Medea Unbound - excerpt

I’ve once heard someone say that some people come forth into this world if only but to suffer; to be consumed in a colorless and joyless life before passing away. One could point out that also I am one of these unfortunate souls, someone cursed by the gods, and one could be no farther away from the truth. I’m talking about the real truth, not the one you know, not the one you’ve read in your school books and you saw performed time and again in theaters all over the world. My name is Medea, and those of you who expect to read here, through these lines, the confession of a woman who has a lot of apologies to offer, which bows down her head with fake humility and says she’s sorry, will be miserably disappointed. No, my darlings, I bare no guilts and have no crimes for which I wish to confess, and I’m definitely not going to waste my time in unwarranted tears in order to ask for your forgiveness and beg your sympathy, as a woman found guilty by a jury consisting of reasonable beings and not by a stupid man’s words. I will never become a human rag for your or for anybody else’s sake. I will never allow you to walk all over me and to steal the only things I am left with in this graceless world of yours, my voice and my dignity. The way you see me; how you perceive me; these things don’t matter. I’m certainly not as tragic a figure as you make me to be. No, a tragic figure I am not, but that of course you cannot see, since your tellingly beautiful eyes covers the mist of thousands of years of lies. Do you want to talk about tragedy? Then talk about Prometheus, for he, the gods’ pauper, has truly been a cursed and tragic being. But let him be. All I’m trying to say is that I’m not writing these lines, as on a papyrus leaf or some dusted paper of old, to say I’m sorry, but alas, to tell you my story, to make you learn, whether you like it or not, my own truth, the only truth; the one that the ancient authors with their rotten minds, did not write as it was, but as they wanted it to be. That’s exactly how I came to be, through their distortions and lies, the most hated woman in the world, an abomination of nature, somebody even worse than that idiot with the young Beatles' haircut, Cleopatra. The world, you know (do you?), was created by women; it has grown out of our collective womb. The only thing men did was write down its history and well, as you can all see, they did a great job of blowing things up and out of proportion. Their ancient lies became your modern truths. Their modern lies have become the dreams, or rather the nightmares, of tomorrow. Oh, I see that I’ve managed to get you upset or excited? Which one is it? Does it really matter? Calm down now, just calm down. Relax. This is only the beginning. There’s a lot left for you to read yet, a lot to learn. Some of these things will sound crazy, paranoid, in some peoples’ ears, but these at least should know that the walls that stand between logic and folly are way too thin, too transparent, just like those that separate truths and lies. Do you really think that it’s purely by chance that for centuries on end they kept, and still keep, teaching you the same false myth? Do you? But, just before I start pouring into your souls the venom of truth I’ll have to take a moment to pause and to warn you: beware, during my so-called apology there’ll be times that I’ll make you angry and indignant, while at others I’ll make you form on your now tight lips a bitter or even ironic smile. While you’ll be reading all that I’ve written, time and again you’ll think of me as a common liar, a blasphemous creature, as the first and most famous of all the whores. But, hear me when I tell you this, no matter what you feel and what you think, please do not give up the reading of this manuscript, which has crossed eons of pain and pleasure to reach your hands, before the very end. Because it is exactly at that point that the light of truth will shine through and illuminate your senses, and that all the myths, or at least most of them, will come tumbling down. If some of you can already feel in your blood your forefathers’ past exploding like a glass-tower and falling to pieces, worry not; for where there was naught, naught there will still be, whether you believe me or not.

To be continued