Dave Loves Alexis

Introduction

A warning to you - this introduction contains significant spoiler information. If you are the type of reader who dislikes spoilers and wants to experience a story with as little preface as possible, then I definitely recommend you skip the rest of this introduction and start reading chapter one. However, if you’re a person who enjoys a story all the more when armed with foreknowledge of what is to come, then you’ll want to read the rest of this introduction before starting this story.

The story of Cassandra was a favorite of the ancient Greeks, as so, some of them recorded it. Each told Cassandra’s tale somewhat differently, with contradicting elements among their accounts.

Additionally, the veracity of Cassandra’s life is unclear, not only due to the differing portrayals of her story, but also because people today assume her tale was fictional myth and not true history. People today think, ‘If something never occurred, if Cassandra never was, there is no truth to get wrong.’

I am not one of those people. I believe Cassandra did live and she did have (as preposterous as it is for us “moderns” to believe) the ability to predict the future. I think the most salient reason Cassandra’s life was never accurately recorded was because her story was never told by a woman. If you think about it this makes sense. Who would have been most able and best qualified to properly tell the story of a woman who could see into the future, but would never be believed? Would not a woman be better at telling that? And even so, if an ancient Greek woman had actually told the story of Cassandra without misstep or error, who would have read it or listened to her at the time anyway?

Those depressing musings aside, some of the truth of Cassandra can be gleaned as just about every ancient Greek text agrees upon a few things about her, and so we will start with those. Cassandra was the daughter of King Priam of Troy during the time of the Trojan War, and she was very beautiful. That she was gifted the power of prophecy is also not in doubt, although some attributed its conception to scared, temple snakes who licked her ears one night as she slept, while others held it was granted by the god Apollo, as he desired to partake of her charms. Regardless of how she came into the power of prophecy, all agree that when Cassandra ultimately rejected Apollo’s advances, he turned the blessing into a curse (as divine gifts can never be revoked) by simply amending it in that no one would ever believe her predictions. This, of course, caused tragic misfortune for all. Most of the writers of old agree this was a despicable thing for Apollo to do, which is saying something considering the misogynistic times in which they lived. Lastly, all agree this eventually made Cassandra insane.

She made many predictions, most were warnings of approaching doom. Each time she was dismissed, but in every instance her vision came true.

Now I know what you’re thinking and that is, ‘That is so stupid. Wouldn’t the ancient Greeks have wised up to the fact that all of her predictions were coming true, and so at some point they would have started to heed her words? Such a ridiculous thing wouldn’t happen in our times, right?’

I think it could and quite easily. For instance, have you ever been out to dinner with a woman and realized that since you ordered, you haven’t listened to any of the banal, pointless details of her day she been blathering on about, but instead you have thought solely about when the hell your turkey, pesto panini and spicy curly fries are forthcoming? Or how about when you need directions, do you not look for the first withered, gray haired man, while ignoring every baby faced, wrinkle free female who gets in your way beforehand? Do we take advice from women when a man says otherwise? Are our times really so different? What would we really do if a woman similar to Cassandra was somehow passed over to our times? If a woman like Cassandra were born millennia later, as a millennial, and she claimed to know the future, would we not think her insane? Would we listen to her or would we pass over her as well?

I know a woman who is a lot like Cassandra. She lives today. Her name is Alexis and the following is but a part of her tale. I’m sorry that I, as a man, have to tell it; and because of this you can guarantee that I got some of it wrong. But all this doesn’t really matter, for I’m sure that very few of you will believe it, and I’m sure many years from now, no person older than thirteen will believe any of it. Indeed, those future readers will probably doubt if Alexis existed at all. I’m sure Alexis’s story will become a myth just like Cassandra’s story of old - a myth told by an old man, believed in by only a handful of children, about a young, beautiful and tormented woman, who was but a plaything of the gods and men.