You take a deep breath and listen to the receding footsteps of your employer. You still hear the voices of the house's tenants as they ready themselves for bed, their lamenting voices carrying through the walls in sorrowful murmurs and the occasional sob. You regret your request for food and wine in a house of mourning, and the widow's reprimand remains fresh in your mind.
This is no place for jokes.
There is [[work to be done]].Work indeed.
You have offered to stand vigil over this corpse through the night in exchange for one thousand sesterces. The money will serve you well after spending so much at the [[Olympic games]]. Journeying through Thessaly, you had not intended to stop in Larissa, but the road is more expensive and less romantic than you believed it would be. The night will pass slowly, but guarding a [[corpse]] should be easy money.Oh, what wonder! Prohibitively [[expensive]], though they were. Not just the competition, but the festivities too were extraordinary, and much different from anything you had experienced back in Miletus. Maybe in another life you could have participated in the pankration or one of the foot races, but alas you were not gifted with a [[body such as Heracles]].The corpse of the man is ensconced on a table at the far side of the room, the table resting on a dais. Light from the setting sun shines through a window on the far side of [[the room]], catching the snow-white linen draped over the body and making the whole scene glow. The widow already took stock of the body parts before leaving you alone.No, you may not have the body of that divine hero, but it is young and quite good enough for a [[job such as this]], thank you!Your job is to stay in [[this room->the room]] and make sure nothing happens to [[the body->corpse]] on the table. Between the man in the marketplace warning of [[Thessalian witches->witch]] and the widow's taking inventory of her dead husband's body parts, you are slightly unsettled, but nothing the son of a Miletian merchant cannot handle.Yes, a costly ticket for such a wonderful time. You are no beggar, but it's not like your family comes from any great means. That's why you've taken [[this job->job such as this]].You are in a small, square room, scarcely furnished save for [[your dead companion]] and the table he rests on at the north end. A small window sits high on the western wall and reluctantly allows the setting sun's effulgence to creep into this room of the dead. A hard-backed chair has been left to you, along with the oil lamp and extra oil the maid had brought in as an afterthought of the widow. The single entrance to the room is a sturdy, albiet rotted wooden door opening to the east. There is a [[large hole]] in it a quarter way up the frame.Upon closer inspection, the man is fairly good-looking. The widow had taken inventory of the her deceased husband's features before retiring for the night, and indeed, the man's countenance is there in full. If you were a [[witch]], this would be a prime specimen.You peer through the large hole. It's large enough to fit your hand through if you contort it in just the right way. Beyond, a servant extinguishes the last remaining candles, leaving only the moon to illuminate the hallway outside this moratorium. Warm air whistles through in humid contrast to the chill of the one you are in. Perhaps the [[dead man->your dead companion]] diffuses the deathly chill, or perhaps it is [[something else->witch]]The words of the man in the marketplace who gave you this contract still haunt the back of your mind. He mentioned witches (or were they Harpies?) that can transfigure into any variety of animals, and can lull someone into deep sleep with naught but their enchantments. They are known to use pieces off the faces of the recently deceased for their dark arts. Thessaly is known for its magics and witchcraft, but you'll be damned if some superstition cheats you out of your contract and the money to be gained! Under ''no circumstances'' can you [[fall asleep]], even if it is now the middle of the night.
Granted, there's not much to preoccupy your mind besides the [[oil lamp]] left to you and [[your own thoughts]].[[Falling asleep->falling asleep]] would be disastrous. You promised to stand vigil over this body until morning, and you are a man of your word.The oil lamp is nothing special. It is made of terracotta, small, worn, and has ridges etched into its side which may have been some sort of recognizable scene in years past, but have since worn down to be pleasantly tactile. The light it casts is minimal, leaving the [[corners of the room]] to brood in darkness and palpitate in correspondence with the flickering flame as they reach out to envelope the dead man.
It is during this hypnotizing dance of darkness and light that you recognize your lapse in judgment and how you were almost [[falling asleep]].You wonder what truth there is in the occult tales of Thessaly. Back home in Miletus, tales of witchcraft and the dark arts are recounted primarily by sea merchants on leave who have moored their ships in the harbor. Maybe they tell such unsettling narratives to romanticize their own dull jobs, providing an Odyssean flair to the shipment of wine and pottery. The citizens of Thessaly, however, seem to truly believe in these [[folktales]].
Voodoo or not, the region has been worth the journey, and you wish you had decided to venture here sooner. Larissa has been particularly worth the voyage, and that [[theatre]] will definitely be worth visiting.Your eyes continue to droop.
You are... [[falling... asleep...]]
You should refocus your thoughts somewhere other than sleep, like [[the past->Once, long ago]], the games you just saw, or maybe even brainstorm that one idea for the novel about the [[two pastoral lovers]] you had.The pulsating darkness plays with your eyes, blurring what you can and cannot see.
You begin to imagine that perhaps those [[folktales]] really are real.
Or maybe you're just [[tired->falling asleep]] and it's all just fatigue playing tricks with your mind.Yes, the theatre, the one on the south side of the hill.
[[Once, long ago]], you wanted to create works for the stage and maybe even perform. But you are the son of a merchant family on the rise, and though you may have the dashing [[good looks]], your family would never approve. Some even tell tales of men turned into animals by magic, and all manner of folk forgetting they were human in the first place. You imagine being transmuted into a game bird and being hunted for your meat, or mutated into a [[rodent]] forever relegated to the filthy gutter.
Or an ass, driven to death by back-breaking work.
What a [[nightmare]] that would be.Long ago you wanted to be so many things. A playwright, a landowner, or maybe even a merchant taking over your father's business.
Of course, being the third-born son, the latter was never going to come to pass.
Instead, here you are, impoverished in a house of mourning with only a dead man as confidant. A dead man who... wait.
[[What was that?->hear something]]Your gorgeous face.
Particularly your nose and [[ears]].
Shame if something were to happen to them.You succumb to the darkness.
Some watchguard you turned out to be.
Tales of sorcery invade your fading consciousness.
This is unnatural.
The linen wrapped around the corpse flutters as you hear a door opening nearby.
You can only pray that the body will still be here [[in the morning]].Speaking of ears, you [[hear something]] near the door...Like a mouse, or a rat, or a... or a...
//Scratch, scratch...//
You [[hear something]] scurrying near the door.Perhaps this is the nightmare.
Maybe this tomb is yours. No moonlight gleams through the small window high on the wall, just a black void sucking what small light your oil lamp effuses, the breath from your lungs, the stale of the dead and the sweat of the living, the flit of the flame and the beat of a dying heart and the [[scurrying->hear something]] of dread and mortality.
This is the nightmare.
Perhaps you are [[falling... asleep...]].You hastily rise from your stately watch-chair and look to the east side of the room near the door, searching for the source of the scurrying sound.
On the perimeter of the lamp's radiance is a [[beady-eyed weasel]], intruder upon your watch.//Daffy and Kobe//, was it? And they shepherded goats or lambs or [[mice->rodent]] or something?
No, that's not right.
It's all hogwash, anway. You'll never be a writer, just like you'll never be any of the other [[things you wanted to be->Once, long ago]] growing up.You stomp towards the weasel, hand on the hilt of your short sword.
In a hoarse shout (more [[panicked]] than intended), you hail expletives at the nasty creature and threaten to give him something to remember you by.
The rodent [[recognizes]] he is unwelcome and scurries through the large hole in the rotted door, and you are once again alone.
Disaster averted, you [[return to your seat]].Panicked. Panicked. Panicked.
The night has obviously had an effect on you if some small creature brings you to [[wit's end]]. Uncanny, that recognition. [[Almost human.->return to your seat]]You sit back down.
You sure showed that weasel.
Asudden, you are assailed with the most absolute fatigue you have ever experienced. Your eyelids do not close, but instead collapse on themselves. You slump forward in your chair, aware that you will topple off but [[falling asleep->falling... asleep...]] all the same.No, you aren't cracking.
This is silly. Just a silly job guarding a corpse.
You're just tired and [[need sleep->falling... asleep...]] and need to [[sit back down->return to your seat]].You wake with a headache to the sun shining through the window and the sounds of a [[busy household]].
Oh, Heavens above! You did the unthinkable and fell asleep last night during your vigilant guard. You [[rush to the body]] to inspect your commission.
Hair there. Eyes here. Nose untouched. Mouth set. Ears large. Arms. Legs. Manhood intact.
You thank the gods for your good fortune!While examining it, the corpse's widow enters the room followed by yesterday's witnesses and kisses her dead husband, spilling tears across his pale, purple face.
"I pray you stood watch through the entire night? No evil entered this room to butcher my poor husband? No magics performed, no spells chanted, no arts that could defile his body, so lovely even in death?" she asks.
Inventory is taken once more to ascertain the condition of the body. All appears to be in order.
The widow smiles and says:
"Thank you, kind sir. For your vigilance please [[take this money]]. I hope it serves you well. May I recommend a wash at one of the many bathhouses across the city, it should serve to wash the scent of the dead from your clothes and rejuvenate those tired eyes of yours."You grab the purse proffered, the weight of one thousand sesterces grasped in your palm.
You lie and tell the family that your watch was without fault, that you stayed vigilant throughout the night, and swear by the gods that not a finger was laid upon that beautiful man.
Then you say something stupid about offering your services whenever necessary and the whole household attacks with every imaginable weapon: swords, jars, sticks, lamps, and small domesticated animals. They beat you and rip your hair out and shred your clothes, before throwing you out into the street.
[[You must have said something wrong]].The household is awake!
Good thing you [[checked the body->rush to the body]] and found everything to be in working order before someone came barging in.There is an old man some way up the road near the city square spewing damning information through choked sobs. Crowds gather, and you eagerly listen to hear what he has to say.
Your nose and ears feel odd.
You wonder why.
//Story by Ian Smith, based off Thelyphron's Tale from //The Golden Ass// by Apuleius.
To return to the beginning of the previous night, [[click here->Introduction]]//Bloodied and beaten, you right yourself as best you can and cross the street to assess the damage.
While tending to your wounds, the family and an entire funeral procession exit the house. A public funeral is characteristic of an aristocratic family, after all.
[[You follow->End]].