TIM GREEN - MY DAD, THE GREEK GOD

Tim Green is a three-year US Army Veteran. His novel War For Redwater: A Tattered Future Leads To A Shattered Past is available for purchase on Amazon.com.
Tim Green is currently enrolled in the Creative Writing For The Entertainment Industry bachelor’s degree program at Full Sail University. He plans on enrolling in either the Film or Entertainment Business master’s degree program at Full Sail University upon graduation.
Follow him on Twitter @TimGreen24 and on Instagram @tim_green24

​My Dad, The Greek God

​Life has been so lonely for me. My mother gave me up for adoption at birth and I have never known my father. I’ve never had any friends while bouncing around the foster system in Tampa, Florida. The only thing I like in life is being in water. I never seem to run out of air, nor do I ever have any stress. It’s as if I what happens to me never happened to me.
            I got released from class early and decided to go practice for my swim meet this weekend. I emerged from the glass doors to an empty pool air. The gray tiles seeming to blend into the pools. I get up on the diving board and adjust my googles. I close my eyes to focus and control my breathing. I dive in and begin to swim.
            When I open my eyes, I’m no longer in the pool at my high school. Somehow I got transported to an ocean. The vibrant pinks and greens of the fish exploding into my eyes. The reefs swaying in the current. I see Great White and Hammerhead sharks and mana rays swimming in harmony around me like I wasn’t even there. I notice that I’m not even swimming, more like I’m being sucked through the water and am breathing like I would if I was on land.
            The floor dropped off beneath me and I stopped inside a massage stone formation. There were tall, buffed out men with one eye centered on their foreheads walking about. Somehow there was a fire burning under the ocean.
“Hello, son,” a voice bellowed behind me.
Shocked, I spin around, and was face to face with a man with a long white hair, a beard made out of seaweed. He was slim but muscular like a swimmer would be. As far as clothes, he only wore a toga with a golden trident broach on the right shoulder and green rope belt. He was holding a gold trident with an emblem of another trident at the base of the center prong. The emblem seemed like overkill, but who am I to judge.
“Who are you? Where am I?” I asked.
“Zach, I am your father, Poseidon. Welcome to my underwater forge in the,” he replied.
“Poseidon? That’s crazy talk. The Greek Gods are a myth,” I said.
“We’re only myth because we allow it be. It gives you mortals something to look up to,” he said.
“This is all crazy, why am I here?” I asked.
“I am growing old and very tired. I need someone to take my place as God of the Sea,” he said.
“You have got to be kidding me. You just expect me to drop everything I have up there to become the new God of the Sea? Why me anyways?”
“Because you are the only one of my kids that has nothing on the surface. You mother gave you up and I had responsibilities here to contend with. You are the only one I feel deserves this chance.”
“Oh, so you’re taking pity on me? I’m sorry but I can’t take the position. Now send me back to school.”
“I’m sorry, but there is nothing I can do now. Once I made my choice, Zeus made it to law. You are to take my spot and I am going to get a much-needed retirement.”
“Then, as my first declaration as God of the Sea, I give it back to you.” I said.
“It don’t work that way. Don’t worry, you won’t be alone down here. You have all my working cyclops and you can have conjugal visits every fifty years.”
“FIFTY YEARS? You’re impossible. First, I get released from class mysteriously, then I get transported to the ocean, now I’m being forced into being the God of the Sea.”
“Just be glad that you’re not the son of my brother, Hades. You think this job sucks, just imagine not really being on Earth at all.”
“Great, go ahead and make your jokes.”
I didn’t wait for a reply. I just swam away. I kept swimming for so long I managed to get all the way back to the Gulf coast in Tampa. I saw all the cars rushing about the roads. I witnessed all the people splashing in the water, enjoying their normal lives. I couldn’t bare it any longer. I turned around and swam away, not knowing that I just unleashed a tidal wave on the coast.
“Guess I’m going to need to work on that.” I said.