The Golden Box and Its Hidden Treasure - Part 4
That night as she lay beside her husband in bed, the moon played its shadows across the room. Tree branches swayed lightly in the breeze, playing a game of dark and light with the moon. Pandora rested uneasily. She fell asleep but nightmares assaulted her one after the other. When she awoke, she lay still and afraid to go back to sleep. She could not forget the golden box and its secret treasure, no matter how far she had buried it in the ground. It was as if it called out to her from its tomb.
She could no longer resist. She would find out what the contents of the golden box were. Hermes had been teasing her all along - he wanted her to know what was inside and he wanted her to thank him for the gift.
Irresistibly drawn to the middle of the garden, she knelt down and dug the heavy wooden chest up with her bare hands, breaking all her fingernails. Her hair loosened from its ribbon so it fell wildly about her anguished face.
Her fingers bled as she yanked away the chains from the chest. Finally, the golden box lay unencumbered in her hands but it sent a chill into her very bones. Pandora was in such a hurry, she didn't even bother to stroke the box or linger over the beautiful jewels. She unlocked the box, and like a child opening a much-expected present, flipped open the lid.
Absolute darkness suddenly shrouded her. Terror gripped her as the smell of decay reached her nostrils. She screamed as a million set of wings flew from the box all about her before they flew off. The things, ugly even in the near darkness, kept coming from the box. And coming. They looked like spiders and lizards built into the same body and shrieked an ear-piercing noise.
Fear of what she had done and what the ugly creatures were had paralyzed Pandora. Before the last flew out, she recovered her senses enough to slam the lid down. She collapsed on the ground where Epimetheus found her as dawn broke.
He hardly made out what she said. It was all gibberish to him. Pandora's lips were blue from the cold and she spoke too fast and out of breath. "That was a trick. The box, it held all the ills of the world. Diseases of every sort, sadness, rage, anger, old age, fearful
Latest Articles