It has been over ten years since I met Athena. You know, Athena… I wrote a book about meeting her. The chapters are posted on this blog. I have to admit that some inspired writing is found on those pages. This post is not inspired, and I want to write about why that is.
I still think of that night at the rat-infested venue when she introduced herself. Though I can’t prove it, I imagine more vermin were wandering around than humans. And, of course, the club has since been shuttered. I can only imagine what is crawling around in there now.
Yes, I still think of her every day (if you are wondering and simply too shy to ask). That night remains the strangest of my life. Meeting her was the…(after all this time, I still can’t put it into words). I don’t have many theories; I remain confounded.
I guess the most logical explanation is that I was unexpectedly set upon by a dump truck of charisma. Before I understood what was happening to me, the tire marks were on my back, and I was left to deal with the aftermath.
I mention logic in the face of the illogical. There was nothing logical about my reaction to meeting Athena. I have studied logic, I worked very hard to get an A in a logic class at Harvard. Nothing in my class notes relates to my current state. I never even bothered to look because I knew it was a waste of time.
All I know is that something extraordinary happened to me between the time she said “I’m” and “Athena.” And I use the word, and even the concept of time, very liberally in this context. I didn’t experience time as I had come to know it; I was moving through space in a fashion that was unique to my experience.
That “extraordinary thing” was the flipping of a switch, one I never knew existed. Unknown to me when the sun came up that day was that I had an Inspiration Switch installed at some point, either before or after my birth. The default position was apparently “OFF.”
Some hours after she introduced herself (and faded back to the dimension from whence she came), I sat down to type. I am very good at pounding away on the keys if the proposed assignment explicitly askes for half-baked nonsense. That is directly in my wheelhouse. Much to my surprise, the ideas were coming faster than I could type them out. Sentence after sentence, and then the master sentence, one that made me pause to wonder exactly where that one came from.
She inspired me like no one ever had. The magic switch that she manipulated stayed on for years. It is only recently that I have felt the recoil. I am probably back to my pre-Athena days, inspired enough to get out of bed in the morning but with severely muted expectations for where the day might lead. I will know something is seriously wrong when the only reason I have for getting up is morbid curiosity.
Inspiration, I have written that it is the most powerful (and rarest) force in the universe. I don’t believe a person can fool themselves into being inspired like many do when it comes to love. People are constantly talking themselves into love, easily done when children are involved or economics dictate two people staying together. Inspiration is immune to that game.
Have I seen her since that night? No, I did hear from her once, but that was a very long time ago. I tried my best to see her; I wanted to know if she was a Perpetual Inspiration Machine. My guess is that our meeting was nothing more than the vagaries of our atoms moving through space. As I suspected long ago, meeting her meant nothing.
I will be telling this tale for as long as I live. The experience has been nothing but odd, perplexing in an existential and mathematical way. All I seem to be left with is the sincere hope that nothing like this ever happens to me again.
