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Long ago, in the dim chambers of the mind where memories are covered in thick dust, there was a land under the leadership of a benevolent king who divided the fruits of labor fairly among the nobles, and none had complaint of his leadership. Year after year, he was blessed with good land and a good harvest; many times, neighboring kings came asking for a portion of his stores, and always the requests were granted. Peace lay sweetly within his kingdom.
Yet all could not last; one day, the queen of this land passed away. The king grieved, for she had been excellent as both wife and ruler; often, he had sought her wisdom. Thus did two years pass, until a friendly king sought to ease his pain by presenting him with a suitable woman to take as a new queen. They enjoyed each other's company as Gemini, Cancer, and Leo paraded behind the Sun.
The king then considered marrying her; and he went to see the priest to ask if anything troubled them about her. A lamb was sacrificed to Salya in exchange for a sign. And when the clerics opened the animal, they found that it had no blood. They consulted among themselves, concluded it symbolized a fear of blood, and gave the king their approval.
The king was joyous; and in that September they were married. For two months, they lived happily, and then a change came over her. Slowly, the king's advisors noted that her council was not the best. If the king himself noticed, she was also well schooled in feminine charms, and her advice never went unheeded. After several months of her meddling, when Aries stepped behind the Sun, Salya looked upon her people, and saw a stranger among them, consorting with her blessed king and destroying their land.
Salya saw that this stranger was a demoness; and with noble wrath took her and pinned each hand to opposite ends of the sky, so that as lives passed from the Earth to the sky to become stars, the death the she had fed on would expand the sky and increase her punishment. Then did Salya make Herself manifest to the clerics; to them, she said, "You asked for my sign and heeded it not. Therefore let trees shed their leaves in sadness in that month, and let tombs of crystal tears seal away warmth each year as memory of this. Yet in this month, when Aries feeds the fires of the heavens, let the punishment of men cease until the trees cry again at Virgo's labors."
With sadness in Her eyes, Salya bowed her head and whispered, "Had I not blessed him, she would not have sought him. I will halt my meddling, that this may never happen again." And She gave unto them choice, at the cost of allowing them to live with the full consequences of their actions. Before returning to Her home above the stars, She spoke once again, saying, "I have placed the demon lover in the sky, that her embrace of the world for which she hungers may be completed at the last day."
Author's Note: This idea just came out of several things that were mucking around in my head. First and foremost, the idea of the sky prison came from messing with variations on Rush lyrics. "The world is a cage for your impotent rage" (from "Neurotica") somehow got morphed into "The world is a stage for your infinite cage", and that set the theme for the other ideas drifting in my mind to come out. Those were: the discussion of Creation vs. Evolution in And Eternity by Piers Anthony (if you look past the obvious, there's some deep philosophy in there); the general idea of things being put in the sky and specifically ancestors becoming stars was subconsciously stolen from Disney's The Lion King; and demons in general are the ones who get punished.
This story was designed to sound religious; the main thing in it for me is the mental dancing that I did to make the religion consistent with the framework of our knowledge of cosmology (i.e. the expanding universe and the Big Crunch scenario). Also, the religion is a combination of Christianity and the beliefs discussed at length in Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson. There's also some relatively new information in my mind that resonates with Snow Crash, which I think is from a doctor at the Resource Center here. It is: Homer could not have written both the Iliad and the Odyssey, because they were written about 500 years apart. But in that time, something drastic happened within the human mind. In the Iliad, whenever our hero is in trouble, a goddess shows up and tells him what to do. Yet in the Odyssey, he can think for himself. Fascinating....
Shameless plug: Snow Crash was a great book. I found even the discussion of religion that drew society parallel with computer programs mesmerizing; though I would suspect that if I were not interested in these things, it would have been as boring as Winston reading to Julia in George Orwell's 1984. It is a little weak in the plot department, yet it still works.
(There used to be a comments form here. However, having seen what I get when I make it easy to comment, that form has been indefinitely suspended. I can still be reached by email at <loonxtall@hotmail.com>. I apologize for any inconvenience.)
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