An evening as the God of War

We were invited to a Halloween party tonight by a good friend of Jessa's; reportedly, this party has been A Big Deal for a while now.  Considering the rave reviews we heard, I decided to forgo my initial decision to not do much Halloween-y stuff and instead assemble a costume, pour some Jello shooters, and par-tay like it's nineteen ninety--um, yeah.  Honestly, I lost the "woo hoo let's party" spirit some years ago, but I always enjoy getting out and meeting people. 

No, no, on second thought, that last is not true at all.  I sometimes enjoy getting out and meeting people.  Sometimes, on the other hand, I quite despise it.  Some day I'll figure out what the difference is between the two events. 

Tonight was neither.  It was interesting, really.  Probably has to do with the costumes.

Tonight Heide and I went as Matt and Crystal, the main characters in Cataclysm: Return of the Gods.  It was weird, in a way that only the author who's gotten into his characters' heads can find weird.  We dressed up as Matt and Crystal after the cataclysm, in the martial Greek God sort of way that Matt enjoys affecting.  Hell, he is, after all, the God of War.  Heide wore a costume that was supposed to be Athena, but the costume would've just as easily fit the personality of Crystal. 

Playing the part of Mars is tough.  I never, ever, break into his point of view in the stories I've written because, frankly, I don't think I can do it justice: what goes through the mind of an eternal being?  Still, I like to think about it sometimes, and tonight, wearing the outfit, I thought about it.  It was easy enough, being the outsider.  Nearly everyone at the party worked with the host or the hostess.  I knew nobody well, which left me free to simply observe.  Well, that, and enjoy a couple of Jello shots.

All in all, it was a typical party, followed by a typical drive home and then followed by a browsing of CNN.  Nobody seemed to have anything real to say.  Same applied to the conversations in the comments on the articles on CNN.  The article about deaths in the Northeast due to the weather drew derogatory comments toward a guy who was killed by a falling tree while sleeping in his house, and toward the President, and toward the environmental movement, and finally toward a guy who touched an electrified guardrail. 

Thinking back to a party I attended earlier, where I knew most everyone--I made some fairly snarky comments that were laughed at.  Were my comments useful at all?  Probably not.  Did they further the human condition?  Probably not.  They didn't hurt anybody present, but....

What would a god think?  If an eternal being were at a party you attended tonight, would he be impressed by the human intellect and compassion?  If he saw a recording of everything you'd said today, would he be thinking about how you should be his peer, or would he be happy that you aren't? 

Hell, I don't know.  I probably never will, but I can't help wondering.