When History Requires an Eyeball

In retrospect, startling Pandora while she was carrying that particular jar was probably a mistake.

I received a newsletter from one of my favorite authors announcing a writing contest.

The assignment was simple: pick any event in history and write about it in 100 words.

My first thought was Odin.

Because apparently when someone says history, my brain does not go to the fall of Rome, the invention of the printing press, or anything else historians have helpfully provided. It goes directly to a Norse god removing his own eye and dropping it into a well in exchange for wisdom.

Fine.

I could work with that.

Except the author running the contest writes humor, so the entries need a humorous element.

Do you know how difficult it is to make voluntary eye removal funny?

In 100 words?

I tried.

There were several attempts. None of them made me laugh, although a couple made me slightly uncomfortable, which I don't believe was the object of the exercise.

There was also the small matter of whether mythology actually qualifies as history.

This could have stopped me.

It did not.

I've always liked the hypothesis that myths may contain some nebulous bit of fact if you travel far enough back in time. A real person becomes a hero. A hero becomes a legend. A legend acquires supernatural powers, several monsters, and possibly a horse with too many legs.

After a few thousand years, who's going to quibble over details?

This, I decided, was where I would hang my hat for purposes of the assignment.

Mythology was history.

Excellent.

Unfortunately, Odin was still holding an eyeball.

So I abandoned Norse mythology and wandered over to Greece.

Pandora.

Now there was potential.

Everyone knows the story of Pandora's box. Zeus gives Pandora a container she isn't supposed to open. Curiosity gets the better of her, she opens it, and out comes pretty much everything that has made humanity miserable ever since.

Except it wasn't actually a box.

It was a jar. Or a large storage vessel. The box came along later, courtesy of a translation error.

Even better.

A jar can be dropped.

And suddenly I could see it.

What if Pandora didn't deliberately open anything?

What if she was holding the jar and someone startled her?

Up it goes.

Down it comes.

CRASH.

Disease. Misery. Greed. Envy. Suffering. Death. All the assorted unpleasantness of human existence comes boiling out while Pandora stands there staring at the pieces and thinking something roughly equivalent to:

Well, that's not good.

And there it was.

The story.

Odin could keep his remaining eye.

I had a woman with butterfingers and a broken jar.

Sometimes writing is a long, thoughtful process involving research, structure, character development, and careful consideration of theme.

And sometimes you just need to find the historical figure most likely to drop something.