Short Story: Menelaus
ACT I: MENELAUS, THE KING
Money. Family. Business. Career. Life. Life as we know it. Each one was so real, so precious. Life is tangible and measurable if we see it this way. I am one of you — Mea Culpa.
Then came Menelaus into my life. My new friend, Ivan Petroski, sent me a picture. He has known me only for a few days, but there is something about his photography that I, the poet and the author, connect so well with. He sends me a picture of Menelaus.
Menelaus. The name is familiar. After a quick thought, I pull out a paperback copy of Homer’s Iliad from my home library and look it up for Menelaus.
Menelaus. The Spartan King. The younger son of Atreus. The younger brother of Agamemnon. The husband of the beautiful Helen. The unaccepted Lord of Achilles. The nemesis of Troy.
Menelaus. The one who wins back. The People’s Wrath. He lives a long life and is a silent immortal in the Iliad. The venerated Greek Gods could not stop him. But he is always the valorous victor. He is listless but a braveheart, although not as heroic as Hector or Achilles, or vain like Paris, but a king who lived for real — kingdom, people, wife, war, victory.
A king. A person who is born to rule. Privileged, you might think. Kings learn to fight — kick and be kicked, hit and be hit, but end up as the last person standing. If a prince wants to become a king, he must vanquish his siblings — the other pretenders for the throne. Your brothers are your enemies. Your father might choose another one. And once you become a king, you are worried about your generals, subjects, and fellow kings. You deploy spies and armies. You go out to war, annexing more land and people. Then when you seek peace, you breed or be entertained. Of course, the art and buildings, the welfare measures — the whole package.
Take my namesake — Ashoka. The emperor created the symbols of India, the modern nation I live in. He was abhorred by his father. He killed his brothers and burned his Master. He fought, won, and destroyed Kalinga to access the Eastern Sea and plunder the abundance of the East. Yet, the war seemed to slow the rest of his life down and he turned to religion, sculpture, and journaling.
I think of asking Menelaus the king, and Ashoka the Emperor this: Were the lives that they lived and I read today, in the hardcopy in my library and as find as symbols of my country, worth it?
I lie down on my bed and toss the Iliad aside. The pages flap fleetingly and fold, whilst the curved cover waves defiantly in the fan breeze.
Real-life people, money, bills, businesses, taxes, families, relations — how artificial they are? Success, therefore has more definitions and parents; and failures breed more orphans. Failure to pay a bill, to clear an exam, or to win a competition. Parents and peers gloating over wins and sulking over failures. Young minds are saddled with pressure to win — watered-down versions of Menelaus, the King, and Ashoka, the Emperor.
Our lives are defined by those wins and dismissed by those failures. People create new pathways and categories for binary outcomes that define our lives. I have seen almost all parents gloat over their kid's success. Mea Culpa, again.
At some point, life would have been a lot simpler. The fabric of life would be simple and not like the complicated weaves we adorn today.
My thoughts turn to the lesser, more unknown namesakes of Menelaus and Ashoka. I move to my study and open my computer. There it is, on my screen. The other Menelaus.
ACT II: MENELAUS, THE INSECT
I look at Ivan’s photograph. I have never met this Menelaus for real, except behind a glass wall. Alive and then slowly fluttering like the beats of a warm, calm heart, the Menelaus sits regally on my screen.
The white and black beard radiates and morphs into a bluish tinge, as the serrated blue wings gleam and shine, slowly filling my eyes with its iridescence. The ridges and curves, the diffraction caused by the slow bending of the wings, and the silken, smooth, feathery patterns slowly captivate my being.
What the peacock or parakeet is to a bird, the butterfly is to an insect. They are beautiful, colorful and magical. They are the royal insects.
The other day, I walked along the garden path in my apartment, of course, talking to some colleagues about business on my phone, till I came across a bouquet. Or I thought so. Beautiful, fluttering, as if the petals of flowers had gained voluntary motor skills. They were a clutch of grass yellows, huddled in the moist part of a trunk.
I stopped for a moment and ended my call. The grass yellows stuck close together as if they were in a restful trance. I dared not disturb them. I watched them in awe. From the beautifully painted park swings of my apartment, with my droopy eyes weighing like lead after a good lunch, I have seen grass yellows hobble in the gentle summer afternoon breeze of Chennai, that too after the gardeners water our sprawling lawn. But to see them like this, so many bunched together was a dream come together.
Ivan’s photo is very similar, except that this is a beautiful picture of blue Morpho Menelaus butterflies clutched together. The photo has been clicked in the remotest part of the Amazon rainforest.
I close my screen and dress up quickly, wanting to see if the garden yellows assemble like that. It is late afternoon on a harsher summer day. I see the gardener, now settling down on the park sidewalk, untangling and shaking out the red towel he wears as a headgear. He looks at me with weary eyes that seem to say — ‘Now what?’ I wave at him cheerily and rush to the spot.
At the very spot I had seen the cluster a week ago, I cannot see any, except a couple of them flapping their wings lazily. My excitement turns to dismay.
I rush back to the gardener who has now arranged himself in a comfortable position, lying on the red towel. ‘Anna (brother), where did the cluster vanish?’
‘The butterflies hop out in the afternoon, sir. They like the smell of petrichor, and so they realize that the flowers will wake up once more before sundown starts at about 4 pm. I need to sleep now and do the rounds once more. If you will excuse me, sir.’ He closes his eyes signaling the end of the conversation.
The unusual afternoon jaunt to the garden has exhausted me — not because I am weak, but because of the scorching sun that did not spare a second to suck my juices. It is almost a kilometer walk in this treacherous weather from my apartment to the garden, mind you.
I walk back to my room and set myself against the propped pillows of my couch. This is my siesta spot. My family knows my routine, except they did not note my disappearance for half an hour. Fine, time for my afternoon siesta.
ACT III: MENELAUS, THE DREAM
I close my eyes — Menelaus of the Iliad and Ashoka of the Maurya dynasty have long disappeared. The human creations — kingdoms and wars, thrones and crowns, bills and taxes, families and friends, blood, sweat and tears, successes and failures — all fade into the mysterious blue of the Menelaus, the Butterfly.
Ashok, you are now Menelaus. The Butterfly. Neither your namesake, the Emperor, nor the Butterflies namesake, the King. Ah, the proverbial escape from reality, you might think. Call it what you may.
If you have blues about the Blue — the sky, the ocean, or Menelaus (the new me), then ask Carl Sagan. He will tell you that the world changed with that one photograph perhaps forever, of our home. Our Earth was photographed for the first time in 1972. It turned out that Earth looks like a blue marble. Now, if you are living in a blue marble suspended without any support, floating in the infiniteness of ether, would it be a far cry to think that you are a floating object in the infiniteness of blue?
Ah, the escape from reality. If your very existence cocooned in homes and families and nations, is part of this blue marble, floating and circumambulating around an exploding ball of fire, just out of its harm’s way and that can just about sustain you and me, what would you call the life as we see it — society, family, career, money, progeny? In reality, I would say that these are distractions from the real miracle, the very miracle that you are alive to experience the ride on the blue marble and its magic.
The other question that comes to your mind. I read you. Why an insect? Ah, I am not Gregor Samsa. I did not closet in my room and turn out to be that monstrous vermin and struggle with my six legs. I am dreaming here — dreaming of a beautiful blue butterfly and adept at imbibing my new avatar.
I am convinced I am Menelaus, even if I am called Ashok. Ashok, that is Menelaus, that’s a blue butterfly. The kings are gone, and only I, the blue butterfly remain, today, at present. I also am aware that I am sleeping and dreaming — dreaming the blue. See, I am still aware of where I am in. I am a human with two feet, dreaming about a winged insect — a big, beautiful, blue butterfly.
This dream is about how two kings, a Spartan, and a Mauryan, suddenly transform into these blue-winged creatures, flying across the blue seas and blue skies towards the blue horizon, and up and away circling the blue dot that is the Earth. It is an all-blue dream and no other color exists. Slowly, I drift into this blue-blue land.
The blue is the illusion of the sky. It is the color of oceans. The two blues — the sky and the ocean blue meld into a thin line at the horizon; beyond which I wonder if there are more blue worlds. The nether that soaks in the azure and the indigo and everything in between, dipping into the infinity. Slowly I take wings — blue, feathery wings, wide like the sky and the ocean, yet flapping and fluttering like an eagle, floating in the breeze and drifting the wind, towards the horizon.
ACT IV: MENELAUS, THE REALITY ( ZHUANGZI)
Every afternoon has its evening. Every sleep has its wake. Every dream has its reality. Time flows through these stakes unencumbered, in one direction, like how the rivers flow into the sea — the blue, endless body of water that gives the planet its color. If my dream were to flow like a river and end up in the endless sea of reality, then logically — I should wake up in the endless blue. So, I do.
Oh well, I have heard in my motivational classes, and success coaches talking about how configuring and training mindsets, dreaming about goals, and visioning sets us on a path to achieving. What we conceive and believe, we achieve. Heard that before, right?
So, if I wanted to be and dream of being a butterfly I should end up becoming one, right? When I wake up, I see the blue sky and oceans, and I look at myself. Blue feathery wings much like how I have seen in Ivan’s picture and that restful, slow flapping in my state of rest.
As a butterfly, I understand the language of flowers. I understand flowery languages too. Poetry, I mean, in all languages. In that way, it looks like I can listen to Chinese too. A Chinese-literate Greek-named butterfly dreaming about a Mauryan-named human. A truly global creature spanning timelines and continents.
Zhuang Zhou’s book Zhuangzi contains a beautiful story, similar to mine. I open another tab on my browser, flipping Ivan’s photo away, and open the ‘Butterfly Dream’.
昔者莊周夢為胡蝶，栩栩然胡蝶也，自喻適志與。不知周也。
Once, Zhuang Zhou dreamed he was a butterfly, a butterfly flitting and fluttering about, happy with himself and doing as he pleased. He didn’t know that he was Zhuang Zhou.俄然覺，則蘧蘧然周也。不知周之夢為胡蝶與，胡蝶之夢為周與。周與胡蝶，則必有分矣。此之謂物化。
Suddenly he woke up and there he was, solid and unmistakable Zhuang Zhou. But he didn’t know if he was Zhuang Zhou who had dreamt he was a butterfly, or a butterfly dreaming that he was Zhuang Zhou. Between Zhuang Zhou and the butterfly, there must be some distinction! This is called the Transformation of Things.— Zhuangzi, chapter 2 Watson translation
If I were to tell you that I am Menelaus, but Zhuang Zhou is, in a sense, me, now you won’t be surprised. Instead of hopping from flower to flower, I have chased the blue skies and oceans, and have dipped myself in blue. Now, I am awake, and I am a butterfly. And of course, I think I have been the lesser namesake, Ashok.
Menelaus, the butterfly ( that is me) is now dreaming about Ashok, the human. This is the reality, or could it be?
I don’t know, and for me, I am a butterfly dreaming about the human, who in turn has to do this.
ACT V: MENELAUS, THE PHILOSOPHY
Descartes, the French Mathematician, builds on the dichotomy between sleeping and waking, and dreams and reality, exploring Zhuang Zhou’s philosophy further. In his book, ‘Meditations of First Philosophy’, he expatiates this theory about ‘I think (or dream), therefore I exist’. (That is what the success coaches tell us.)
Picking the thread, I am a Morpho Menelaus butterfly, dreaming about being Ashok. I laugh. What a dream! Or What a reality! If you were me, would you dream of paying bills and taxes? I am sure, I won’t. Complicated stuff.
I don’t want to be Menelaus, my namesake and the King, or worse, Ashoka, the Emperor and the more well-known version of the subject of my current dream, Ashok.
At some point, I would wish that I didn’t dream of ‘humans’. I would rather be the butterfly that never dreamt or a human that never woke up to this life.
Money. Family. Business. Career. Life. Life as we know it. Each one was so real, so precious. Life is tangible and measurable if we see it this way. I am one of you — Mea Culpa.
I laugh and laugh. I float slowly into the blue and find my flock of blue-winged friends. We slowly settle down as a cluster to exchange our dreams. My turn will come. I will talk about Ashok, the human.
-THE END-
Ashok Subramanian © 2024
