Debase the Currency - Whether Coin or Clout - Show Who Rules Them - And Set Yourself Free - Go East Old Man - To Learn Something New - Make Peace With Darkness - And Shine Your Light - Witness Inaction In Action - Before the Great Game - Of Two Competing Conceits - Leaving a Strange Legacy
2
375 B.C.
In retrospect, Dio should have expected the lit torch before it ripped through his office window. It landed squarely on his scale, sending both his new and pure coins flying through the air like sparks. Corrupting the coinage had not gone well.
Dio had been so careful. He’d kept his plugging behind closed doors and the original stamp of the coin a secret so no one would see he’d simply stolen the center from all the new coins he’d printed. Ironed in over the thieved cavity, the edges made a perfect disc.
He simply pocketed the centers of each coin. A perfect crime, endorsed by Apollo himself. But attempted arson seemed to indicate it was not so perfect. That wasn’t in the plan. Dio sighed heavily as angry voices swelled outside.
“Diogenes, you snake! Get out here!” The people were calling his name and calling him names again. “Cheat! Liar! Dog! Get out here so we can settle this peacefully, you son of a bitch!”
Those didn’t seem like words presaging a peaceful doing of anything at all. Dio felt a riot brewing, in fact. Still, he hoped for a mostly peaceful riot if a riot was to be had. “Mostly peaceful” always meaning “somewhere else.” Alas, it was not so.
He realized the optimist suspects the world is the best possible world it can be, but the pessimist knows it is. Which was he in this moment? And would knowing be any help? What would Heracles do? Probably choke out the fire with his hands.
Musing on this in a mild shock, sparks from a second torch set his rug alight before spreading to lick the far wall of his office. He wagered he had maybe five minutes before he was incinerated alongside everything he owned.
He considered it. Going up in flames with his reputation, his job, his house, and all his other collected wealth. His drinking bowl fed the flames as he pondered suicide by angry mob. Gods, he'd loved that drinking bowl. Cremated, you know, and taken so recently.
But within a minute, Dio had shouldered his bugout bag carrying an extra cloak and clean coins. Every banker has a bugout bag. Foisting himself up and halfway out the window, he made sure no one was in the alley before chucking his bag out and dropping after it.
“He's trying to escape!” A shrill scream rang. “Grab him so we can settle this mostly peacefully!” The mob dutifully filled one end of the alley, flooding it with torchlight. The whites of many eyes danced visibly.
Squawking, Dio scrambled down the far end, pushing passed and over a couple elderly women swinging torches at his nose like rolled newspapers, whatever those are. Despite himself, he laughed. Second by second, disassociating and dodging artful.
Someone else was fleeing a bloodthirsty mob. Someone else stampeded over old ladies. Someone else relieved themselves as they ran. Someone else sprinted as fast as they could to the docks and a hope for safety.
Dio felt pity for that person and laughed the laugh of a most wicked scoundrel. Or a god. At the moment, Dio failed to see a distinction. Nor did he see the overturned amphora before the fool tumbled headfirst over it onto his face. He laughed, tasting earth.
He was vaguely aware his mind was in danger of breaking as he stumbled around a street corner, bringing the docks in view ahead. Rage followed behind still, promising peace and love at the end of a club.
Suicide was still an option, but Dio hoped the fool would carry on. He wanted to see what happened to the panicked little criminal who looked so much like him next. He didn't have to wait long.
At the end of the furthest pier, a merchant ship was just disembarking. Hysterical, he leaped the widening gap, catching his foot on the deck edge, and slammed straight onto his teeth. Cedar, he thought. The tastiest of wood.
The mob behind splashed two abreast into the sea, row after row jumping and failing to find wood. Their torches sputtered out as they hit the water. A single, Heraclean tear formed in Dio’s eye as they insisted on getting wet.
“Eh, now,” a rough voice curdled the air. “What’ve we got here then?” Apparently, the ship he rode was not empty.
“A paying passenger,” Dio wheezed and waved his pregnant wallet for emphasis. The moonlight glancing and reflecting around the leather stitching along its edge.
“I already have a wallet, but thank you. Shucks, you must have had quite the scare, mister. Horrifying scene. But it's over now. You're safe.” Dio sighed in relief at safety.
The skipper paused for a moment before continuing. “All right. Let's get you up and overboard, shall we?”
“Whoa, whoa, no, bro,” Dio leaped to his feet, pleading and fumbling with the strings of his wallet. “I have money!”
“Golly, that's good news. I have money, too! I keep it in my wallet, but don't go telling,” He raised his voice. “Guys let's get our stowaway stored in the sea. You know the rules! Zero tolerance and such. Company policy!”
Nodding sailors took hold of Dio and hoisted him up and over the deck. Panic gripped the man resembling Dio, his stomach convulsing with laughter as his wallet and remaining fortunes tumbled into the sea.
“You’d throw a woman into the sea?!” Dio choked out. He'd be damned if he was going to watch this fool die without amusing his murderers. In his current mood-ring hue of black-comedy, he would have said anything.
“You're not a woman,” the skipper accused. “You've gotta beautiful, manly beard.”
Dio stroked his beautiful, manly beard a moment, held midair by his elbows over a black sea. “You've got me there, I'm afraid,” Dio replied placidly. “But surely a woman can have a beautiful, manly beard in these modern, democratic times? It's about time, I say.”
“Oh, I don't talk about that stuff at work.” The skipper rubbed his bewhiskered chin while nodding. “When we need opinions, HR gives us the right ones. The question I have is whether you can swim or not.”
“Surely, I can swim,” Dio lied. He could not, but in his dissociative state he recalled someone resembling him had always intended to learn. “But as a woman, should I have to?”
“You've got a damned beard!”
“It was beautiful and manly a moment ago.”
“It still is!” The skipper admitted rather petulantly.
“Yeah, the ladies love it.” Dio grinned.
“You don't seem a Lesbian.” The skipper was not to be deterred from talking about this stuff at work, it seemed.
“Well, no. I'm from Sinope. I'm an Ionian. You could consider me Turkish, if that made any sense.” It didn't. Turkey wouldn't exist for a few thousand years yet. “Do you make a habit of throwing Turkish women overboard?”
The skipper rubbed his pinched brow. “Yes, actually. Women aren't allowed onboard. Bad luck and they tell the boys to bathe too often. HR says.”
“Good gods you're boring. In fact, I’ve changed my mind. Toss me in with the fishies! We're losing the reader.”
“You got it! Hell yeah, I love direct, unthinking action so fucking much! Okay guys, let’s…” The skipper began barking before being interrupted.
“Bring da motha! Bring da mothafuckin’ ruckus!” A deep voice boomed from over the water, startling everyone. The sailors suspending Dio promptly dropped him over the side in surprise. He dug his fingernails into the rail, legs hanging out over the sea.
What now, Dio wondered as he hung on for what remained of this fool banker's life. He’d hang out a moment, just to see what happened. But then he was out.
“Ah, shit. Wu-Tang Clan sparks the wicks!” The empty sea was full of the call and response lines of pirates, bursting over the rail and onto the merchant vessel. Swords brandished, they wore black masks and black, hooded robes.
“Oh, no,” Dio heard the skipper breathe. “Black Sea Pirates out of Shaolin.”
That seemed mildly racist. No doubt HR would be interested in what the skipper insisted on talking about at work. Half the crew, on the other hand, immediately leaped overboard. Dio yelled after them, “Get wet, racists!”
Dio didn’t care what color these sea pirates were, as long as they threw his dumb ass into the sea. And what the hell did, “Protect your neck” mean, anyway? The world seemed full of misguided guidance these days.
He'd have time to think about it once he was dead.
Debase the Currency - Whether Coin or Clout - Show Who Rules Them - And Set Yourself Free - Go East Old Man - To Learn Something New - Make Peace With Darkness - And Shine Your Light - Witness Inaction In Action - Before the Great Game - Of Two Competing Conceits - Leaving a Strange Legacy