Sirens
11/12/25
If life is walking along a path in the woods and on your way, you’re constantly faced with a crossroads where the Right path leads to where you should be and would like to be headed to. But you peek over to where the Left path leads, the Pandora’s box you were told never to open. You see beautiful women bathing by an oasis. Your first steps toward them are carnal, driven by lust, rebellion, and internal discontent. Your mind begins to yell, alarm bells ringing, begging you to turn back. You stutter and take a half-step, remembering the words of your father to avoid these types of decisions. As you begin to turn back toward the Right path is when the Sirens call your name; Oh, what a lovely sound It is to be summoned beside a beautiful woman, their songs holding the power to make a man throw out the teachings of his father and abandon the love of his mother. “Come Rest” they sing, “Come lay your head in my lap and allow me to wash your hair.” You obey their commands and lay to rest awhile, imagining no harm to come from a short nap with a beautiful woman. You lay down with her and begin to make love without a care in the world for what could come from such a decision.
After the Love has been made, you drift off to sleep, and as you do you begin to dream. You dream of a life with this woman, a house out in the country, children running through the pasture with your pets. You look at your wife and smile, knowing nothing could tear you apart. She smiles back, but as she does, she stands up and begins to walk away. You stand to follow, but her pace increases, and her face now looks worried. You stop in your tracks, not wishing to scare her, only to love her tenderly. But she continues to flee until she reaches the top of a hill where a man appears from the other side. They embrace and walk off into the sunlight. As she goes, she looks back at you with an expression that says, “Got you”, and disappears into the setting sun.
You wake in a panic, sweat pours down your back as you try to make sense of what you had just seen. “It was only a dream”, a statement as old as time, yet still as misleading as when it had been coined. You roll over to speak to the woman lying next to you, but she is no longer there. You rise from your slumber, telling yourself that she must be around here somewhere. You look around for a while before you hear that sweet sound, your name called by that song. You see her standing in a field and she beckons for you to follow before running into a maze of corn. You run after her with joy, soon finding yourself sprinting through the field. Each time you catch a glimpse of her, she continues to run farther away. You look behind you, now unable to see the beginning of the Left path you never meant to take. This worries you, but that sweet sound pulls you further away and you’re running again. You’re beginning to catch up to her, but just then she ducks behind a fig tree. You approach, expecting her to jump out at you to scare you. Standing on the other side of the tree is a creature so hideous it causes you to vomit immediately upon looking at it, but as when witnessing a deadly car crash, your gaze remains on the being. This beautiful, lovely woman you had fallen in love with so quickly wasn’t who you thought she was at all. She had called your name and led you so far in the wrong direction that you could no longer see the main road. Now you’re stuck here, lost and far from found, nursing the wound where the beast cut your heart from your chest.
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