Zeus was a cruel god to mortals. He was also a cruel husband and an abusive father. Take his treatment of his son Ares for example. When the god of war was only a few hundred thousand years old, he enjoyed listening to new wave and electronic music. He would line the walls of his bedroom with posters of bands such as Bronski Beat, Alphaville, Tears For Fears and his favourite band of all … The Pet Shop Boys.
That was until Zeus kicked down the door, ranting coincidentally, with an Aussie Greek accent, about Ares listening to 'bloody funny malaka' music. Zeus stormed across Ares' bedroom. He tore down the posters from the walls and smited the A-track ghetto blaster with a thunder bolt that rendered Ares' source of joy, happiness and escape from his oppressive father, into a pile of black molten plastic slag.
It was during this particular episode of abuse that Zeus discovered fingernail polish and a vial of mascara in Ares' bedside drawer. Ares claimed that his sister Aphrodite used his room to pretty herself up and that by accident, she must have left the beauty products in his drawer by mistake.
Fortunately, Zeus believed Ares' excuse (because he had to believe Ares' excuse) and even more fortunately, he didn't continue to search Ares' room … and find the 774 B.C. Firefighters from Sparta calendar, let alone the scrolls containing illustrations of athletes competing in old school Olympic events, hidden under Ares' mattress.
However, the damage was done and it was on that day, that Zeus forced Ares to become the god of war. To promote a healthy mindscape, Zeus ensured the walls of Ares' bedroom were lined with posters of 1980's action stars and bodybuilding athletes.
Ares was quietly okay with this but not with the choice of music that Zeus forced him to listen to instead of that 'bloody funny malaka sooky boy crap'. After conjuring up a new ghetto blaster shaped like a skull with glowing red lamps in the eye sockets, Zeus conjured up a tape deck consisting of an assortment of the hardest coreist and deathiest of death metal bands: Cannibal Corpse, Crptopsy, Suffocation, Decapitated, Gorguts, Dying Fetus, so on and so forth. As a result, Ares' mental health took a deep dive six into the fiery pits of Hades.
Zeus was even more brutal when it came to the treatment of his daughter Eris. He constantly reminded her that as the goddess of chaos, strife and discord, she was a no-hoper … and that she'd probably end up barefoot and pregnant … up the duff following an encounter with some 'no-hoper mortal on Newstart allowance from Centrelink' or some other 'mortal twat with pie in the sky ideas of getting rich quick'.
At this point in her eternal existence, Eris had no love for her father or for life for that matter. One of the rare moments of joy was when she took all of her rage, anguish and heartache and turned it into something wonderful … from the fires of her pottery wheel rose a brilliant phoenix in the righteous form of Bloke the Bulldog.
Naturally, when her beloved Bloke took a stand against Zeus and whizzed on his favourite slippers and was sent to the Celestial Pound to be euthanised, Eris was devasted … beyond devasted. For a thousand years she wallowed in misery, lying in bed, eating chocolate, ice cream and endless bags of chips while watching old sit coms like Will & Grace, Friends and Buffy the Vampire Slayer. For a thousand years more, she stumbled drunk and aimlessly around the halls of Olympus, carrying near empty bottles of Merlo. It took another thousand years before she channelled her depression into the creation of a new pet.
So, it was on that fateful Sunday evening before the Monday grind for most mortals, that Eris sat once again in front of her pottery wheel. This time, she wasn't consumed with rage and yearning for freedom but drowning in melancholy, depression and nihilism. A cloud of apathetic hopelessness shrouded her psyche like polluted clouds of fog over Jakarta or Hanoi.
The very fibre of her hyperdimensional being was soaked in vindictive hatred for the muscle bound malevolent macho nacho that she had to accept as her father. Worst of all, she was temporarily possessed with an intense loathing and seething hatred for life, the pan cosmos and everything.
While listening repeatedly to Jo Le Taxi by Vanessa Paradis, Eris conjured energies that she morphed and mutated on her pottery wheel. Her mindset was offkey and she was beyond emotionally compromised. She engaged in the wrong kind of channelling of suffering, anguish and negativity. Consumed with such negativity, the energies she conjured were dark, malevolent and diabolically evil. Unlike her first creation where Eris was able to take her pain and transmute it into love and joy, on this occasion, her pain was only amplified, concentrated and coalesced into a single point in space and time where pure chaos, pure evil, could emerge.
And thus, the brother of Bloke the Bulldog was spawned and he was not a good boy. In fact, he was a bad egg … a very, very bad egg. He was the complete opposite to Bloke in every way imaginable. Eyes like glowing coals. Mangy black fur instead of well groomed brown, spiteful instead of forgiving, sorrowful instead of joyful, depraved instead of altruistic, ignorant instead of omniscient, narcissistic instead of selfless, French instead of British and evil instead of good. Worst of all was his dress sense, black beret, beige cargo shorts and a purple Hawaiian shirt tied up at the front to expose his pot belly. A rolled cigarette drooped from his mouth.
The first thing this newly spawned humaniform canine, this, just under two feet of bipedal French Bulldog did, was to promptly squat and dump a stinker on Eris' pottery wheel. As Eris sat frozen in a state of shock, panic, anguish and disbelief the nasty little Frenchie flipped Eris the bird and then jumped off the wheel.
"Espèce d'ignoble salope stupide," the French Bulldog growled, before he spat on Eris' floor. He walked out of her room.
The pottery wheel melted in the wake of the Frenchie's toxic dump.
While Lacrim by Gustavo Gaviria, boomed from the home stereo system, Fabien strolled down the hallway with a gait akin to a total toss, something like the walk of Connor Macgregor, until he stopped at the front of Ares' bedroom. The black French Bulldog placed an ear against the door.
Even though the 'God of War' was wearing ear buds and secretly listening to Do You Want To Hurt Me by Culture Club, the Frenchie could hear it.
In disgust he growled before taking a whiz on Ares' bedroom door. It was the kind of whiz in volume and spray that would make a fire hose blush. It burned a hole clean through.
Reminiscent of Jack Nicholson in The Shining, the black French Bulldog rammed his head through the hole and snarled at a surprised Ares, "Mange de la merde, connard d'homo," he said before he pulled back his head and walked on instinctively towards Zeus' home gym, where he found the god doing 12 reps of four and a half, million, billion tonne deadlifts with plates fashioned from neutronium. From the mirrors, Zeus saw the black French Bulldog standing at the doorway, staring at him. The Frenchie let out a series of nonchalant barks in seemingly uninterested and indifferent triumph.
Hypnotised by the narcotic effect of being in the presence of pure smugness, unbridled evil, Zeus smiled and in Aussie Greek, beckoned the Frenchie to come to him. The French Bulldog complied. Zeus turned, kneeled, picked up and cradled the Frenchie, his new pet … poor deluded Zeus.
Finally, he thought, Eris actually did something good for a change.
As Zeus rubbed his belly in morbid, hypnotic affection for such an abomination, the black French Bulldog knew that he had found his pawn and his putrid place in the pan cosmos. His dark eyes glistened in wickedness … and let my evil reign begin, he mused.
Meanwhile somewhere in the pan cosmos…
Cruising on the fuselage of Rodney Red Rocket as they rode the gravitational sling shot of a rainbow-coloured gas giant, Bloke the Bulldog shuttered in horror. Something evil, something wicked had coalesced into existence. Something so concentrated in diabolical intent that it was as if pure chaos, pure evil, had willed itself into creation.
There is an infinitely great disturbance in the great balance of all that is all … Bloke thought, great suffering, chaos and discord for all, was now inevitable. It was the revelation of the end times, the dusk of the dharma ending period, the beginning of the great Ragnarök that would threaten to tear down the very foundations of the pan cosmos.
Fabien the Frenchie had finally spawned and was unleashed to cause unbelievable chaos and hardship. Bloke foresaw a series of great battles ahead and a war that would inflict immeasurable loss upon the forces of good. It seemed the outcome was certain and that ultimately, evil would prevail.
However, Bloke was somewhat, infinitely wise. He knew that it was better to raise a pen against the great evil and stand strong in the face of overwhelmingly probable defeat. Better to fight for what was right and perish than to live an existence where one compromised their values for the false security blanket of cowardice. Better to die in a blaze of uncompromising glory than to live in the gutter as a pitiful husk.
Don't let a wishbone replace a backbone, mused Bloke the Bulldog.
What the pan cosmos needed was a brave, courageous force of good. Custodians to cast the light of honour, dignity, justice and all that was good. Heroes who would set sail across the stars, preaching the gospel of 'the greater goodness'.
Warriors of light who would not hesitate to charge headstrong into those metaphorical caves of evil and castrate the cockles from the dragons of chaos.
So, it was in his omniscience that Bloke the Bulldog pondered the location in realm, time and space for the creation of such a race of brave, intelligently just harbingers of light.
"Oi Rodney mate," he said to his red rocket pal, "set course for the Blokesverse, 21st century Primordial Earth, we must pay a visit to an Uber-Awesome Industries laboratory."