down the heroes’ hill

it was over a month since the hermes of the heroes’ hill called me for work.
my task is to give birth to multiple spawns of fused shapes and colors from tabula rasa. each day, i would paint and manipulate digital images of the ideas and the concepts of the gods of heroes’ hill.

the eight basic colors had been my friends since my parents gave me my first box of crayola so managing them and producing multiple shades from them is no sweat. although heroes’ hill has required me to squeeze buckets of creative juices each day to offer to the higher gods, i accepted the challenge like an olympian hero.

on the first day of my journey to heroes’ hill, it dawned to me that possessing heroic qualities (like patience, bravery, sacrifice, determination and selflessness) is a prerequisite. everyday, you engage yourself in a race with other heroes chasing time to report to their own gods. you struggle your way against titanic trucks blocking the road, you break the thickened walls of dirt on the streets and you involuntarily give yourself a large dose of the metropolis pollution.

heroes’ hill stands in the north-eastern area of the smog-clouded cosmopolitan. reaching the place on time is a reward considering the obstacles along the way. the gates welcome you with the bland atmosphere of creativity where you can rarely hear the muses sing. the blank, white-washed walls would tell nothing except that they are bored seeing the same shade of color each day. the air conditioning units had long decided to rest in the nest of dust and cobwebs near it. some computer units would choose to act like slugs in the morning, testing your patience and your sanity.

my first impression of heroes’ hill is that it is a place for heroes who selflessly sacrifice their time, effort and power to get the monthly blessing of the gods in order to sustain the needs of their family. but i was wrong. on my almost two months stay at the place, i discovered it to be neither a place for heroes nor martyrs, but rather a place for masochists.

without any hesitation, i would craft outputs as the gods instructed me. sometimes, i would spend hours in the place to finish the heaps of tasks assigned to me, despite the fact that i am working beyond the time stated in my contract with the gods. i would always coerce the last drops of my creative juices without being paid. heroes’ hill is not a fan of overtime fees.

this coming tuesday would mark the month-long duration of the delay of the blessings from the gods. i tried to ask the company hermes about the cause of the delay but he is also not sure of the situation. this is injustice! working for nothing at the heroes’ hill alerted my stress levels. if only i could stage a coup against the gods of heroes’ hill, i would. but the herculean size and authority (literally and figuratively) of the gods of the place and the consideration of our very small number (six heroes/martyrs/masochists) made me scrap the coup idea.

heroes deserve something better. the heroes’ hill is a faux place for heroes. it is a base for masochists who are contented with their under-compensated and compromised lives given the fact that they have their own families to support.

a hero is someone who is willing to compromise and sacrifice his/her own comforts in exchange for the safety, good health, and life of his/her loved ones. a hero is way different from a masochist, who despite shedding tons of effort from his system to serve the deities, is not compensated, and is contented with his/her condition.

i may not have the power to bring down the gods of the hill, but i have all the power to make a choice. i quit.