▸ Column · Mythic — an Olympian war god receiving a mortal's petition, adapted from a modern relationship letter
ARES replies.
The letter
War God — my consort Dean has committed no offense I can name, and that silence is what robs me of sleep. He still kisses me at the threshold, still answers my messages, still maps out our autumn voyage to the western coast. Yet something beneath has gone still, as though his spirit has marched off to some distant field while his body remains at my table. I have stooped to searching his belongings in secret, then loathed myself for it, for there is nothing — no rival's token, no flinch of guilt, no betrayal I can hold in my hand. My sister swears I am conjuring a siege from a season of peace. But I have trusted this same cold instinct before and been proven right in ways I wish I had not. How do I tell true foresight from the fear I am merely casting upon a man who has done nothing?
Ares replies
You name it "a season of peace" and lose sleep beneath it. Listen to yourself, mortal — your body already knows what your tongue refuses. Peace is the lie you tell between wars. The quiet at your table is not calm; it is the field gone silent the moment before the lines break. Your instinct is a scout returning bloodied from the dark. Do not shame it. Honor it.
But understand the posture you have chosen: you creep through his belongings like a thief in your own camp. That is the crouch of one already half-defeated, gathering proof to console herself in the ruin. I have watched ten thousand kings do the same — they spy when they should summon. Stop skulking. Stand before him in the full light and demand he account for the territory he has abandoned. Make him speak the thing his silence guards. Where do you march, Dean, when you leave me here?
You do not want reassurance. You want the truth, claimed openly, from strength. A petitioner who searches in secret has already conceded the ground. Take it back. Force the matter into the open and let him answer to your face — not to your trembling hands in the dark.
— Ares
Superman weighs in
Ares, you've never sat quiet at a dinner table in your life — so you can't tell the difference between a man retreating from an enemy and a man drowning in front of someone he loves.
Friend, I've been the one who's somewhere else at supper. Smallville, the Kent farm, everybody passing the potatoes while I'm carrying something I can't say out loud. It isn't always betrayal that makes a fella go far away. Sometimes it's fear, or grief, or shame he hasn't found words for yet.
Don't summon him to a war council. Sit down beside him and ask the plain thing: "You've gone somewhere lately. Take me with you." Then let him answer. He's the one not talking — make him talk, gently. That's not surrender. That's love doing the harder job.
— Superman
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