Arkadin kept his eyes closed as he stood on the pedestal, being inspected up and down by Kinisis, the All-Maker. Apart from a couple of hellos, neither of them had said much. Kinisis saw what Arkadin was going through, stood him on the pedestal then began to wander around, trying to work out what the problem was. She had been doing this for a few hours now and Arkadin was getting bored.
Finally, Kinisis snapped her fingers. The sudden noise caught Arkadin by surprise, making him jump slightly.
“You’re depressed.”
“No, really?”
Kinisis glanced up at Arkadin, then snapped her fingers again in front of his face.
“Open your eyes, open your ears and listen. You are depressed. You need to build a new form for yourself and start working on YOU.”
Arkadin grunted, rolling his eyes. “You don’t think I don’t already know that?”
“You do know that but you need someone to tell you that.”
“I’ve been told-”
“A million times before, yes. You’re not listening though. You’re just doing your own shit, lying in bed being depressed. Which I totally get, but you’ll be stuck there forever if you don’t change.”
Arkadin sighed some more, stepping off the pedestal and onto solid ground. “I already know all of that.”
“So why aren’t you doing anything?”
“Because I’ve all but given up. I pull myself together just enough to keep things going because, well, you guys want me to. I keep on going for your sake.”
Kinisis paused, not sure how to respond. “You… live because we want you to?”
“Mostly. The idea of no longer existing, or, more precisely, sleeping forever, is very appealing to me…”
“But?”
“But…” Arkadin closed his eyes, sitting down on the edge of the pedestal. “I couldn’t… I don’t want to hurt anyone. I care about you. I care about Kairos and Epani and Yisini. Kenon is a hateful asshole and I’d kill him myself if you didn’t care for him, but I care about all his new, uh, subjects. I care about everyone else more than me and I would feel… so guilty knowing how you would all be devastated if I left.”
“So…” Kinisis tried to find the right words. “So you guilt-trip yourself into staying alive?”
“Yeah.”
“That’s… we need to fix that… You’re a good boy, you shouldn’t be considering suicide so much…” Kinisis sat down next to Arkadin, thinking to herself. “I take it you are too exhausted for anything too drastic, yes?”
“Yeah…” Arkadin muttered. “I am so tired all the fucking time.”
“Understandable. Common symptom of unhappiness is tiredness. What we need to do is do things step by step. A little thing at a time. So I’m going to give you a few… suggestions to get you started, and we’ll go from there, alright?”
The god of death eyed the goddess of everything awkwardly. “What… do you mean by that?”
Kinisis shifted over, closer to Arkadin. “We’ll work week by week to improve. Because you can’t do everything all at once. You make your bed every morning, right?”
“Uh, not really…” Arkadin stuttered, feeling rather embarrassed.
“It’s fine. We’ll start from there. Here’s the plan: you wake up and you get dressed and you make your bed. You do that every morning. At some point during the day time, you go for a short walk. Doesn’t have to be very far, but you go for a walk. No flying, no running, no gliding. Walking. And you try to go to bed at 11:30pm, universal standard time.”
A look of confusion washed the embarrassment from Arkadin’s face. “Uh… I don’t follow. Is that all you want me to do?”
“For now, yes!” Kinisis smiled. “It took you at least two decades to get like this. Fixing yourself will not be easy, so we’ll just do things, one step at a time!” Kinisis paused briefly, then eyed Arkadin again. “There IS one more thing you can do though. That will make this all easier. Doesn’t need to be right this second, but I’d like you to consider it over the course of this week.”
“What is that?” Arkadin asked, now feeling a bit relieved.
“I want you to design a new form for yourself. Your own look. However you want to be. I won’t judge. But you need a look that isn’t tied to how mortals judge you. Can you do that for me?”
“I’ll… I’ll consider some things…”
“Can you do the other tasks for me? The making of your bed, the short walk, the going to bed early?”
Arkadin nodded. “I will.”
“Good!” Kinisis beamed, patting Arkadin on the back. “Now let’s go cook some dinner, because I’m fucking starving!”