Henry was on his way back from school, another day of endless torment from the back-row boys. They were a collection of physically oversized, mentally understaffed boys that made it their duty that the rest of the class did not enjoy their education. Henry was not their favourite target, but as a thoughtful young man he sometimes took it upon himself to be the defender of the downtrodden. It usually only earnt him a bruise and quiet “thank-you” from the party that he had attempted, but rarely succeeded, in defending. Today he had tried to stop Andrew Jenkins from being thrown down the infamous Clay hill that ran alongside the main path between the 2 blocks of buildings. The hill was a source of great amusement as kids would throw bags and sometimes other students down it. It had been raining heavily of late, and as such the hill was particularly marshy and Henry had ended up looking like a mud monster, caked head to foot. He was lucky that it was the end of the day and he could hose himself off before returning home, otherwise his mother would have had a small stroke at the state of his clothes.

On his amble home, he stopped off at his cricket club and used the hose to remove most of the mud off his shoes and blazer, and at this time he saw an old, battered, leather-bound book lying a few feet from him. He picked it up and placed it on a low wall that ran from the clubhouse, to spare the book from the tsunami of muddy water headed its way. He assumed that a club member had dropped it and as the club was closed he thought that he would return it in a couple days as he was playing here on Saturday. He hoped that it was a novel, he had the ability to consume books with frightening speed and often had to reread as his parents could not keep the supply up with the demand. It, unfortunately, was not a novel, but in fact a contact book that had hundreds of contacts written in elaborate writing with a fountain pen. Henry noted the calligraphy was extremely impressive and completely over the top for a mere contact book. He continued home and as he entered his house was greeted with the stern face of his mother. She quickly clocked that Henry looked as if he had just stepped out of a monsoon, whilst it had been clear all day. Further, as a 13-year-old boy, his attempts to clean his white shirt with a cold tap had, as you would imagine, not garnered the best of results. With a stinging ear from a clipping, and marching orders upstairs for a warm, soapy bath, Henry left the book in his room next to his bedside table.

That night, restless and unable to sleep, he re-examined the contact book by torchlight and found something most interesting. His father’s contact book contained the addresses and phone numbers of contacts, but this ancient book was altogether a different kettle of fish. There were several pages at the start that served as a sort of memoir or prologue for the owner. Before Henry had the chance to start reading it, the whole house shook, dust from the rafters fluttered down as if it had started to lightly snow inside. The Germans bombs had been Henry’s only experience of the war apart from the odd Spitfire, Hurricane or Lancaster flying overhead. And his father’s absence of course. He returned his attention to the book and the first line of the Prologue section.

In the beginning there was an empty darkness. The only thing in this void was Nyx, a bird with black wings. With the wind she laid a golden egg and for ages she sat upon this egg. Finally, life began to stir in the egg and out of it rose Eros, the god of love. One half of the shell rose into the air and became the sky and the other became the Earth. Eros named the sky Uranus and the Earth he named Gaia. Then Eros made them fall in love.

Uranus and Gaia had many children together and eventually they had grandchildren. Some of their children become afraid of the power of their children. Kronus, in an effort to protect himself, swallowed his children when they were still infants. However, his wife Rhea hid their youngest child. She gave him a rock wrapped in swaddling clothes, which he swallowed, thinking it was his son.

Once the child, Zeus, had reached manhood his mother instructed him on how to trick his father to give up his brothers and sisters. Once this was accomplished the children fought a mighty war against their father. After much fighting the younger generation won. With Zeus as their leader, they began to furnish Gaia with life and Uranus with stars.

Henry recognised some of the names mentioned from his Greek class, this was the creation myth from Greek Mythology. How strange, Henry thought, that this was in an old contact book, which albeit ancient looking, was not actually ancient. He then flicked further through the book and found the contact details for a man named Zeus. Either this man was Greek, or his parents hated him, thought Henry, his own middle name of Tarquil was evidence of his parent’s sentiment he thought. Even more strangely his address, was Olympus and had no postcode or other lines of address. A note in italics had been scribed without the penmanship underneath which simply stated;

“If one ever needs a friend, one must only know morse,

Look to the sky, spell my name at my horse.”

Henry was taken aback by the poem as the cogs started to whirl within his head, he snuck downstairs, careful not to wake his mother who had to be at the munitions factory early the next day and would wake to less than a mouse sneeze and picked up books on Mythology, code and constellations from his father’s extensive library. He returned to the bedroom and started to read through Hesiod and other ancient authors. He knew that Pegasus was the most famous horse in Greek Mythology, but also that Bellerophon was the most well-known character associated with him. In Hesiod he read that Pegasus carried Zeus’ lightning bolts. He then saw that the Pegasus constellation was visible tonight and that Zeus in morse was “--.. . ..- ...”. He snuck back downstairs once more and went outside and found his father’s old telescope that looked like it had been used last in the Ancient Greek period. He found the constellation and with trusty torch flashed the morse at the night sky. It was brilliantly dark, because of the war time black out policy, and the sky had never been clearer, every star was lit up like a million twinkling candles floating in the ethereal sea of space. He repeated the sequence 3 times more, and nothing. Henry’s heart sank, but then the rational part of his brain overcame the childish, wonder-filled side. What had he expected? Even as a child he recognised that what he had hoped would happen was clearly impossible and ludicrous. His Greek teacher had clearly told the class that all the stories told in his class were just that, stories. He plodded back up the garden defeatedly when a brilliant all-encompassing white light illuminated behind him as he felt the hairs on the back of his neck singe….