Archer ‘Archie’ Gunnison woke that morning to the strident buzzing of his watch. The cicada-like screech jolted him from sleep and his hands flailed about, seeking the offending noisemaker. His right hand finally caught up with his left and pressed the delay button, giving him a ten minute window to wake up and turn the alarm off for the day. Archie sat up in bed, letting the beige comforter droop into a pile on his lap. The dark blue curtains over the small bedroom window were closed, but the sharp, crisp air of autumn swirled through the open window, ruffling the cloth, and letting peeks of gray morning flit across the bed. He yawned, then stretched his arms and good leg for a moment, enjoying the sensation of muscles waking up. He turned in place, dropping the right leg over the edge, then leaned down and picked up his prosthetic left leg.

The leg was a marvel of engineering, fitted with self adjusting spring tensioners that adjusted to the weight he put on it. The covering for the prosthesis was something else again. Bright, fire-engine red painted scales covered it, like some monstrous creature from the Red Lagoon. There was no way to ignore it, which was the reason Archie had it decorated. No one would mistake it, or him, for anyone else. Archie gazed at the leg as he rubbed the stump of his left thigh. He’d been a marine. Hoooah, boy, all the way. He was proud of his service, proud of his buddies, and proud, maybe a little envious of the ones who made it home in one piece. He left part of himself in a Hummer after an IED had blown it ten feet up, and eighteen feet to the right through three and a half revolutions before crunching back to earth. He didn’t remember any of it. The medications he took kept him from screaming in his sleep and stopped the sudden flashbacks that occurred when he got stressed.

Others kept the red-hot phantom pains at bay. There was no telling when they’d strike. The pain seemed to happen most when he tried to do something like dodging an obstacle without thinking. His leg would seize up and drop him screaming to the ground. He’d learned to think about the prosthesis before trying to do anything sudden. But the pain still caught him unawares. Finishing pulling the leg on, he strapped it in place, then bent over again to pull the blue jeans from the floor. He slid them over his prosthesis first, then his real leg.

I’ve started a story.  Can you identify the perspective that it is being written from?

“Mo-om! Hurry up! I got to get to the corner for the bus!” The girl scampered past the walnut-stained oak table and chairs as her mother turned from the refrigerator, and held out a brown paper bag to the child. The girl, her chocolate brown hair done in a pair of pigtails, held by bright orange glass beads and leather ties, skipped towards the door, then turned her pale, freckled face back to the olive-skinned woman in the kitchen. “I’ll see you after school!”

The screen door banged open, the rusty spring giving a groaning tweak as it stretched, then a lower groan as it contracted, slamming the screen back in place. A fly buzzed past the table, landing on one of the matching chairs surrounding it. The chair was armless, resting on four crudely cut legs, that had been squared and joined to the front leg by a cross piece of stained oak. Both sets of legs and crosspieces were then joined by a third crosspiece, joining the two other slats together, forming an ‘H’ between the legs. The front legs were cut flat at near knee-high level to allow the seat to be attached, while the back legs rose, and were joined by two curved slats to create a skeleton backrest. The fly chose the top slat to perch upon as it surveyed the space near it for danger.

The pale, flower-patterned linoleum floor was of no interest to the fly. It had followed the scent of raw meat, flying through the small, seconds available opening just as the daughter had run out. It’s eggs needed protein. The meat scent it followed would supply the new generation. It hovered, then landed on the back of the chair, to rest and re-orient. The woman, clad in blue jeans and a pale yellow blouse, walked past the chair and into another room, startling the fly into flight, then, as it found the scent once more, buzzed over to the counter by the stove.

The smell was overpowering and the fly dropped onto the surface, using it’s feet to hunt for nourishment. Disappointingly, there was nothing but the scent, and no food for it’s impatient eggs to hatch upon. Its attempt to exit the direction it came in was stymied by a harsh grate it was too large to fit through.

Mom dressed all the time in old clothes and dark colors. When we went out to the store, it was usually in the very early morning. Mom always told me that it was best, because there weren’t many people around and it made shopping easier. Looking back, I think it was because at those hours, hardly anyone she had met at her ‘job’ would be around. She table-danced, or stripped, whichever describes it best for you. Mom hated it, and came home crying a lot. That would make Dad unhappy and those were when the biggest fights happened. About her job. About the money she brought home because dad couldn’t work. About him not working. They always fought. They didn’t pay much attention to me then. I learned to hide in my room when their voices started to get an edge. It meant that things were going to get broken, and a lot of slapping and throwing. It was better in my bedroom.

As I look at the memory of it, that room was my refuge. The one place I had some little privacy of my own. It wasn’t sacrosanct. Both mom and dad would come in to wake me up, or yell at some accident, or even hide from one another, either in play, or, you know. The not-fun-not-play stuff like fighting or yelling or crying. Dad did it a little more than mom. He’d charge in and slam the door, then lean against it. Mom would pound a few times, then go quiet. Dad watched me as he leaned on the door. He’d hold his first finger to his lips and go ‘shhhh’.

Do you know how you’re going to say goodbye to someone? Is it going to be a loving embrace and a soft caress of their cheek before they go to the great beyond? Or, is it going to be heated words and a pistol stuck in their belly as they try to argue, or to plead with you, not to pull the trigger? Or is it simply a call in the night? A quick stop at the mortuary to look at a lump of flesh bloated with formaldehyde, because that’s the law? Or, will you, like me, wonder what happened when they just disappear? Here one day, and gone the next, and no clue where.

I remember, or think I do, the last time I saw Mom and Dad. They’d dropped me off at Uncle Soap’s apartment after packing the beat-up gold Ford Taurus for a camping trip. They often went camping alone at least twice a month, down in the Big Bend National Park. I remember him having on his red and black shirt he’d pulled the sleeves off. Mom always told him that was her favorite shirt of his. She’d wear it around the house sometimes to tease Dad. Not that they were all sweetness and love. More than once I heard them screaming back and forth about all sorts of things. Always it was mostly about drugs.

I didn’t understand then, but I think I do now. They argued the most just before they went camping, and were best together after they got back. As a child, I saw the change, and knew it had something to do with them going camping, but it really didn’t matter. Mom and Dad were happy. They paid attention to me, and bought me things like a new set of shoes, or a cool shirt. It’s funny that I remember the clothes but not their faces. I remember Dad always being skinny, and he had fuzz on his face. I don’t remember if it was a beard or mustache, both, or if he just didn’t shave every day. Mom was like Dad, skinny.

When they didn’t go camping, Dad stayed home nights with me while Mom went to work. She’d always dress up in baggy pants and a shirt, and carry lots of bright, flashy clothes that fit in a little carry bag to work. Dad would stay awake with me until I got tired, then I’d get tucked into bed on the couch at the far end of the trailer. I’d fall asleep listening to Dad watch television. Every so often, before I passed out, I’d watch him give himself a shot of ‘medicine’ in between his toes. I know he was shooting up now, but then I knew he was always more happy afterwards, so it seemed a good thing to me. I knew something was off, most four-year-olds can sense things. We’re not yet aware enough of how to lie to ourselves and avoid uncomfortable truths. Denial and delusion aren’t something that’s learned right away.

He turned off Belcher, then slowed and turned on Collier. The street ran north and fronted the warehouses that stored good from the ships being serviced at the docks. The pace on the docks and warehouses was frantic. It looked to Charlie like an ant nest that had been kicked open. Cranes were moving cargo off the freighters in large pallets. Another freighter was sliding containers down a ramp to waiting eighteen wheel tractor-trailer flatbeds. The line of trucks stretched over a quarter mile by his estimate.

He looked back forward just in time to avoid drifting into the curb at forty miles and hour. He over-corrected and moved into the oncoming lane. He grunted as he planted his foot and shifted back into the proper lane. I gotta pay more attention. I can handle a wipeout, but not an oncoming car. Where is the turnoff to the dockyard? Charlie’s thought was answered a moment later as the road ended at a ‘T’ intersection. He slowed then slewed right, skidding on the loose gravel, then straightened out, slowing to avoid a tumble, and approached the gate. The gate was a railroad crossing re-purposed to be a traffic control. It was currently down as the gate guard was checking the papers on a white and blue UPS truck.

The outbound lane had a tractor trailer slowly moving forward to leave the docks. At his speed he’d bee there before the truck could clear the gate, and with four others behind it, there was no way to use the oncoming lane to bypass the guard. ‘Skid’ slowed as he approached the gate, raising his hand to his pullover mask to make certain it was still in place. The heavyset gate guard stopped talking as the bright red and blue stocky superhero trotted up to the gate.

“Whatta ya want, uh, kid? I’m kinda busy here”, the guard said with a surprisingly soft voice. ‘Skid’ took a moment to realize that the guard was a woman. He could feel himself blush as he tried to sound authoritative.

“Sorry, ma’am. I’d heard that some stuff was stolen last night. I came by to look the, uh, scene over and see if there is something that, umm, would help find the crooks.” He tried to puff his chest out, and got the mental image of a cartoon mouse trying to look tough while facing a cat. The man the guard was talking to had also turned to look over at ‘Skid’, then turned back the guard with a small chuckle, making Charlie blush even redder.

“I suppose I could let you look around. Heck, seeing you prowling might make them guys with sticky fingers decide not to try anything if a costume’s poking around.” She pressed a button, raising the gate, then waved her clipboard at ‘Skid’. “G’wan through. Place that got hit’s on the north side up there.” ‘Skid’ nodded, then trotted around the van, accelerating back to a somewhat leisurely thirty miles and hour. He slowed again as he dodged a swarm of fork lifts moving pallets of crates and boxes to the white concrete warehouse to his left. The traffic was incessant, with two men shouting orders to the stream of men, and equipment coming from a docked freighter. The noise was near deafening as ‘Skid’ dodged swiftly, and awkwardly between the moving vehicles and people.

Charlie 'Skid' Moore ran leisurely in traffic, easily keeping up with the forty mile an hour pace. His bright uniform of red shirt and blue pants stood out in the crush of lunchtime vehicles. He'd originally gone for a dark grey and black, thinking it looked cooler, but after four very near misses, he'd opted for a brighter, more visible color combination, which created a wholly different set of problems.

People, especially those in the news business, and fanatics on both sides of the 'superhero' argument were prone to following him around. It made it hard to enjoy just being himself for the sake of it. Now however, the congested traffic made it easy to avoid the Newsies and just enjoy running.

Skid accelerated to sixty miles an hour, weaving quickly between cars. Drivers leaned on their horns, with some swerving to avoid the speedster in traffic. Skid grimaced at the screeching tires and prayed that he just hadn't started a chain reaction wreck, but beyond agitated honking, there was no metallic crunching. Thankful, and just a bit tense, Skid took the down ramp and dashed east towards the dockyards. 

I'll start patrolling there. The scanner last night said there were a few robberies. Some missing crates and busted loading doors. I can check that. 

He angled off on to Belcher street, then sped up. His field of vision narrowed. His eyes started to have trouble registering things closest to him. The 'tunnel effect' continued to narrow as he accelerated. God if I could only see stuff around me. That was what had gotten the papers to nickname him 'Skid'. Early on in his career, he'd tried to use his full speed to catch a van escaping from a convenience store robbery. He was on the van so fast that he barely had time to register the impending collision and darted out of the way. He tripped on steps to a brownstone, then stumbled along the sidewalk, still at high speed. 

He'd managed to dodge a couple out for an afternoon stroll, then angled back into the street and stopped running. The skid marks of his melting sneakers as he tried to stop like a comic book hero were over sixty yards long. The van got away by turning on a side street while Charlie had been frantically avoiding collisions. He learned his lesson after that, staying under sixty miles an hour in moving traffic. He'd accelerate, when he had room, but in a city like Boston, room to run flat out was near impossible to find. Considering he'd never figured out his top speed, he wasn't certain he knew of anyplace he'd be safe testing it. 

The next day, Hermes returned to earth, and sought out Prometheus, who had built a small fire, and was busy roasting a haunch of meat. The sky had darkened as Apollo’s chariot had long since vanished to the west, and dusk had settled over the land. The enticing smell surprised Hermes, who’d to this moment had never encountered it previous, excepting on the battlefield.

“What happened to the beast?” he inquired.

“A sacrifice for my coming to their village. They slew it, and allowed me first choice of the meat. This haunch was my portion and the rest was stripped and eaten by the village.”

Hermes looked at the meat, suspended on a wood stake over the glowing embers of Prometheus’ fire, sizzling and dripping juices onto the hot coals. Flat stones kept the fire from igniting the surrounding grass. “What made you decide to sear it with the heat?” Prometheus shrugged.

“It was the war. I noticed that the bodies seared by Zeus and Apollo took much longer to breed maggots in their flesh than the dead who had been speared.” Prometheus closed his eyes as he remembered. “I had been wounded when I stumbled upon the recent battle. I’d been wounded on a mission that Zeus had used to divide the Titans forces. The smell was awful. The rotted meat and coagulated blood were a stench that made me gag to cross that battlefield.

The animals that were there, were busy consuming the scorched bodies first. So I thought to see why and roasted a bit of horse. The taste changed. It was altogether more savory than the dried strips of meat, or the fresh raw chunks. I have to admit I prefer it over raw.”

The fire hissed and popped, flaring every so often as a thick drop of fat fell and caught fire. the red glow had a comforting warmth as the two gazed up at the ceiling of stars in the night. Hermes took his floppy Petasos and laid it on the ground. He lowered Caduceus onto the hat, then lay down. He lolled on his back next to Prometheus. “It was discoveries like your fire, that I miss from the war.”

“You said that mid-day. Clearly, you miss it.” Prometheus sat up, then picked up a stick. He idly tapped the roasting meat, then nodded and grabbed the meat off the stake it had been impaled on. He quickly dropped the hissing haunch on a flat rock, then lay back down to gaze at the stars while the meat cooled. “I’ve wondered too, about the humans.” Hermes groaned.

“You mean that you are fascinated by their resemblance to us.” Prometheus nodded. “Zeus asked and I answered that making our allies, the myrmidons and humans, look like us, it would sow confusion in the Titans. I know that my kin have difficulty identifying individuals, so it made sense to compound that weakness.” Hermes nodded then gazed at the haunch of meat. “May I try some?” Prometheus smiled. “Certainly. I guarantee you’ll be pleasantly surprised.”

* * * * *

The pure columns of the Great Hall of Olympus bounced echoes of footsteps and muttered conversations throughout the room and the surrounding halls. The gods walked quietly, discussing the latest edicts from Zeus amongst themselves. Hermes strode away, his purposeful steps matched by the long, easy strides of the Titan, Prometheus.

“Zeus is determined to maintain this peace.” Hermes sounded agitated. Prometheus gazed down at his friend. The floppy Petasos hid his features from the taller Titan, but Prometheus could tell by the stiffened walk and hurried stride Hermes did not enjoy this latest conclave of the gods.

“He must constantly shift to maintain the status quo. Otherwise the edicts would become too rigid, and create oppression rather than peace.”

“He’s doing that already” Hermes answered quietly. “Everything seems aimed at restraining the humans. They were our allies in the war, and this is how we repay their efforts?”

“It’s not fair, no. It is practical. Humans are modeled after the gods, with many of the same drives all mixed together. Zeus wants their lives to depend upon the gods. The edicts are in place to foster this relationship.” Prometheus’ face scrunched up for a moment. “And language.” Hermes pushed his Petasos off his head, and turned his gaze to the tall titan.

“Language. Hmm. I see. No one knows any different language, and so no one can say anything that Zeus cannot understand.”

Prometheus nodded.  “Or hide, since his interpreter knows all languages.”

Hermes steps slowed as his mind turned that statement over, looking at possibilities. “Perhaps it’s time to bend the edicts, just a little. I wouldn’t be breaking them, just making a few changes so that humans can barter more effectively back and forth.”