War of the Titans (Part 1)

Life is but a plague of contradictions and a happenstance that clings on at all costs. Life wants to live, yet it must kill. Life begets life, yet it must consume many others to sustain itself. Life craves company, yet it feels threatened when others are around. Life yearns peace, yet it must fight to survive. Life seeks pleasures, yet it causes so much pain. Life is a struggle--no, it’s a war of all against all--until all is dead.

Life as we know it began when Father Time Chronos accidentally breathed his divine essence into the primal egg when he shook it. The divine essence seeped into the primal elements and gave them life. The lighter and finer of its elemental matters floated above and became Uranus. The coarser and heavier of its matters sank down and became Gaia. Pleasures seeking made Gaia Uranus’s wife; pains avoidance made her his mortal enemy.

From Gaia and Uranus came the twelve mighty Titans. They were Oceanus, Coeus, Crius, Hyperion, Iapetos, Theia, Rhea, Themis, Mnemosyne, Phoebe, Tethys and Cronus. Then came Brontes, Steropes, and Arges, each with an eye on the forehead. They were the cycle-eyed Cyclopes. Then came Kottos, Briareos, and Gyges, each with fifty heads and one hundred arms, and those were the monstrous Hecatonchires.

Uranus gagged upon the sight of the Hecatonchires. His face turned purple and blue. Tear poured from his eyes, mucus from his nose, and saliva from his mouth as he gasped for breath. Irritated, the acid-tongued Gaia mocked, “Please do not be frightened to death, my Lord. They are just children, our children.”

Cronus laughed hysterically, as only an innocent child could, and said, “Even I am not afraid.”

Uranus’s face ashen, his lower jaw shook, his fists clenched. “I am not frightened; I am just disgusted with their hideousness.” Uranus thundered, “For their safety--and yours-- get them out of my sight.”

Not wanting to provoke Uranus further, Gaia gathered her children and left. However, Uranus’s pride had been wounded and therefore his fate had been sealed.

***

As a compromise, the children had to live by themselves far from Uranus and Gaia, who visited them only a few times a year.

But that was not enough for Uranus. Gaia’s mocking continued to haunt him; his wounded pride continued to torture him, and to demand retributions. The more he sought to soothe it, the more implacable it became. His wounded pride continued to torment him mercilessly until he could no longer live in peace. Cronus began to find fault with everyone and everything. Every action seemed to taunt him, every smile seemed to mock him, and every laughter seemed to spit on his face. Even his children’s acts of absolute obedience seemed designed to provoke his fury. He was the most powerful and yet he felt utterly powerless. His rage built and built as he struggled to suppress his feeling of utter humiliation.

Nothing tormented Uranus as much as his knowledge that the Hecatonchires were living so carefree so near him. They were the very cause of his mental anguish and that anguish grew rather than diminished as the months went by. How dare they inflict pains and sufferings on him? Why must he suffer alone for them to live? Ridding the Hecatonchires was the only thing that could placate Uranus’s wounded pride and restore his sense of supremacy. It was the only thing that he thought about, constantly, for months.

He almost killed them on numerous occasions but the thought of angering Gaia stopped him. One day Uranus spotted the Hecatonchires playing alone on a plain far from home, he grabbed them by their necks and threw them with great force into a dark cavern only he knew about. He then sealed the entrance with enormous stones and left them there to rot in total darkness. In his mind, this act of cruelty finally brought back honor to his pride and peace to his soul.

When Uranus turned around, he saw Cronus shaking, trying to hide behind a bush. Unbeknownst to Uranus, Cronus had been playing with the Hecatonchires, a crime punishable by severe beatings from his father. Cronus had tried to run away and hide after his brothers had alerted him that their father was approaching. He had also promised his brothers he would come back for them. Upon seeing the shaking Cronus, Uranus simply said, “If you tell anyone about it, I’d throw you into a cavern too.”

Seeing his father’s cruelty toward his brothers killed his innocence; hearing his father’s threat toward him heightened his desire to live. From then on, Cronus saw Uranus not as a father to love but as an enemy to fear, and as someone around whom he would never feel completely safe. From that day on, Cronus yearned to be the master of his own fate.

***

Uranus’s new-found ease with himself and everyone around him aroused Gaia’s suspicion that he had done something wicked, but she could not find out what it was. She was determined to find out, however. Sex was her means.

It was after a particularly vigorous encounter weeks later that it came to Gaia what Cronus had done. She pushed him aside, got dressed, told Uranus to go back to his house, and sprinted to the Hecatonchires’ dwelling.

Just as Gaia had feared, the Hecatonchires were not there. She screamed their names, but there was no response. She made a mad dash to the Titan’s house, but they offered her no answer. The Titans swore that they knew nothing and they all looked believable. All, except Cronus, who looked particularly distressed.

“You know where they are, don’t you Cronus?”

Cronus gave her an almost imperceptible nod.

“Tell me where they are,” Gaia pleaded.

“Father shall kill me if I do,” the tormented and frightened Cronus whispered meekly as he turned his head around, seemingly to check if his father could hear him. And then he slinked away, hoping to avoid his mother’s next question.

Gaia believed him, she knew a frightened child when she saw one. Her first instinct was to confront Uranus, for he knew where the Hecatonchires--her innocent flesh and blood--were. She knew they were suffering terribly, she could feel it.

It took Gaia all she had to stop herself from running to Uranus’s house to confront him. She knew she should not confront that tyrant without having planned all her moves well in advance. Knowing that she was too overwrought and in too much pains to plan, Gaia fought hard to control herself. She staggered back to her house, sank onto her bed, then sobbed and screamed, cursed and swear vengeance. Her rage grew and grew until she was no longer able to stay still in her bed. She got up and paced back and forth, back and forth, inside her bedroom, thinking, seething, planning, cursing, and swearing vengeance on Uranus for the pains he had caused her and the Hecatonchires, all night long.

Morning came and Gaia’s calm returned with it. She came to Uranus’s house and asked him in as sweet a voice as she could muster, “My great Lord Uranus, do you know where the Hecatonchires are?”

Uranus answered, “My dear, why are you concerned with those monstrous beings? Their very sight makes me want to vomit. Let’s be happy that we do not have to endure such hideous sight now.”

“My Lord, ugly as they are, they are no less our children than the others. How could you say such a cruel thing?”

“I still do not wish to be offended by their hideousness any longer. Enough is enough.”

“What did you do with them, my Lord?”

“I hid them out of sight and I do not wish to talk about them any more.”

“But they are my children, and yours, too.”

“That is enough. You shall suffer my wrath if you do not stop now.”

“Where did you hide them, you wicked tyrant?” Everything sweet and soothing that Gaia had planned to say to Uranus went up in flame as her pains and her fiery rage came roaring back.

Suddenly wrathful that he was insulted again, Uranus swung his hand with all his might and struck Gaia in the face. The force of the strike threw Gaia across the plain where Cronus and the other Titans were playing.

Uranus leaped across the plain and landed a few feet from where Gaia laid. He lifted his hand to strike her again.

Inexplicably, despite his fear of his father, Cronus leaped to his mother’s defense and used his body to block the strike. Furious, Uranus punched him in the face, knocking him to the ground.

“Remember what I told you, boy.” Uranus threatened, “I shall not tolerate insubordination.”

Uranus then kicked Cronus in the rib when he was on his hands and knees, struggling to get up. The kick sent Cronus flying more than a mile. The beatings left the other Titans, except Oceanus, cowering behind their mother.

Gaia hissed, and it was a terrible hiss, “Stop the violence, you petty tyrant. Mark my word. Someday we shall have our revenge.”

“I’m much stronger than any of you weaklings.”

“But you are not stronger than all of us.”

Uranus laughed, “Stronger than I? Why don’t you prove it?” He stepped closer to the shaking Titans, and then shoved Oceanus, who was standing his ground, seemingly to challenge them to take him on. “I think not, you pitiful cowering cowards. You disgust me.” He spat on Gaia’s face, sneered at the cowering Titans, and left.

The wickedness and arrogance of Uranus inflamed Gaia and she said to the still-cowering Titans, “Children, your father is a tyrant. He must have hid your brothers the Hecatonchires somewhere deep and dark because their look disgusted him. He hit me because I dared to ask about them. He hit and threatened Cronus because he wanted to protect me. We cannot continue to live in fear and we must not cower any longer. We must free ourselves from his tyranny.”

To which Oceanus answered, “What can we do? He is far stronger than any of us, or even all of us.”

“We do not know that until we stand united and challenge him.”

“That is a risk I do not wish to take. I would rather live the life I have now,” replied Oceanus.

“And suffer the whims of his petty tyranny?”

“He is much too strong. I would rather suffer what I can bear in dignity than risk suffering what I cannot.”

“Until I am strong enough to kill him,” said the bloodied, swollen, and seething Cronus as he rejoined his mother and his still-cowering siblings. For him, the fear of the beatings was much worse than the beatings themselves--they angered rather than frightened him. His patricidal declaration was driven much more by that fuming anger than by his murderous intent, however

“Then I shall not have anything to do with it,” said Oceanus. “Killing our father shall upset the natural order of things, and we do not know what evils shall be released as a consequence.”

“Then step aside. I shall do what needs to be done to rid ourselves of his petty tyranny. We must kill him or we shall never live again in peace,” declared the still-seething Cronus. Again, his response was driven more by empty bravado than by thoughtful considerations. But it did not matter to Gaia. She considered Cronus’s boastful words his unequivocal commitments. She would make sure of it; she had to, for her own sake and that of the Hecatonchires.

“Then I shall help you,” said Gaia. “We have been living under his petty tyranny for too long.”

“I must warn you, Mother, the consequences of your actions shall be severe.”

“Then leave us. We shall do what we must, with or without your help,” answered Gaia.

Oceanus shook his head as he left. He did not realize how prescient his warnings were.