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Gift of Fire

Michael Grigsby

    Jim watches Marc peer over the rail. So intent, so purposeful. Jim gets up from the deck and walks to the wheel and grabs it and gives it a random yank.
    “Hey!” Marc yells.
    Jim watches the wheel spin. The little yacht floats on the Mediterranean Sea. Several other selected students surround their professor.
    Jim sits back down. He looks at Sandy, not quite so pretty anymore. She ponders a book on mythology. Near her sits Dr. Hart, their fat middle-aged professor.
    “We see Olympus from here?” Jim asks and squints in the brilliant sunshine.
    “Funny,” Sandy says. “Anyone know where we are?”
    Janet shrugs. “Greek islands, I guess. Dr. Hart just wanted us to drift without a particular course.”
    “A symbol of life, my dear.” Hart smiles and picks up the Greek urn from the deck and turns it in his sweaty fingers. “Let the currents drive us where they will.”
    Jim nods and sips his vodka.
    Marc looks at them. “I’m trying to keep us from the rocky coast with no electronic navigation.” Marc looks at the shore, uneasy as always.
    “This is the ship I used when I came here with Dr. Wittgenstein thirty years ago,” Hart says.
    Marc, Jim’s roommate, always the worrier, studies architecture and even brought his toolbox along to handcraft something for his family. Jim majors in theoretical physics. He did not take this class because of Sandy, who is now even more intense than Marc. Really, Jim hopes to find some answers.
    “We’re here to discuss philosophy.” Hart gazes at the urn in his lap and stares at the intricate detail.
    Sandy nods. “What do you mean when you say philosophy teaches man there is no meaning to life?”
    She is so full of questions, especially those that have no answer. Go figure.
    “Meaning?” Hart says. “It is this insistence upon meaning that makes all I’m trying to teach so difficult.”
    Marc looks up. “But everything has to mean something, otherwise it wouldn’t make any sense.”
    “Right. It doesn’t make sense.” Hart looks at them now in lecture mode. “There is nothing good in man. Not one good idea, not one good attitude–”
    “But doctor,” Marc blurts, “if man hasn’t any good concepts, how does he know the ones he has are not good?”
    “Don’t search for standards. There are no absolutes. Reason is dead!”
    Jim sips his Grey Goose and smiles. He’ll never drink Absolut vodka and nothing is black or white.
    A sudden gust of wind rocks the boat. The map from Sandy’s book flies across the deck. Dark clouds appear.
    The boat pushes through a shimmering translucent wall. Or does it? Jim blinks.
    “Fast Mediterranean storms.” Hart swallows hard and wipes his brow.
    “This is Greece,” Marc says. “The gods are angry. Hey, Slim Jim, can you look over these? I can’t find this shoreline.”
    Jim gets up and huddles over navigation maps. He shrugs. “It’s like we’re in uncharted waters.”
    A weird burst of lightning rips the sky in a jagged flash. The wind howls, the onslaught of rain begins and the waves push the boat toward the rocky coast.
    Betty points to the cliffs. “Look! There’s someone up there!”
    Jim looks up and the wind throws him to the deck. He feels his elbow. His shirt is torn and the skin is barked. He makes his way to the rail. A lone figure can almost be made out, struggling on the cliffs.
    Then silence, sudden and strange. The rain stops, the clouds dissipate, all becomes quiet, as if by magic. Jim shakes his head and looks up at the high cliffs. Nothing.
    “Where are we?”
    Sandy finds the map and looks at her book. “Well, that peak must be Mount Caucasus, where Zeus sent Prometheus for stealing fire from the gods and giving it to man.”
    They all look at her. “See, Prometheus was chained to the mountain until a centaur, named Chiron, took his place.” Most of them roll their eyes. Jim smiles.
    The next morning a gentle breeze stirs the air. Jim walks up to the deck and sees Dr. Hart and Betty. Betty curls in Hart’s arms. Her t-shirt says, “Aristotle was bunk!”
    Hart sighs. “Next semester you’ll be with another professor, I suppose.”
    “I learned more philosophy from you this way than by the traditional method. But why me?”
    “I went with my heart.” He smiles. “Depending how the ethics committee rules on my budget management, I may not go back.”
    Marc climbs up to the deck. Janet joins them at the buffet table. She fills her plate and then perches on the high side. She leans down, puts the Greek urn on the table in front of her and admires its onyx and ivory moldings.
    Sandy sits by Jim. “I didn’t think you’d agree with Dr. Hart, as a scientist I mean.”
    “I now subscribe to Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle. Reality is only a wave of probability. Cannot be certain of any particle’s location.”
    “But didn’t Einstein say that God does not play dice with the universe?”
    “Einstein brought us Relativity. No certainty, just perspective.” Sandy looks at him, crestfallen. Jim smiles. “I wish the universe was certain. It would be comforting if reality was not just random.”
    Janet beacons to him. He gets up and walks to her.
    “Be careful what you say to her.”
    “What do you mean?” Jim asks.
    “She tried to commit suicide last year. Then she changed her major to philosophy.”
    “Really? Go figure.”

***

    Sandy looks at Jim, moves to Hart and hopes he can give her some answers. She spent last night studying Camus because his book was about meaning and suicide being the only real philosophical question. If there’s no point, why go on?
    “What do you think we saw yesterday, doctor?” she asks. “Up on the rocks, we’re much closer now.”
    Hart huffs. “We saw nothing.”
    Marc gapes at him. “Are you sure?”
    “Certainty is impossible. No one intelligent today holds to the idea that seeing is believing.”
    So he does not trust his senses. Sandy looks at the urn. “Doctor, the top of your vase is cracked, the head is ruined.”
    “It can’t be fixed.”
    Sandy wonders if Hart, or anyone, has any answers.
    “The more we know,” he says, “the more we learn nothing.”
    “Dr. Hart,” Janet says, “there are things I know. I know there is a God who will punish—”
    Hart wheels around. “No one can be certain of anything. For emotional security you’ll trust in faith?” Red-faced, Hart clenches his fists.
    Janet stares at him. “Doctor, how did you arrive at your ideas?”
    “I considered life, my dear. Reality only dictates responsibility. I saw that reason was incapable of dealing with existence.” A clap of thunder explodes overhead. “I trusted my heart instead of my head.”
    “But you said certainty is impossible.”
    “Intellectual certainty is impossible. I’m talking about emotional surety.”
    “Then I agree. My heart knows things my head can never know.” Janet looks up at the sky. Violet-gray clouds tumble overhead.
    Sandy wonders what knowing and certainty have to do with faith. “But what about Descartes? He doubted everything, but could not doubt his own thinking. So, because he doubted, he knew he thought, and because he thought, he was real, he existed.”
    “I think, therefore I am?” Hart sneers. “But why should his ego survive his doubting? Just because one is conscious, why does that necessarily mean one exists?”
    “What...”
    “The thinking consciousness is psychic reality, not physical reality, and so has no basis in existence.”
    Sandy can barely breathe.
    “Who says consciousness is necessary,” Hart continues, “or even part of the physical world? The point is, you can never know.”
    Sandy feels a wave of nausea wash over her.
    “But I believe—”
    “Don’t believe, feel!”
    “Logically there must be—”
    “Forget logic. Logic is the most primitive, vulgar theory in all philosophy!”
    Thunder explodes and lightning branches the sky. The wind shrills and whips the sail about the main mast. The sky bubbles dark and somber in an energetic air.
    “Look! Someone’s up there. High on those rocks.” They look to where Betty points. “He’s gone now.” Betty tries to open the door below deck.
    The sky turns orange and the water glows like living coals. The clouds rush into each other, collide and swirl angrily onward.
    Sandy screams, “Another storm!”
    “No,” Marc says. “We’ve angered the gods again.”
    Cliffs from the mountain plunge into the water and cause rolling tidal waves. Foam froths like stale beer. A crash below. Sandy knows that is the sound of the fresh water tanks crack and spill into the galley.
    An explosion splits the mast head and loosens the boom lines. The boom whips around and hits Betty in the back of the head and knocks her unconscious. Marc goes to her and looks worried.
    Great sheets of rain fall. Sandy smells the salt in the air and tastes the brine. It’s a nightmare, so unreal. The boat fills with water and groans under the strain.
    Jim jumps up and tries to run on the slippery deck to get to the control panel. “The radio is dead!”
    Hart makes his way to the galley door. He fights the wind and rain. He finally opens the door but a flood of water gushes onto the deck.
    “We can’t go below,” Sandy yells.
    Marc fights to control the boat. It gulps in a huge draught of water. Jim goes to untie the life raft. Sandy tries to help him, her face white.
    “This is useless,” Jim yells. The gale blows them toward the rocky shore.
    Marc watches the wheel spin in its circle. He gasps as the boat careens to the coastline.
    The yacht crashes into the rocks jutting up near the shore. Splintered explosions rip the air. The little boat sinks half way and lists to one side.
    Marc squints. “I think I see a cave over there. We’d better take cover.”
    They pile out. Marc tries to drag Betty. “Jim, give a hand!” Jim grabs her legs and Marc carries her arms.
    Hart just stumbles around in a daze. Janet takes his hand.
    They wade into the shallow water. They splash to the shore and trudge along the beach. Exhausted and wet, they make it to the cavern and look around.
    Marc and Jim lay Betty in the corner. Marc, always the Boy Scout, opens his plastic pouch and finds dry matches. Sandy helps him gather twigs and brush from the cave and start a fire.
    They warm themselves and watch the boat in the shallows. Jim gives Sandy his jacket and pats her knee.
    Janet looks around. “It’s frightening, isn’t it? The way these storms come up.”
    Marc looks at her. “We have no radio or boat. Betty needs hospital attention—”
    “God will see us through,” Janet says.
    “So we just sit here and wait?” Marc asks.
    “That’s right,” Jim says. “Nothing matters anyway.”
    Sandy looks at Jim. She knew him three years ago as a senior in high school and he was more practical then.
    “We can pray,” Janet says.
    “You pray.” Marc turns on his heels. “I’m going to look at the boat. It’s our only chance. Jim, want to take a look?”
    Jim shrugs and they go outside. Sandy watches them at the shore. Jim has a hard time remaining aloof, she can see him struggle. He thinks that’s so cool. They look at the damage to the boat, they examine the mast and the keel and then they head back.
    They come in and Marc shakes his head.
    “Go figure,” Jim says.
    The students clamor and yell.
    Hart spreads out his hands. “Class, this is not some academic positioning. Listen, it might be my last chance to get to you kids. There is no logic, no reason—”
    “Shut up! Do you realize our situation?” Marc spits.
    Jim stares outside. “Something’s strange about that lightning. Flashes regularly.”
    They watch, all but Hart. The lightning sparks like a slow strobe light.
    Sandy looks at Jim. “What about the boat?”
    “Not good. Big hole in the port side. Lot of damage below deck. We’ve been drifting. Doctor, does anyone know where we are?”
    Hart turns to them, his face white. “No, we are lost, by definition. None of this looks like anything I’ve seen before.”
    “When did we last radio our position?”
    “Three days ago.”
    “We’ve been drifting for three days?” Janet puts her hands to her face.
    Hart stamps his foot. “You knew, you all knew. This is not your country club. It was a symbol. Nothing is real.”
    “Our situation is real,” Jim says. “Betty needs help. The galley containing our food and fresh water is flooded.” They all look at him. “The top of the mast broke off, speared the middle of the rubber raft. Big hole in it, cannot be repaired. With our radio dead...”
    Janet begins to cry. Marc stares straight ahead.
    “It was a symbol,” Hart says. “We were much closer to the shore than before.”
    “And, we saw some kind of animal behind the rocks,” Jim says. Sandy sees he’s more pragmatic now.
    Marc slams his fist in his palm. “Okay, we must face facts—”
    “These are just powerful electrical storms,” Hart whispers, “and have nothing to do with justice or facing facts. You rich kids should grow up and realize that.”
    “Doctor,” Sandy asks, “what are we going to do?”
    “I feel something good is about to happen,” Janet says.
    Jim grabs the Greek urn from under his raincoat. “Here, I brought this back from the wreck. The head was smashed in the storm.” Jim sits it by the fire. “None of what you say makes any sense. I need it to make sense.”
    Hart stares at it. “I considered life to be two opposing views. One must be eliminated.”
    “Look. Someone’s coming.” They run to the entrance, all except Hart.
    Sandy shakes her head. “No, it’s just a horse.”
    “A man riding a horse,” Marc says.
    As it gets closer, Sandy sees it is a centaur, half-upper man, half-lower horse.
    “It...it isn’t real...is it?” Sandy stammers. This is all crazy, it’s just crazy.
    “Real?” asks Hart. “What can be real in an unreal universe?”
    “But centaurs are only a myth...”

***

    Jim staggers. He wonders if he’s losing his mind.
    “Only what you feel is real,” says Hart.
    “I feel scared,” Janet says.
    The centaur reaches the entrance and looks up at the sky. He leans back, spreads wide his arms and closes his eyes. The rain ceases, the thunder and lightning stop. The morning sun comes out and the centaur canters inside.
    His upper body is of a splendid youth. Long golden ringlets frame his face. His lips curl into a sneer of pride and confidence. He bows. “Good morning. My name is Chiron.” Chiron gazes at Hart who crouches in the corner.
    Sandy gasps.
    “I see you recognize my name,” Chiron says. “Good. That will make my job easier.”
    Hart jumps up. “Job?”
    “You may know I was a teacher. I taught Achilles and Jason, and now others. I’m free from the rocks to help teach one final lesson. I’m—”
    Chiron grabs his neck and reveals ugly red welts. His wrists bear scars.
    “Are you hurt?” Janet asks.
    “My chains have left—”
    Sandy gasps. “Was it you we saw high on the rocks—”
    “I took the place of Prometheus centuries ago so he might be free.”
    “The Titan that stole fire from the gods? I was telling them that myth yesterday.”
    “Although the stories have been romanticized,” Chiron says, “they are essentially true, some more than others.”
    They all just stare at him.
    “Can you use your magic to help us?” Jim asks.
    “This is a mortal problem and must be solved in mortal ways.”
    “Magic be damned!” Hart struts up to Chiron, red-faced. Chiron stomps his back hoof. “I’m getting tired of hearing all this god and myth nonsense,” Hart says. “I won’t believe any of this is real!”
    Chiron looks at him and swishes his tail. “You’re a teacher and have a great influence over young minds. My master has chosen to set this aright. He’s waited nearly thirty years.”
    “I don’t believe—”
    “Oh? Meet one you cannot ignore.” Chiron bows his head as an old man appears at the cave entrance. The old man walks in wearing a ragged burlap cloak, a thin beard and a weather-beaten face. His gaze understands, his eyes incompatible with confusion.
    Hart gasps and steps back.
    “Their boat needs repairs,” Chiron says. The old man nods. “This girl is in need of medical attention. They don’t have enough food or water to last two days. They are lost.”
    Hart’s voice rises. “What could we do?! The storm just now stopped. I cannot be held responsible—”
    “What were your plans then?” the old man asks.
    Hart blinks. “Plans? Well, I would have waited—”
    “Not enough food or water to wait. Must think. Must act.”
    “I never felt we were in any—”
    “Feelings won’t give answers. Were you really going to do something? Or were you going to give it all up as impossible and try to evade responsibility?”
    Jim looks at the old man. Something about him makes Jim want to be practical, logical. He looks out of the cave. “It’s clear outside. Maybe we can see more now.”
    Marc nods. “Maybe we could repair the boat or fix the radio or salvage something from it. Something!”
    The old man smiles and points his cane. “There! Action—purpose—reason!”
    “Reason is dead!” Hart runs to the dark corner of the cave and slumps against the wall.
    The old man’s face turns hard. “Is it dead? We will see, and you may come to know the consequences of your opinions.” The old man turns to Marc. “You can’t use your radio to call for help. I’ve let you through my barrier. These islands of mine are uncharted and navigation is dangerous. We will help Chiron work on your boat and provide the course out of here. We only need to repair the outside hull using mortal means. It’s a temporary fix. Your raft is unusable. The others will fish for food.”
    The old man, Chiron, Marc and Jim go outside. The sun shines high in the sky and they walk to the shore. They stare at the little boat, tilted to one side in four feet of water.
    “Chiron is an expert,” the old man says, “and this task is not impossible.”
    Jim and Marc look up with relief. Chiron nods. They wade out into the water and climb the wreck. They salvage supplies and tools. They walk to the cliffs behind the cave. Marc carries the toolbox. They chop and saw trees and Chiron hand-makes a small cart.
    Chiron explains how to fix the boat. They saw, hammer, plane and make thatch. Marc and Jim sweat but smile. The old man lifts and holds the planks and nods when Chiron talks and never seems tired.
    They build a scaffold to frame the boat by firelight. They tie hemp ropes around it to hold it in place. They examine the rudder.
    The next day, Jim watches Sandy and Janet fish. Hart just stands in the cave entrance. Jim enjoys the feeling of work, manual labor, creating something out of nothing.
    Chiron planes the hull and patches the boat. They untie the ropes and let it right itself in the shallow water. They hold their breath. It floats. The old man smiles and Chiron looks proud. Jim and Marc grin.
    They march back into the cave. The girls cook fish. Hart stands in the corner.
    “Betty’s still unconscious?” Jim asks.
    “I think she has a fever,” Janet says. “How’d you guys do?”
    “Easy as 1-2-3,” Jim says. Marc looks at him. “Well, not so easy, but the boat is usable.”
    “You can leave here immediately,” the old man says. “Your sail is nearly useless, but you don’t have a long journey.”
    Janet brings the fish. “I didn’t feel you could do it.”
    “We did not do it by feelings,” the old man says. “We acted.”
    Hart rushes up to him. “Listen, old man, you keep talking like some kind of...of a...”
    “Some kind of what?” he asks.
    “I...I don’t know.”
    “That’s your trouble. You don’t define, only generalize. You don’t reason, only feel.”
    “Reason is dead.”
    “If it’s dead for you, so be it.”
    Hart looks at him. “No one can be certain of anything.”
    “Are you certain of that? Doctor, I have heard you denounce the fire of reason countless times.”
    Sandy runs to the old man and looks at him with excitement and fear in her eyes. “I know who you are. We all do, but I’m going to say it. You’re Prometheus!”
    His decrepit body melts away and a tall straight youth takes its place. He wears a bold smile, confident and proud. He stands, hands on hips, as a god overlooking his creation.
    Jim knows he has now lost his mind, spun off his axis. Or a brain tumor gives him hallucinations.
    “I...I don’t believe it!” Hart buries his head in his hands.
    “You have denied me long enough,” Prometheus says.
    Hart shrugs in shock. “I deny what must be denied. I face reality only with my heart because it can do things my head never can.”
    Prometheus walks toward him. “Oh, really? Can your heart navigate that boat? Can your feelings build a fire?”
    “But I’m not saying common sense should be discarded. I just believe reason cannot be trusted—”
    “Ideas are potent,” Prometheus says, “and have consequences in some places more than others. You want the form of reason but desire to strip it of its power and your responsibility. You want its benefits but not its demands.” Prometheus glows red. Chiron steps back. A pressure rises in the cave and swirls in the air around them.
    “It’s impossible to know!” Hart screams.
    “Mortal, you are about to have your request granted.”
    Prometheus lowers his head and closes his eyes.
    “I deny the mind, it only causes guilt.” Hart rants, delirious. “I deny certainty, I deny reason, I deny—”
    “Very well!” Prometheus thunders. “You have earned this!”
    An orange bolt of lightning leaps from Prometheus’s outstretched hand to Hart’s head. It hovers a moment and glows and then dissipates in a cloud.
    They all look around. The pressure in the cave lessens and they can breathe.
    Hart staggers and falls to the ground. He lifts himself up on his hands and knees and gurgles and babbles and makes noises more animal than human.
    Janet kneels down to help him. His eyes roll back in his head and he drools. Janet rolls up her jacket and lays his head on it. They all stare at Prometheus.
    Janet looks up. “What...what happened to him?”
    “He denied my gift, hated it. So I took it away.”
    “He denied reason, you took away—”
    “Yes, his rationality. He had a great deal more than he cared to admit.”
    Sandy furrows her brow. “But your gift was the gift of fire.”
    Prometheus smiles. “My brother Epimetheus and I created the world. He created the animals first, and without thinking, gave them the best gifts: teeth, speed, claws, strength. When we were ready to create man we had nothing left to give him. So I stole from the gods the greatest gift, the gift of reason.”
    “But the myth says you stole fire.”
    “Yes, the illuminating spark of reason. That which burns in a man is what the poets called fire, and it is. That’s what makes a man a man. If a man has no mind he has little appreciation for feelings, as I’m sure Dr. Hart would tell you, if he could.”
    “Will he be alright?” Janet asks.
    “Physically? Yes. Mentally? He controls that, not I. If he can find the courage back to consciousness, maybe.”
    Chiron turns to Jim. “Are you alright?”
    “I thought I was losing my mind.”
    Prometheus smiles. “Why would you worry about that, given your mind is not important.”
    “I was wrong. It’s man’s nature to think. To choose not to think is to choose not to live.”
    Sandy grabs Prometheus’s arm. “But how do I know what’s real?”
    “I gave you senses to inform your mind. I gave you reason to inform your life. Use my gifts.” Prometheus smiles. “Let’s go Chiron. We have what we came for.”
    Marc grasps the hand of Prometheus. “Thank you.”
    Prometheus nods. “Take this back to your world. And Jim, Einstein did not call his theory Relativity, he hated that. He called it Invariance Theory. But just as Einstein’s reality supplanted Newton’s, perhaps yours can subsume his.”
    Jim shakes his head. “No, I’m changing my major to engineering.” Jim smiles at Sandy and sees her throw a prescription bottle in the fire.
    They all walk out into stunning sunlight. Prometheus and Chiron wave and walk toward the cliffs, higher and higher, into Olympus.

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