text: I was 13 when she disappeared, presumed dead. And that day, a piece of me was rewritten. Taken, my destiny changed, and given back. My grandmother and I were always close. The closest, ever since my parents also met her fate. Though our relationship wasn’t like others. A duty has been passed down our lineage. Gone through generations. A gift. The Artist of Deities. This was who my grandmother was. What I am now. The role of a mortal artist with gods as their muses, gifted the freedom to draw blindfolded through sacrifice. In an old vineyard at the edge of a hill surrounded by trees, overlooking the most barren of lands that seems to stretch on for miles and miles, ancient muses dwell where others bleed. These gods grant our pleas, gift us blessings. Ancient beings of immense power. Though through great power comes great sacrifice. My grandmother left in my possession items and clear instructions on how to fulfil my role, my duty as Artist. Isolde, Artist of Deities. A blindfold. Stained with red blotches on one side and wrinkled at the ends. A notebook. I’m not allowed to see the pages that have been drawn on, and it’s said to never run out of space. As much as my curiosity kills me, the rules were strict, concise and clear with her. A blade, etched with carvings on the metal and stained with red in the grooves. And a pen, more a quill, possessing the smooth feel of bone. The ink is always provided for the Artist, it never has to be supplied. All were necessities to take out my duty. Whenever I needed to draw, I’d bring a sacrifice, something possessing a beating heart, to an old vineyard, surrounded by a forest, once again overlooking a barren land. I’ve never seen it for myself, only descriptions that came from my grandmother, and the Artist before her. No Artist of Deities is allowed to take off the blindfold once at the edge of the vineyard. To protect them who dwell. The offering is a gift for the gods, something to remind them one mortal still cares for the existence they give us. And when it does not suffice, one must present the heart on a bed of leaves from the vineyard, lathered in grape juice. An apology for inconvenience. But how do I know when to draw, what to draw, how to see what I’m doing? They guide me. Oftentimes taking over my body, my arms and legs, aiding me in dragging the sacrifice through the forest and before the vineyard. Helping me in ripping its heart clean from its body, oftentimes I can still feel it beat when my hand wraps around it. And after the life is taken and placed onto the worn-down altar and the Artist stands before it, they draw. Not the offering, but the gods. I can feel their presence lurking beneath the clouds in the sky. The smell of their not so simple existence. Copper bathed in citrus, something ethereal. Something light, like fresh laundry, and something dense, with a hint of cinnamon and a pinch of something burning. Everything in them. Every creation in simple presence. Sight doesn’t matter in this occurrence. A true artist lets her pen draw and simply follows it. Pen in hand, notebook in the other. Offering before me, with that before the gods. And the gods before me. My muses. Godly. Ancient. Ethereal. As for the vineyard, when you can’t see anything around you, you rely on your other senses. The leaves are lush and soft, as the grass the same, and the bark of the trees is so smooth. But the grapes are odd. Bitter but sweet, salty but sour. Chewing one felt like rocks grinding against your teeth, but is it not the smoothest and softest when you crush it in your hand? Without sight, the mind takes you places as well. I imagine the vineyard and surrounding forest so lush, so green, so bright and happy. Full of life, full of love. There are trees, green grass, the grapes are large and there are many, scattered across the land. Butterflies and birds and bees flutter and fly around aimlessly. The sky is baby blue. The gods are full of light. I depicted a perfect heavenly realm. And it was, and it shall be, if not for what happened. As the mind imagines and creates your biggest dreams, it also questions your very existence. Not only yours, but of those you interact with. Why the blindfold? To protect them, or myself? Why the sacrifice? A gift, or a feast? Why the drawing? A blessing, or an illusion of the truth? An Artist would never know unless they choose to see for themself. Even so, what happens then? Is that the fate my grandmother met? And what lies in those other pages of the notebook? What does the vineyard truly look like? What do they truly look like? I doubt I’d be the first in my line to question it, or find out for themselves, but I just needed to know. This time, with the sacrifice on the altar and darkness flooding my view, notebook and pen in hand, blade by my side, I tore the blindfold off. And I couldn’t see. Light flooded my view. But as the glow settled and the surroundings became clear, truth was revealed. The trees, the grass were dark brown, as if burned and stained with impurity. The grapes were shrivelled and dead. No animals. No life. The sky was dark and eerie. And the gods, the gods. They stood there, their forms shifting with both light and darkness that was neither sun nor moon, something far more ancient and sacred and an absence of it. They were and they were not. They were everything in one. Every horrid imperfection, every perfect ancient aspect, all of it. And there were many, crowding the sky. Some had conceivable forms, thin and brittle with limbs elongated and claw-like, some robust possessing skin fissured with hairline cracks and eyes harbouring hollow, empty darkness that devoured light and any absence of it. And now I knew the truth. Everything in one. Every absence and presence of perfection and its opposite, held in one vineyard in a blooded sky. And I knew there was no escaping it. And so I picked up the pen that had dropped to the ground. The grass was hardened and sprayed with red. And I drew. The gods themselves, as they watched me watch them. Draw them. Interpret them, in my own way with my own eyes. And my hand was once again guided by them, drawing their portraits on the page in red ink. Life and death, nothing and everything in one drawing. I stopped, the pen stopped, their faces still twisted with destruction. The sacrifice on the altar, and a body sprawled on the ground in the drawing. One more truth to uncover. As I flipped to the beginning of the book and beheld the first page, it was as I had drawn. The gods, as existing and non-existent as I had captured them with my own sight. And I flipped from page to page, each the same, each the same. Until I came to the drawings I had created. And there was a difference. There was something else. Something else lurking in the pages, barely noticeable. Me. I had been drawing myself in every sketch I had done since I was 13. Mostly I was just standing there, pen in hand, notebook in the other. But as I flipped to the most recent ones, finished in the past month, something became very clear. I was dying. Scripting my own inescapable death. Some, I was being torn apart limb by limb by the gods. Others, I was the one on the altar. And the rest were all just as horrifying as the last. Skewered on a tree branch, my head torn from my body with my own heart in my mouth. It seemed as if the role of the Artist was inescapable. Undeniably inescapable. A cycle that must be undertaken. There was no gift, there was no blessing. Only burdens, only a curse placed upon my family for their manipulative plans for power. Were they gods? Or rather forces of undeniable evil? Maybe these were the gods all along, and our depictions were just what we wanted to believe. And I don’t know what to make of my drawings, but what I do know is I must finish the one I’m carving now. Willingly or not. The sky is my canvas, the gods are my muse. And here’s the part where I finish my drawing, but I don’t think that’s grape juice on my page, and the hole in my heart says otherwise. They know that I know. And now it’s my turn to be the sacrifice. For the deities. ... When they say curiosity killed the cat, they were right. ... They also say the brain lasts for 7 minutes after you’ve died, replaying your best memories. Well I’m here now, and you’re here too. We’ve been here the entire time. And it’s safe to say not every life is perfect. I’m just a mortal artist and her godly muses, allowed to draw blinded by sacrifice and blessing, but cursed with burden.