. My stepmother, Hera, regularly drove mortals mad so that they would hack each other to pieces. But this garbage-wielding twelve-year-old made me nervous.
“Thank you,” I ventured.
The girl crossed her arms. On her middle fingers she wore matching gold rings with crescent signets. Her eyes glinted darkly like a crow’s. (I can make that comparison because I invented crows.)
“Don’t thank me,” she said. “You’re still in my alley.”

She walked a full circle around me, scrutinizing my appearance as if I were a prize cow. (I can also make that comparison, because I used to collect prize cows.)
“You’re the god Apollo?” She sounded less than awestruck. She also didn’t seem fazed by the idea of gods walking among mortals.
“You were listening, then?”
She nodded. “You don’t look like a god.”
“I’m not at my best,” I admitted. “My father, Zeus, has exiled me from Olympus. And who are you?”
She smelled faintly of apple pie, which was surprising, since she looked so grubby. Part of me wanted to find a fresh towel, clean her face, and give her money for a hot meal. Part of me wanted to fend her off with a chair in case she decided to bite me. She reminded me of the strays my sister was always adopting: dogs, panthers, homeless maidens, small dragons.
“Name is Meg,” she said.
“Short for Megara? Or Margaret?”
“Margaret. But don’t ever call me Margaret.”
“And are you a demigod, Meg?”
She pushed up her glasses. “Why would you think that?”
Again she didn’t seem surprised by the question. I sensed she had heard the term demigod before.
“Well,” I said, “you obviously have some power. You chased off those hooligans with rotten fruit. Perhaps you have banana-kinesis? Or you can control garbage? I once knew a Roman goddess, Cloacina, who presided over the city’s sewer system. Perhaps you’re related…?”

Meg pouted. I got the impression I might have said something wrong, though I couldn’t imagine what.
“I think I’ll just take your money,” Meg said. “Go on. Get out of here.”
“No, wait!” Desperation crept into my voice. “Please, I—I may need a bit of assistance.”
I felt ridiculous, of course. Me—the god of prophecy, plague, archery, healing, music, and several other things I couldn’t remember at the moment—asking a colorfully dressed street urchin for help. But I had no one else. If this child chose to take my money and kick me into the cruel winter streets, I didn’t think I could stop her.
“Say I believe you…” Meg’s voice took on a singsong tone, as if she were about to announce the rules of the game: I’ll be the princess, and you’ll be the scullery maid. “Say I decide to help. What then?”
Good question, I thought. “We…we are in Manhattan?”
“Mm-hmm.” She twirled and did a playful skip-kick. “Hell’s Kitchen.”
It seemed wrong for a child to say Hell’s Kitchen. Then again, it seemed wrong for a child to live in an alley and have garbage fights with thugs.
I considered walking to the Empire State Building. That was the modern gateway to Mount Olympus, but I doubted the guards would let me up to the secret six hundredth floor. Zeus would not make it so easy.
Perhaps I could find my old friend Chiron the centaur. He had a training camp on Long Island. He could offer me shelter and guidance. But that would be a dangerous journey. A defenseless god makes for a juicy target. Any monster along the way would cheerfully disembowel me. Jealous spirits and minor gods might also welcome the opportunity. Then there was Cade and Mikey’s mysterious “boss.” I had no idea who he was, or whether he had other, worse minions to send against me.
Even if I made it to Long Island, my new mortal eyes might not be able to find Chiron’s camp in its magically camouflaged valley. I needed a guide to get me there—someone experienced and close by….

That's all for now

More from you son of Zeus

“I have an idea.” I stood as straight as my injuries allowed. It wasn’t easy to look confident with a bloody nose and coffee grounds dripping off my clothes. “I know someone who might help. He lives on the Upper East Side. Take me to him, and I shall reward you.”
Meg made a sound between a sneeze and a laugh. “Reward me with what?” She danced around, plucking twenty-dollar bills from the trash. “I’m already taking all your money.”
“Hey!”
She tossed me my wallet, now empty except for Lester Papadopoulos’s junior driver’s license.
Meg sang, “I’ve got your money, I’ve got your money.”
I stifled a growl. “Listen, child, I won’t be mortal forever. Someday I will become a god again. Then I will reward those who helped me—and punish those who didn’t.”
She put her hands on her hips. “How do you know what will happen? Have you ever been mortal before?”
“Yes, actually. Twice! Both times, my punishment only lasted a few years at most!”
“Oh, yeah? And how did you get back to being all goddy or whatever?”
“Goddy is not a word,” I pointed out, though my poetic sensibilities were already thinking of ways I might use it. “Usually Zeus requires me to work as a slave for some important demigod. This fellow uptown I mentioned, for instance. He’d be perfect! I do whatever tasks my new master requires for a few years. As long as I behave, I am allowed back to Olympus. Right now I just have to recover my strength and figure out—”
“How do you know for sure which demigod?”
I blinked. “What?”
“Which demigod you’re supposed to serve, dummy.”
“I…uh. Well, it’s usually obvious. I just sort of run into them. That’s why I want to get to the Upper East Side. My new master will claim my service and—”
“I’m Meg McCaffrey!” Meg blew me a raspberry. “And I claim your service!”
Overhead, thunder rumbled in the gray sky. The sound echoed through the city canyons like divine laughter.
Whatever was left of my pride turned to ice water and trickled into my socks. “I walked right into that, didn’t I?”
“Yep!” Meg bounced up and down in her red sneakers. “We’re going to have fun!”
With great difficulty, I resisted the urge to weep. “Are you sure you’re not Artemis in disguise?”
“I’m that other thing,” Meg said, counting my money. “The thing you said before. A demigod.”
“How do you know?”
“Just do.” She gave me a smug smile. “And now I have a sidekick god named Lester!”
I raised my face to the heavens. “Please, Father, I get the point. Please, I can’t do this!”
Zeus did not answer. He was probably too busy recording my humiliation to share on Snapchat.
“Cheer up,” Meg told me. “Who’s that guy you wanted to see—the guy on the Upper East Side?”
“Another demigod,” I said. “He knows the way to a camp where I might find shelter, guidance, food—”
“Food?” Meg’s ears perked up almost as much as the points on her glasses. “Good food?”
“Well, normally I just eat ambrosia, but, yes, I suppose.”
“Then that’s my first order! We’re going to find this guy to take us to the camp place!”
I sighed miserably. It was going to be a very long servitude.
“As you wish,” I said. “Let’s find Percy Jackson.”
Used to be goddy
Now uptown feeling shoddy
Bah, haiku don’t rhyme
AS WE TRUDGED up Madison Avenue, my mind swirled with questions: Why hadn’t Zeus given me a winter coat? Why did Percy Jackson live so far uptown? Why did pedestrians keep staring at me?
I wondered if my divine radiance was starting to return. Perhaps the New Yorkers were awed by my obvious power and unearthly good looks.
Meg McCaffrey set me straight.
“You smell,” she said. “You look like you’ve just been mugged.”
“I have just been mugged. Also enslaved by a small child.”
“It’s not slavery.” She chewed off a piece of her thumb cuticle and spit it out. “It’s more like mutual cooperation.”
“Mutual in the sense that you give orders and I am forced to cooperate?”
“Yep.” She stopped in front of a storefront window. “See? You look gross.”
My reflection stared back at me, except it was not my reflection. It couldn’t be. The face was the same as on Lester Papadopoulos’s ID.
I looked about sixteen. My medium-length hair was dark and curly—a style I had rocked in Athenian times, and again in the 1970s. My eyes were blue. My face was pleasing enough in a dorkish way, but it was marred by a swollen eggplant-colored nose, which had dripped a gruesome mustache of blood down my upper lip. Even worse, my cheeks were covered with some sort of rash that looked suspiciously like…My heart climbed into my throat.
“Horrors!” I cried. “Is that—Is that acne?”
Immortal gods do not get acne. It is one of our inalienable rights. Yet I leaned closer to the glass and saw that my skin was indeed a scarred landscape of whiteheads and pustules.
I balled my fists and wailed to the cruel sky, “Zeus, what have I done to deserve this?”

nice one keep the updates coming

Updates on their way

Meg tugged at my sleeve. “You’re going to get yourself arrested.”
“What does it matter? I have been made a teenager, and not even one with perfect skin! I bet I don’t even have…” With a cold sense of dread, I lifted my shirt. My midriff was covered with a floral pattern of bruises from my fall into the Dumpster and my subsequent kicking. But even worse, I had flab.
“Oh, no, no, no.” I staggered around the sidewalk, hoping the flab would not follow me. “Where are my eight-pack abs? I always have eight-pack abs. I never have love handles. Never in four thousand years!”
Meg made another snorting laugh. “Sheesh, crybaby, you’re fine.”
“I’m fat!”
“You’re average. Average people don’t have eight-pack abs. C’mon.”
I wanted to protest that I was not average nor a person, but with growing despair, I realized the term now fit me perfectly.
On the other side of the storefront window, a security guard’s face loomed, scowling at me. I allowed Meg to pull me farther down the street.
She skipped along, occasionally stopping to pick up a coin or swing herself around a streetlamp. The child seemed unfazed by the cold weather, the dangerous journey ahead, and the fact that I was suffering from acne.
“How are you so calm?” I demanded. “You are a demigod, walking with a god, on your way to a camp to meet others of your kind. Doesn’t any of that surprise you?”
“Eh.” She folded one of my twenty-dollar bills into a paper airplane. “I’ve seen a bunch of weird stuff.”
I was tempted to ask what could be weirder than the morning we had just had. I decided I might not be able to stand the stress of knowing. “Where are you from?”
“I told you. The alley.”
“No, but…your parents? Family? Friends?”
A ripple of discomfort passed over her face. She returned her attention to her twenty-dollar airplane. “Not important.”
My highly advanced people-reading skills told me she was hiding something, but that was not unusual for demigods. For children blessed with an immortal parent, they were strangely sensitive about their backgrounds. “And you’ve never heard of Camp Half-Blood? Or Camp Jupiter?”
“Nuh-uh.” She tested the airplane’s point on her fingertip. “How much farther to Perry’s house?”
“Percy’s. I’m not sure. A few more blocks…I think.”
That seemed to satisfy Meg. She hopscotched ahead, throwing the cash airplane and retrieving it. She cartwheeled through the intersection at East Seventy-Second Street—her clothes a flurry of traffic-light colors so bright I worried the drivers might get confused and run her down. Fortunately, New York drivers were used to swerving around oblivious pedestrians.

I decided Meg must be a feral demigod. They were rare but not unheard of. Without any support network, without being discovered by other demigods or taken in for proper training, she had still managed to survive. But her luck would not last. Monsters usually began hunting down and killing young heroes around the time they turned thirteen, when their true powers began to manifest. Meg did not have long. She needed to be brought to Camp Half-Blood as much as I did. She was fortunate to have met me.
(I know that last statement seems obvious. Everyone who meets me is fortunate, but you take my meaning.)
Had I been my usual omniscient self, I could have gleaned Meg’s destiny. I could have looked into her soul and seen all I needed to know about her godly parentage, her powers, her motives and secrets.
Now I was blind to such things. I could only be sure she was a demigod because she had successfully claimed my service. Zeus had affirmed her right with a clap of thunder. I felt the binding upon me like a shroud of tightly wrapped banana peels. Whoever Meg McCaffrey was, however she had happened to find me, our fates were now intertwined.
It was almost as embarrassing as the acne.
We turned east on Eighty-Second Street.
By the time we reached Second Avenue, the neighborhood started to look familiar—rows of apartment buildings, hardware shops, convenience stores, and Indian restaurants. I knew that Percy Jackson lived around here somewhere, but my trips across the sky in the sun chariot had given me something of a Google Earth orientation. I wasn’t used to traveling at street level.
Also, in this mortal form, my flawless memory had become…flawed. Mortal fears and needs clouded my thoughts. I wanted to eat. I wanted to use the restroom. My body hurt. My clothes stank. I felt as if my brain had been stuffed with wet cotton. Honestly, how do you humans stand it?

Till tomorrow