Hera was annoyed. She sat gazing without expression at the smoldering cigarette held between her fingers, then said, “What is it about you and love, anyway?”
“For starters, the mess it makes when it hits the windshield,” her traveling companion rumbled crossly. “That’s the fourth freakin’ cherub we’ve hit this week.”
“Then ease up on the gas pedal, Mr. Leadfoot.” Hera flicked angrily at her cigarette, watching as the ash drifted like a spent Phoenix to settle on the edge of the iridescent roadway.
“What, and let ‘em get off a shot? Not on your life!” Her husband punctuated his exclamation with an exasperated flick of the wrist, flinging syrup, candy hearts and feathers from his window scraper into the pillowy clouds beyond.
Hera rolled her eyes. “That one wasn’t even looking in your direction. It was just flying along minding its own business.”
“Yeah, well, one can never be too sure,” Zeus thundered. “I didn’t want it sneaking up on me later.” He huffed another globule of love into the clouds. “I swear, sometimes, that I’ve got a giant bullseye tattooed on my butt, with a sign over that saying, ‘get it here.’”
“You’re imagining things,” Hera sighed, eyeing the bullseye critically. Maybe it was a bit much. “I don’t understand why you’re so adverse to love. Or is it just that you don’t want to fall in love with me?”
Zeus snorted. “Listen, I agreed to marry you, isn’t that enough? Nowhere in that contract was there any mention of love.”
‘Contract, shmontract,’ the Queen of Heaven mused, flicking the cigarette butt out into the brume. She studied her husband’s muscled flanks, guilefully. ‘Maybe I just need a bigger sign…’
Ground Zero 