The Other One

The Other One

“Miss Johnson!  Would you please stop staring off into space and pay attention to me?” 

Professor Allarde looked very upset, and Marie tried to keep her attention on him, and his lecture.

“Where were you today, instead of helping your classmates at the dig?”

Marie looked down at the camera she clutched in her hands and told the professor, “I needed to get away for awhile.  I was so hot, and just...well, I needed a break.  So I went hiking.  Up in the mountains.”

“And took one of our trucks without permission, too, didn’t you?”

“Yes, sir.” 

Marie was trying very hard to stay calm, but it was getting harder by the minute.  It wasn’t as if she had killed somebody, or something terrible like that!  But she kept her face composed, kept her temper, and most importantly of all, kept her grip on the camera.

Professor Allarde continued on with the lecture for another twenty minutes or so, and then finished with a threat of dropping her from the dig.  Since Archeology was her major at the University, the professor evidently thought that this was a sufficient threat to keep her in line.  She nodded to everything he said, and at the first opportunity, fled back to her tent.

When she got there Marie grabbed her car keys, threw all of her belongings into her huge backpack and walked as fast as she could to her car, all the time keeping her precious camera in her hand.  She didn’t notice the professor staring after her with his mouth hanging open in surprise.  Tossing her things into the back seat, everything except the camera, Marie turned the key, threw the car into drive and took off for Salt Lake City and the nearest Wal-Mart.

While she was waiting for her pictures to be developed, Marie drove back over to the University of Utah and managed to talk her way into an immediate appointment with her advisor.

“Mrs. Nichols, how do I go about changing my major?”

“What department, dear?”

“Um, Humanities, I think.  I want to change over to Mythology.  Greek Mythology.”

“Not much of a future in that, Marie.  Can you tell me why you want to change so suddenly?  You were enjoying archeology so much!”

“Uh...I just need a change.  I like mythology.”

“Your choice, dear.  Fill out these papers.”

Later that night, Marie sat in her room at the dorm and stared at the pictures she had taken deep in the cave up in the Wasatch Mountains.  She was sure that no one had been in that cave for a very, very long time.  She looked at the body of the man lying on the stone slab.  He had a crown on his head, a long beard, and something like a lightning bolt in his right hand.  He was wearing a short chiton and had sandals on his feet.  He wasn’t all withered like you’d expect a dead man to be...just looked asleep!  And he looked exactly like an old picture she’d seen of an old Greek god...Zeus was his name.

Marie was sure that if she stayed in archeology she would never get a chance to explore the cave and the people in it for herself.  You practically had to be ancient to run a dig and get credit for anything you found.  Even if the other archeologists even believed in her find.  She would have much better luck if she got her degree in mythology...or maybe ancient history.  Then she could go back up into that cave and claim everything up there...and publish things, too.  Before she was ancient, herself. 

Marie was so glad she’d decided to go hiking on Mount Olympus this afternoon.  Who knew?



For Writer's Cramp; Prompt: While exploring a remote area, you make a discovery that will turn the world of archeology on its head. What's the discovery, and how do you handle it?