oedipus_nix_018

You amble peacefully through the meadow, gathering flowers, reciting verse, and occasionally picking your nose (stop it, Oedipus, it's a disgusting habit) when a passing shepherd spots you, slows, squints some small amount of recognition, steps closer, and asks for a look at your feet. Judging him a mere harmless pervert, you oblige his request. "I knows them scarred ankles I do," he says, before biting off a hunk of the chewing tobacco plug in his dirty fist. "Surely yer the foundlin' that I done found." He points to marks on your ankles. Your ankles do indeed have scars, scars your parents told you had come from of a pair of poorly-fitted Chelsea boots you'd worn as a toddler. But what did the shepherd mean by calling you a foundling? --- //Do you...// [[Inform the shepherd that you are, in fact, the Prince of Corinth, and continue on your way?]] //or// [[Run home to ask about your parentage?]]

Your run home gradually decelerates into a jog, then into a brisk walk, then into a walk, and finally into your everyday trudge. Why had the shepherd's halitosis-soaked mumblings sent you running home like a child? You are no child! You are a man, roughly speaking, the Prince of Corinth, with a birthright set in stone! Still, for the remainder of the afternoon, you will never quite lose the juvenile tremble of your lower lip. At dinner that evening, while seeing how many peas you can skewer onto the tines of your fork, you casually ask of no parent in particular— "Am I a foundling?" Your Mum and Dad share a look over the kitchen table. An awkward silence follows. Your Dad eventually clears his throat as he knifes a little butter into his baked potato, and without raising his eyes asks, "Do you mean figuratively, or..." --- //You interrupt with...// [["...literally."]] //or// [["...figuratively."]]

At home that evening, after brushing the top half of your teeth and getting into the bottom half your jams, while perusing your bookshelf for a good tuck-in story, your eyes fall upon the doll you'd found as a child, and who was now your closest friend. You recall how you'd brought it home and gave it a name befitting its noble deportment:// Cornelius Starhead//. You further recall how, years later, you learned from your Dad that your dear Cornelius Starhead doll in his white pantsuit and star-blazened helmet was, in reality, an Evel Knievel doll. The shepherd's accusation returns to mind. //Foundling//. Perhaps if this was the first time you'd heard the word you might have brushed it aside. But, no, you had been hearing //foundling// whispered in the periphery your entire life. Are you the biological son of the King and Queen? Are you the Prince of Corinth or were you found as a baby, like your doll, behind the bowling alley in a bag of trash that had been torn open by raccoons? A sleepless night follows. At breakfast the next morning, your mother notices your drawn features and asks if you are sick. --- //Do you...// [[Insist all is well and tend to the important business of solving the maze on the back of the Cap'n Crunch box?]] //or// [[Look your Mum in the eye and ask if you're a foundling?]]

You pass the afternoon wandering once again through a meadow, but this time not peacefully, not gathering flowers, and not reciting verse, rather, repeatedly mumbling the dreadful word of yesterday's shepherd. While absent-mindedly picking your nose you consider all the differences between yourself and your supposed birth parents. First off, neither of them pick their nose. Additionally, the King and Queen of Corinth are both tall and lean. You are short and pudgy. They move with graceful bearing. You shuffle like a frankenstein. They are tireless readers of complex philosophy. You are so easily distracted you mostly just read interactive fiction. Countless more differences follow. I'd list them were I not worried your short attention span would lure you elsewhere. Another sleepless night follows. At breakfast, finding yourself once again hopelessly lost in the maze on the back of the Cap'n Crunch box, your father, while straightening his crown by the reflection in the toaster, asks if you're feeling better. --- //Do you...// [[Assure your Dad that all is well, slip on your gloomiest pork pie hat, and shuffle off for your daily wander through the meadow?]] //or// [[Look your Dad in the eye and ask if you're a foundling?]]

After a third sleepless night, in your groggy state, you mistake your Mum for your Dad, your Dad for your Mum, your hairbrush for your toothbrush, and the pickle fork for your Tony the Tiger cereal spoon. Your parents, concerned about your ragged appearance and inability to skewer your Cap'n Crunch, ask if you are feeling under the weather. --- //You reply...// [["All is right with the world, Mum. Sorry, I mean Dad."]] //or// [["I doubt I'll ever sleep again until I solve the mystery of my birth."->"Am I a foundling?"]]

"No, all is plainly not right with the world," your Mum (or perhaps your Dad) replies while replacing your bowl of cereal with a bowl of pickles. "We really think you should visit the Oracle at Delphi for guidance." --- //You respond...// [["But I planned on skipping barefoot through the daisies today!"]] //or// [[Wouldn't it be easier for you to just tell me about my parentage?->"Am I a foundling?"]] //or// [["Fine. If you insist that I must face my destiny, then so be it. Fix for me a meal to eat on the road. A feast fit for Herakles. A feast to steel my resolve for a confrontation with all the grim forces of eternity!"->"Just let me finish my peach cobbler and I'll be off."]]

"To be blunt, boy," your Dad explains, while tapping Prince Albert into his meerschaum, "we don't want to get mixed up in your destiny." "So then your evasiveness does not necessarily mean I'm a...?" you ask, with a glimmer of hope. "...What our evasiveness means is //we don't want to get mixed up in your destiny//." your Dad interrupts with a glare. You slump back in your chair. "How many days can a man go without sleep?" you wonder to yourself, to the gods, to the linoleum under your feet, to no one in particular. "Eight," your Mum answers. --- //Do you...// [[Attempt a world record for sleeplessness?->Suicide by Sleeplessness]] //or// [[Go play with Cornelius Starhead in the meadow and pretend all is well?->"But I planned on skipping barefoot through the daisies today!"]]

You rise from the breakfast table, straighten your tie (despite not wearing a tie), and with all the noble bearing of a lazy teenager who hasn't slept for days, you walk directly into the nearest wall. You awake outdoors, in the middle of a long queue. "Where am I?" you ask the universe. "You wuz here when I gots here," answers not the universe but the blue-permed lady behind you in line, "coiled up an' snorin'." The gentleman in front of you turns to explain, with a different but equally incongruous accent, that you were dropped off by a man and a woman, each wearing a crown. "That must have been Mum and Dad," you reply. The man shrugs, mutters something about their hats being //a bit much//, then shouts forward to no one in particular his discontent with the slowness of the line. --- //Do you...// [[Leave this unpleasant company to find your way home?]] //or// [[Ask the universe once again, "Where am I?"]]

"I ain't savin' yer place!" the blue-permed lady warns as you wander from the line. --- //You reply...// [["I don't want you to save my place. I'm going home. How do I get to Corinth?"]] //or// [["Save my place for what?"]]

This time, the universe answers. It says "Poor Oedipus, for whom the Fates have planned misery that no man has ever missered, you are in Delphi, where the Oracle will prophecy much to chill your mortal blood!" "I'd prefer not to hear it, then," you reply, vaguely skyward, half-disbelieving that the universe actually just spoke to you. "You cannot escape your destiny!" the universe taunts. "Then why see the Oracle?" you reasonably reply. "The very fact that you are urging me in one direction over another tells me that I've got a choice in the matter, no?" The universe clams up. "I thought so!" you sneer. "I'm going home. No force will make me hear one word of what that so-called Oracle has to say! Nerts to you, and to her, and to everyone else so intent on driving me to ruin!" You conclude with a very loud and wet raspberry, aimed skyward. As you confidently leave the queue and stomp toward the road out of town, it slowly occurs to you that the universe might be manipulating you with reverse psychology. Were you, by leaving Delphi, playing directly into the universe's cruel hands? --- //Do you...// [[Spend the next several hours in a state of indecision, coming and going, hoping for the intervention of some beneficent deity to guide you?->Give in to your indecisiveness by once again leaving Delphi, then changing your mind at the signpost, returning to Delphi, back and forth until you are stopped by some force of nature greater than your own stupidity?]] //or// [[Sprint all the way home, all 200 kilometres, nonstop, in the hope of outrunning the Fates determined to bring you to ruin?->Continue to Corinth?]] //or// [[Demand the universe give you some other option because neither of those two choices seem adequate?]]

"I'll tells ya //fer whut//," the lady yells after you, "So's weez can fines ous wheza... (at this point her accent strangles nearly all meaning out of her words—but her gibberish builds to red hot rage concluding with)... that's //fer whut//!" You trudge toward a signpost that will hopefully provide clearer exposition. Two arrows. One points to Corinth, the other to Thebes. Can't get any clearer than that. You still don't know where you are, but at least you know the way home. --- //Do you...// [[Head off home to Corinth?->Corinth, obviously.]] //or// [[Shake off your recent discontent with an impromptu holiday in Thebes?->Draculas]]

With a phlegmy hawk-tuah the lady directs you to a nearby signpost. On it are two arrows. One points to Corinth, the other to Thebes. --- //Which direction do you choose?// [[Corinth, obviously.]] //or// [[Thebes, out of a sudden impulse to throw a monkey wrench into the machinations of a destiny that has already done you much mischief.->Draculas]]

After an hour trudging home down a thoroughly unremarkable road, an object appears in the distance—the back of another signpost. As you pass the post you turn to read: Delphi—5 kms. So, you had woken up in Delphi! Surely then, you had been in the queue to speak to the Oracle. But how had you wound up there? You vaguely recall a drowsy breakfast that ended with you clodding into a wall. A painful poke reveals a tender bruise on your forehead. An exploration of the rest of your person reveals, to your relief, no further injury, and, to your joy, a licorice cigar in your hip pocket. You pause to thoughtfully gnaw the cigar while considering your options. --- //Do you...// [[Continue to Corinth?]] //or// [[Return to Delphi?->Complete the final 5 kilometres of your journey and hear what the almighty Oracle has to tell you?]] //or// [[Return to Delphi, but then continue on to Thebes, and then, who knows, just keep walking until cruel destiny loses interest in you and moves on to harass someone else?->Draculas]]

After an exhausting trudge you finally spy in the distance the familiar walls of Corinth. Along the way you've been tormented by the events of the past week, tormented by your own insecurities, tormented by the suspicion that a tissue-thin layer of lies is all that separates you from a dreadful reality! You were also briefly tormented by a talking squirrel who wouldn't shut up about acorns. "Who am I?" you ask yourself, the weight of a growing dread pressing upon your weary shoulders. Your very sense of self crumbles, like a sand castle smashed by a bored orangutan. "Who am I?" you ask again. "Who am I?" You are stopped at the gate by the city guard. "Don't you recognise me, man?" you cry. "Am I not the Prince of Corinth, son of your lord and lady, the King and Queen?" You grab the guard by his breastplate, rattling the poor man along with his armour. Soon you are sobbing at his feet. A little crowd gathers around the pathetic spectacle. The perplexed guard kneels to explain that he'd merely stopped you because you had licorice on your teeth. After wiping the tears from your flush cheeks and licking the licorice from your teeth, you push through the curious crowd and lope ungracefully home. Your mother is on her knees in the garden fussing over her autumn marigolds. She has not yet seen you. --- //Do you...// [[Demand to know who you are?->Demand answers]] //or// [[Walk past her without a word, whistling nonchalantly?]]

"For the love of Pete, don't sneak up on a lady like that!" your Mum pleads, after your sudden voice behind her causes her to nearly jump out of her skin. You are too tired to apologise. You just stand there, silent, swaying a little with the breeze. "Now, what did you ask? Something about the Nürburgring?" "Yes," you answer, in your exhaustion unsure of the question, unsure of the language being spoken, unsure of pretty much everything. "Am I the Nürburgring?" Your father appears suddenly behind you, to turn you to face him. He heard your question. "Son," he says, as you teeter forward and back, "you are //not// the Nürburgring." A straight answer at last! With a satisfied sigh you collapse into a heap of the most blissful sleep since you began your short and pointless life. But what of your future, Oedipus? Will your future be as blissful as your current slumber? You really haven't done very much beyond a lot of walking, pestering your parents with a question they obviously did not want to answer, and learning conclusively that you are not a German racetrack. I suppose you can wrap up this story right now, if you're so disposed; and, who knows, maybe cutting your losses early on might pay off in the long term? --- //Do you...// [[Leap forward in time twenty years to learn how well you played your game with the Fates?->ENDING 1]] //or// [[Leap backward in time twenty minutes to learn absolutely nothing and likely wind up right back here again?->Continue to Corinth?]]

Your Mum cuts you off mid-whistle and calls for your Dad, who is nearby fussing with the gutters. They physically block you from entering the house. Indeed, they are nearly as distressed as you. "You didn't happen to... learn anything about yourself, did you...?" your Mum asks. --- //You answer...// [[Yes, I learned that I need cushioned insoles->Sassy answer]] //or// [["Will you please just tell me what's going on?"]] //or// [["I've walked a considerable distance and I need to powder my nose!"]]

Despite the sassy (but true) remark feigning indifference to your parents, as for your aching bladder, no amount of feigning can feign it away. You wish you'd been a little less spiteful and had chosen the //powdering your nose// option, strangely worded though it was. Upon a glimpse of the bathroom door, you lose your cool demeanour. Nature no longer calls, it demands. --- //Do you...// [[Run to the bathroom and pray you make it in time?->"I've walked a considerable distance and I need to powder my nose!"]] //or// [[Just stand there and wet your pants like the disgrace you are?]]

Your Mum and Dad share a troubled glance. And you've had enough! No more troubled glances, furrowed brows, pained gestures of misdirection, groans, moans, or sighs! You shake your fists skyward and demand answers! Immediately! A bit early to be losing your temper, don't you think, Oedipus? Not to tempt you with alternate timelines, but you don't ordinarily freak out this badly until much further on, after you learn of the monstrous crimes you haven't, as yet, committed, because so far in this story barely begun you've kept safely away from the fateful city of... "Either you tell me the reason for all this secrecy, or I'm running away from home to somewhere I won't be pestered anymore! Somewhere far away, like the fateful city of Thebes!" "Just tell him, Polybus," your Mum sighs. With furrowed brow your father groans, "Son, I accidentally ran over your Cornelius Starhead doll with the lawnmower." --- //Do you...// [[Receive the news stoically?]] //or// [[Run off screaming to the fateful city of Thebes?->Running away from home]]

After powdering your metaphorical nose, drying your tear-stained cheeks, and fixing the knot in your non-existent tie, you give your whole body a shake. "Bedevil me no longer!" you demand of the psychological witch that has assailed you with doubts about your parentage. You eventually summon the courage to face yourself in the mirror. "You are the Prince of Corinth!" you inform the blotchy face looking back at you. The face is not convinced. With all the nonchalance you can muster, you quit the washroom to veer around your parents and into the kitchen to fix yourself a sandwich. You find in the fridge only luncheon loaf and Velveeta. The Fates are truly offering you no quarter. With a casual toss of your head you turn next to the pantry for a can of beans. You drop a couple slices of bread in the toaster while pretending to not notice your parents watching you from the doorway. "So you're no longer curious about...?" your Mum eventually asks. You shrug and butter your toast. "Don't even think of dropping those beans on your toast without heating them first," your Dad warns. "He takes after you," laughs your Mum while she pokes your Dad in the ribs. "How can he take after me?" your Dad replies. "I'd never eat beans cold, and furthermore, he's a foun..." Your Mum clamps her hand over your Dad's mouth. --- //Do you...// [[Continue with your beans on toast as if you'd heard nothing?]] //or// [[Ask what your Dad was about to say?]]

You lay out two slices of nicely browned and buttered toast on your plate and dump overtop the cold contents of the can of beans. You revel in your Dad's look of revulsion. "At least spread them around," your Dad pleads. "Don't leave the beans still shaped like the can!" You were going to spread them around, but now out of spite leave them can-shaped and glistening. With a sigh, your Mum returns to her marigolds; with a curse your Dad returns to his gutters; and you...? With a smack of your lips you sit down to enjoy your cylindrical lunch. --- [[Jump forward in time to see your future, Oedipus, if you dare!->ENDING 1]]

You are answered only with nervous chewing, anxious gulping, and Kenny Loggins' "Danger Zone" coming from the Wilkinson's patio next door. Danger Zone, indeed! Have you entered dangerous territory? "About time we told the boy, don't you think?" suggests your Dad. Your Mum clears her throat, pushes aside her plate, looks you in the eye, and with her sweetest, most motherly voice, tells you nothing that you couldn't have learned from the ad pinned on the bulletin board in the local library— "For answers to all of life's difficult questions, see the Oracle at Delphi." --- //With feigned disinterest you respond...// [["And who precisely is the Oracle at Delphi?"]] //or// [["Just let me finish my peach cobbler and I'll be off."]] //or// [["I still get to be king when you two kick off, though, right?"]]

Your Dad wipes his buttery fingers on a sunflower-pattern napkin and explains that when he was your age—at which point he pauses to give you a looking-over to ensure you are the age he assumes you are—he also questioned his place in the cosmos. "'Who am I?' I asked myself. 'How did I wind up here?'" Your Dad lowers his forkful of potato. "I'd shut myself up in my room and play Molly Hatchet loud enough to drown out the terrible taunting voices in my head... "You still do that, dear," your Mum reminds him. Finding yourself treacherously near a heartfelt conversation with your parents and wishing you had stuck to the point, you make it clear that when you ask whether you are a foundling, you mean it literally. "As in, was I found on your doorstep in a basket?" --- //You look below the horizontal line expecting a choice of options but see only...// [["Am I or am I not a foundling?"->"...literally."]]

Corinth has barely fallen out of view behind you when you take your last bite of the Velveeta and luncheon loaf sandwich your Mum bundled up for your journey to Delphi. As you crumple the empty bag and toss it into the ditch alongside a //Please Don't Litter// sign, you wonder how much farther you have to walk. You dearly need a drink to wash the awful taste out of your mouth. Five days and 200 kilometres later a signpost finally appears. Delphi—5 kms. You sit down against the sign for a much needed rest, and to grab a stone to pound arches back into your thoroughly flattened feet. A little squish under your backside informs you of a licorice cigar you'd forgotten was in your pocket. While you gnaw on your newly-found wad of sustenance—thoroughly exhausted and long having lost the urgency in your quest—you consider your options. --- //Do you...// [[Complete the final 5 kilometres of your journey and hear what the almighty Oracle has to tell you?]] //or// [[Blow a big wet raspberry at Delphi and its know-it-all Oracle, then exchange the remaining 5 kilometre journey for the 200 kilometre return journey home?->Continue to Corinth?]]

Your Dad stops mid-chomp to narrow his eyes in your direction. "Yes," your Mum assures you, "you will be the next king of Corinth." Your Dad releases his fangs from the pork chop. "But nothing in this world is certain," he reminds. "Who knows what the Oracle will tell you? Maybe you'll learn that you will not only //not// be the next king of Corinth, but that you won't even make it home alive!" "And then she'll shoot you!" your Mum adds. Your parents share a good, long laugh. Not the first time they've enjoyed a joke at your expense. Your Mum, as usual, is the first to recant her amusement. "We're only teasing, son," she assures you with a gentle touch. "You'll certainly be the next king of Corinth, and the handsomest, too!" Your Dad starts laughing again, then stops upon realising your Mum hadn't been joking. "You'll have to stop picking at your pimples, though," she continues. "And eat all your peas!" your Dad adds. "I //have// eaten them!" you protest. Your Dad peers over at your pealess plate, then sniffs dismissively and returns to his pork chop. --- //Your curiosity piqued, you ask...// [["So this Oracle—who is she and why should I care what she thinks?"->"And who precisely is the Oracle at Delphi?"]] //or// [["I've got nothing pressing planned..." (pause while your Dad has another good laugh) "...so I suppose I can give this Oracle a visit."->"Just let me finish my peach cobbler and I'll be off."]]

"Sharon I think she's called," your Dad wonders aloud, while submerging his pork chop in gravy. "It's Sharon, isn't it? Sharon, or... Cheryl...?" "The Oracle at Delphi," your Mum interrupts, "sees into the past and sees into the future... but beware, because she speaks in riddles, conceals more than she reveals, and her prophecies contain truths beyond mortal understanding!" You look up from your plate with a raised eyebrow. "Then why go see her?" you reasonably ask. Your reasonable question is answered with unreasonable silence. You shove aside your dinner plate to make room for a dish of dessert atop which you swirl a little mountain of aerosol whipping cream. --- //After enduring another moment of silence, you decide...// [["Nerts to the Oracle."]] //or// [["Just let me finish my peach cobbler and I'll be off."]]

"That's not going to do your acne any good," your Mum sighs as you swirl the can around and around, burying the peach cobbler, the dish, and eventually the better part of your end of the table. You catch a glimpse of her disapproving eye just before it falls out of view behind a wall of whipped cream. As you empty the remaining contents of the can directly into your mouth, you wonder how much it really matters whether or not you are a foundling. Would this whipped cream taste any better? Would the peach cobbler buried down there somewhere be any sweeter? Foundling or not, you're the Prince of Corinth. Foundling or not, you've got a roof over your head, enjoy three square meals a day, you're young, you're healthy. Foundling or not, you've got a closet filled with new sunhats you haven't yet showed off on the Corinth boardwalk. A smile, an actual smile crosses your lips! Foundling or not, tomorrow you might get run over by a bus and killed. The smile fades. One //foundling or not// too many. --- //The story has barely begun, Oedipus, yet already your humble narrator has offered you a conclusion and denouement. Do you...// [[Shake off your moment of contentment, syphon up a gallon of whipped cream, ask your Mum to fix you a bag lunch, and then head off to Delphi to seek the Oracle?->"Just let me finish my peach cobbler and I'll be off."]] //or// [[Accept your place in the world as being, all things considered, pretty good, and vow to not shake the boat ever again? If so, let's jump forward in time to see your future, Oedipus, if you dare!->ENDING 1]]

In twenty years, upon your parents' deaths in a hang-gliding collision, you will inherit the throne of Corinth. So far, so good. To forge an alliance with the city of Thebes you will then marry Oedipelia, the daughter of the Theban King Laius and Queen Jocasta. This is not so good. She had a twin brother, evidently, but they were separated at birth. Sometimes she wonders whatever happened to him. You should have looked into this before marrying her, Oedipus. A remarkable find, this Oedipelia. She seems to have all the same interests as you, and, sharing your height, she is an ideal dance partner. You both love very close dancing. You and she will rule Corinth with equally regal indifference to the plight of your people. From the moment you took power, Oedipus, Corinth has been in a state of perpetual drought and plague. Prophets roam among the wailing populace shrieking, "the gods have turned their backs on us!" and point their bony fingers at you and Queen Oedipelia with accusations of vague monstrosity. "Open your eyes, fool of a king!" the prophets demand. "I'll keep them closed, thanks," you respond, while closing the door in their faces and refusing to take the little brochures they offer. "Who was that?" Oedipelia asks from the sauna. "Just another prophet, dear." "Not the one who keeps pointing out our identical earlobes?" "No, the one who goes on about our identical noses, mouths, and the overall similarity of our facial bone structures." You toss aside your towel and re-enter the sauna. Ruling such a perpetually blight-stricken city as Corinth is difficult work. No king likes to see his people suffer. Thank heavens for heavy curtains. And with the addition of a little cotton in the ears to blot out the wailing from the streets, life will be for you and your queen not entirely terrible. Still, you do get an icky feeling every time you open-mouth kiss. But you always manage to shake it off, point a middle finger skyward and shout— "I am Oedipus! Willfully oblivious to everything, and still in possession of two perfectly good eyeballs!" All true, Oedipus. You are, in fact, //you//. You remain oblivious, and your eyeballs—very similar to those of your wife, don't you think?—remain thoroughly ungouged. I suppose I should congratulate you for having outwitted the Fates. However— No, let's just leave it there. May you remain oblivious forever, Oedipus! THE END --- I hope you enjoyed //Oedipus Nix: Reluctant Plaything of the Gods//! This is Ending 1 of 15. If you plan to reread this story over and over until you've found all fifteen endings, good luck! And by //good luck//, I don't mean good luck in finding all the endings, since that's a fairly straightforward task; no, I mean good luck in general. If this is where you are in life, you truly do need some good luck. There's also a bonus ending that is best left unfound. [[Click here to start again.->OEDIPUS NIX]] --- Apropos... The tragedy of Oedipus (Sophocles' tragedy, that is, not the juvenile //Oedipus Nix//) underlies //Mrs. Quarterhorse//, the first book in my series about a young card-reader's relationship with the imperious heiress to a ghostly legacy. If, however, you //prefer// your stories juvenile, you might enjoy the comic //Meanwhile Not Far Away on the Moon//, a monumental reimagining of the Apollo 11 Lunar Mission. Both are found at my website (see link below) along with other curiosities for persons of questionable (but discerning) taste. <a href="https://scmarchere.com" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="color:RoyalBlue; text-decoration:underline;">www.scmarchere.com</a>

<div class="header">OEDIPUS NIX</div> <div class="subheader">Reluctant Plaything of the Gods</div> <div class="bodytext-italic-centered">by S. C. Marchere</div> --- Have you the moral courage to slip into the yellow flip-flops of forsaken Oedipus, to test your resolve against the cruel machinations of destiny? Can you guide his swollen feet around the snares of fate, around the riddles of sphinxes, around the Faustian doubletalk of seers, around the excruciating purple prose of this interactive adventure? Beware! By doing so you risk your very soul, not to mention your precious eyeballs—you put them in uncommon peril! And the crimes you risk committing—! Crimes so sickening, so unspeakable— Let's leave them for now unspoken. If you are somehow not familiar with the story of Oedipus, open a tab and do a search, I'll wait. If you haven't the time nor inclination for further research, //good//. Suffice to say Oedipus' fate is particularly repulsive. And the point of his story—not the point that interested Freud, the other point—is that it is impossible to escape fate. The interactive adventure before you, however, offers the tantalising possibility that, perhaps, you can...? Accept the challenge at your peril. --- <div class="bodytext-italic">By clicking the link below you consent to become Oedipus, and relinquish all claims to damage inflicted upon your soul.</div> [[Begin the story->The Story Begins]]

Your Mum is so troubled by your question that she doesn't notice the hornet that has landed on the spoon she has just lifted from her breakfast bowl of coconut yogourt with butterscotch almonds. The spoon and its passenger remain halfway to her lips—lips seemingly unable to form an answer. "Whenever I am faced with a difficult question," your Mum finally forces out, "I visit the Oracle at Delphi for answers." "But this isn't a difficult question," you reply. "You either adopted me or you didn't. Which is it?" "Polybus!" your Mum shouts. "Where are you? The boy is asking about his parentage!" "Tell him to see the Oracle," your Dad shouts from the bathroom. Finding herself forced to answer your simple question on her own, your Mum hastily stuffs the spoon in her mouth so she can chew up a little time while chewing up some breakfast. "There's a hornet on your spoon," you warn, several seconds too late. Your Dad eventually appears, tucking his stubborn bedhead under his crown. He looks at you, and then at your Mum who wears the unique expression of one who has just swallowed a hornet. "Am I foundling?" you ask. "Ask the Oracle at Delphi," your Dad replies while pulling out his chair. "You either found me or you didn't." "Ah," your Dad brightens, "on that I can say that //I// absolutely did //not// find you." "Since you're both dodging the question, I'll assume that I am, in fact, a..." "...In this world, boy," your Dad interrupts, while pouring himself a bowl of Cap'n Crunch, "are we not all foundlings? Who among us is truly certain of our place among humanity, in the long queue of history, under the vast heavens? We all arrive here, lost, waiting to be found." "No, we all arrive here in a lady's womb, not in the least bit lost," you reply, "and I would simply like to know whether the womb I arrived in belonged to the lady across from me coughing a dead hornet into her bowl of yogourt." "See the Oracle," your Mum repeats, while spooning the hornet's remains into her tarantula terrarium. She then eyes her wristwatch with a little (inauthentic) gasp and scoots into the living room. "The Oracle knows all," your Dad adds. You're certain that if you keep pestering your parents they'll eventually inadvertently answer your question, and even if they don't, their reticence has pretty much answered it anyway. --- //Do you...// [[Refuse to let your Dad off the hook?->Look your Dad in the eye and ask if you're a foundling?]] //or// [[Agree to go see the Oracle as you've been asked, but only if your Mum promises to fix you an extraordinarily delicious bag lunch?->"Just let me finish my peach cobbler and I'll be off."]]

The local plebs eye you suspiciously as you plod bleary-eyed through town. "I am a prince," you remind yourself, "and despite the gloom hanging over me, I must carry myself with dignity befitting my station." Upon arriving at the meadow's edge, you slip off your pea-green penny loafers so that you might skip barefoot through the daisies. A little pirouette plunges you ankle deep in a gopher hole. As you massage your throbbing ankle, your eyes naturally fix on its peculiar scar, and, on cue, a familiar shepherd shouts from a distance— "The truth be in yer ankles, boy! Feign indiff'rince to yer wretched birthright at yer peril!" --- //Do you...// [[Ask him to mind his own beeswax so you can carry on with your feigned indifference?]] //or// [[Demand from him an explanation?]]

"So, am I a foundling, pop?" you ask with an exhausted mumble. "Ask your mother," your Dad answers. "Mum!" you hoarsely shout, "Am I a foundling?" "Ask the Oracle at Delphi!" she shouts back from the living room. "I'm busy pretending to watch my stories!" --- //Do you...// [[Stagger off for your daily trudge, hoping exhaustion will wither your distress?->Assure your Dad that all is well, slip on your gloomiest pork pie hat, and shuffle off for your daily wander through the meadow?]] //or// [[Return to your bedroom to spend another day and sleepless night knitting a Christmas sweater for Cornelius Starhead, then stagger back to the breakfast table to begin your inquisition anew?->"Am I a foundling?"]]

"I'll nae tell ye more, laddie!" shouts the shepherd, his mercurial accent having slipped into a Scottish brogue. He turns his back on you and with a staff prods his flock of persistently quacking ducks forward into the valley. "Why did you tell me //anything//?" you shout after the scabby walloper. But he refuses to say another word. He, like you, is a mere plaything of the gods. He to provide exposition, and you to be confounded by it. But why play the game at all? You've lived long enough in antiquity to know the games of the gods seldom end well for mortal men. So then, should you simply step aside, refuse to play your part? But what if refusing to play your part //is// your part? And such is the crux of your story, is it not? Can one escape the inescapable? Are we all doomed to... "Quack!" With a pointed finger you direct an errant duck to the flock. --- //Do you...// [[Attempt to put the matter out of mind and hope for a good night's sleep?->Ask him to mind his own beeswax so you can carry on with your feigned indifference?]] //or// [[Go drown your misery in a glass of greasy swill at the moonshine still under the overpass?->Detour B - Bastard]]

With eyes darting side-to-side, your Dad explains, slowly, while running through his mental dictionary for words that start with //foun//— "You can't take after me, son, because... you're... a... foun...tain..." "I'm a fountain?" "A fountain...head," your Dad bravely continues, "...yes, a fountainhead... a... a..." "... a metaphor... for something... most likely," your Mum concludes. You stare blankly. They stare blankly. All three blank stares devolve into stares of weary resignation. --- //Do you...// [[Ask to be directed to the nearest ending?]] //or// [[Finally get around to seeing fateful Thebes? You've heard it's particularly fateful this time of year. And it gives you the chance to burn off a little frustration, by running and screaming all the way there.->Running away from home]]

You awake one sunny morning, full of vim. How could your stores of vim be any less? You are Prince Oedipus, son of King Polybus and Queen Merope of Corinth! Pause to admire yourself in your bedside mirror. If you just stopped picking at your pimples one might almost consider you within squinting distance of handsome. Behind your beady eyes rests a reasonably pure soul untainted by, let's say, a sin unspeakably grotesque. Your brow furrows. Do you detect an irony in my tone suggesting that the Fates have something terrible in store for you? The Fates have indeed been working against you since even before you were born. But, here you are, alive and, arguably, in some academic circles at least, in possession of what is called //Free Will//. You are also in possession of two fully functioning eyeballs. Let's try to keep them that way. Proceed with caution, Oedipus! No, I won't explain what I meant about your eyeballs. Let us begin our story in earnest. As I said, you awake one sunny morning, full of vim. Princely vim. The sort of vim unique to one as blessed as you, fair Prince of Corinth! While wolfing down your cereal with princely appetite you wonder how you might spend the day. --- //How shall we begin the first day of the rest of your tragic life, Oedipus?// [[By skipping off for a merry prance through the meadow?->Detour A - Foundling]] //or// [[By trudging directly to the makeshift still run by filthy reprobates under the overpass?->Detour B - Bastard]]

"What'll it be, mac?" snarls the filthiest of the local reprobates as he tends to a bubbling apparatus dripping moonshine into a slimy tub. You wedge yourself between two foul-smelling ruffians at the makeshift bar (an overturned needle exchange bin) and request a pint of grog. "Your very best grog, of course, grog fit for the refined lips of noble Oedipus, Prince of Corinth and heir to the throne!" Amidst snickers the filthy barkeep spits a little tobacco juice into a greasy cup, gives it a quick polish with a snot-encrusted hankie, and then fills it to the brim with a brackish fluid he assures you with a menacing smirk is "fit fer yer refined lips." You take a long, revolting swig. "Aye," a nearby half-asleep drunkard mumbles into his sleeve, "fit fer yer b-----d lips!" What was that? You turn to the drunkard who has fallen back asleep and give him a shake. "What did you call me?" you demand to know. But the grumbling drunkard merely tugs himself free to continue his nap. That night, after smearing on your acne cream, while lying awake in bed with your closest friend, the little doll you call Cornelius Starhead, you find yourself haunted by the drunkard's curse. //B-----d//! Not the first time that word has been cast in your direction. Your whole life you'd been hearing it. Until now the tone had always suggested the word was meant colloquially. But this morning, the drunkard's curse had seemed to you strangely... literal. --- //Do you...// [[Put the matter out of your head, kiss Cornelius Starhead goodnight, and go to sleep?]] //or// [[Get out of bed, knock on your parents' door, and demand to know whether or not you're a b-----d?]]

The next morning begins less blissfully than the one previous. You had, in fact, been unable to claim even one second of sleep, and might have remained in bed had you not remembered there was an unopened box of Cap'n Crunch in the pantry promising the prize of a rub-on tattoo. You arrive in the kitchen to be greeted by your Dad with an open Cap'n Crunch box on the table before him, and a fresh tattoo on his forearm of an anchor and the words "Ahoy Matey!" You scowl. And finding yourself inwardly cursing your Dad as a lousy, cereal-prize stealing ne'er-do-well—that word, that terrible word wraps itself once again around your cerebral cortex. --- //In a sudden burst of emotion, you shout...// [[You b-----d!]] //or// [[Am I a b-----d?]]

Your Dad asks the cause of your outburst despite already knowing it. He had raced to the breakfast table for the same reason as you. With an obnoxious grin he points to the tattoo on his arm, and then to the crown atop his head. To the victor go the spoils. Prince you are, but you are not yet a king. And to the princes go the cast-offs—in this case, the maze on the back of the cereal box. With magnanimity, your Dad directs your attention to it, still unsolved, and he pushes toward you a pencil. You nod a grudging appreciation of the gesture. After an hour of hopeless wandering through the seemingly unsolvable maze (which leads to the drawing of a treasure chest filled with Cap'n Crunch,) you shove the infuriating box aside. It was without question a difficult maze, a veritable labyrinth, but even had it been otherwise you'd have unlikely solved it in your persistent agitation. The drunkard's curse keeps ringing in your ears. "B-----d!" You tie on your frilliest sun bonnet and go off for a walk. --- //Do you...// [[Return to the makeshift bar under the overpass to wring an explanation out of that drunkard?]] //or// [[Seek to wear yourself to exhaustion with a long walk out of town?]]

"Yes," your Dad answers while puzzling over the morning paper's //Marmaduke//, "a lazy b-----d, to be precise, and as such, ten minutes too late to claim the Cap'n's prize. And now sitting there, forlorn, a poor b-----d if I've ever seen one." "But am I also a literal b-----d?" Your Dad is too deeply invested in the newspaper to notice your follow-up question. He spreads out the comics page and leans forward on his elbows, perplexed by the image before him. In it, Marmaduke is peering around a corner, looking guilty. "Who did this?" someone asks, while pointing at a broken vase. "Merope!" your Dad calls to your Mum, "Come look at this cartoon, it perplexes me." Your Mum joins him over the comics page. "Well," she suggests, upon a careful study of the image and text, "it would appear that Marmaduke is hiding because he broke a vase." "But what is the joke?" your Dad pleads. "Am I or am I not a b-----d?" you demand to know. "Even censored, dear," your Mum scolds, "that is not an appropriate question for the breakfast table." And so you leave the breakfast table, leave your parents shoulder-to-shoulder over the mystery of the broken vase, leave the house, leave the yard, and leave all good sense behind you in your determination to get an answer to the question. You tramp off into the meadow while scheming a plan of action. Eventually you slow. You're still wearing your jams. And as you jog back home, hoping nobody notices you so disgracefully clad (especially since you are, after all, a prince of the city, and heir to the throne) you find yourself increasingly troubled not by your hazy parentage, but by the image of a broken vase and a cowering dog. "What //is// the joke?" you wonder. --- //Do you...// [[Rid your thoughts of parentage and broken vases with a proper march, Foreign Legion style, to exhaust both your body and fevered mind?->Seek to wear yourself to exhaustion with a long walk out of town?]] //or// [[Return to the moonshine bar under the overpass where you can perhaps find answers, and at very least, drink your demons back to the oblivion from whence they came?->Return to the makeshift bar under the overpass to wring an explanation out of that drunkard?]]

"Am I a b-----d?" you yell through your parents' bedroom door. "For waking us up, //yes//," your Dad yells back. "And otherwise...?" you ask. A long pause follows, during which you hear faint muttering back and forth between your Mum and Dad. You squish your ear to the door to hear more clearly. And then you fall into your parents' room as your Dad pulls open the door. "Am I a b------d?" you ask, from the floor, looking inadvertently and unfortunately up your Dad's robe. "A what?" your Mum asks. "A blizzard?" "I think he said backwind," your Dad argues. You used too many hyphens, Oedipus. "I mean, am I a b-----d?" Your Dad uses his plaid-slippered foot to roll you out the door and into the hall. "You're not a buzzard," your Dad grumpily replies. "Now go back to bed." --- //Do you...// [[Grudgingly return to bed, pretending your Dad's deliberate evasion did not actually answer your question?->Put the matter out of your head, kiss Cornelius Starhead goodnight, and go to sleep?]] //or// [[Run off to join the Foreign Legion?]]

"Where's that smelly drunkard?" you ask, loudly, upon arriving in the reeking hollow under the overpass. Several dozen smelly drunkards look up from their breakfast moonshine and raise their hands. "Prince Valiant is back," laughs the least drunk (and most smelly) denizen. You are in no mood for criticism of your bangs. You leap upon that smelliest drunkard and wrap your hands around a throat too greasy to strangle. Eventually your princely grip is defeated by the drunkard's B.O., and you leap away from him, greasy-handed and gasping for air. The rest of the gang then come at you like angry bees—angry, smelly, drunken bees—forcing you to flee for your life. After putting a safe distance between yourself and the grubby villains, you turn to cast them a curse. They respond to your invective with a hail of laughter and slimy pickled onions. "When I'm king," you shout back, with a shake of your princely bangs, "I will have you all drowned in hot dog water!" Much laughter from the drunkards. "All hail King Weiner!" you hear laughed from behind as you trudge angrily away. Perhaps you should thank the reprobates for taking your mind off the problem plaguing you. What was it again? Oh yes, your Dad bogarting all the cereal prizes. Just getting up ten minutes earlier would likely solve the problem, but surely there's an easier way? No, wait, that isn't the problem. Focus, Oedipus! The problem is the matter of your parentage. Are you, or are you not a b-----d? --- //Do you...// [[Attempt to shake off your demons with a vigorous march?->Seek to wear yourself to exhaustion with a long walk out of town?]] //or// [[Decide that you are overreacting to all this b-----d business, remind yourself that life is good (beyond the underpass, that is) and set out to enjoy the beautiful afternoon?->Detour A - Foundling]]

You power-walk through town and out the city gates, not slowing until the walls of Corinth are far behind you. But have you left your demons behind? Alas, no. They scream in your ear, "B-----d!" You speed up again, this time into a run with your hands over your ears. If you'd had a screwdriver handy you'd have surely jabbed them into your eardrums to deafen yourself to the ceaseless stygian shrieks! Worth noting: your solutions to life's problems lean too heavily on gouging. When you finally slow from exhaustion you are surely farther from home than you have ever been in your life. The sun is beginning to set. How far have you travelled? Where are you? A road sign appears in the distance. It reads: Delphi—5 kms. Delphi. The name is vaguely familiar. You wonder how far you've run from Corinth. Perhaps you are misremembering out of a lack of sleep, but it does seem to you now that you have been running nonstop for several days! In any event, Delphi is undeniably closer than Corinth, and your grumbling tummy demands a corndog. But on the other hand, an unpleasant tingling in your spine tells you that by continuing to Delphi you are putting your very soul in jeopardy. Corndog, soul. These are your options. Hold on—is that a licorice cigar in your back pocket? It is! You lean against the signpost to eat your cigar and consider your options. --- //Do you...// [[Continue on to Delphi and get your corndog?->Complete the final 5 kilometres of your journey and hear what the almighty Oracle has to tell you?]] //or// [[Return to Corinth and save your soul?]]

After several days of miserable trudging, the walls of Corinth finally appear in the distance. Surely you've set some sort of trudging record. But has the trudging served its purpose? Have you trudged your demons into submission? Do you still hear the smelly drunkard's curse? "B-------d!" No, you sigh, the curse still rings in your ears. "B--------d!" You stop to count the hyphens. Surely there were eight that time. The curse is only seven characters long. You wait breathlessly to hear it again. "B------------d!" Twelve! No doubt about it, it's not the same curse! What curse it is, you haven't the slightest idea. //Bloodspattered//, maybe? That's a little gruesome, and objectively wrong, because you aren't presently spattered with anything other than several days of stale sweat. And so with a smelly skip in what remains of your step, you continue on toward home, your only home, dear Corinth, city of your birth, city of your princedom, city of your future kingdom! The demons shout no longer in your ear! "B---d!" Well, they're still shouting, but it's now just gibberish, so no matter. Life is good! --- [[Is life, indeed, good? Jump forward in time to learn the answer, Oedipus!->ENDING 2]]

It has been said that there's no problem that can't be solved with a good brisk walk. I can think of quite a few exceptions just offhand but, thankfully, in your case, Oedipus, your moment of despair was, in fact, defeated by a mere 400 kilometre jaunt. In the end, your crisis was no more than garden-variety ennui. As temporary as the pimples on your teenage cheeks! In twenty years you will stand before your father's grave, your cheeks wet with tears and greasy with acne cream (your pimples will never go away so long as you keep picking at them, Oedipus.) The throne of Corinth is now yours. But you'll learn upon the first meeting with your prime minister that the title is strictly ceremonial. "And where's the ceremony?" you'll ask, finding yourself alone in a restroom with a crown and a sceptre that looked a lot better from a distance. Over the years to come your demons will still taunt you with varied curses starting with //B //and ending with //D//. None will find their mark. Perhaps from time to time you will wonder about your parentage, but then catch a glimpse of yourself in the mirror with your crown and sceptre and realise that if the smelly old drunkard's accusation had been correct, well, then you can now say that you did pretty good for a b-----d. You'll never marry. Shyness, mostly over your terrible complexion. But you'll rule well, so far as you are ruling anything in your ceremonial capacity. There'll be a few plagues, a drought or two, but nothing that anyone can blame you for. In truth, you are so inconsequential you never cross anyone's mind. This might seem a bleak fate, Oedipus, but believe me when I tell you that it is not! Oh, if you could only see what might have been had you chosen your path through life just //slightly// differently! In the end, for you, you did extraordinarily well! Congratulations! You have defeated Fate, if not acne! And quickly, too. You found the shortest route by far through this little adventure. The less read of it, the better, again believe me! THE END --- I hope you enjoyed //Oedipus Nix: Reluctant Plaything of the Gods//! This is Ending 2 of 15. If you plan to reread this story over and over until you've found all fifteen endings, good luck! And by //good luck//, I don't mean good luck in finding all the endings, since that's a fairly straightforward task; no, I mean good luck in general. If this is where you are in life, you truly do need some good luck. There's also a bonus ending that is best left unfound. [[Click here to start again.->OEDIPUS NIX]] --- Apropos... The tragedy of Oedipus (Sophocles' tragedy, that is, not the juvenile //Oedipus Nix//) underlies //Mrs. Quarterhorse//, the first book in my series about a young card-reader's relationship with the imperious heiress to a ghostly legacy. If, however, you //prefer// your stories juvenile, you might enjoy the comic //Meanwhile Not Far Away on the Moon//, a monumental reimagining of the Apollo 11 Lunar Mission. Both are found at my website (see link below) along with other curiosities for persons of questionable (but discerning) taste. <a href="https://scmarchere.com" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="color:RoyalBlue; text-decoration:underline;">www.scmarchere.com</a>

Before long a banner appears, welcoming you to Delphi, and inviting you to consult its Oracle who "knows all." Do you notice the quote marks? Probably not. Very small print in the corner of the banner expands on the Oracle's qualifications with the warning that her prophesies will more than likely ruin your life. Nonetheless, such is man's thirst for hearing the unhearable, for learning the unlearnable, for smelling the unsmellable (courtesy of the hot tin roofs over a nearby cluster of outhouses) that the city is overburdened with pilgrims eager to hear whatever the Oracle has to tell them. The operation is clearly a racket! With a raspberry you turn your back on the crowd and begin the journey home. However, upon nearing the backside of the signpost that had promised Delphi in five kilometres, you slow to reconsider. Just because a great mob seeks the Oracle's guidance, doesn't necessarily mean the guidance is worthless. The great mob also seeks air to breathe, water to drink, food to eat. Are these worthless? You turn around and tramp back to Delphi. As the mob nears, your pace again slows. How could you, a prince of Corinth, lower yourself to seek guidance from the same seer who sees for all and sundry? Are you to learn of your regal ancestry immediately after some prole is told where he'd misplaced his welfare cheque? Surely there must somewhere be a more exclusive oracle you could consult. And again you turn your back on Delphi. Over the next several days you will travel back and forth between the signpost and the banner, over and over, each time somehow finding a new reason to stay, and then a new reason to leave. You need to stop listening to the voice in your head, Oedipus. No matter how cryptic the guidance you receive from the Oracle, it surely can't be more cryptic than the guidance you get from yourself. Truly pathological indecisiveness. But you are, eventually, decisive enough to take a few steps beyond the banner. A glance around reveals Delphi to be a complicated network of queues. A queue for the steaming outhouses, a queue for the snack wagons, a queue for the souvenirs, a queue for the zipline ride, and longer than all the rest, the queue to the Oracle's tent. Could you endure the wait? What's another few hours after the days you've spent walking back and forth? No, obviously you couldn't endure it. Pacing back and forth is one thing, standing still is another. No, never, the wait would kill you. But then again, this is going to be a life-changing experience that should rightly be approached slowly. However, while in line you will undoubtedly have to make small talk with strangers. On the other hand... --- //Do you...// [[Give in to your impatience by leaving the queues of Delphi and returning home?->Continue to Corinth?]] //or// [[Give in to your indecisiveness by once again leaving Delphi, then changing your mind at the signpost, returning to Delphi, back and forth until you are stopped by some force of nature greater than your own stupidity?]]

Upon your sixtieth return to Delphi you are arrested by the local constabulary as a suspicious character and brought in for questioning. "Who are you?" the Detective demands to know. --- //You respond...// [[I am Oedipus, Prince of Corinth, son of King Polybus and Queen Merope.]] //or// [[Are you the Oracle?]]

"And I'm the King of Siam," the Detective replies with a scowl. "So tell me, Mr. E. D. Puss, what business do you have here in Delphi that keeps you coming and going, over and over, like a... Like a... Like a... Detective Bunkowski could have ended on "//over and over//," but in overestimation of his rhetorical eloquence, committed himself to providing a metaphor that he is incapable of delivering. A most awkward silence follows. It is time to demonstrate a little mercy, Oedipus. The question was clear enough without illustration. Let the poor man off the hook. --- //You answer...// [[I'm here to ask the Oracle about my parentage, but I keep changing my mind.]] //or// [[I'm here to ask the Oracle about my parentage, but I'm too impatient to wait in line.]]

The detective directs your attention to the nameplate on his office door. You have to squint because you didn't bring your glasses. --- //Upon reading the name, you ask...// [["Bunkowski. Is that Irish?"->"What's a pokey?"]] //or// [["So, Oracle Bunkowski, what's my fortune?"->"What's a pokey?"]]

"That sounds to me like the behaviour of a man who is highly stressed," the Detective suggests. "I am," you reply. "A holiday is what you need." "I do!" "Some luxurious resort where you can be pampered." "Treated like a princess, yes, exactly." "Big, comfortable bed, room service, swaying palms, the gentle rush of the surf, a warm sea breeze." "Gosh, that would be swell!" --- [[Your much needed holiday is just a click away!->"What's a pokey?"]]

"Of course, a great prince like you, Mr. E. D. Puss, shouldn't have to suffer the indignity of waiting in line, should you?" the Detective asks, with hoity-toity affectation. "How do you feel about waiting in the pokey for the night, eh? Got the patience for that?" --- //You reply...// [["It's not the indignity I mind, believe me. My whole life is one indignity after another. No, I'm just too impatient to wait. And to that point, I'm too impatient to remain here. May I leave?"->"What's a pokey?"]] //or// [["Patience? Yes, I suppose so. Then again, no, probably not. I suppose it depends on the surroundings. But on the other hand, I'm no less prone to impatience in places of immense pleasure than I am in dull little rooms like this. On reflection, though, I have at times..."->"What's a pokey?"]] //or// [[How dare you mock //me//, heir to the throne of Corinth? You worthless little bureaucrat! I'll have you fired! I'll have you flogged! You'll rue the day you chose to accost one as lofty as me!->"What's a pokey?"]] //or// [[You have no right to hold me here! I am a free man, free to exercise my will in whatever manner I please! What say you to the contrary? Eh? Speak! Do you deny me my fair portion of free will?->"What's a pokey?"]] //or// [["What's a pokey?"]]

After a night on a urine-soaked mattress in a locked cell you are released out onto the streets of Delphi with the stiffly-worded instruction to—and I here quote the Detective—//s--t or get off the pot//. You understand this to mean that you are to either visit the Oracle or leave. Fair enough. The sun is only just rising and booths still setting up. Queues have not yet begun to form, but the sight of a few tour buses rumbling near tells you to not squander your advantage. You scoot directly to the Oracle's tent and ask a nearby lady lighting a cigarette how one goes about requesting an appointment. The lady says nothing, rather taps her watch in a manner suggesting she is not yet on the clock. Behind you a queue begins to form. How exciting to be at the very front of a line! You've never before been first for anything. And it does give you an authoritative thrill to have been treated by strangers as the first in line. It wasn't a given, after all. The queue might have ordinarily formed a little to your right, or to your left. But, no, you were perceived by all without question to have been the start of the line. How such a realisation nourishes your princely pride! "I just dare that stupid Oracle to tell me anything other than glory and good fortune lies before me!" you say to yourself. The lady finally finishes her cigarette, flicks away the butt, and then steps into the tent, beckoning you with an indifferent finger to follow. //She// is the oracle? The tent is very dark inside, leaving you wishing that you'd given her a better looking-over while she'd been out in the sun, working the Virginia Slim. Before you have a chance to ask a question—because that was what you'd assumed was expected from you, as it had been on your only previous occult examination, with Madame Olga the crystal ball reader at the Corinth Summer Fair who prophesied that you would die alone and pockmarked if you kept picking at your zits—the tent fills with a powerful incense, and the Oracle, now masked, begins to sway. Soon you are also swaying, and in your dizziness you hear the Oracle's words as if spoken from the very heights of Mount Olympus, from the very depths of Tartarus, from the most inward chamber of your eternal soul— --- //Do you dare hear the Oracle's prophecy?// [[Of course, that's what I'm here for!]] //or// [[No, I change my mind! Blissful ignorance is what I want! It doesn't even have to be blissful, just ignorance is good enough! I plug my ears and sing the Mahna-Mahna song loudly to block her out.]]

"You will murder your father and marry your mother!" --- //Do you...// [[Gasp in horror?]] //or// [[Gasp in disgust?->Gasp in horror?]]

While her sneering lips move, while she gives silent voice to a destiny too dreadful for mortal ears, you plug your mortal ears and shriek your song, over and over, refusing to stop! Eventually you are flung from the tent, face-first into the dirt. You unplug your ears to hear, "...and don't come back!" It would seem the prophecy, while terrible, had also been short. Had you been able to read lips, you'd have read her demand, after the prophecy, over and over, for you to shut up, to stop your caterwauling, to leave her tent or be thrown out. You rise to your feet, brush the dust off your corduroys, and strut proudly to the exit, ignoring the stares of all the surrounding rabble. Nerts to them. You are Oedipus, willfully ignorant, proudly ignorant, joyfully ignorant! And as you trudge the great distance back home to Corinth, as the sun rises and sets, over and over, you become only more determined to remain ignorant for the rest of your days! The guard at the gates of Corinth tips his hat politely. As well he should, for you are Oedipus, heir not to tragedy, no, only to the crown of Corinth. Your Mum rises from her prize pumpkin patch to ask what you learned from your journey. "I learned," you answer with a sniff, "that I don't care for oracles, nor for prophecy, nor for dark whisperings of any kind." Your Dad climbs down the ladder atop which he'd been tending to the gutters to meet you at the screen door. He repeats your Mum's question. "I learned," you answer with another sniff, "to be quicker to the cereal box." "Solid advice," your Dad agrees. "But hear me, boy, I shall be even quicker." You pass around him with a haughty air, into the house and to your bedroom where you make yourself comfortable on your bed with a stack of comics and your best friend, your treasured doll Cornelius Starhead at your side. "Cornelius, from henceforward I shall be as plastic-headed as you. When I'm crowned king, I shall call myself Oedipus the Plastic-Headed King. No one other than you and I will know what this means. Mystery shall shroud me, and for that I will be grateful, because, dear Cornelius, in our dreadful world, mystery is preferable to clarity." --- [[Jump forward twenty years, oh mighty Oedipus of the Plastic Head, and see your destiny, if you dare!->ENDING 1]]

Gasped to exhaustion, you find yourself staggering out among the crowd waiting for their turn inside the tent. The poor fools! You feel like shaking them by their shoulders and pleading with them to flee with their precious ignorance! Flee with some portion of their psychological well-being yet unmolested! But then you catch a whiff of the corndog wagon. Three corndogs later you find yourself back at that accursed signpost where you had previously rested, and from where you now curse yourself for having taken one step beyond! "You will murder your father and marry your mother!" The Oracle's words ring out, again and again. You cover your ears to no avail. How you should have covered them in the tent! You should have covered your ears and bellowed the Mahna-Mahna song so loudly the gods of Olympus would have yelled for you to keep it down! But no, instead you'd listened. Alas, you heard the unhearable, and henceforward only misery lies before you. Poor, miserable Oedipus! What a dreadful path you've chosen! You shake the signpost as you wish you had shaken yourself. You lean against the signpost, as you should have leaned against your own better judgement. And then you slide down to crumple upon the road beneath the signpost—a true metaphor for your current state—a broken man, prostrate before his own destiny, an immovable post driven far into the immutable soil of eternity. The gods show at least this much mercy—sleep—yes, you are finally granted sleep. A long sleep, a reprieve from the dreadful reality now laid out before you. Upon waking a full day later, and fully returned to your dreadful reality at the foot of the fateful signpost, you demand from yourself better than your usual indecision. And with your resolution comes a sign of better things to come—squished in your greasy hip pocket you discover the corndog you'd hidden away for later. Later, indeed. The Oedipus of //before// is gone. And now you are, forevermore, the Oedipus of //later//—a wizened, sensible, all-new sort of Oedipus! --- //Do you...// [[Return home to Corinth to fulfill the prophecy, come what may?]] //or// [[Defy the Oracle and flee in the opposite direction?->Goodbye to Corinth]]

200 kilometres and one corndog later the walls of Corinth come hazily into view. You are tired from the journey, thirsty from the corndog, and grateful to be near once again the familiar city that has, you are certain, been your home from the moment of your birth. But you are also resolved to see the prophecy through. Someone should have explained to you that prophecies are //predictions//, not orders. Furthermore, the long walk did nothing to soften your will. No, rather, the million steps home stomped your will into a steel-thin sense of purpose. Before returning to the familiar white-picket-fenced royal bungalow you make a detour under the overpass to buy a rusted old .22 Special from one of the more violently inclined underpass dwellers. Then you return home and head straight into the backyard where your Dad is about to climb a ladder up to the gutters. You raise the gun. "Is this about our Cap'n Crunch dispute?" your Dad asks. His last words. And with that murder out of the way, with your future now paved in blood, you conclude your wretched destiny by dragging your Mum off to the nearest Justice of the Peace so the two of you can get hitched. Well, Oedipus, you've really gone and made a mess of things! --- [[If you want to know how bad a mess, click here to find out. If I were you, I'd instead back up a few places and try again! But, if you get some kind of sick pleasure out of your own misery, if you're one of those deranged masochists, well then, by all means, click away!->ENDING 3]]

By the cold-blooded murder of your father and colder-blooded marriage to your mother, both acts committed in full knowledge of what you were doing, you have made for yourself a tragedy infinitely more repulsive than I, your humble narrator, could have even imagined! Who could have guessed that the ageless Tragedy of Oedipus could be any more tragic, but then you come along and somehow manage it. Well done. Very well done you conscienceless monster! And your callousness doesn't end there! Oh no, it goes on for the rest of your miserable life! Whereas one would think you would at least one day face the monstrosity of your creation, rend your clothing, and gouge out not only your eyes, but also mangle yourself in many other ways, I don't know, pull out your fingernails with pliers, drop a car battery on your foot... No, you just merrily go about your ghastly days. In time you will have four repulsive children by your... ugh... by your //wife//... Let me pause here to let you in on a little secret, Oedipus. Your mother? Well, she isn't actually your birth mother. I won't go into the backstory because you don't deserve it. She might not be your birth mother, and the man you murdered might not have been your birth father, but they were still your mother and father! I tell you this not to ease your pain, since I know you feel no pain. No, I tell you this for the opposite reason, because I'm convinced you're so depraved you'll actually be disappointed by the news! No, your children aren't inbred, obviously. I called them repulsive because they are worse than inbred, they're bred from //you//. And now I will say no more. I need a shower. For my sake at least, let this be— THE END --- I hope you enjoyed //Oedipus Nix: Reluctant Plaything of the Gods//! This is Ending 3 of 15. If you plan to reread this story over and over until you've found all fifteen endings, good luck! And by //good luck//, I don't mean good luck in finding all the endings, since that's a fairly straightforward task; no, I mean good luck in general. If this is where you are in life, you truly do need some good luck. There's also a bonus ending that is best left unfound. [[Click here to start again.->OEDIPUS NIX]] --- Apropos... The tragedy of Oedipus (Sophocles' tragedy, that is, not the juvenile //Oedipus Nix//) underlies //Mrs. Quarterhorse//, the first book in my series about a young card-reader's relationship with the imperious heiress to a ghostly legacy. If, however, you //prefer// your stories juvenile, you might enjoy the comic //Meanwhile Not Far Away on the Moon//, a monumental reimagining of the Apollo 11 Lunar Mission. Both are found at my website (see link below) along with other curiosities for persons of questionable (but discerning) taste. <a href="https://scmarchere.com" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="color:RoyalBlue; text-decoration:underline;">www.scmarchere.com</a>

"How can I commit a crime if I stay far away from the scene of the crime?" you ask yourself. How indeed, Oedipus? Rather than stop to consider //how indeed//, you continue down the road to Thebes, your back to Corinth, your home. "Farewell dear Father and Mother!" you cry. "Farewell forever!" I don't want to interfere, but perhaps you should pause to at least consider the possibility that you don't actually //know// the scene of your prophesied crimes? No? Ah, well. At least you're trying to do the right thing. Especially considering how often of late your Dad has given you cause to murder him. When was the last time he left a cereal prize for you? And remember last week when the new vicar was over for tea, and your Dad accused you of having eaten all the graham wafers despite the trail of crumbs leading from the biscuit tin all the way to his moustache? Oh, and don't forget... Your pace slows. You turn for a look back towards Corinth. Perhaps you were hasty... No, no, keep your thoughts noble, Oedipus. He's a good man, your Dad. You wait for an example of your Dad's goodness. Just keep walking away from Corinth and I'll come up with an example. Go on, get moving. Oh, how's this—last month he took you and your Mum to the Corinth Annual Chili Jamboree and he bought you a bolo tie with a minotaur on it. It's not much, but it's not nothing. You grudgingly start off again. "You will murder your father and marry your mother!" The Oracle's prophecy rings out clear and dreadful! You speed into a jog toward Thebes, wherever that is. The farther from Corinth the better. The prophecy shall not be fulfilled! Your Dad deserves a good punch, no question, but not murder, no, never! And as for marrying your Mum, well, there's no question she looks pretty good in that short summer dress with the blue stripes... With a scream you speed into a sprint to get as far from Corinth as quickly as possible, faster, faster, faster...! --- //Do you...// [[Try to go even faster?]] //or// [[Maintain your present velocity?]] //or// [[Slow down, you're not Jesse Owens.]]

Oh, the options aren't good enough for you? Have you any idea the rat's nest of passages and arrows that make up the flowchart of your story, Oedipus? It looks like a dish of spaghetti and perfectly square meatballs. That's your life, Oedipus, spaghetti and square meatballs. I assure you, the options you've been given are more than sufficient for you to find yourself an acceptable destiny. But, fine. On this occasion, and only this occasion, to celebrate the Feast Day of St. Orangutan of Bananastan, Patron Saint of Lazy Shortcuts, I will grant this excruciating interactive story's one and only //Random Destiny Generator//. "//What is a Random Destiny Generator//," you ask? It is exactly what it says it is, Oedipus. A single click that will provide you with a destiny that in no way corresponds to the current path you are on. You might get a destiny better than the one awaiting you if you had actually continued honestly through this adventure, but you might get one worse. And don't you even think of clicking that back arrow thing. No, you whined about your choices and so here we are. Click the link below. Click it! You hesitate? Oh, those options on the previous page don't seem so bad now, do they? Well, tough beans. HEY I warned you—keep your grubby finger away from that back arrow! And full disclosure, the destiny to come is not actually randomly generated. I wish! No, I'm new to interactive story-telling and have my hands full just making sure all billion of these passages somehow connect to each other; the destiny to come is only random insofar as you don't at the moment know what it will be. I don't at the moment know what it will be either. Delay us no longer! Click the link below so we can both learn your utterly random destiny! Click it! Do it! --- [[Might as well click here to find out. You can also back out, right? (No! No you can't! Don't even think about it!)->ENDING 4]]

Thirty-two years have passed since apathy led you to click the //Random Destiny Generator//. How time flies. It feels like only five seconds ago. You are fifty-years-old, Oedipus. It is your birthday. On your head is a demeaning pointy birthday hat, before you a cake with fifty candles, and a large birthday card covered in many signatures surrounding a photograph of you at your eighteenth birthday. There you are, as you were, just seconds ago! Such is the power of the //Random Destiny Generator//. It is worth noting that in your eye sockets are two perfectly functioning eyeballs. Good start. And your soul? Seems reasonably unbefouled. And the children at the table surrounding your cake—do they bear the physical signs of inbreeding? No... they're a bit homely, and all have bad acne, but they're otherwise not particularly monstrous. But where is your crown? Surely by now you'll have inherited the throne of... let's say, Corinth. But atop your head is only the pointy party hat. Perhaps your crown is off getting detailed. You cast your fully functioning eyes across the room. Everyone at the table is now looking around too, bewildered by your behaviour. They don't realise that you've only just arrived. "Blow out the candles, Stanley!" one of the children shouts. Stanley? You leap out of your chair and lunge toward the toaster to see your reflection. Who is this acne scarred stranger before you? How cruel the intervening thirty-two years must have been to leave you so disfigured! Oh, the irony of your two functioning eyes, forced to witness so ghastly a transformation! You reach back to grab the photograph of your eighteen-year-old self. From it to the reflection you look, back and forth, over and over! The Picture of Dorian Grey, but in reverse. You got older, but the picture REMAINED THE SAME. "Stanley, are you okay?" someone asks. Before you can answer, or ask why everyone is calling you //Stanley//, a terrible gurgling in your belly tells you that you have no more than five seconds to drop yourself atop a toilet. One shouldn't expect to suddenly lurch forward thirty-two years without a little gastrointestinal disturbance. Alone on a toilet you hope is not your only throne you have the opportunity to consider the random destiny just dealt to you. You didn't get a very good look at the kitchen, less still of the hallway, but the washroom at least seems to be relatively unchanged from how you remember it in the old family home. The shower curtain has been replaced with a sliding glass door. "The kids are getting impatient, so we're going to just cut the cake, okay Stanley?" someone asks from the other side of the door. Well, that's about it, Oedipus. Oh, you're not satisfied with this destiny? You've got a familiar roof over your head, a slice of cake waiting for you, and a swanky new sliding shower door! Maybe I should tell you what the Fates had in store for you if you had actually lived out your proper destiny! Huh? You want to hear? No, you don't, I promise you don't. So quit whining about the inconsequentiality of the destiny you have just received. This is what fiftieth-birthdays are like for nearly everyone, Oedipus, so deal with it. Furthermore, the only reason you're here is because you were too shiftless to properly conclude your story. You willingly pressed the //Random Destiny Generator.// And no, I don't know why everyone is calling you //Stanley//. This is your future, Stanley, so just live in it and shut up. All told, you did well. Despite being born with a target on your back, you did well. Well enough. THE END --- I hope you enjoyed //Oedipus Nix: Reluctant Plaything of the Gods//! This is Ending 4 of 15. If you plan to reread this story over and over until you've found all fifteen endings, good luck! And by //good luck//, I don't mean good luck in finding all the endings, since that's a fairly straightforward task; no, I mean good luck in general. If this is where you are in life, you truly do need some good luck. There's also a bonus ending that is best left unfound. [[Click here to start again.->OEDIPUS NIX]] --- Apropos... The tragedy of Oedipus (Sophocles' tragedy, that is, not the juvenile //Oedipus Nix//) underlies //Mrs. Quarterhorse//, the first book in my series about a young card-reader's relationship with the imperious heiress to a ghostly legacy. If, however, you //prefer// your stories juvenile, you might enjoy the comic //Meanwhile Not Far Away on the Moon//, a monumental reimagining of the Apollo 11 Lunar Mission. Both are found at my website (see link below) along with other curiosities for persons of questionable (but discerning) taste. <a href="https://scmarchere.com" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="color:RoyalBlue; text-decoration:underline;">www.scmarchere.com</a>

No, forget it. You're a disgrace, yes, nobody denies it, least of all me, tasked with writing your miserable branches of destiny, but here I draw the line. Get into that washroom and use the toilet as if you were a human being, you filthy animal. --- [[No choices here. Into the washroom. GO.->"I've walked a considerable distance and I need to powder my nose!"]]

You fish the mangled remains of Cornelius Starhead out of the trash and spend the rest of the day carefully tending to his wounds. Your second favourite doll, Count Chocula, handles the anesthesia, and your third favourite doll, Lizzie Borden Barbie, as always, works the scalpel. The operation is a success, but Cornelius Starhead has a gruelling program of rehabilitation before him. Perhaps you need a little rehabilitation yourself. Exhaustion finally catches up with you. Physical exhaustion, yes, but mostly mental. Looking down upon Cornelius Starhead's bandaged form, you see only yourself. You have been run over by a metaphorical lawnmower, but there is no scalpel that can save you! On a mad, sudden impulse (of the sort that don't require a choice of links) you run off screaming to the fateful city of Thebes. --- //Do you...// [[Scream at high pitch, like a mountain lion?->Running away from home]] //or// [[Scream at a low pitch, like a regular lion?->Running away from home]]

Well, there it is, just a click away, the end of your odyssey. Do you really want your story to peter out like this, Oedipus? I can't say I blame you, it's a smart call, a decision I can assure you that countless alternate-universe Oedipi wish they had made. Still, it's a shame to conclude your story before you've even got to the seedy parts. --- //Do you...// [[Cut your losses, dig in your heels, go through the motions, etc., etc., so on and so forth, and just generally remain content in your pointless life as the Crown Prince of Thebes, a metaphorical fountainhead of something?->ENDING 1]] //or// [[Have this all be a dream (which does seem pretty likely) and wake up back at the very beginning of the story as if nothing has happened?->The Story Begins]]

The Foreign Legion? Really? You don't think perhaps you're overreacting to an insult hurled by a drunken stranger? The Foreign Legion! Imagine yourself hauling a fifty pound rucksack across steaming desert for sixteen hours, day after day! You can barely carry an egg-salad sandwich from the kitchen to the couch. Fair warning though, you do have a lot of walking ahead of you, regardless of what path you choose through life. Indeed, the Tragedy of Oedipus, however played, gives one highly toned calves. "//Tragedy//," you solemnly ponder. "The Foreign Legion is for men fleeing tragedy." They flee it //after// the tragedy, you dope, not //before//! What tragedy have you suffered this early on? A single insult? Get a hold of yourself, man! No, this interactive story is not going to allow you to join the Foreign Legion right off the hop. Later on, after you've committed a few atrocities, then perhaps there'll be a passage ending with options like: //Do you...// Run off to Join the Foreign Legion //or// Gouge out your eyes? But let's not get ahead of ourselves. For now, go back to bed. Kiss your stupid doll goodnight and claim your fair portion of sleep, Oedipus. Surely, you are going to need it. --- //Do you...// [[Kiss Cornelius Starhead goodnight and go to sleep?->Put the matter out of your head, kiss Cornelius Starhead goodnight, and go to sleep?]] //or// [[Run off to join the Foreign Legion?->Run off to join the Foreign Legion Again]]

GO TO BED, OEDIPUS. --- //Do you...// [[Kiss Cornelius Starhead one last time and then go to sleep?->Put the matter out of your head, kiss Cornelius Starhead goodnight, and go to sleep?]] //or// Run off to join the Foreign Legion? //or// [[Pout a little that the //Run off to join the Foreign Legion// choice is greyed out, throw Cornelius Starhead against the wall, and then grouch yourself to sleep?->Put the matter out of your head, kiss Cornelius Starhead goodnight, and go to sleep?]]

Despite your valiant attempt to flee from your dreadful destiny with rocket speed, all you accomplish is giving yourself cramps and the usual accompanying uncontrollable flatulence. Before thirty yards have fallen behind you, you are stopped and doubled over, gasping in a cloud of misery like the beast of burden you have tragically become. The beast of your own terrible burden! Terrible, smelly burden. Don't mind me, I'm just putting a clothespin on my nose. Now, if you'd maintained your present velocity—an option, I remind you, that you'd declined—you would be much farther ahead. Alternate reality Oedipus, jogging at a sustainable speed, has long passed you and is now falling from view around a bend in the road. Ah well, no matter, he'll merely arrive at the next juncture in your destiny a little before you. Just stay as you are and catch your breath, there's no hurry. Tell me when it's safe to remove the clothespin. And as you rest, dark clouds gather overhead. Dark, purple clouds, as purple as the purplest prose to ever describe a purple cloud. Dark, foreboding, purple clouds portending dreadful days to come. One looks like a banana. I told you to catch your breath, not lie down and look for shapes in the clouds, you lazy, flatulent dingaling. Get up! You're Oedipus, not Walt Whitman. Out of the cradle, endlessly farting. You drag yourself to your feet, shake the pebbles out of your flip-flops, give your neck a little crack, then continue on down the road, around a bend and onward to face a destiny of your own choosing! But before then you will have to face a chariot rumbling down that same road in your direction. The road is narrow. One of you will have to give way. "I'm trying to flee the Fates," you think to yourself, "I've got no time to waste with this road-hog charioteer who can't possibly have any connection to my destiny!" --- //Do you...// [[Confound the Fates by doing the most irrational thing you can think of, refusing to give way to a chariot that will certainly kill you if it hits you?->Refuse to Move Aside for Chariot]] //or// [[Confound the Fates by doing the most uncharacteristic thing you can think of, by stepping aside and politely waving the chariot through?->Move Aside for Chariot]]

You settle into a brisk jog and, after a long bend in the road around a hillside, the last of foul Delphi finally falls from view. Indeed, you have turned a corner, physically and perhaps metaphorically? Will all be well from hereon for accursed Oedipus? It seems unlikely so long as you're referred to as //accursed Oedipus//, but who knows? After all, you are setting out now in full force to defy destiny, to find for yourself a future happiness. Keep your expectations realistic. //Blessed// Oedipus is perhaps too much to hope for. The Fates do, after all, have it in for you, so let's just shoot for you making it to the end with both your peepers intact, okay? And with your presently intact peepers you peep a chariot coming down the road toward you. The driver scowls. You scowl back. The man has the worst acne you've ever seen on an adult, your own face notwithstanding. Unconsciously you pop a pimple on your chin. The road is narrow. One of you will have to give way. --- //Do you...// [[Refuse to move for the chariot and force him to go around you, certain that doing so can't possibly have any bearing on whether or not you conclude this story with your eyes intact?->Refuse to Move Aside for Chariot]] //or// [[Step graciously aside, bowing respectfully, in a manner entirely outside any characteristic you have yet shown in this story?->Move Aside for Chariot]]

You gradually slow to your usual moody pace, your trademark trudge. No point working up a sweat. And you remember having read somewhere that running is bad for the knees. If the Fates truly have ruin in store for you, no sense adding to your misery. And anyway, your yellow flip-flops provide nearly no arch support. No, you can walk away from destiny just as well as run from it. Maybe it's better to appear nonchalant. Don't let destiny know you're afraid of it. And whatever you do, don't make eye-contact with it. If there is one thing you must never do, Oedipus, it is make eye contact with destiny! Just then, you make eye-contact with the driver of a fast approaching chariot. He gives you the stink-eye. Or, at least, you perceive him to be doing so. Your low self-esteem, Oedipus, leads you to find insult wherever you look. If only your self-esteem was just a little lower, then you might realise that the world not only does not perpetually insult you, it isn't even aware you exist. The road is narrow. Either you or the charioteer will have to give way. --- //What choice, Oedipus?// [[Be proud—a characteristic shared by most tragic heroes and one surely to lead you to doom—and refuse to move aside for the chariot?->Refuse to Move Aside for Chariot]] //or// [[Be a wuss and move aside. Are you a man or aren't you, Oedipus?->Move Aside for Chariot]]

Since you're about to humiliate yourself by making way for this holier-than-thou charioteer, you might as well specify the quality of your disgrace. --- //Do you...// [[Shuffle pathetically into the ditch to stand ankle deep in sewage, like the cowardly loser that you are?]] //or// [[Step into the ditch with a broad obsequious bow, begging the charioteer to please churn dust up into your face?]]

With defiance you stand in the middle of the road, your arms crossed over your chest. Will the chariot run you down? For a moment it appears as if it will, but then it begins to slow, and eventually comes to a halt directly in front of you. The charioteer wears the second-most ostentatious hat you've ever seen. Gold with inlaid jewels. Little points all the way around. The sort of hat a rich Jughead might wear. It is almost as ridiculous as your Dad's crown. You prepare your eyeballs for the stare-down to end all stare-downs. But the charioteer does not stare back, he merely points to his wheels and tosses you a coin. "What are you waiting for?" he asks with impatience. "You're the wretch who cleans dung from chariot wheels aren't you?" --- //Do you...// [[Take the coin, de-dung the chariot's wheels, tip your hat with a polite "much obliged, guv'nah", then continue on your way to Thebes?->Continue on to Thebes]] //or// [[With fists perched atop your hips like you're Robin Hood, laugh dismissively, and demand the charioteer either make way for you, or dismount and prepare for combat!]]

"That's a good chap!" shouts the charioteer as he swoops past, burying you in dust. How the mighty have fallen, Oedipus! Once heir to the throne of Corinth, now a little bowing wretch, knee-deep in sludge. Is this your plan for the future? Perhaps you can earn your way through such a pathetic existence by fishing people's wallets out of outhouse pits—knee-deep in excrement, reaching up from time to time to pass dropped items through the toilet hole? "Your phone, m'lord," you'll say. A few coins will be tossed down in appreciation. --- //Do you...// [[Reclaim some small portion of your pride by charging after that obnoxious charioteer and giving him a taste of your princely fist?->Chase after Laius]] //or// [[With drooped shoulders, plod back up onto the road and continue pointlessly to Thebes?->Continue on to Thebes]]

And there you stand, up to your ankles in brackish ditch-water, head down, eyes pathetically on your submerged feet, as the chariot drives past, kicking up gravel, peppering you with stones and choking you with dust. "Much obliged!" shouts the charioteer without so much as a glance in your direction. What a noble portrait you make, Oedipus, Prince of Nowhere! Well, quit moping like a bumpkin, get a move on. It's a long way to Thebes and you no doubt have many more charioteers to move aside for. With luck it will start raining, as that would truly complete the portrait of your disgrace! --- //Do you...// [[Sigh miserably, then plod wet-footed out of the ditch to continue on to Thebes?->Continue on to Thebes]] //or// [[Regain your dignity by chasing after the chariot and giving its hoity-hoity charioteer a sound thrashing?->Chase after Laius]]

The chariot is thankfully moving along so erratically it can barely manage a walking pace—likely because of the Clydesdale and burro team pulling it. You are soon able to overtake the chariot and force it to a stop. --- //Do you...// [[Demand the charioteer make way for you, despite the absurdity of him doing so after you've just sprinted past him to block his way?->With fists perched atop your hips like you're Robin Hood, laugh dismissively, and demand the charioteer either make way for you, or dismount and prepare for combat!]] //or// [[Change your mind yet again, hop back into the smelly ditch, lower your head, and continue on your pathetic way to Thebes, shaking the bog-muck off your feet as you go?->Continue on to Thebes]]

Before very long you approach a signpost telling you— Thebes—10 kms. Perhaps //before very long// isn't the right choice of words. You have at this point been on your feet for two straight days. The sun will surely be rising by the time you reach the gates of Thebes. What will you find there? A public restroom, hopefully. Despite your recent humiliation, you are still too princely to relieve yourself at the side of the road. Not even in the dark of night, not even during a downpour. Indeed, you are a high-born nincompoop. And you wonder what lies beyond the toilet you now anticipate with every agonising step? Will you find refuge in Thebes from your lonely exile? Lonely? Do I, your faithful narrator, count for nothing? Far in the distance the walls of Thebes presumably appear, but it's hard to tell through the sickly haze. As you near, the earth underfoot becomes steadily drier, soon so dry you must leap over wide fissures. Wailing in the distance. A city in suffering. Along the roadside lie the dying and the recently dead. A few skeletons, too, why not, since Halloween is near. Vultures everywhere. What blight has struck this poor city? "At least," you reason, as you hop playfully over the emaciated husk of a dead horse still carrying the buzzard-gnawed remains of its rider, "a town this blight-stricken is unlikely to have long lines before its public toilets." A peasant in tatters crawls from the ditch to tug on your flip-flops. You wind up to boot him in the face before realising that he has likely come over to provide some much needed exposition. You signal for him to get on with it. "A great misfortune has fallen upon once prosperous Thebes!" he croaks through sun-cracked lips. He then goes on with unnecessarily florid language to describe the misery of his blighted land in the manner of countless dying peasant stock characters from terrible fiction immemorial. With a predictable final gasp, he expires still clutching your foot. He did at least provide you with one useful detail—the city is under siege by a terrible SPHINX who will let no one pass! --- //Do you...// [[Gather up your courage and face the Sphinx?->Detour D(a) - The Sphinx]] //or// [[Tamp down your cowardice and face the Sphinx?->Detour D(a) - The Sphinx]] //or// [[Complain about the lack of a meaningful option?]]

The charioteer is a little startled by the turn of events, but is prepared to sell his life dearly. He draws his sword and waits for you to do likewise. You don't have a sword, Oedipus. --- //Do you...// [[Attack the charioteer with your bare fists?->Ending 5]] //or// [[Ask if he has a spare sword?->Battle with Laius]] //or// [[Smile nervously, explain that you were only joking, then continue on to Thebes?->Continue on to Thebes]]

With one great chop, the charioteer cleaves you in two, from top to bottom. Your two halves flop to the road, one half to the right, the other to the left. Your opponent admires his handiwork, sheaths his sword, and drives on. It would appear he was a better swordsman than you'd counted on, Oedipus, and the man knew his way around a whetstone. But even if he'd been an unskilled swordsman with a dull blade, what did you expect to happen? Fists vs. a sword? Worse still, //your// fists vs. a sword? Have you ever successfully thrown a punch, Oedipus? You haven't the upper body strength to apply deodorant. Speaking of which, halved as you now are, your armpit stink-radius is a full two meters wider than it had been a minute ago. Well, rather than berate you for what you //did//, I might as well congratulate you (however one goes about congratulating two halves of a dead body) for all that you //did not//. You //did not //murder your father, nor marry your mother. Well done for not doing either of those things. And also for not doing all the other awful things you might have done during the course of a long misguided life. You defied destiny and you won, Oedipus, in a manner genius for its simplicity—getting yourself quickly and pointlessly killed. It does seem to me, looking back on the decisions you've made in your short and stupid life, there was little chance of you getting through it without coming to some sort of sticky end. But again, I stress, you did not murder your father nor marry your mother. We really should focus on that, because it means you have won your game with the Fates. Unfortunately, they're likely to get their revenge in the afterlife. I don't expect there's many in Hades willing to do you a good turn. You're not a very pleasant character, Oedipus. Not to the dead any more than to the living. On behalf of the living, at least, well done, Oedipus, and good riddance. THE END --- I hope you enjoyed //Oedipus Nix: Reluctant Plaything of the Gods//! This is Ending 5 of 15. If you plan to reread this story over and over until you've found all fifteen endings, good luck! And by //good luck//, I don't mean good luck in finding all the endings, since that's a fairly straightforward task; no, I mean good luck in general. If this is where you are in life, you truly do need some good luck. There's also a bonus ending that is best left unfound. [[Click here to start again.->OEDIPUS NIX]] --- Apropos... The tragedy of Oedipus (Sophocles' tragedy, that is, not the juvenile //Oedipus Nix//) underlies //Mrs. Quarterhorse//, the first book in my series about a young card-reader's relationship with the imperious heiress to a ghostly legacy. If, however, you //prefer// your stories juvenile, you might enjoy the comic //Meanwhile Not Far Away on the Moon//, a monumental reimagining of the Apollo 11 Lunar Mission. Both are found at my website (see link below) along with other curiosities for persons of questionable (but discerning) taste. <a href="https://scmarchere.com" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="color:RoyalBlue; text-decoration:underline;">www.scmarchere.com</a>

You approach a strange beast resting on its haunches just outside the city gates—a lion with wings and a lady's head. "Can I go in?" you ask. "//May// I go in," the Sphinx corrects your grammar. "May I go in?" you ask with a sigh. "No you can't," the Sphinx answers. "If you've planted yourself here to add to Thebes' woes," you argue, "I assure you that you will //multiply// the city's woes by letting me in." The Sphinx looks you over and concedes that you're probably right. But since she can't let anyone in without them first answering a riddle, she offers you a really easy one. "What walks on four feet in the morning, two in the afternoon, and three at night?" You stop to consider the question. The Sphinx waits, tapping a paw impatiently. "Are you kidding me?" the Sphinx asks. "Everyone knows the stupid //four feet in the morning// riddle!" "Is it an ape?" "An //ape//?" "They kind of change how they walk sometimes." "No, it's not an ape!" the exasperated Sphinx shrieks, "It's... well, strictly speaking, in biological terms, I suppose it //is//..." "Then I can go in?" The Sphinx throws up her arms, growls a little, then gestures for you to go in, to not go in, to do whatever you want. And so, with a tip of your chapeau, you bid the Sphinx adieu and enter Thebes. --- //Do you...// [[Strut directly to the royal household, flush with confidence after your exhausting battle of wits with the Sphinx, to demand the use of the royal facilities?]] //or// [[Find the nearest gas station and ask for the keys to the john?]]

Well, I'm just going to level with you Oedipus, by neglecting to kill that charioteer back there, you threw the Fates for a bit of a loop, and so they're not taking any chances with the next encounter. "He's facing that Sphinx whether he likes it or not," was the order, and, so, here we are. Consider this little diversion the best that free will can offer you at the moment. --- [[Now go!->Detour D(a) - The Sphinx]]

The front desk of the nearest filling station seems deserted. No— no, not deserted— the withered shell of an attendant is on the floor, slumped behind the desk. Closer observation shows parched lips, and a closer listen reveals a raspy voice pleading with the gods for deliverance from the blight that has befallen accursed Theb... "...Can I use the restroom?" you ask. A bony hand directs you to the snack counter above which a sign explains that the washroom is for customers only. With a groan you examine the row of candy bars. Sweet Marie? Bar Six? How old is this inventory? Accursed Thebes, indeed. After a careful search for the absolute cheapest option you select a dust-covered Wig Wag and bring it to the counter. The attendant drags himself up to work the cash register. He beckons you nearer. "A... dollar... twenty-five...." he whispers, painfully. "Do you have change for a hundred?" you whisper back. You are immediately shoved out the door, off the premises, and left very near bursting unless you find a washroom immediately. There's no time to be choosy. The nearest building to the miserly filling station is the royal palace. --- //Do you...// [[Ring the bell and wait politely at the risk of soiling yourself?]] //or// [[Just barge in already. When nature calls, even the Fates must give way.->Strut directly to the royal household, flush with confidence after your exhausting battle of wits with the Sphinx, to demand the use of the royal facilities?]]

Despite your rush to relieve yourself, you stop to admire the palace's Halloween display. Classy, just as one should expect from a royal household. The requisite jack o'lantern, a few ghosts made from bedsheets, a light-up frankenstein, some headstones with silly pun names, and a pair of actual skeletons sprawled face-down near the portico. Over the skeletons you step and into the eerily quiet inner courtyard you peer. "Anyone home?" No one answers. You make directly toward the faint sound of running water. A little series of corridors leads you to what is certainly a washroom. You push open the door to be met by a wall of steam. And a lady's voice, singing in the shower, "...stay loose, boy, breeze it, buzz it, easy does it, turn off the juice, boy..." You ahem loudly. The shower goes off and a woman wearing a shower cap looks menacingly out at you from behind the shower curtain. "Who dares barge in on the Queen?" she shouts, "Guards!" No one responds. "I just need to use the..." you begin, before a bar of soap bounces off your head. "Get out!" the lady screams. A bottle of shampoo follows. Next a conditioner bottle, followed by a back brush, a loofah, a chrome shower-head... While running from the washroom in fear for your life, you hear wheels rumbling into the courtyard, a horse whinnying, and a burro hee-hawing. Have the palace guards arrived? Are you soon to be apprehended for accosting the Queen? --- //Do you...// [[Sneak out the back way?]] //or// [[Remain where you are, arms akimbo, tired of running from destiny, to await come what may?]]

You shift uneasily from foot to foot while waiting for someone to answer. As the painful seconds tick-tock into agonising minutes you begin to wonder if the doorbell you pressed actually works. Drought-and-plague-ravaged as Thebes seems to be, there's no reason the doorbells would all conk out. You poke the button again and again and listen for the reverberations of a distant ring. All is silent but for the groans of nearby citizenry pleading with the gods for deliverance from their misery. Perhaps you would similarly pray for deliverance from the misery of your near-bursting bladder were you not set on defying the gods by rejecting the destiny they are intent on forcing upon you. Such villains would be no more willing to offer you help than you to receive it! Well, no, you'd probably be willing to receive any help at the moment. You badly need to go! You press the button several more times before realising with a scream that it is not a bell, rather, a tarantula. You scream several more times before realising the tarantula is just a blotch. You press the blotch several more times before realising it isn't a doorbell. You really are stupid, Oedipus. Just go into the stupid palace already so we can get on with your stupid story. --- //Do you...// [[Step across the stupid front stoop and through the stupid archway into the stupid palace?->Strut directly to the royal household, flush with confidence after your exhausting battle of wits with the Sphinx, to demand the use of the royal facilities?]] //or// [[Press the blotch a few more times just to be safe.]]

Once, twice, thrice you press the blotch, listening for the faintest sound of a bell anywhere near. A fourth press, a fifth. A sixth. What was that? A bell! Aha, you were right to hold out! You press the button over and over and over. A sullen-faced jester appears from the street you'd just left, bells jingling from all the points of his cap. He looks you over with a scowl, then asks if you're new in town. You tell him that you are. He holds up a stained and badly faded //Star Trek: Insurrection// swag-bag filled with household items, all covered with bells, and asks if you want to buy a bell-covered comb. You tell him that you don't. What about a bell-covered toothbrush? No, thank you. A bell-covered clock radio? Absolutely not. While grumpily stuffing his merchandise back into his bag, he idly asks how you got past the Sphinx. As you begin, with relish, telling him of how you defeated the Sphinx in a titanic battle of wits, the jester wanders off, interest in you and your story abating, bells a-jingling. You return to pressing the blotch only to discover it is gone! Plague, drought, and now phantom doorbells! Surely Thebes is accursed! Then you discover the blotch had come off on your finger. --- //Now (reasonably) convinced that there is no doorbell, you...// [[Do as you should have done in the previous passage and just enter the palace.->Strut directly to the royal household, flush with confidence after your exhausting battle of wits with the Sphinx, to demand the use of the royal facilities?]] //or// [[Run off after the jester and start a new life selling things covered with bells.]]

Oh no, this is where I draw the line. I have tolerated with good humour your previous attempts to derail this story, but there is no way I am going to let you branch off on another detour so you can become a bell-covered-whatever salesman. In even the most generous multiverse, there is no timeline in which Oedipus goes off on such a quest. Just go into the palace, now! --- //Do you...// [[Go into the palace, now?->Strut directly to the royal household, flush with confidence after your exhausting battle of wits with the Sphinx, to demand the use of the royal facilities?]] //or// [[Shuffle around stubbornly for a few minutes, then, moving in a manner to pretend that you are not doing what was demanded of you, rather, acting entirely of your own free will, go into the palace?->Strut directly to the royal household, flush with confidence after your exhausting battle of wits with the Sphinx, to demand the use of the royal facilities?]]

The route you presume is //the back way// leads you down a flight of stairs into a rec-room filled with old, picky furniture, an ancient TV with rabbit ears, and a netless ping pong table converted into a workstation for gluing and framing jigsaw puzzles. Indeed, the dead-end to end all dead-ends. --- //Do you...// [[Run back upstairs to resume your search for a way out of the palace?]] //or// [[Hide under the couch?]]

The man marches toward you, and you briefly worry that you will have to defend yourself with only your puny fists. But he merely veers around you and disappears down the hall. You hear a door close and then a washroom fan start up. The lady remains between you and the hall, her mace still swinging, but the front exit through the courtyard now undefended. --- //Do you...// [[Make a run for it through the courtyard?]] //or// [[Remain where you are, determined to see the situation through?]]

With stern brow you await what may come. You are certain that you have reached a crossroads in your destiny. How you avail yourself now may be the difference between fortune and failure, between life and death, between apotheosis and the torments of dark Tartarus! "Jocasta, dear," a man's voice calls from the courtyard, "someone has stepped on one of your little Halloween gourds." You check the bottom of your foot. Wasn't you. A man with a familiar face appears, throwing off his dusty robe and then stopping upon noticing you, a stranger, standing in the middle of his hall. And at that same moment, a woman appears from the other direction, she in a bathrobe and slippers and spinning a soap-on-a-rope like a spiked ball-and-chain. You are surrounded. Fate has surrounded you, Oedipus! "A friend of yours, Jo?" the man asks as he straightens the crown on his head. "A Peeping Tom!" she angrily answers. This accusation you will not allow to stand. "I am not a common voyeur, Madam, I was merely looking for a toilet," you reply with a princely sniff. "And as it seems at the moment the washroom is free, I should very much appreciate..." The lady halts your approach by swinging the soap with greater velocity. She's not kidding around, that soap has your name on it. --- //Do you...// [[Promise to acquiesce to whatever your reluctant hosts want of you if they will only concede to let you first use the washroom?]] //or// [[Make a run for it past the man?]] //or// [[Make a run for it past the lady?]]

With a berserker's shriek you charge the man, head down, prepared to strike him like he were a bowling pin. But, unlike all but the most sinister bowling pins, he steps aside, and you continue out into the courtyard, past a chariot, horse, and burro you recognise, and then back onto the front street, and farther still until you are safely hidden behind a smelly heap of rotting corpses. While swatting away flies, you peer between the ribs of a rat-gnawed skeleton at the palace gates to see if you are being followed. No, it would seem the intruded-upon are just happy to have you gone. The steaming piles of putrefied humanity by which you are surrounded bring to mind your spotty vaccination record. You recall getting a tetanus shot a few years back after biting into the rusty nail you'd used to repair a damaged Mars bar. But did you get a plague shot at the same time? You distinctly remember the pharmacist using the word //black//. Was it a Black Death inoculation? More likely a cream for blackheads. In any event, with your junket to Thebes come to nothing, with a sun steadily dropping in the sky, and with a bladder that surely can't hold out much longer, it is time to make a decision. --- //Do you...// [[Leave Thebes and return to your home in Corinth despite the prophecy?]] //or// [[Leave Thebes and head off in the opposite direction?]]

What is it about that man that scares you off, Oedipus? Yes, indeed he is the charioteer from whom you shrunk with such cowardice back on the road between here and Delphi. Yet again you cannot face him! Perhaps a little voice in your ear is telling you that the man is somehow entangled with the curse upon your head? Or, more likely, you simply judged the woman easier to get around. Your judgement, as usual, is wrong. Your judgement is wrong, and her aim is right. Her spinning soap-on-a-rope connects with its target—your big stupid head—and out go the lights! Indeed, darkness has fallen upon your eyes, Oedipus. Such ebon gloom! Are you dead? No, a faint light appears in the distance. And with that light, a primal urging urges you forward. Go to the light, Oedipus, step into the light! --- //Do you...// [[Step into the light?->Ending 9]] //or// [[Run off in the opposite direction to the light?]] //or// [[Remain precisely where you are?]]

You manage two strides before an expertly slung bar of soap cracks into the back of your head. Darkness falls upon you, Oedipus. Are you dead? A sure test is to see if there are options listed below. If so, you're likely still alive. Furthermore, there seems to be a faint light in the distance. I suppose the real test of your aliveness is whether or not you're able to click one of the options. Give it a shot. --- //Do you...// [[Step into the light?->Ending 9]] //or// [[Run off in the opposite direction to the light?]] //or// [[Remain precisely where you are?]]

The lady never takes her eyes off you. She seems to want you to make a run for it, so she'll have the excuse to release the spinning bar of soap into the back of your head. You do not give her the pleasure. Despite technically being an intruder, you are determined now to behave with the decorum of an invited guest. From down the hall, a toilet flushes. A moment later the man reappears, drying his hands by flicking his fingers, to tell you that the washroom is now all yours, if you like. You tip your hat politely as you slink around the irritated woman to rush off down the hall and into the washroom. Barely have you raised the toilet seat when voices appear on the other side of the door. "Who did you say he was, dear?" the man asks. "A trespassing pervert!" the woman answers. "Is that who you are?" the man asks through the door. "I'm Oedipus," you answer, "Prince of Corinth, and not a pervert. Not at this moment, anyway. I really did just need to use the washroom." "What are you doing in forsaken Thebes?" the man asks. "Fleeing destiny," you answer. "How did you get past the Sphinx?" the woman asks. "I would be very happy to answer that question, and whatever other questions you might have for me, but could we perhaps conduct the interview after I've left the washroom because I can't go with the two of you standing just outside the door." You are granted your privacy, but only after the woman warns you to not dare dry your grubby hands on her towel, the pink one, and to keep your peeping eyes off the contents of the medicine cabinet. She leaves with your solemn promise. After concluding your business, blowing your nose on the pink towel, and having a good look through the various ointments and tinctures inside the medicine cabinet, you finally, properly meet your hosts. Laius and Jocasta, king and queen of Thebes. A good long squint confirms that Laius was the charioteer you'd met on the road between Delphi and Thebes. --- //Do you...// [[Tell him that you'd recently contemplated murdering him with your fists?]] //or// [[Tell him everything about your adventure except your having recently contemplated murdering him with your fists?]]

Laius and Jocasta simultaneously begin laughing. You've lightened the mood, at least. Not the first time you've pleasured the world with a demonstration of your fundamental ridiculousness. Laius, still chuckling, takes up a boxer's stance. "Go on then," he urges, "have a go!" Jocasta steps back with a squeal of delight to give the two of you room to spar. "You //want// me to murder you?" you ask. "Give me your best, boy!" You can occasionally wring a rational thought from your squishy wad of brain cells, and finding yourself facing a relative stranger with whom destiny has now given you a second opportunity to battle, you begin to wonder—could this be the man you are prophesied to murder—your birth father? Old talk of b-----ds and foundlings come to mind. Yes, indeed, the Fates are luring you to fulfill your miserable destiny! But //no//, you shall deny them their cruel sport! "Sir," you begin, upon taking your most noble stance, arms akimbo, "I shall not..." Laius gives you a quick jab to the nose. Jocasta cheers. "Hit him again!" You raise your fists to block Laius' second punch, which is, unfortunately, unexpectedly lower than the first, to the kidney. Down into a heap you drop. Laius shuffle-steps around you for a moment waiting for you to get up, then gradually eases out of his boxer's stance. "How murdered am I, Jo?" he asks his wife. "Minimally, I'd say," Jocasta answers. "It barely shows." "Come on, get up, boy," Laius urges. "No," you whimper. Let's pretend, so you can maintain at least a small amount of dignity, that you refuse to get up because you are set on defying the Fates, and not because you don't want to be punched anymore. "Oh, get up," Laius prods you with his slippered foot. He and his wife wander into the kitchen to put away the groceries he'd just returned with. Assured your humiliation is complete, you sit up, rubbing your swollen nose and nursing your squished kidney. Good thing you'd just had that pee otherwise you'd be sitting in a puddle right now. Your way is now free to the exit. The royal household clearly no longer considers you a threat. Truth be known, they barely consider you at all. --- //Do you...// [[Wander nonchalantly into the kitchen to share with your hosts a little about yourself?->Tell him everything about your adventure except your having recently contemplated murdering him with your fists?]] //or// [[Leave the couple be, despite your suspicion of them being your birth parents?]]

Your hosts listen politely to your story, but as the sun begins to set, they show subtle signs of boredom, like yawning in your face, checking their watches, and leaving you in the kitchen while they retire to the living room and switch on the TV. You follow them, settle yourself in a rocking chair, and continue your tale, rocking violently back and forth, and gradually raising your voice to overcome the steadily raised volume of the TV. "...and then," you scream, refusing to be ignored, "I barged in here needing to use the washroom, and... I guess you know the rest." Your fuming hosts wait for a moment to ensure that you are finished before cautiously lowering the TV volume. The three of you sit quietly but awkwardly for perhaps twenty minutes, watching a single commercial break in the edited-for-television version of //The Towering Inferno//. "You know what, Jocasta," Laius says to his wife, while once again adjusting the clumsy crown atop his head, "when he sits there pouting he looks a little like you." Jocasta snorts derisively. "He's got your complexion," Jocasta retorts, "and your beady little eyes." You ignore your hosts, pretend to not hear them, and focus entirely on the movie, hoping that O. J. Simpson arrives in time to rescue the cat. "It's getting late," Laius says to no one in particular. You ignore him. There is a sudden thudding outside, trash cans being knocked over, voices wailing in despair. Laius gets up angrily to shut the windows. "I'll be glad when that miserable curse is lifted, the famine ends, the plague clears up, and prosperity once again returns to Thebes," Jocasta groans as she pulls herself into Laius' vacated corner of the couch. "Speaking of famine," Laius remarks while peering into the kitchen, "I'm starving. How about I barbecue yesterday's leftover chicken while you make some macaroni salad?" You lick your lips. "I was putting off dinner until What's-his-name over there, Prince of Not-Getting-The-Hint, has cleared off," Jocasta replies, loudly, while looking directly at you. --- //Do you...// [[Offer to set the table?]] //or// [[Stop imposing on the poor couple and just leave already!]]

Well, I think we've drawn out this timeline about as far as we can, don't you agree, Oedipus? The whole story is just sort of fizzling out. I'm tired of writing it, you're tired of reading it, and furthermore, I've got six loose sub-sub-sub-timelines I need to get sorted before I can call it a day, and I'm not prepared to drag any of us through to the end of the televised version of //The Towering Inferno// which, if I remember correctly, lasts seventeen hours. The king and queen of Thebes, for all their loud sighs, all their watch-tapping, all their outright demands for you to //get lost//, will be incapable of dislodging you from their palace. You will not only insinuate yourself into a chair at their kitchen nook, you will even spend the night in the spare room. What a night that will be! They'll do everything they can to make your sleep miserable. Clatter pots and pans, thud the floor beneath your bed with a crowbar, even release a tarantula into your room. You will mistake the tarantula for a room service button and squash it dead. But, believe it or not, you will eventually grow on your involuntary adoptive parents. A month later you are firmly planted in their abode. Oh yes, they'll still occasionally drop hints for you to leave, or drop poison into your mid-afternoon Froot Loops, but you nonetheless become as much a fixture in the royal palace as the soda fountain, the cotton candy machine, the barrels of jelly beans, and the iron bars on all the windows and doors that keep out the groaning citizenry of blighted Thebes. Your presence did at least help game night, as it allowed for the addition of board games requiring three players. You showed no mercy. After one particularly brutal game of Monopoly, your ruined host, upon losing everything to pay his Marvin Gardens hotel bill, sighed in defeat, "you've murdered me, Oedipus!" One night, a year or two later, while the king and queen argued over which of the Olsen twins is more likely to have a dead husband bricked up in the cellar, you discover, through an inadvertent insult, that your hosts are not actually married. You nearly choke on your mouthful of raspberry-swirl cheesecake. "You two are... //living in sin//?" you ask with horror. The blushes on the faces of your host and hostess answer the question for them. While you are certainly horrified to learn that you'd been living for so long under the same roof as a couple of... of... common //fornicators//... you are able to keep your cool, and offer to immediately marry the couple. Yes, you, Oedipus, are a certified Justice of the Peace. You didn't know? Odd. You should have known, since you are, in fact, you. I suppose you've just forgotten. Evidently a few years back you got it in your head that it would be fun to go around stamping things so you took an online course. You would have flunked out had you not aced the //stamping// part of the test. Anyway, suffice to say you were able that same evening to legally stamp a marriage licence for Jocasta and Laius. And now, Oedipus, with yourself installed into the House of Thebes, would you like to step forward a few decades to see how all this conforms to what the Fates had planned for you? --- [[After suffering through all that? Yes, of course, just end this timeline already!->Ending 6]]

About time! Laius and Jocasta share a relieved look, and the latter then clasps her hands and quietly mouths, "Thank Zeus!" But I suspect you might have accidentally clicked the wrong option. You really meant to stay for dinner, right? It seems unlikely to me that so far along you'd suddenly become self-aware. So, I'm going to give you another chance to do the //wrong// thing. --- //Do you...// [[Explain to your hosts that what you'd //meant// when you'd said, "I think it's time I bid you adieu," was, in fact, "I don't care for cold noodles so can you make coleslaw instead?"->Offer to set the table?]] //or// [[Entirely out of character, apologise for your intrusion, bow humbly, and ask your hosts to not bother getting up, that you will show yourself out, thanking them one last time as you step from their home for their hospitality?->Leave the couple be, despite your suspicion of them being your birth parents?]]

And here we are, twenty years in the future. The curse on Thebes ended nearly immediately after Jocasta and Laius were finally, legally married. Turns out Zeus had cursed the city because he didn't like its royal household "living loosely" as he put it. Seriously, Zeus said this, Zeus the serial rapist, him, he actually wouldn't lift the curse until you, Oedipus, had thoroughly stamped their marriage license. Thebes was mostly okay thereafter. The occasional famine, yes, but the palace's pantry was always full, so, no skin off your nose. You would in time be adopted by Jocasta and Laius, and succeed them as King and ruler of Thebes. All hail Oedipus Rex! Furthermore, to the point of this little adventure, not only do you become the just ruler of a great city, you did it, somehow, flawlessly. Better than anyone could have expected. Certainly better than //I// expected. Some of the decisions you made along the way were downright idiotic! Students of Greek Tragedy, those aware of your presumed destiny, Oedipus, would have known from the outset that Laius and Jocasta were, in fact, your birth parents. That's right, Oedipus, you actually half-saw your own mother in the shower! But, before you feel all queasy about that, let me tell you, if you'd taken just a slightly different timeline, things could have turned out a lot worse! A //whole—lot—worse//. At the moment you merely want to wash your eyes with soap. Bound to sting a little, but compared to— let's just leave it at that. Oh, and I forgot about Oedipelia. Have I mentioned her yet? She doesn't account for much in this timeline, evidently. She's Laius and Jocasta's daughter, and //your// sister, who'd been away at finishing school when you'd first intruded on the Theban ruling family. Fortunately, after you'd finally met, she found you so repellent your amorous glances came to nothing. Back to the point. When you were a baby, Oedipus, Laius and Jocasta were told by the Oracle in Delphi that their baby would murder his father and marry his mother. And so they did what anyone would do after a fortune-teller gives them an unpleasant reading—they abandoned their baby to die. The Fates, unwilling to have their cruel plans for you made marginally less cruel, intervened sufficiently to get you adopted into the royal house of Corinth. If you'd been paying attention, Oedipus, you might have caught the meaning of that Monopoly-night cry of Laius' that you'd murdered him? And surely you caught the meaning of you actually conducting the ceremony that legally married your mother and father? Eh? You see what I'm getting at? You somehow managed to fulfill the prophesy of the Oracle at Delphi—to murder your father and marry your mother—without actually having done either of those monstrous things! You not only managed a happy ending, you managed it without even angering the Fates. Everyone wins! That is to say, you did it, Oedipus! This is, in fact, the best possible timeline! You accomplished the impossible! The Tragedy of Oedipus is now only tragic in its clumsy prose! Well played! THE END --- I hope you enjoyed //Oedipus Nix: Reluctant Plaything of the Gods//! This is Ending 6 of 15. If you plan to reread this story over and over until you've found all fifteen endings, good luck! And by //good luck//, I don't mean good luck in finding all the endings, since that's a fairly straightforward task; no, I mean good luck in general. If this is where you are in life, you truly do need some good luck. There's also a bonus ending that is best left unfound. [[Click here to start again.->OEDIPUS NIX]] --- Apropos... The tragedy of Oedipus (Sophocles' tragedy, that is, not the juvenile //Oedipus Nix//) underlies //Mrs. Quarterhorse//, the first book in my series about a young card-reader's relationship with the imperious heiress to a ghostly legacy. If, however, you //prefer// your stories juvenile, you might enjoy the comic //Meanwhile Not Far Away on the Moon//, a monumental reimagining of the Apollo 11 Lunar Mission. Both are found at my website (see link below) along with other curiosities for persons of questionable (but discerning) taste. <a href="https://scmarchere.com" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="color:RoyalBlue; text-decoration:underline;">www.scmarchere.com</a>

You moron, there's less than a half-foot of space under that couch. And even if you could somehow deflate that giant pumpkin you call a head, there's likely a few decades of dust and dead spiders under there. That is to say, while you might be shameless enough to hide under a couch, you are neither slender nor brave enough. And you're wasting time! Get back upstairs and deal with this situation properly! --- //Do you...// [[Feign a brave face and march with confidence upstairs to endure the consequences of your malfeasance?->Remain where you are, arms akimbo, tired of running from destiny, to await come what may?]] //or// [[Continue wearing your authentic cowardly face and run back upstairs and out the door, screaming all the way?]]

You scoot back up to the main floor to rush through the kitchen, nabbing a grape from a bowl as you go, to wind up in the hall, back where you started. Truly, the Fates have cornered you. You pop the grape into your mouth. It's not a grape, it's a pickled onion. This is absolutely not a good sign. One needn't be an oracle to read a grape turning into an onion as foretelling imminent calamity. --- //Do you...// [[Portents of the pickled onion notwithstanding, remain where you are to face your destiny?->Remain where you are, arms akimbo, tired of running from destiny, to await come what may?]] //or// [[Run back downstairs before you're discovered and hide under the couch?->Hide under the couch v2]]

The charioteer isn't sure if you're just having fun with him, but a casual look-over tells him that you truly do not have a sword anywhere on your person. Unless it's collapsible, perhaps, and tucked away in your little Hello Kitty backpack. Your surprisingly tolerant adversary answers that he has only the one sword. Look, if you want my opinion, Oedipus, just let the man be. His crown tells pretty clearly his high rank, and he seems to be busy. You, on the other hand, are just rank and bored. "I am the king of Thebes on an important errand," the man tells you, confirming my suspicion, "and have no argument with you, noble traveller." //Noble traveller? //He's cutting you far more slack than you deserve Oedipus, so how about you take the compliment and get out of the man's way? If your heart is set on combat, you're bound to genuinely offend someone before much longer. I've been ready to slap you across the face repeatedly. If there was any way for the two of us to fight, I'd gladly give you the skewering you deserve. But, alas, I'm far off in time and space, frantically typing an interactive adventure of dubious playability, and you're in the here and now, surprisingly far along in that adventure. Are you truly going to see it through to the end? You're a very good sport! There are quite a few endings—fifteen, I think, and I'm certain at least one is nearby... As for interactivity, let's let you have another go at it. --- //Do you...// [[Agree to the sword-fight despite your not having a sword?]] //or// [[Suggest a chariot race despite your not having a chariot?]] //or// [[Suggest a battle of wits despite your not having——?->Suggest a battle of wits?]]

All that walking for nothing, eh? I'd accuse you of being wishy-washy, Oedipus, were you not so consistent in your inconstancy. Okay, let's get this over with and hit the road. Perhaps along the way we can find the exact spot where your adventure fell off the rails. A week, or two weeks, or, I don't care anymore, a thousand years later the walls of Corinth finally appear on the horizon. Home at last! How you've missed the old place. As you near the city gates a passing shepherd wearing a surgical facemask shrieks a curse at you, something about your bedeviled lineage. You refuse to let it bother you. You wave at the shepherd. He beans you with a rock. A guard also wearing a facemask stops you at the gate to ask where you came from. "Don't you recognise me?" you laugh, " I'm your beloved prince, heir to the throne of Corinth!" He asks again where you came from. "Thebes," you reply. A flurry of violence later and you find yourself at the bottom of a deep pit, surrounded by pockmarked beggars. You shake your fist skyward and curse the villains who manhandled you out of Corinth and dumped you here. "Got the plague, do you?" asks a nearby beggar, ragged and pockmarked, while offering you a bite of his gob-soaked Twizzler. "Not that I know of," you answer, biting off a piece. "What's all that, then?" he asks, pointing at your face, and taking another bite of his Twizzler. "It's just acne," you assure the beggar, while taking for yourself another bite. "Can't be too safe these days," says the beggar, thoroughly licking the Twizzler from top to bottom, then nibbling off a bit at the end. "I hear Thebes is all in ruin." "That I can attest to," you reply, while taking yet another bite of the drool-softened Twizzler, "I just got back from Thebes. A blighted town if I've ever smelled one." "Ah," the beggar proclaims, while taking another bite of the Twizzler. "You've been quarantined then." "You've been quarantined, too?" you ask, while taking another bite. "Well, yes and no. I've actually //got// the plague," he answers, while gulping down the last of the Twizzler. You jump back in horror. Horror and outrage both. "This is a plague pit!" you shriek. "Why would they quarantine me here, of all places?" "If I were to hazard a guess," the beggar hazardly guesses, "it probably has something to do with fiscal belt-tightening. I'd suggest you talk to your local ombudsman about it, except to talk to him he'll have to catch the plague and be thrown down here with us." --- //Very well done, Oedipus. Shall we now leap forward a few decades to see where this timeline leads you?// [[Yes->Ending 7]] //or// [[You're trapped in a pit for the rest of your life, you idiot, so just select //yes// and let's wrap things up.->Ending 7]]

The road beyond the gates of Thebes leads in one direction back to Corinth, via Delphi, but in the other direction? Drunken hicks have so utterly shot up the signpost that only a small portion of a broken arrow remains. "Do you know where the road leads in that direction?" you ask the Sphinx, who remains where you first encountered her, except now asleep. She awakes with a little start. "Where is what now?" she asks. You repeat the question. "It leads to Pickletown," the Sphinx yawns. "Are you still holding Thebes hostage?" you ask. "Doesn't appear so," the Sphinx answers, as a passing shoe-brush salesman enters the city while politely tipping his hat to the two of you. "Do you want to come with me to Pickletown?" you ask. Several days later you and the Sphinx arrive in Pickletown. Neither of you had been there before, neither knew what to expect. With little else to discuss along the way, your collective imaginations eventually built up a glorified vision of Pickletown to which the actual Pickletown could never compare. For instance, you'd expected all the buildings to be shaped like big pickles, and all painted green. The rivers would be pickle juice. Pickled onions would hang from the branches of passing trees. Everyone's name would be some sort of pickle pun. But reality did not entirely let you down. Pickletown was, in fact, famous for its pickles, and the tour of the pickle factory was more interesting than one might expect. And while the rivers were, obviously, not pickle juice, the whole town did at least smell a lot like... OKAY, ENOUGH. We have obviously reached the end of another potential Oedipal timeline, and unquestionably the stupidest. Let's just jump forward a decade or two and see how this turns out, okay? --- [[Clicking here makes this stupid timeline legally binding, just so you know, Oedipus.->Ending 8]]

Twenty years have passed and you are, Oedipus, long dead of the plague. Not the most glamourous way to go, but not the worst, either. Close to the worst. Still, you defied the Fates. You neither murdered your father, nor married your mother. Unless those were metaphors. You //murdered// your father by breaking his heart when you ran away from home and never returned? Not the strongest metaphor, nor accurate since your Dad never once asked about you, isn’t even aware you never returned from your journey, and he still happily rules Corinth. As for marrying your mother, I suppose you might have //married her //to the idea of you never returning? That's pretty thin. True, though. Unlike your Dad who never gives you a thought, your Mum, while no longer giving you a thought, did once wonder what had happened to you. Didn't fret over you or anything, but did wonder, just a little, from time to time. Anyway, it's difficult to say you defeated destiny when the destiny you replaced it with is dying of the plague in a pit. Let's cut our losses and say you managed to shimmy laterally to your destiny. Sophocles will have no interest in your story. THE END --- I hope you enjoyed //Oedipus Nix: Reluctant Plaything of the Gods//! This is Ending 7 of 15. If you plan to reread this story over and over until you've found all fifteen endings, good luck! And by //good luck//, I don't mean good luck in finding all the endings, since that's a fairly straightforward task; no, I mean good luck in general. If this is where you are in life, you truly do need some good luck. There's also a bonus ending that is best left unfound. [[Click here to start again.->OEDIPUS NIX]] --- Apropos... The tragedy of Oedipus (Sophocles' tragedy, that is, not the juvenile //Oedipus Nix//) underlies //Mrs. Quarterhorse//, the first book in my series about a young card-reader's relationship with the imperious heiress to a ghostly legacy. If, however, you //prefer// your stories juvenile, you might enjoy the comic //Meanwhile Not Far Away on the Moon//, a monumental reimagining of the Apollo 11 Lunar Mission. Both are found at my website (see link below) along with other curiosities for persons of questionable (but discerning) taste. <a href="https://scmarchere.com" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="color:RoyalBlue; text-decoration:underline;">www.scmarchere.com</a>

Twenty years have passed. While in Pickletown you and the Sphinx get hitched. It's a sham marriage, but a sham that serves you both. You wanted to be married so it would be impossible for you to marry your mother as the Oracle prophesied. Even if you somehow wound up marrying your mother in the future, that marriage would not be legally binding. Pretty clever, for //you//, anyway. Although I suspect the Fates don’t really care all that much about bigamy laws. As for the Sphinx, she had no interest in marrying //anyone//, but she wanted to shut up her parents on the matter and figured they'd be delighted to hear she'd hooked up with an actual prince. How she bigged you up in her letter home! Not a word about your being cursed by the gods, being an outcast, or perpetually picking your nose. You shared an apartment. Got jobs skimming cloves out of the brine-filled Pickletown YMCA pool. Life went on. Life merely //went on//, Oedipus. You seem to have dodged your dreadful destiny. Huh. I was kind of making jokes at your expense, getting a little sarcastic, but, here we are, well into the future, and you are holding down a steady job and living a boring but not particularly cursed life. You're unlikely to ever become the king of anywhere, but you're also unlikely to wind up gouging out your eyes over your life choices. The problem is, in this timeline all four of your parents are still alive. "What's that?" you ask. Don't I mean //two//? Ah, yes, yes, two. All two of them. Still alive. Which means it is still technically possible for you to murder your father and marry your mother. I'd assumed twenty years would be far enough in the future to tell whether you'd dodged your destiny. It has been in most of the other timelines. Maybe something you did, or didn't do, somehow set your parents on to a healthier lifestyle? Well, I'm not sure what to say. I screwed up! And there's no way to jump forward again, so... I guess I can only congratulate you so far as you've gone two full decades without bringing onto yourself your prophesied doom. But be aware that you might still screw this up. For instance, it has occurred to me that your sham marriage with the Sphinx is just that, a sham. It's not a real marriage. Marriages have to be consummated you know, to be legal. And so, it is still legally possible for you to marry your mother. As for murdering your father... look, just make a point of murdering //nobody//, okay? Ah well, sorry for leaving you hanging, Oedipus, but this is as far as I can take you down this road. You're on your own now! PEACE. Narrator out. THE END --- I hope you enjoyed //Oedipus Nix: Reluctant Plaything of the Gods//! This is Ending 8 of 15. If you plan to reread this story over and over until you've found all fifteen endings, good luck! And by //good luck//, I don't mean good luck in finding all the endings, since that's a fairly straightforward task; no, I mean good luck in general. If this is where you are in life, you truly do need some good luck. There's also a bonus ending that is best left unfound. [[Click here to start again.->OEDIPUS NIX]] --- Apropos... The tragedy of Oedipus (Sophocles' tragedy, that is, not the juvenile //Oedipus Nix//) underlies //Mrs. Quarterhorse//, the first book in my series about a young card-reader's relationship with the imperious heiress to a ghostly legacy. If, however, you //prefer// your stories juvenile, you might enjoy the comic //Meanwhile Not Far Away on the Moon//, a monumental reimagining of the Apollo 11 Lunar Mission. Both are found at my website (see link below) along with other curiosities for persons of questionable (but discerning) taste. <a href="https://scmarchere.com" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="color:RoyalBlue; text-decoration:underline;">www.scmarchere.com</a>

And now you're dead. How could you have not known that //stepping into the light// meant dying? Doesn't everyone know that? Everyone but Oedipus, I guess. And what a stupid way to die, brained by a bar of soap! Stupid is as stupid dies. A stupid death, yes, come about suddenly. But I suppose you did defy the prophecy. Unless you can figure out some way to murder your father and marry your mother while dead. Go ahead, try to manipulate the world in which you so recently moved with liberty. Can't do it, can you? You can only sit there, helpless, waiting for options that aren't going to come. No more options for you, Oedipus! Your interactive adventure is now an active crime scene. At this moment your mortal remains are being dragged out of the royal palace by the king and queen. One of the upsides to living in a forsaken city like Thebes is that it is very easy to clean up after a murder. They've dragged you to the nearest heap of rotting dead and flung you onto the pile. Are they at least going to say a prayer over your body? Anoint you for the afterlife? No, they seem to be anointing themselves with the contents of your wallet. This was unlikely the fate you imagined when you set out on this great adventure, Oedipus. You'd been prepped to expect tragedy, but this isn't so much tragic as pathetic. Ordinarily at this juncture in a timeline I pause to give you a moment to reflect on the future ahead, but as there is no future ahead, the story might as well end here. You defeated destiny, Oedipus! So, well done? But you could have defeated it just as easily by slipping on a banana peel at any other point in this story. THE END --- I hope you enjoyed //Oedipus Nix: Reluctant Plaything of the Gods//! This is Ending 9 of 15. If you plan to reread this story over and over until you've found all fifteen endings, good luck! And by //good luck//, I don't mean good luck in finding all the endings, since that's a fairly straightforward task; no, I mean good luck in general. If this is where you are in life, you truly do need some good luck. There's also a bonus ending that is best left unfound. [[Click here to start again.->OEDIPUS NIX]] --- Apropos... The tragedy of Oedipus (Sophocles' tragedy, that is, not the juvenile //Oedipus Nix//) underlies //Mrs. Quarterhorse//, the first book in my series about a young card-reader's relationship with the imperious heiress to a ghostly legacy. If, however, you //prefer// your stories juvenile, you might enjoy the comic //Meanwhile Not Far Away on the Moon//, a monumental reimagining of the Apollo 11 Lunar Mission. Both are found at my website (see link below) along with other curiosities for persons of questionable (but discerning) taste. <a href="https://scmarchere.com" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="color:RoyalBlue; text-decoration:underline;">www.scmarchere.com</a>

Well, at least you had the sense to not //step into the light.// Just so you know, if you'd chosen that option you'd be dead now. Yeah, that's how close you came, Oedipus, all because of a bar of soap swung with purpose. I mention how close you came just to remind you that actions have consequences. You broke into this couple's home. You barged in on the lady of the house in her own bathroom! Furthermore, this is the royal palace! The lady is a queen, the man a king! Had the blight inflicting Thebes not emptied their household of its usual guards, you would have been impaled the moment you took your first step inside. Anyway, from now on, think before acting, okay? No, I did not urge you to enter the house. And even if I did (and I'm sure I didn't) you're the one making the decisions here, not me. Is it my fault if you're easily goaded? You at least had the sense to not step into the light. The opposite direction, the completely dark direction is, in fact, the right direction to go, although you shouldn't run since it's pitch black! But this is my fault, as it seems I didn't give you the option to //inch carefully// in the opposite direction to the light. So, I won't have you stub your toe, or slam into a wall or anything. But you do return to consciousness kicking and punching the air like a turtle on its back... ...in the bucket of a catapult, on the roof of the royal palace. A nearby voice is counting down from ten... nine... eight... seven... six... five... four... three.. two... one... You leap from the bucket just before it sproings and flings an empty payload into the evening sky. "Get back in the bucket!" Queen Jocasta orders. You run from the catapult, quickly discovering there is nowhere to escape. The only door down from the roof is locked. While a visibly irritated King Laius begins cranking the catapult back for another launch, Jocasta approaches you not with a bar of soap this time, rather, a sawed-off shotgun which she uses to urge you back to the catapult bucket. "This is no way to treat a guest!" you shriek. Your fate at this moment appears to offer but two branches. --- //Do you die by...// [[Shotgun->Shotgun]] //or// [[Catapult?->Catapult]]

Remaining in limbo is probably the right thing to do. Perhaps I should have offered this option at the start of your adventure? You could still be in bed right now with your shabby Cornelius Starhead doll—oh, have you forgotten him? Yes, you just ran off without even saying goodbye. Your Mum and Dad never cared for him. Perhaps without you there to plead his case, Cornelius has finally been crammed down the garbage disposal as your Dad has so often threatened. But things could be worse. So long as you remain in limbo it seems unlikely you'll murder or marry anyone. I wonder where you are right now? I've never been clonked on the head with a bar of soap, I've never been unconscious for as long as you have been now. Maybe only a second has elapsed out there in the physical realm, or maybe by now you've been in a coma for fifty years. Since I find myself no longer the omniscient narrator that I'm supposed to be, I'm going to hand the situation back to you. --- //Do you...// [[Remain in limbo?->Ending 10]] //or// [[Step into the light?->Ending 9]] //or// [[Run off in the opposite direction to the light?]]

Limbo it is. And since I don't intend to remain here narrating a story where nothing is happening, asking you from time to time whether you'd like to remain in limbo, limbo is where I shall leave you. You have defeated your destiny, Oedipus, unless perhaps your body is roaming around out there like a zombie murdering kings and marrying queens. But even if it is, it's unlikely you'd be held responsible. //Actus reas// but no //mens rea//. Then again, the ancient Greek gods don't generally care about due process (particularly when it's presented in Latin.) But I suppose it's all moot since so long as you remain in limbo, you haven't the slightest idea what your body is doing, and therefore no corresponding sense of guilt, dishonour, or revulsion. Okay then, this isn't the worst outcome. I won't congratulate you for sealing up like a clam, but it’s not the worst way to go. No harm telling you now, but there are actually a few timelines in which you make out not very badly at all! But others where you make out as badly as the gods intended, and I think at least one where you somehow make things worse! Perhaps the world would be a better place if more people followed your lead and did absolutely nothing. //Doing things// is the blight of humanity. For instance, in your nothingness, Oedipus, no one will ever play the harmonica. Never, not once, will your body stiffen with terror upon noticing one of the guitarists in a band is wearing a harmonica in a holder. No, Oedipus, in your nothingness you will never be tormented by the gob-spraying metallic squeals of that glorified kazoo. I’m tempted to join you in nothingness. Unfortunately, //you’re// there. And there I shall leave you, Oedipus. It’s getting late, and all this nothingness is making me sleepy. You must be getting tired yourself. I wonder what it’s like to fall asleep while in a coma? Hopefully you don’t dream. Especially not after I’ve been going on about harmonicas... If you choose to back-arrow your way out of this timeline, Oedipus, I can’t say I blame you. THE END --- I hope you enjoyed //Oedipus Nix: Reluctant Plaything of the Gods//! This is Ending 10 of 15. If you plan to reread this story over and over until you've found all fifteen endings, good luck! And by //good luck//, I don't mean good luck in finding all the endings, since that's a fairly straightforward task; no, I mean good luck in general. If this is where you are in life, you truly do need some good luck. There's also a bonus ending that is best left unfound. [[Click here to start again.->OEDIPUS NIX]] --- Apropos... The tragedy of Oedipus (Sophocles' tragedy, that is, not the juvenile //Oedipus Nix//) underlies //Mrs. Quarterhorse//, the first book in my series about a young card-reader's relationship with the imperious heiress to a ghostly legacy. If, however, you //prefer// your stories juvenile, you might enjoy the comic //Meanwhile Not Far Away on the Moon//, a monumental reimagining of the Apollo 11 Lunar Mission. Both are found at my website (see link below) along with other curiosities for persons of questionable (but discerning) taste. <a href="https://scmarchere.com" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="color:RoyalBlue; text-decoration:underline;">www.scmarchere.com</a>

And up the stairs you go, screaming and flailing your arms like Kermit the Frog, revealing to all, be they man, animal, or god, precisely the stuff that Oedipus is made of. Green felt, Oedipus. Green felt is what you're made of. You arrive in the upstairs hall to face the queen, who has in your absence added to her arsenal a sawed-off shotgun that she is at the moment stuffing with shells. The doorway is now blocked by a man with a familiar face, the king, perhaps, holding two grocery bags, and no doubt wondering what sort of madness he'd come home to. --- //Do you...// [[Make a run for it past the man?]] //or// [[Make a run for it past the lady?]]

With a sigh you drag your miserable self out into the courtyard, around the king's chariot, Clydesdale, and burro, and leave the palace gates for the death-strewn streets of rotting Thebes. Perhaps you're tired of life, Oedipus, or perhaps you're just tired of the meagre choices this interactive story is offering you. Given more choices, who knows what utopia you'd have found by now! You convince yourself that your ongoing disgraceful existence is not so much your own fault as the fault of the story-teller. I'm willing to accept partial responsibility for some of the specifics of your humiliation, but not for the humiliation itself. No, accursed Oedipus, that was coming one way or another, it's written all over your face. You were born under a dark star. Anyway, you've had a little lark in Thebes, what now? --- //Do you...// [[Return to Corinth->Leave Thebes and return to your home in Corinth despite the prophecy?]] //or// [[Leave Thebes and head off in the opposite direction?]]

The charioteer dismounts and plucks a single hair from atop his head. Hmmm, the man has the exact same hair colour as you, Oedipus. The same bushy eyebrows, too. Lots of other physical similarities that it might serve you to notice. The charioteer holds up his sword, gives it one of those show-offy swordsman spins, then demonstrates the blade's sharpness by splitting that single hair down the middle. Your turn. After signalling for your opponent to hold on a moment, you slip off your backpack to dig around inside for a deck of cards. You shuffle the deck, then spread out all the cards so your opponent can see for himself that the deck is not stacked. He looks at the cards, then at you, more than a little confused. You then shuffle the cards again, this time attempting to do that thing where you flick the cards from one hand to the other, but because you're not very good at it, you just send the cards flying off everywhere. You then affect a Zorro stance, hoping to appear as if you'd meant for the cards to scatter all over the road. Oedipus, you're an idiot. And since you seem at the moment incapable of sensibly guiding your own destiny, how about for this passage we try something different? Rather than choose for yourself what to do, I'm going to let you choose what your //opponent// does. Perhaps by stepping into the shoes of another you will learn how insufferable you can be to the rest of the world? --- //Does the charioteer...// [[Cut off your fool head like you deserve?]] //or// [[Shake his own head in disgust, remount his chariot, and ride away?]]

"Where is your chariot?" your adversary asks. Well, Oedipus? Where //is// your chariot? --- [["I assumed a chariot would be made available for me if I chose this path. I assumed wrong. Might I suggest instead a battle of wits?"->Suggest a battle of wits?]] //or// [["My chariot is invisible."]] //or// [["My chariot is metaphorical."]]

With a loud sigh the charioteer consents to a battle of wits so long as you get it going immediately because he doesn't have all day. "I'll pick a number between one and two," you suggest. "If you guess it, you win. Otherwise, I win." "That isn't a battle of wits," your adversary groans, "it's the opposite—it's a battle of dumb chance." He's right, Oedipus. "Furthermore," your adversary continues, "it depends on your honesty, and so far I have seen nothing in you suggesting anything other than deceit." The man reads you like a book, Oedipus. "However," your adversary suggests, while popping open his A-Team coin purse, "I have an actual coin that I am more than willing to flip to decide our contest." Called your bluff, Oedipus. "I get to flip the coin," you demand. After a tired glance at his wristwatch, your adversary tosses you the penny. You flip it in the air and clap your hand over it as it lands on your arm. "Call it!" Your adversary responds, wearily, "I don't care—whatever—heads." You lift the edge of your hand to get a peek at the coin. "Sorry, tails." you announce. Your adversary examines you with an expression of loathing and pity. I am also looking at you that way, Oedipus. Truth be known, because of your terrible destiny, one day the whole world will look at you with loathing and pity. Yes, //loathsome// and //pitiful//, those two words do sum you up, Oedipus. "I cede to you the victory," your adversary sighs with a shake of his head. And then he picks up the reins and urges his chariot onward. You assume a triumphant stance—you, Oedipus, who bears the crown of loathing and the sceptre of piteousness. And then you remember the coin in your hand. You might be loathsome and pitiful, you might be deceitful and avaricious, you might be feeble and lax in personal hygiene, but you are not a thief! At least, not for a coin of so little value. For a dime, maybe, but not a penny. You fling the coin after the departing chariot. It hits the axle in such a way to jam the wheel, causing the chariot to lurch to the side and tip over, pulling the charioteer with it. Surely, only a coin tossed by one as accursed as you, Oedipus, could cause so much mayhem! The horse and burro continue along, seemingly oblivious to their now dragging an upside-down chariot. Their passenger, in his struggle to free himself, twists badly onto his own sword, impaling himself and... ...Oedipus, you loathsome, pitiful man, what have you gone and done? --- [["Won the battle of wits, that's what!"]] //or// [["Surely brought myself one step closer to my tragic destiny?"]]

To a razor-sharp blade swung by a skilled swordsman, your neck offers no meaningful resistance. Swish! Well, dead Oedipus, since you did so well choosing for the charioteer, why not next we let you choose for the laws of physics? --- //Does your head...// [[Bounce off down the road, tumble into the ditch, and come to a rolling stop in a greasy puddle?]] //or// [[Remain precisely where it was before the sword passed through your neck—like a dish still atop a table after a tablecloth is yanked quickly away?]] //or// [[Bounce atop a spray of blood like a beachball atop a spouting whale?]]

"On Dasher, on Dancer!" the charioteer shouts with a flick of the reins, and his chariot rumbles off down the road toward Delphi. Its driver looks back at you, just once, with an expression of profound revulsion. Hopefully you do feel at least a little revolted with yourself. --- //Do you, Oedipus? Do you feel a little revolted with yourself?// [[Yes, already! I'm revolting, I admit it. Can we get on with the story now? If I remember correctly, I'm on the road to Thebes.->Continue on to Thebes]] //or// [[No, I do not. I am making bad decisions because, to begin with, you're giving me bad choices. And furthermore, since this is just a story and I have no real-world stake in the outcome, I'm deliberately choosing stupidly because //who gives a crap//. Now let's just get on to the next waypoint or I'll close this tab and return to my usual recreation of arguing with strangers online over political matters about which none of us have any meaningful insight.->Continue on to Thebes]]

The charioteer is pleased to have cleaved your head from your body with such precision. He leans in close to examine the thin line of severance surrounding your throat like a red choker—the only evidence that your head and body are no longer attached. The charioteer's pleasure is then dampened by the frustrating realisation that no one was around to have seen his extraordinary feat of swordsmanship. A picture will have to do. He quickly digs out his phone, hoping your corpse doesn't tip over while he maneuvers to get you in the best light. Once satisfied he has enough pictures to show off his accomplishment, the charioteer turns his back on you to type accompanying messages, including one to his wife, Jocasta, reading: "Was accosted by a highwayman :( dispatched him efficiently :) Just look at that slice, Jo :D Will be a bit late with the groceries >:(" While boarding his chariot and preparing to leave, the charioteer pauses to read an incoming message, from Jocasta: "Whoever he is, he's got your complexion, don't you think? ;)" --- [[And on that tantalising final detail, shall we click forward in time and see the consequences of your idiotic actions, Oedipus?->Ending 11]]

From your low perspective in the ditch, with your sweaty eyelids caked in dirt from your head's roll down the road, your view of the departing charioteer is compromised, but you can at least hear the lash of the reins, a whinny and a bray, and the slow squeal of the chariot's wheels rolling back to life. You then cough a little on the dust kicked up by the vehicle rumbling off on its way. --- [[Click here to see the end result of your choices through life, Oedipus! Ah, sorry, I forgot you're just a disembodied head. Perhaps you can click using your tongue?->Ending 11]]

The charioteer steps back a safe distance to appreciate the spectacle he and his sword have fashioned together. Unfortunately, by the time it occurs to him to pull out his phone to record the masterwork, your blood is nearly spent, the fountain sputtering, and your head tumbled down into the blood-puddle at your feet. Is this how you expected your story to end, Oedipus? Truth be known, this grisly outcome is marginally less grisly than it might have been had you chosen a different path! --- [[Since your stiff and blood-drained fingers are no longer able to click, I'll grant you the ability to do it through telepathy. Mentally click here, Oedipus, to see the future that spurted from your bloody end on the road to Thebes!->Ending 11]]

It's now twenty years later. Very little of you remains. Vultures got most, jackals gnawed your bones, and your soul evaporated into the mist. The Fates had fated you to kill that charioteer, Oedipus. Your failure to do so foiled their repulsive game before it even got interesting. So, on that, well done. Your soul, thin vapour though it was, never suffered the torments planned for it. Your eyeballs, although heartily gulped down by vultures, remained mercifully whole for the whole of your natural life. But not only were your soul and eyeballs spared! By skirting destiny you spared the lives of your father and mother, and her soul as well. You were fated to kill that charioteer, take his crown and widowed wife, and rule Thebes into ruin! Yes, Oedipus, the charioteer was your birth father, and his wife your birth mother. I'd explain how this had come to be had I not done it elsewhere in another timeline and I'm just not up for doing it again. (A slight caveat, though—while Thebes was indeed spared blight and ruin from being ruled by a king and queen who were son and mother, the city was otherwise blighted for any number of other reasons. In fact, if you'd actually made it to Thebes, you'd have found it under a current blight no worse than the blight you would have given it yourself. So, point being, don't pat yourself on the back for sparing Thebes.) But congratulations are in order for at least dodging the miseries that destiny had written for you and your kin. You erased that destiny with a spurt of your own blood! Well done, then, for dying so stupidly. Of course, you'd have accomplished as much by just blowing your brains out on page one of this adventure. Perhaps I'll go back and add that option. THE END --- I hope you enjoyed //Oedipus Nix: Reluctant Plaything of the Gods//! This is Ending 11 of 15. If you plan to reread this story over and over until you've found all fifteen endings, good luck! And by //good luck//, I don't mean good luck in finding all the endings, since that's a fairly straightforward task; no, I mean good luck in general. If this is where you are in life, you truly do need some good luck. There's also a bonus ending that is best left unfound. [[Click here to start again.->OEDIPUS NIX]] --- Apropos... The tragedy of Oedipus (Sophocles' tragedy, that is, not the juvenile //Oedipus Nix//) underlies //Mrs. Quarterhorse//, the first book in my series about a young card-reader's relationship with the imperious heiress to a ghostly legacy. If, however, you //prefer// your stories juvenile, you might enjoy the comic //Meanwhile Not Far Away on the Moon//, a monumental reimagining of the Apollo 11 Lunar Mission. Both are found at my website (see link below) along with other curiosities for persons of questionable (but discerning) taste. <a href="https://scmarchere.com" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="color:RoyalBlue; text-decoration:underline;">www.scmarchere.com</a>

The charioteer, remarkably, shows some willingness to believe in at least the theory of an invisible chariot, if not your actually possessing one. As he approaches you, tapping his hand out carefully in front of him, he asks where you've parked it. "Over there." You point to an indistinct nearby patch of prairie grass. "And your horses are also invisible?" the charioteer asks while taking a few hesitant steps toward the patch. "My invisible chariot is pulled by invisible gorillas," you respond. My reaction to this profoundly stupid response—stupid even within the context of a conversation about invisible chariots—is about the same as the charioteer's—an exasperated gasp and a furrowed brow. But then you surprise us both by fishing from your Hello Kitty backpack a bunch of bananas! The charioteer, while still skeptical, upon seeing the bananas, and hearing your explanation of how each gorilla on your team is allotted one banana every ten kilometres, and that you have just enough bananas to get you to Thebes, reveals in his agitation that he might indeed believe he is in the vicinity of invisible gorillas. As for me, surprised by your quick thinking, and wondering what else you might have in that backpack of yours—I have only recently become aware of it and had braced myself for it to produce some lazy deus ex machina—have decided to reward your resourcefulness by writing into this timeline, in the location you'd chosen for your invisible chariot, a few monkey sounds. Whether these sounds are //gorilla// sounds is irrelevant. A man predisposed to believe himself in the presence of an invisible gorilla is liable to interpret any vaguely monkeyish sound as having come from a gorilla. And, the charioteer does! He gasps in horror and surprise! You also gasp, having not expected the sound. Easy does it, though, Oedipus. There are no gorillas over there. You didn't will them into being. Just be grateful for the monkey sounds and get on with your ruse. At this point, I'm genuinely curious where you're going with it. --- //Do you...// [[Convinced there are, in fact, invisible gorillas over there, willed by you into being, order them to attack the charioteer?]] //or// [[Walk over to where you'd claimed your invisible chariot was parked, play-act climbing aboard it, perhaps pausing to pat your gorillas on their heads, and then repeat your challenge of a race?]]

"How do you propose we race a real chariot with a metaphorical one?" your adversary asks. Well, Oedipus? How //do// you propose to race a real chariot with a metaphorical one? --- [["Three laps from here to Thebes and back again."]] //or// [["It has struck me that it might be better for us to have a battle of wits."->Suggest a battle of wits?]]

The charioteer screams, and in his haste to return to his chariot, stumbles headlong into a cactus, and then, screaming even louder, frightens his Clydesdale and burro into bolting just as he gets one hand on the chariot railing. The mismatched pair of animals sends the chariot spinning among the rocks, eventually flinging the charioteer off a cliff. You hadn't until that moment noticed the cliff. You'd been so downcast, so focused on your stupid odyssey, that you'd never once since starting down the road to Thebes even bothered to turn your head slightly to the left. But now aware of the cliff, you peer over to marvel at the extraordinary depth of the drop, and to watch the final twenty seconds of the charioteer's plunge into the chasm. The eventual splat is so far away you only barely hear it. Well, Oedipus, that was an unexpected turn of events, don't you think? No, perhaps not so very unexpected. Murder was etched into your destiny, don't you remember? And before you argue this wasn't murder, I'll give you that it wasn't murder in the first degree, but a reasonable jury could, under the rhetorical spell of a determined public prosecutor, be led to consider the charioteer's death a reasonably expected outcome of your menacing him with the threat of invisible gorillas. Good luck getting the jury to believe that you'd somehow not until that moment noticed the cliff just two yards to the left of the road. Anyway, I put this out there only to keep you uneasy, Oedipus. At no point in this adventure should you consider yourself successful at any task. You are accursed, Oedipus, a mere plaything of the gods, never forget! --- //Do you...// [[Immediately forget that you're an accursed plaything of the gods, rein in the free chariot, and make your way to Thebes as some sort of conquering hero?]] //or// [[Immediately forget that you're an accursed plaything of the gods, rein in the free chariot, and make your way to Thebes as some sort of conquering hero—but first stop to eat a banana?]]

"Onward to Thebes and destiny!" you triumphantly shout as you mount the chariot and continue on your way. A strange thing to shout //triumphantly//, Oedipus. You've just killed a man, you've stolen his chariot, the mismatched animals before you pull the chariot along in a slow and herky-jerky manner anything but triumphant, and your destiny—I should not have to remind you—is one so monstrous it will define tragedy for over two thousand years. I suppose I should commend you for being able to drive a chariot. Where did you learn this? It's certainly not in any backstory I'd ever imagined for you. But I think you were getting along faster on foot. This is going to be a long and very boring journey. I don't suppose you have anything else in that backpack of yours that might speed things along? No? Just the bananas? Very well. I could dream up something along the way to interrupt this tedious journey, but this far along it might be better to remain focused and jump directly to the next story waypoint. Any objection to us leaping forward to your arrival at the gates of Thebes? --- [[Yes, no, whatever, I don't care.->The Sphinx]] //or// [[Thanks, but I'd prefer to have you describe every minute of the journey, please.]]

The bananas are pretty old, mottled mostly black, the sort of bananas one ordinarily only uses for banana bread. One banana suffices. You toss the peel alongside a compost bin and stuff the rest of the bunch back into your pack. --- [[Okay, get onto the chariot and go! If you can put a little extra speed into it, you might catch up to the timeline in which you didn't stop to eat a banana, thereby making the multiverse just one strand less complicated.->Immediately forget that you're an accursed plaything of the gods, rein in the free chariot, and make your way to Thebes as some sort of conquering hero?]]

Before the gates of Thebes, perched atop a little mound of skulls, surrounded by the wails of the dying, the buzzard-gnawed bones of the dead, and the stench of a city accursed, waits a creature with the body of a lion, the wings of a bird, and the head of a woman. A sphinx! You saw a photo of one once. This one is smaller and has a nose. As you attempt to step around this small, thoroughly-nosed sphinx to enter the city, she stretches out a paw to block your path. "No one may enter Thebes without first answering my riddle," she growls. "I'm not totally sure I want to enter Thebes," you reply upon noticing the city beyond the gates is no less woebegotten than the wasteland surrounding it. You thoughtfully drum your fingers on your chin and wonder why you'd ever got it into your head to visit the city. Oh, so now all of a sudden you don't want to go into Thebes? You cross your arms over your chest and wait for me to give you the option to go elsewhere. You can wait until the cows come home, Oedipus, I'm not giving you the option to leave. You've had plenty of opportunities to return to Delphi, or to Corinth. This is all that remains. "Delphi, Corinth, and Thebes?" you ask, with incredulity. "These are the only three locations in the whole world?" For you, Oedipus, yes. Delphi, Corinth, Thebes. That's it. Now answer the stupid riddle. "Can I at least pick a category?" What are you asking //me// for? "Can I pick a category?" you ask the Sphinx. "No," the Sphinx growls. "The riddle is this: what walks on four feet in the morning, five in the afternoon, and six in the evening?" "What happens if I get it wrong?" The Sphinx shifts a little atop her pile of skulls, then gestures with her paw toward a pile of headless bodies more dead than all the other dead bodies, bodies hideously, nauseatingly, excessively dead. "And if I get it right, I'm allowed to enter this smelly, famine and plague-wrecked city?" "To the victor go the spoils." "Spoils is right." Oedipus! Quit horsing around and answer the riddle. --- //What walks on four feet in the morning, five in the afternoon, and six in the evening?// [[I don't know, a spider, maybe, or a crab?]] //or// [[Some kind of messed-up frankenstein?]]

Fine. Clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop is that Thebes coming up? clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop no, it's just a rock clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop man am I ever thirsty clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop haha that cloud looks like a monkey eating chips clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop sure could go for some chips clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop salt and vinegar chips clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop barbecue chips clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop sour cream and onion chips clip clop clip clop clip clop so many kinds of chips clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop where's that banana smell coming from? clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop it stinks like rotten bananas clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop smoky bacon chips clip clop clip clop clip clop must be a banana factory nearby clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop dill pickle chips clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop lots of rocks around here clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop the banana smell is coming from behind me clip clop no, there's nothing behind me, and now the banana smell is coming from in front of me, but, no, now it's behind me again clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop cheddar cheese chips clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop I wonder if they have chips in Thebes clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop that big horse is really big clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop ketchup chips clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop there's a cactus clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop Is that Thebes coming up? clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop lot of flies around here clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop banana chips clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop yuck this place stinks clip clop clip clop clip clop... yes, definitely that's Thebes. --- //Are you happy? No, I'm not making that a selectable choice. You're happy whether you're happy or not. The choice before you now is...// [[... this and only this. Just click it and let's enter Thebes.->The Sphinx]]

"But the road is too narrow for our chariots to race side by side," the charioteer argues. "This was the cause of our quarrel, if I'm not mistaken—neither of us willing to cede to the other?" The man has a point, Oedipus. "My team of gorillas does not need a road!" you reply with uncharacteristic boldness. "You may race on the ground like a dog while my gorillas pull my chariot through the air!" "Your gorillas can fly?" the charioteer asks with horror. Yes, Oedipus, please answer the man. Can your gorillas fly? "Faster than Mercury!" you boast. "With the graceful step of gentle Aether!" Fast, graceful, invisible, flying gorillas. Okay, Oedipus, I gave you a shovel and you have dug yourself a very deep pit. If you don't mind, I'll just sit back and see how well you climb out of it. "Would you be willing to sell your fast, graceful, invisible flying gorillas?" the charioteer asks. "I would," you answer. "Name your price." "I will trade them for your chariot, horse, and burro." "Surely your flying gorillas are worth infinitely more!" "They are worth infinitely less. Do we have a deal?" "Stranger, forgive me, but I am suspicious." "As you should be. Do we have a deal?" "Could you at least get them to make monkey sounds again, so that I might be assured they are real?" "I can not. The narrator who provided those sounds has left me to fend for myself." "Stranger, what you say is puzzling." "Indeed. Do we have a deal?" "I should discuss it first with my wife." "If you even //mention// it to anyone, the deal is off." "Then I'm afraid I must say..." "I'll throw in the rest of my bananas." "To feed the gorillas?" "Or yourself." "What, then, will I feed the gorillas?" Okay, okay, OKAY, ENOUGH. I had come to doubt my participation in this story had any value, but obviously I can't step aside for a moment without it descending into whatever that conversation was supposed to be. He's not buying the chariot, Oedipus, and this whole invisible gorilla nonsense has gone on too long. So, either you bring this passage to a hasty conclusion or I will conclude it for you, understand? "My invisible chariot has mag wheels." That's it, we're done. Here are your choices. --- //Do you...// [["Challenge your adversary to a foot-race?"]] //or// [["Challenge your adversary to a battle of wits?"->Suggest a battle of wits?]]

"That doesn't exactly answer my question," your adversary rightly remarks. Quite rightly, Oedipus. Now answer the man's question. How do you intend to race a real chariot with a metaphorical one? --- [["Does this count as a battle of wits?"->Suggest a battle of wits?]] //or// [["What about a sword-fight instead?"]]

"Is your sword also metaphorical?" your adversary asks. Well, Oedipus, //is// your sword metaphorical? --- [["Swords are for the weak. I will best your sword with powers beyond your wildest philosophy! Prepare to die, foul stranger!"->Agree to the sword-fight despite your not having a sword?]] //or// [["How much longer do I have to draw out this exchange before it counts as a battle of wits?"->Suggest a battle of wits?]]

The charioteer accepts the offer with peculiar quickness. A glance at his lower half reveals running shorts, lean thighs, powerful calves, and very expensive sneakers. A corresponding glance down at your own lower half reveals a pair of heavy corduroys on scrawny legs, and a pair of loose Thundercats flip-flops. By the time you look up again, your opponent is already doing those stretches that runners do, you know the kind, where they put their foot up on something and then bend or whatever and jog on the spot making puff puff sounds and then check their watch and put two fingers to their pulse and you know all the other stupid athletic stuff that tells you that you should have held out for a battle of wits. You attempt a stretch, managing to reach down nearly far enough to touch your knees. "To Delphi and back?" your opponent suggests. You nod. With what appears to be a royal sceptre, your crowned adversary draws a line in the gravel, then takes a runner's stance behind it. You pose yourself similarly beside him. "On three...?" your opponent asks. You nod again. "Three..." he begins." You start to run. "... two... one... go!" Your opponent quickly neutralises your unfair advantage by swooping past you. Within less than a minute he is so far ahead you can no longer see him. Furthermore, you're already out of breath. --- //Do you...// [[Continue the race to the best of your limited ability?]] //or// [[Turn around, walk back to where you'd been, steal the chariot, and continue on to Thebes?]]

About halfway to Delphi you spy something on the road coming toward you. You are so exhausted, so defeated, so disgusted for having brought this unnecessary burden on yourself, that you hope the nearing object is a steamroller to put you out of your misery. But, no, it is just a man. A man wearing a crown, jogging, and not breathing particularly heavily. A few seconds later the charioteer, returning from Delphi, runs past you, laughing, and taunting you with, "See you at the finish line... some time next week, haha!" You pause for a breather, and also to shake your fist at the charioteer's back getting steadily farther away. It occurs to you that there's no reason to continue to Delphi now, as your adversary wouldn't be there to see you arrive anyway, so you might as well turn around and conclude your embarrassment a little bit earlier. Or, you could conclude your embarrassment //now// by continuing toward Delphi and then on to your home in Corinth. Onward you travel, assured of your plan, until you pass the first signpost telling you that Delphi is near. Delphi! You remember the curse. You will murder your father and marry your mother! That was why you started out for Thebes in the first place—it was as far from home as possible! You've really got a short memory, Oedipus. So you can't return home to Corinth, lest you fulfill the prophecy, and you can't go back to Thebes, since that stupid smug charioteer will be waiting for you at the finish line, to laugh at you some more, the big jerk, and you sure don't want to stay in Delphi, with that lousy future-ruining Oracle reminding you of your impending doom. So, then, what next? --- //Do you...// [[Swallow your pride, turn around, and continue on to Thebes despite that jerk charioteer waiting to laugh at you?]] //or// [[Leave the road altogether and head off into the desert?]]

Because of the mismatched animals pulling the chariot, it isn't very quick and perpetually veers to the right. After nearly an hour of such frustrating travel, you are just about to dismount and walk the remaining distance when the charioteer suddenly reappears, jogging up alongside the chariot. "Delphi is back there," he reminds you. You nod. "The race is on foot," he also reminds. You nod again. "Please get off my chariot." You nod, let go of the reins, and step back onto the road. "Up until now," the charioteer says with a scowl, "I hadn't been entirely sure what we were supposedly quarreling over." "Me neither." "But as I am king of these lands, and you have shown yourself to be no more than a common chariot thief, it is my duty to bring you to Thebes as my prisoner." With a gesture, he orders you to climb back onto the chariot. Onward to Thebes you go. Night falls. There is only enough room in the chariot for one of you to sit down at a time, so you have to take turns at getting a little sleep. The king naps first, warning you as he slips into his pyjamas that you better not try to escape. Despite your promise, you spend the next five hours plotting flight from your wheeled prison. Just stepping off the frustratingly slow chariot and walking away never occurs to you. The king wakes in the middle of the night with an enormous yawn. He rubs his eyes, reacquaints himself with his circumstances, brushes his teeth, replaces his nightcap with his crown, then finally rises to take the reins. So much for your chance to escape. Ah well, might as well catch some Z's. You make yourself as comfortable as you can and then gradually slip off into slumberland. You are awoken by the sudden blast of Sonic Youth's "Mildred Pierce." You kick at blankets that aren't there, roll upside-down, and finally leap up with a heart thudding a thousand beats a second! What happened? You are alone in the chariot, which continues to clip clop down the road at its usual snail's pace. Where's the king? In the dim moonlight you notice an odd shiny shape lying on the road behind. You hop off the chariot to pick up the king's crown. But where's the king? Faintly, far away, you hear him yelling. No, surely you're imagining it. The yell seems to be coming from a mile away and getting steadily farther. A few brisk steps is all it takes for you to return to the chariot and hop back aboard. How very odd. Although it is your destiny to remain in the dark, Oedipus, first metaphorically and then literally, I will in this instance at least explain what you'd missed. The king's wife, Jocasta, had called her husband to remind him to pick up a pumpkin on the way back for their Halloween porch display, and it was the sound of his phone ringing that woke you. And in your panic, you inadvertently kicked the king off the chariot. Now, this would have been the limit of the damage had the chariot at that time not been winding along the edge of a very steep cliff. As I tell you this, you remember the dream you'd just had. You'd been strangling the king, squeezing his throat with a grip strength you absolutely do not have in real life. You'd just chucked his lifeless body into a ravine when the phone rang, waking you to unwittingly kick the king off the cliff. An interesting legal situation. Consider this, Oedipus. To murder someone, you need to both commit the act of murder, physically, and also intend to commit the act. Before I learned of your dream, I'd have said the king's death was merely an accident. While you had indeed physically kicked him to his death, you hadn't intended it. However, at that moment you were dreaming about murdering the king. Despite the slight misalignment between intent and action, a clever District Attorney could make a case for you having murdered the king of Thebes! Relax, Oedipus, relax! Nobody saw you do it! Everything's cool, man. It's cool. Or is it...? --- //Do you...// [[Continue on to Thebes in the king's chariot, wrought with guilt?->The Sphinx]] //or// [[Continue on to Thebes in the king's chariot, wrought with indifference?->The Sphinx]]

Several weary days have come and gone before you finally arrive back at the finish line scratched in the road by the king's sceptre. Unsurprisingly, neither the king nor his chariot is there waiting for you. Your sense of relief of having avoided further humiliation is short-lived—you're bound to run into the king in Thebes, and when you do, he'll not only get to laugh at you again, but now laugh at you with all his adoring citizenry around him. The whole town will point at you and laugh! The longer you imagine all those crummy laughing Thebans and the king egging them on, the angrier you get. Your anger rises as Thebes nears and the accompanying roadside advertising begins. The king's smug face appears on most of the billboards. There he is, again and again, grinning, laughing, pointing at you and squealing with delight! Why such images would appear on ads for diners and RV parks is of no matter. What matters is your simmering anger coming quickly to a boil! Boiling rage! You have been strangling, harpooning, and dynamiting kings of Thebes in your head for so long that when you actually run into him on the road, you mistake him for a figment of your imagination. Before you realise what you've done, you've clubbed him to death with your Hello Kitty backpack filled with rotten bananas. His final death gurgle wakes you from your murder-fever. Oh dear, what have you done? More important, are there any witnesses? No, it appears not. Thebes is near, you can just make out its hazy outline on the horizon, but it seems to be all clear out here in the sticks. Not that it matters now, Oedipus, but I might as well tell you why you suddenly ran into the king here, outside the city. He'd arrived home without the pumpkin his wife had several times reminded him she needed for her Halloween porch display. Thebes is in the middle of a blight—more on that to come, I assure you—and pumpkins are in short supply. In Delphi, however, lots of pumpkins. Anyway, King Laius had just spotted you and was coming over to, yes, laugh a little at how long it took you to finish the race—but also to shake your hand and tell you that you're a good sport. Tell me Oedipus, as you stand over the king's dead body, do you feel like a //good sport?// --- [["Shut up and help me dig a hole!"]]

I've gone back and forth during this story on whether to give you the option to stray from the waypointed trail that destiny expects its Oedipi to follow. What I suspected, rightly, was that the instant the option presented itself you would take it, just to be contrary. And, here we are. But I wonder why a desert? I'm relatively certain the land surrounding Delphi, Thebes, and Corinth isn't desert. What it is, I'm not sure, because my total research for this story was learning the distances between those three places. I suppose I'm imagining your world as a desert because of Pasolini's //Oedipus Rex// which was filmed in Morocco. Ah, well. My negligence is your reality. Furthermore, by situating you in the desert, I'm spared having to describe anything except the sand consistently crunching underfoot. Sand to the north, to the south, to the east, and to the west. Watch out for that cobra! Oh, no wait, it's just a stick. What's a stick doing out here in the middle of the desert? You must be getting thirsty, Oedipus. Pretty stupid to wander off into the desert without something to drink. Did I mention that it's windy? This matters because a steady drift of sand has been blowing across your path covering your steps as you go. Just so you don't ever suggest finding your way back to the road by following your footprints. Ha! I'm one step ahead of you, Oedipus. Wandering into the desert is what you chose to do, and wander into the desert is what you're going to do. Perhaps you got it into your dumb head that wandering at random is a way to counter the Fates? Just makes their job easier, is what it does. Is thirst driving you mad, yet? No? What do you mean you can get a drink from the fridge any time you want? You're not taking this seriously! You're //Oedipus//, got it? Oedipus in the middle of a vast desert. There is no fridge in the desert! But you do spy in the distance the faint shape of a palm tree and the glistening of water. An oasis, just in time! Your sun-dried lips crack as you smile in anticipation of that first wonderful drink to come! Actually, your lips look fine. You brought chapstick? Okay, that was smart. Bringing water would have been smarter. As the oasis nears you begin to speed up. Soon you are running, arms outstretched, ready to dive into the cool pond beneath the rustling palms! I suppose you're waiting for me to tell you it's a mirage? No, I can't be bothered. it's a real oasis. Are you drinking the water while bathing? I guess you do need to drink //and// bathe, but it is disgusting to do both at the same time! Okay, you're clean and you've drunk enough, so get out of the pond before I puke. Onward into the wasteland, Oedipus! Yes, I know it has been a long time since I've given you a choice of paths. But like I said before, there are no paths out here in the featureless desert. I do regret back at the oasis not giving you the choice of drinking //or// bathing. Didn't think such a choice was necessary. All right, here's a choice. --- //Do you...// [[Feel empowered now that you have something to click on?->Ending 12]] //or// [[Suspect both links lead to the same place and feel less empowered than ever?->Ending 12]]

Oedipus, get up off the ground, you can't dig a grave in this hard soil with just your hands! Look around you, man, the earth is parched, dead bodies lie in heaps, the stink of drought, disease, and death is everywhere! Nobody is going to notice another dead body, so relax. I suggest you pull yourself together, and... no, no, leave the Hello Kitty backpack! Never keep a murder weapon, Oedipus, you stupid idiot. Leave the backpack, take the bananas. It's still a few kilometres to Thebes, more than enough time for you to calm down and consider how you might start a new life here far away from the father you absolutely don't want to murder, and the mother you absolutely don't want to marry. I recall you recently vowing to never murder //anyone//, just to be on the safe side. Well done on keeping that vow. Most people could have managed it, you know. The stink of drought, disease, and death gets stronger as you near the blighted walls of Thebes. From the number of corpses, it seems likely there are a lot of job openings. Maybe you can dig pits for mass graves. Do you know how to work a backhoe, Oedipus? Say, what is that ominous shape just outside the gates of Thebes? An odd duck, if I've ever seen one. What do you suppose it is? --- //Well, what do you suppose it is, Oedipus? Keep walking while you decide, that way we'll arrive at the thing by the time you've clicked, making your answer irrelevant. Is it...// [[A sphinx?->The Sphinx]] //or// [[It's clearly a sphinx.->The Sphinx]] //or// [[I really think we should go back and bury that guy.->The Sphinx]]

Yes, Oedipus, you truly are a victor. Nothing says victory like lying about a coin toss and then killing a man with his own penny. Behold Oedipus—the cunning of Odysseus and the killing limbs of Achilles! You stupid idiot. As it appears the Clydesdale and burro are intent on dragging that corpse all the way to Delphi, I suggest you get yourself as far as possible from the scene of the crime. Yes, //crime//, Oedipus! While it was not your intention to do any more harm with that coin than bounce it off the charioteer's head, there's a little principle in criminal law called //Stupidus Culpandus// intended to protect people from the actions of stupid idiots, by deeming stupid idiots guilty of whatever their stupid idiocy causes. Which makes you, you stupid idiot, a //murderer//! Now quit standing there like a stupid idiot! That chariot is leaving a trail of blood that ends right here, so you want to get yourself as far from here as you can. Go! Move it! Quit looking around for options, you won't find them. The chariot is dragging the evidence of your crime toward Delphi, so start running in the opposite direction, toward Thebes! --- [[Just click here you knucklehead! Now! Hop to it! I want you in Thebes before that dead body arrives in Delphi!]]

At least you have the wit to realise what a mess you've made of things! A man who is cursed, like you, should know better than to ever play a game of chance. You know that you are cursed, Oedipus, yet you waged your curse against another man's life, and now he's dead. Call it willful blindness, if that makes you feel better about it, but if you're willing to be honest for a change you will recognise it for what it is—//murder//! Get up off your knees, you knucklehead! This is no time for rending your clothing and wailing to the heavens. Rest assured, you'll have much better reasons for doing so soon if you don't clean up your act. Up, up, you dope! The area around you? A crime scene. The criminal? You! You have to get yourself far from this dreadful patch of road as quickly as possible. But first, take a good look around. Have you left any traces of yourself? No, leave the banana peel. It'll look as if a monkey was the culprit. DNA? You're worried they'll find your DNA on the banana peel? This is the //Bronze Age//, you idiot! Forget forensics, the letters D, N, and A don't even exist yet! Now go! Run! By the time the crime is being investigated you must be well settled in faraway Thebes. Quit nodding and go! Run! Run like you've never run before! --- [[Oh, are you looking for the option to slow down a little because you're tired? Just for that, this link is going to make you run even faster!->Just click here you knucklehead! Now! Hop to it! I want you in Thebes before that dead body arrives in Delphi!]]

The road to Thebes is long and dull. Unlike you, Oedipus, who is short and dull. HEY, did I tell you that you could slow down? Vite! Vite! Keep those legs moving, keep those arms pumping! Yes, I can smell it too. It is without question the smell of death, but I don't think it is the smell of the dead charioteer that follows you like a ghost, no, the smell I smell is much smellier than that. The smelliest death smell I've ever smelled. There are more than a few dead bodies lying nearby. All the signs of a local blight. Thebes seems to be a little under the weather. Well, there's no time to change your path. And a city of rotting death might be just the place for you to lie low until the heat dies down. Who knows, the entire staff of the district attorney's office might be dead. This could work in your favour, Oedipus. Hmmm, there seems to be a guard of some sort perched just outside the gates of Thebes. You can slow down now. Easy, Oedipus, there's no longer any rush. Give your pulse a chance to slow, wipe your brow, and start preparing your story. If they ask where you're coming from, how do you answer? "From Delphi." No, you blockhead! The dead charioteer is between here and Delphi! Make something up, use your natural instinct to lie! --- [[Once again I'm offering you no options. This is no time to be seen walking in circles, rubbing your chin. You need to head straight on toward the gates with all the confidence you can fake!->The Sphinx]]

With that pointless click out of the way you plod on into the moonless night. The constellations gaze down upon you, wandering Oedipus. Perhaps one day you will get a constellation of your own? It's not impossible. You'd be surprised the prominent star clusters that have been handed to minor mythological figures. One day children might gaze up at the night sky and say, "There's Cygnus, the swan! There's Andromeda, the princess! And there's Oedipus, the idiot!" The sun rises quickly in the desert, stretching your shadow far across a featureless terrain. Just as thirst and exhaustion are about to overtake you, you once again conveniently spot something on the horizon. Another oasis? No, more than an oasis. A city skyline appears, and soon you find yourself passing under a great sign reading //Welcome to Casablanca//. Huh. From your expression I suspect that surprised you less than it surprised me. An hour later you are navigating the streets of a city that you seem to know well. When have you ever been to Casablanca? Okay, you're obviously getting on fine without me. Any argument against ending the timeline here? Hello? You're not even listening to me anymore. Well, listening or not, I'm going to jump forward twenty years to see whether you manage on this timeline to avoid your grim destiny. Be right back. It turns out you did. I'd congratulate you if I thought you were still paying attention. You will manage to go twenty full years without murdering anyone, nor getting married. The latter is no huge surprise. The important thing is that you specifically didn't murder your father nor marry your mother. Or the other way around. For no one else in history has //not doing// either of these things been an accomplishment worth noting. But for you, Oedipus, I can only say well done. And by //only say//, I mean I have nothing else to say to you. I have tired of your company even more, yes, //even more //than you have tired of mine! So, I don't know, enjoy yourself in Morocco, I guess. THE END --- I hope you enjoyed //Oedipus Nix: Reluctant Plaything of the Gods//! This is Ending 12 of 15. If you plan to reread this story over and over until you've found all fifteen endings, good luck! And by //good luck//, I don't mean good luck in finding all the endings, since that's a fairly straightforward task; no, I mean good luck in general. If this is where you are in life, you truly do need some good luck. There's also a bonus ending that is best left unfound. [[Click here to start again.->OEDIPUS NIX]] --- Apropos... The tragedy of Oedipus (Sophocles' tragedy, that is, not the juvenile //Oedipus Nix//) underlies //Mrs. Quarterhorse//, the first book in my series about a young card-reader's relationship with the imperious heiress to a ghostly legacy. If, however, you //prefer// your stories juvenile, you might enjoy the comic //Meanwhile Not Far Away on the Moon//, a monumental reimagining of the Apollo 11 Lunar Mission. Both are found at my website (see link below) along with other curiosities for persons of questionable (but discerning) taste. <a href="https://scmarchere.com" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="color:RoyalBlue; text-decoration:underline;">www.scmarchere.com</a>

The Sphinx lets out a little disgusted groan, then waves you through. "I got it right?" "Yes," the Sphinx growls as she stuffs a few belongings into her well-travelled Black Ardennes Leather Birkin Retourne Bag. "The curse on Thebes is lifted, all is once again right with the world, well played, so on and so forth." She fastens the bag shut and heads off down the road, wondering who next to blight. Savour the moment, Oedipus! You, the accursed, have managed to lift the curse of another! Surely in Thebes you will be hailed as a hero! And with the Sphinx gone, the air freshens. The stench of death lessens, leaving behind only the city's usual stench; the dry riverbed refills with brackish water; the withered crops ripen with a few unsightly vegetables; the sores on the beplagued Theban citizenry cede to commonplace rosacea; and the groaning of the accursed is reduced to mere moaning. Through the gates come several wizened old men—town elders straight out of central casting, eager to thank the saviour of Thebes. Try to look heroic, Oedipus. Stand up straight. Get your finger out of your nose. "Noble stranger!" greets the most wizened of the wizened old men as he clumsily reaffixes part of his unconvincing beard that had become unglued, "you have saved Thebes, such as it is, and we now beg you to accept its crown and take for your wife our queen!" "Won't your current king have a problem with that?" you ask, with uncharacteristic foresight. This raises a few snickers from the little crowd gathering around you. A tough-looking punk in a sleeveless denim jacket sidles over sucking on a toothpick, and with a sneer tells you their king has, in his words, "bought the farm." From the accompanying slicing gesture across his throat, you take this to mean the king is dead. "Under //peculiar circumstances//," adds Gus Finkley, the town fishmonger, who, among his friends, is known as //Chips//. You recall the peculiar circumstances under which your charioteer adversary had left this world, and a bead of sweat appears on your forehead. Keep it cool, Oedipus. Don't blow this thing. A familiar but now badly battered crown is solemnly lowered onto your head, the wizened old man reads from a scroll some monarchical boilerplate, and before you can spit out an objection you find yourself the new King of Thebes. The Queen that accompanies the title then appears, dressed appropriately in mourning black—a snug black turtleneck, sassy black beret, faded black jeans, and knee-high black riding boots—and curtsies politely. And, once again, your weak objection-raising ability leaves you a mere minute later a married man. "How recently," you nervously ask your new wife as she taps a cigarette from her Toucan Sam cigarette case, "did your late husband... //buy the farm//?" She checks her watch. Okay, okay, Oedipus, you can get to know your new wife on your honeymoon. As for the here and now, let's call your adventure complete. Just look at yourself, you vainglorious knucklehead! How long ago was it that you were just a pimply teenager with an AC/DC logo scribbled on his arm and now here you are, a pimply king with a queen on his arm—no, not quite on your arm—where'd she go? Oh, there she is—she's just looking for an ashtray. --- [[One last click and we're done, Oedipus! This is the big click you've been waiting for, the click that will show you whether or not you have skirted your dreadful destiny!->Ending 14]] //or// [[Despite having taken the guise of Oedipus, having trod so many hundreds of kilometres in his yellow flip-flops, having invested in him so much of your time and sympathy, and despite now finally standing a single click from your story's conclusion, choose to abandon everything and instead learn more about Gus Finkley, Fishmonger of Thebes?->The Story of Gus Finkley]]

The Sphinx's cruel mouth curls into a dreadful grin, revealing dagger-like fangs glistening with yellow bile; and from her paws blood-smeared claws extend; and her icy breath freezes you like a statue, helpless before a display of her full ferocity! "The answer was: //some kind of messed-up frankenstein!//" the Sphinx snarls with delight. "That's what I said!" you scream. And with that pathetic final flourish, Oedipus, you are torn from your little adventure, ripped from the world of mortal men, shredded and scattered among the wastes of foul Tartarus. All except for your skull, which the Sphinx adds to her pile with a yawn. Ah, well. That was, I don't deny, a rather sudden end to your story, Oedipus, and although in your current torn, ripped, shredded, and scattered form you are unlikely to appreciate a denouement, to see how well you made out in the great scheme of things, relatively speaking, the option is available if you can manage it. --- [[If you have sufficient remaining physical agency to suffer one final twitch, use it to click here.->Ending 13]]

The epilogues for your timelines ordinarily jump forward twenty years, but as you're just as dead now as you'll be then, rather than reveal a youless future that can't be of any interest to you—self-absorbed as you are—I'll simply explain how close you came to fulfilling your destiny. A flip of a coin, in the end! Deep inside, I wonder if you realised that the answer to the Sphinx's riddle was, in fact, //some kind of messed-up frankenstein//? Hearing it now, it is so obviously the correct answer it seems impossible you could have gotten it wrong! Yes, surely, it was deliberate. You chose to die honourably at the gates of Thebes rather than enter them and fulfill your disgraceful destiny! Haha, just kidding. You got it wrong because you're stupid. I needn't tell you now—on account of you being dead and unable to hear me—that the charioteer you killed was, in fact, your birth father. And the queen that you would have been shotgunned into marrying upon defeating the Sphinx, was, in fact, your birth mother. You see, twenty years back they'd received a similar prophecy from that same Oracle at Delphi, that their newborn son would grow up to murder his father and marry his mother. And so, they left you out to die. That's right, they'd sought to skirt destiny, just like you! But unlike them, you actually managed it! Furthermore, you managed it without trying to murder a baby. Your birth parents were messed up, Oedipus. So, if you're feeling at all bad about having murdered your father, consider it payback. All in all, you did well. I can't say any of your choices made along the way were made with anything other than lols in mind, but, you got the job done. You spat in the face of destiny and made a mockery of the gods, just like you vowed to do in the caption under your high school yearbook photo! THE END --- I hope you enjoyed //Oedipus Nix: Reluctant Plaything of the Gods//! This is Ending 13 of 15. If you plan to reread this story over and over until you've found all fifteen endings, good luck! And by //good luck//, I don't mean good luck in finding all the endings, since that's a fairly straightforward task; no, I mean good luck in general. If this is where you are in life, you truly do need some good luck. There's also a bonus ending that is best left unfound. [[Click here to start again.->OEDIPUS NIX]] --- Apropos... The tragedy of Oedipus (Sophocles' tragedy, that is, not the juvenile //Oedipus Nix//) underlies //Mrs. Quarterhorse//, the first book in my series about a young card-reader's relationship with the imperious heiress to a ghostly legacy. If, however, you //prefer// your stories juvenile, you might enjoy the comic //Meanwhile Not Far Away on the Moon//, a monumental reimagining of the Apollo 11 Lunar Mission. Both are found at my website (see link below) along with other curiosities for persons of questionable (but discerning) taste. <a href="https://scmarchere.com" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="color:RoyalBlue; text-decoration:underline;">www.scmarchere.com</a>

Twenty years have passed. Thebes has once again fallen under a curse. Plague, drought, the usual. But what, or //who// is responsible? I wonder who it can be, Oedipus? Your moment of triumph before the gates of Thebes never felt particularly triumphant, did it? Was it the blood of the former king of Thebes on your guilty hands? Was it the familiar freckle on the very tip of your wife's nose—a freckle you knew well from the tip of your own nose? A freckle now on the noses of your four children? Such a freckle will be passed down through the House of Oedipus for generations to come. The //Oedipus Freckle// it will be called, with much giggling and rib-poking. The freckle of shame, Oedipus! Yes, you have fulfilled your tragic destiny. You murdered your father, you dope, back there on the road to Thebes, and you married your own mother, you degenerate. And now you're surrounded by your freckle-nosed progeny—inbred reminders of a destiny you stumbled into despite knowing full well it was coming. The prophecy has been fulfilled, Oedipus! Only darkness lies before you! Darkness! DARKNESS!! I'll just leave these pointy gold pins here beside you. What do you mean, //why//? "Jocasta!" you shout, "I found your pins!" Hey, you stupid idiot! She didn't lose the pins, I swiped them. I brought them here so you can use them to... you know... do what you have to do. Jocasta appears, delighted her husband has found her gold pins. "I was looking all over for them!" She rewards her husband with a kiss and leaves. Oedipus, have you been listening to what I just told you? You murdered your own father and married your own mother! The charioteer? Your Dad. The lady you just handed the pins to? Your Mum. Now that you have seen the truth, you must never see anything ever again. Got it? //Never see anything ever again//. Here, I'll leave my Grizzly Adams jack-knife with you. It's not as loaded with meaning as the pins, but it'll do the trick. If you don't mind, I'll turn my back because I can't stand the sight of... ...where are you going? Give me that knife! I'll do the job myself, you deviant... c'mon quit squirming... "Guards! Help!" you shout. Let go of me! I'll write every last one of you goons into the bowels of Hades if I can just get my hands free... Oedipus! Have you no decency? Don't you dare use my jack-knife to pick your nose! THE END --- I hope you enjoyed //Oedipus Nix: Reluctant Plaything of the Gods//! This is Ending 14 of 15. If you plan to reread this story over and over until you've found all fifteen endings, good luck! And by //good luck//, I don't mean good luck in finding all the endings, since that's a fairly straightforward task; no, I mean good luck in general. If this is where you are in life, you truly do need some good luck. There's also a bonus ending that is best left unfound. [[Click here to start again.->OEDIPUS NIX]] --- Apropos... The tragedy of Oedipus (Sophocles' tragedy, that is, not the juvenile //Oedipus Nix//) underlies //Mrs. Quarterhorse//, the first book in my series about a young card-reader's relationship with the imperious heiress to a ghostly legacy. If, however, you //prefer// your stories juvenile, you might enjoy the comic //Meanwhile Not Far Away on the Moon//, a monumental reimagining of the Apollo 11 Lunar Mission. Both are found at my website (see link below) along with other curiosities for persons of questionable (but discerning) taste. <a href="https://scmarchere.com" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="color:RoyalBlue; text-decoration:underline;">www.scmarchere.com</a>

BOOM! A shame the Oracle at Delphi hadn't mentioned that you'd die from a blast of buckshot, because then you could have chosen to die by catapult out of spite. And it occurs to me that I should have given you a third option, to flee to the edge of the roof and jump off. The royal palace is a bungalow after all, not a skyscraper. Ah well, I expect you'd have been sprayed with buckshot either way. And I can't imagine you landing gracefully, like a cat. You'd have hit the pavement like a big stupid birthday cake. No, spite notwithstanding, you should have chosen the catapult rather than the gun. Did you think she was bluffing with the shotgun? Nobody ever bluffs with a shotgun, Oedipus. In the end, though, it all comes out the same. Your adventure has reached a sudden end. That //I// should be so lucky! You're not the only one who has visited the Oracle at Delphi, Oedipus. //My// miserable destiny is only half as bad as yours. I am likewise fated to murder my father (I'm beginning to suspect that is the default destiny) but as for my mother, I am fated to do no worse than //disappoint// her. So, I'm well ahead on the latter, but as yet have avoided the former. I'm getting off course here, sorry. This is //your// bleak adventure, not mine. Let's bring it to a merciful end. --- [[One last click, Oedipus, and your story is fully told. I guess since you're dead, clicking will be difficult. Surely you can squeeze from your lingering aura one final poke at a link?->Ending 15]]

SPROING! Smart choice, choosing the catapult, as it gives you a little thrill before you're pulverised. Fortunately it's not very cloudy today. Gosh, you can see everything from up here. Hey, that's Delphi down below. No, not there, off to the left. See the tops of all the RVs in the campsite? Pity you have nothing to drop on that troublesome Oracle. There's never a rotten pumpkin around when you need it. Flock of something coming up. Is there any way to alter your trajectory? Maybe do an air-somersault or something to put a little backspin into yourself. No, relax, they've seen you and seem to be parting down the middle. Look like Canada Geese. Might want to plug your ears in case they all start... onk honk honk honK hoNK hONK HONK HONNNNK HONKKKK HONK HONK HONKKKKK HONK HONK HONK HONNNK HONK HONk HOnk Honk honk onk Ay ay ay! I'm gonna be hearing that all night! Yeeks. Am I mistaken or is that Corinth in the distance? Yes, indeed, your old home! You're definitely going to splat somewhere very near. That'll sure cut down on your funeral costs. Unless you splatter so badly you're unrecognisable. Try to land feet-first. Or, no, wait, it's your swollen ankles that everyone seems to recognise you by. Go in head-first instead. And for the love of Pete, don't land on your father! --- [[As your time now is limited, let's get directly to the denouement of your little adventure, Oedipus. One last click before we say farewell!->Ending 15]]

The Oracle didn't predict the manner of your end, Oedipus, but everything else about her prophecy has proven incorrect. You have not murdered your father, nor married your mother. But before we celebrate, let's make absolutely certain there is no way the Fates might manipulate the facts to force their destiny upon you. As for your father, when you saw him last, are you absolutely sure he was alive and not in any way murdered? Specifically, by you? The Fates are bound to stretch the definition of //murder// to inculpate you, the slippery buggers. For instance, let's say your Dad had warned you repeatedly to not play with your tinkertoys in the hall, and then one night on the way to the washroom in the dark he steps on a piece, stumbles and breaks his neck, and with his last breath gasps, "Oedipus, you've //murdered// me!" You see what I mean? So, if nothing else, before leaving home did you make absolutely certain you hadn't left any toys lying around? As for your mother, I can easily imagine the Fates keeping her identity a secret so that you might inadvertently marry her. But if you haven't married //anyone//, then you should be in the clear. Are you sure you've never married anyone? Theoretically, avoiding marriage for you should be easy. You're physically repellent, you're stupid, you're boring. You are a prince, though, and a certain breed of female is drawn to titles. And then there's those women who fawn over serial killers. I suppose someone so psychologically disturbed might even find //you// attractive, Oedipus. Especially if you did, in fact, somehow, murder your father. Ah well, for the time being at least, until contrary evidence surfaces, I think it is safe to consider you neither a father murderer, nor a mother marryer. And so, congratulations are in order! You might not feel that you have made out well in life, dying so young under such absurd circumstances, but considering the cruel destiny the Fates had prepared for you, you did very well! You gave destiny the middle finger, Oedipus, and for this the whole world cheers! THE END --- I hope you enjoyed //Oedipus Nix: Reluctant Plaything of the Gods//! This is Ending 15 of 15. If you plan to reread this story over and over until you've found all fifteen endings, good luck! And by //good luck//, I don't mean good luck in finding all the endings, since that's a fairly straightforward task; no, I mean good luck in general. If this is where you are in life, you truly do need some good luck. There's also a bonus ending that is best left unfound. [[Click here to start again.->OEDIPUS NIX]] --- Apropos... The tragedy of Oedipus (Sophocles' tragedy, that is, not the juvenile //Oedipus Nix//) underlies //Mrs. Quarterhorse//, the first book in my series about a young card-reader's relationship with the imperious heiress to a ghostly legacy. If, however, you //prefer// your stories juvenile, you might enjoy the comic //Meanwhile Not Far Away on the Moon//, a monumental reimagining of the Apollo 11 Lunar Mission. Both are found at my website (see link below) along with other curiosities for persons of questionable (but discerning) taste. <a href="https://scmarchere.com" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="color:RoyalBlue; text-decoration:underline;">www.scmarchere.com</a>

<div class="header">GUS FINKLEY</div> <div class="subheader">Fishmonger of Thebes</div> <div class="bodytext-italic-centered">by G. B. Finkley</div> --- Forty years ago, with a violent crack of a champagne bottle over my head, I was christened Gustopher Blatt Finkley. My earliest memories are of our home above the fishmongery. Over time I would learn from my father the trade of monging fish, and when I came of age, I set off from home to set up a fishmongery of my own. I had with me only a single fish, but more than enough eagerness to compensate. Day and night I tirelessly monged, so determined was I to make my father proud. After just a year monging in Thebes, I had accumulated so many fish I needed to hire an apprentice to keep them all sufficiently catalogued and filed away. About this time the whole of Thebes was abuzz with news of a royal birth: Queen Jocasta and King Laius revealed their newborn twins to an adoring citizenry. The royal household then took a much needed holiday to Delphi to learn from the Oracle what glorious future lay ahead for the new prince and princess. Personally, I barely followed the news. I'm not a royals-watcher. No, I am Gus Finkley, fishmonger. Monging fish is not only my trade, it is my passion. When I'm not monging fish, I'm dreaming up new ways to mong fish, and, I'm not too proud to admit, spying on my rival mongers. A month or two later when I finally took notice again of royal goings-on, there was one fewer baby. The king and queen insisted there had only ever been one, just the girl. But the mystery of the twinless twin was quickly forgotten because Thebes was then embroiled in Fishgate, the great fishmonging scandal. For months it dominated conversation. At work, at school, at home, everyone had an opinion. Best friends became worst enemies. Families were torn apart. Fishgate widened a pre-existing fissure in Theban society into a chasm that threatened to swallow everyone and everything. Even today Fishgate is discussed only with whispers in the darkest corners lest it tear the slender threads that have since held our city together. I feel a little uneasy mentioning Fishgate, even just to you, a stranger in Thebes and one with no stake in the matter. I couldn't even begin to explain the complicated arguments on either side, less still the deep psychological, sociological, economic, and... Let's just leave it at that. Oh, but before I continue, you're probably wondering how I got my nickname, //Chips//. It's not a very interesting story, really. My buddy Glenn started calling me //Chips// when we were kids, because I really liked potato chips. Still do. Where was I before I got sidetracked by Fishgate? Oh yes, the missing royal baby. No, wait, that was itself a sidetrack. I remember now, I was talking about my growing fishmonging business. Eventually I was monging so steadily, my buddy Glenn took me aside and said "Chips, you spend too much time monging, and, to be blunt, you're no fun anymore." I responded, "Pinky, (that is Glenn's nickname) I've never been any fun." But Glenn persisted, reminding me of many instances in which I'd been fun. "Glenn, (I was now speaking seriously and unwilling to use his nickname) I never did any of those things." And after thinking it over, Glenn was forced to concede that he was mixing me up with Gus Fowlman, aka //Chimps//. Now, the story of how Gus Fowlman got his nickname is truly interesting. He left a mean-spirited one-star review for a local witchdoctor, so that witchdoctor turned Gus into two chimps. One looked like a chimp but had Gus's brain, and the other looked like Gus but had a chimp's brain. Me and Glenn used to joke that we couldn't tell the two apart. We really could, though. But you didn't come here to learn about Chimps, or Pinky, you're here to learn about me, Gus Finkley, aka Chips, pre-eminent fishmonger of Thebes. Which reminds me, you're probably wondering how Glenn got his nickname, Pinky. We called him that because he gets really pink if he stays out too long in the sun. Also, his last name is Pigg, and pigs are often also pink. So, his nickname is something of a portmanteau. Knock knock. (I'm going to imagine you've just asked "Who's there?") Gus. (Gus who?) Gus Finkley. You have the mien of someone who has never visited a fishmongery, so let me explain what goes on. There can be no secrets between us. First step is the tongs. The fish don't care for the tongs, and I can't say I blame them, but fish are just so darned slippery you can't keep a good grip on them without tongs. After you've got the fish safely tonged it's time for the vat. What the vat is filled with I can't tell you, as it's a trade secret. I'll give you a hint through a riddle—//what lives at the very bottom of the Mariana Trench in a Batman costume but doesn't know how to swim?// After the vat comes the Dance of the Wizards. In the olden days actual wizards danced, but today it's all done with sock puppets. Next the puppeteers are dismissed, the vat is overturned, the tongs are chucked up into the rafters, and the whole mongery fills with smelly, fishy steam. It's a really terrible smell, the only part of monging I could do without. And, that's about all there is to know about me, Gus Finkley. Now it's your turn. Tell me something about yourself that nobody else knows. (I'm imagining you telling me that you once pushed a clown out of a helicopter.) That was a terrible thing to do and I wish you hadn't told me about it. I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt that there were extenuating circumstances. THE END --- //Do you regret having abandoned the Oedipus story for this Gus Finkley detour?// [[Yes, obviously I regret it. Please return me to the previous passage and save me having to scroll up through a mile of gibberish to click the back arrow.->Some kind of messed-up frankenstein?]] //or// [[Yes, obviously I regret it. But since I chose this path of my own free will, it is not fair for me to simply back up a passage and choose again. No, I must start over from the beginning.->OEDIPUS NIX]] --- Gus Finkley notwithstanding... The tragedy of Oedipus (Sophocles' tragedy, that is, not the juvenile //Oedipus Nix//) underlies //Mrs. Quarterhorse//, the first book in my series about a young card-reader's relationship with the imperious heiress to a ghostly legacy. If, however, you //prefer// your stories juvenile, you might enjoy the comic //Meanwhile Not Far Away on the Moon//, a monumental reimagining of the Apollo 11 Lunar Mission. Both are found at my website (see link below) along with other curiosities for persons of questionable (but discerning) taste. <a href="https://scmarchere.com" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="color:RoyalBlue; text-decoration:underline;">www.scmarchere.com</a>

While picking lint off your corndog, you finally notice the bicycle chained to the signpost. "Merciful gods have placed this bike here," you reason, "so that I might ride quickly to Corinth, to see my home one last time before I leave it forever!" Hold on, Oedipus, are you sure about that? If this bike is a gift from the gods, why is it locked to the signpost? "The combination to the lock is a proof of the will of the gods," you further reason, "for I shall on my first try guess the correct numbers!" A dozen incorrect guesses leave you a little flustered. "The gods only want to test my resolve," you still further reason, while searching for a rock big enough to smash the lock. After a half-hour of exhausting hammering you are finally on your way home to Corinth, but having a little difficulty with the gears. "Surely only a bike sent by the gods would have shifters beyond the understanding of mortal..." Shut up, Oedipus, okay? //You stole the bike//. You pedal quietly on. After stopping outside Corinth, not daring to even pass through its gates, you take a final, tearful look at the home you will never see again. You then deliver a tearful soliloquy so insipid I can't bring myself to write it down. You turn your bike around with the intention of continuing past Delphi and then onward to...? Nearing the signpost from which you'd stolen the bike you notice a little cluster of activity that includes a police car. Huh. I wonder what's going on there, Oedipus? You insist you have no idea. Then why are you getting off the bike, Oedipus? "It's //my// bike, a gift from the gods," you respond, "and so I can do with it as I want." And what you want to do with it seems to be hiding it in a bush. Assured the bike is safely tucked away, you continue along on foot, whistling nonchalantly as you pass the police car, a detective with a notepad, and an angry man in cycling shorts describing a bike that sounds very much like the one you'd just been //gifted// by the gods, Oedipus. Soon you are well along the road, all thoughts of larceny and godly gifts forgotten, and your fevered imagination returned to the dreadful prophecy. --- //Do you...// [[Ponder your fate while thoughtfully rubbing your chin?->Detour C - Killing Laius]] //or// [[Ponder your fate while thoughtlessly rubbing nothing?->Detour C - Killing Laius]] //or// [[Wonder how many of the supposed choices you are given in this adventure all wind up leading to the same passages?->Detour C - Killing Laius]]

All night you run and scream. You have had much to scream about, Oedipus, and there will be much more to scream about if your destiny is fulfilled, but in the dark of night you seem mostly to scream out of a fear of draculas. At sunrise you finally slow for a rest. With a look back you notice not only your own footprints in the gravel, but a second set of footprints ending only a dozen yards behind. Horror of horrors! Indeed, a dracula //had// been stalking you! But for the rising sun...! I'm not sure why you look relieved, Oedipus. If you'd been bitten by a dracula, you'd have become a dracula yourself. An interesting alternate route through this story, don't you think? Interesting for me, at least, writing it but not living it. Ah well, it serves me right for not giving you the option to rest back there in the dark. A soft-stepping dracula in ballet flats might have tiptoed over and chomped your neck before you could say //Jack Robinson//. Before long you pass a sign telling you Delphi is near. Shortly thereafter you pass under the banner welcoming you to Delphi. Welcome? Ha! You are only passing through. You shall never seek the Oracle! Never hear her prophecy! You stop to make a solemn vow that you will remain to your dying day ignorant of anything that terrible soothsayer has to say! Vow complete, you notice a nearby lady leaning against a Smokey the Bear statue, struggling with a lighter that refuses to light. You dig out of your pocket the pack of matches that you use for lighting bottle-rockets. "Thanks, sport," the lady says, after lighting her smoke and casually tossing the match into the dry grass underfoot. She takes a few long drags, releases a jet of smoke, then tells you— "You will murder your father and marry your mother!" "Excuse me?" you ask. She repeats her words, then explains that she's the local Oracle, and thought you might want to hear your fortune. "If not," she adds after puffing skyward a few smoke-rings, "just forget I said anything." Fortunately you'd given your throat a good rest after your long night of screaming, because your screaming begins anew. Off you go down the road, screaming at a high-pitch, like a mountain lion, since that is your default scream, the one you use when not given the option to scream like a regular lion. This time you only keep up the running and screaming for a few dozen yards. Under the clear sunny sky and without a hungry dracula loping at your heels, you simply haven't the incentive to continue. You slow to consider your new and unfortunate reality. --- //Do you...// [[Consider your new and unfortunate reality with the crouching mein of a mountain lion?->Detour C - Killing Laius]] //or// [[Consider your new and unfortunate reality with the confident mein of a regular lion?->Detour C - Killing Laius]] //or// [[Choose a link at random because they're obviously all just going to take you to the same story waypoint?->Detour C - Killing Laius]]

I've made an effort while telling your story, Oedipus, to not force you down any paths you didn't want to take, but... Why are you laughing? What do you mean I've been neglecting to give you sufficient options? Slander! I defy you to name even once when I failed to provide you with... Right at the very start of the story, you say? If I remember correctly, I gave you the option of either prancing merrily through a meadow or going to a dive bar. How is that insufficient? I defy you to come up with one other thing you could have done that morning! You're not only ungrateful, you're a micro-manager. Perhaps with each passage I should be giving you the option to take another breath? //Oh no, I forgot to give Oedipus the breathing option and now he's dead, oh dear, boo hoo, Oedipus is dead and it's all my fault.// Here's what you're going to do, Oedipus. You're going to stop whimpering about your precious options because the whole point of your stupid story is that there //are// no options, that all is fated, yet I am nonetheless //giving you options//! The next time you're about to open your big stupid mouth to complain about the scarcity of options remember that by all rights you should be getting //none//! And at this moment, I'm //giving// you none. You are not running back down into that dead-end of a rec-room! You're going to remain right where you are and deal with the situation. Quit scowling at me! Adjust your brow appropriately for the situation, come what may! --- [[Click here as you've been ordered or click nowhere and remain on this page forever.->Remain where you are, arms akimbo, tired of running from destiny, to await come what may?]]

As the sun drops, your natural cowardice rises, and you are soon convinced that bestial eyes are watching you from the shadows. The night is silent but for the steady crunching of your tread on the gravel underfoot. You stop. The crunching also stops. Stops, yes, but stops just a fraction of a second after //you// stop. Is someone following you? "Who's there?" you ask the darkness. The darkness stays mum. You slowly start walking again, now hyper-alert to any crunching sounds that don't correspond to your own steps, and recalling old tales of hungry draculas who skulk the roads on moonless nights. Soon you are so agitated you can no longer be certain of what you are hearing. Are those footsteps behind you? Is that the flutter of a cape? Is that a Transylvanian accent saying "blah! blah!"? Gradually you speed up. Faster... faster... faster...! "Are you Oedipus?" a voice shouts from behind. "No!" you scream, running even faster. "Slow down!" the voice demands. "No!" you scream louder, running still faster. "You can't run from destiny!" the voice shouts. "But I can run from draculas!" you reply. "I'm not a dracula!" the voice shouts, showing signs of exhaustion. "Liar!" you shout back, showing even more exhaustion. "I'm the..." the voice pants, "the... telegram... boy..." "No reason..." you pant, "a... a dracula... can't also be... a... telegram..." That's it, you're done. You stop, gasping for air. A moment later someone collides with you, and you struggle in the dark. You are, unsurprisingly, quickly overwhelmed, and cringe in anticipation of fangs clamping onto your neck. "I've been sent from Destiny Telegrams. I've got a telegram for you from King Polybus and Queen Merope of Corinth," the voice says. You're not completely convinced, but since you are not in a position to protest, you concede to whatever the voice demands. "The message goes: //Dear son, we called the Oracle's 1-800 number on your behalf. She told us, in a very sexy voice, that you will, and I quote, "murder your father and marry your mother." Your father and I have talked it over and have decided you should avoid doing either of those things. Sincerely, Mum and Dad.//" The telegram boy then waits vainly in the dark for you to give him a tip. Eventually he turns and huffs off, yelling back his hope that you get eaten by werewolves. You barely hear his curse, because the oracle's words are ringing in your ears! "You will murder your father and marry your mother!" And in a moment you are back on your feet, running and screaming like you've never run or screamed before! All night you run, and all night you scream. By morning you are, unsurprisingly, hoarse and pooped. --- //Do you...// Consider the prophecy calmly and rationally? //or// [[Consider the prophecy hastily, with your usual lack of forethought? (Yes, I'm aware the other option is greyed out, Oedipus.)->Detour C - Killing Laius]]

You return to bed to thumb through your //Guinness Book of World Records//, pausing as always over the picture of the guy with the really long fingernails, and recalling your previous attempt to set a world record that ended with a fourteen-inch-long hangnail. The record for going without sleep is 600 days. That can't be right. You rub your sleepy eyes and check again. Then you laugh upon discovering the mistake: 600 days was the record for going without //beets//! The record for going without //sleep// is only 240 days. On your calendar you mark the days you've already gone without sleep, flip forward eight months to mark what will be your 241st sleepless day, and then sit back to await your appointment with the Guinness photographer. You immediately fall asleep. Or perhaps you don't. You're so sleepy it's hard to tell. When a leprechaun steps out of your closet, you assume you're merely hallucinating. "I wonder what delusion will come out of my closet on day 241?" you ask yourself. "T'will just be me again, begorrah," answers the leprechaun. "You're going to come out of my closet 241 times?" The leprechaun answers by doing a little jig. You get up coughing to open a window and clear the air of leprechaun B.O., in so doing losing all enthusiasm for setting the sleeplessness record. While taking a long draught of refreshing exhaust from a passing bus, you notice on its side an advertisement for the Oracle at Delphi, who will, so sayeth the ad,// "solve" all your greatest mysteries//. In your exhausted state, or asleep state, or whatever state you're in, you fail to note the quote marks around //solve//. "To Delphi!" you shout. Unwilling to breathe anywhere near the still jigging leprechaun between you and your door you climb out the window, walk around the side of the house, re-enter your house through the back door, peer around to make sure the way is clear of leprechauns, then step into the kitchen to ask your mum to pack you a lunch because you've got a long walk ahead of you. --- //I'll just be blunt with you, Oedipus, this whole branch of the story is a bit of patchwork to get around some inconsistencies in the truly byzantine mish-mash of interconnected passages that make up your potential timelines. I'm well out of my depth, crying a little, and very near abandoning this whole project! So, look, I'm just going to shove you down the road toward Delphi, and if at any point from hereon something happens that doesn't seem to fit—maybe a reference to something that hasn't happened, or something that has already happened happens again in a manner suggesting it is happening for the first time, just, please, cut me some slack and go with it! Do you...// [[Agree to continue on, feeling a little guilty for the anguish your story is causing its beleaguered author?->"Just let me finish my peach cobbler and I'll be off."]] //or// [[Agree to continue on, feeling betrayed by an author from whom you'd expected a professionally constructed story?->"Just let me finish my peach cobbler and I'll be off."]] //or// [[Agree to continue on, knowing full well all three of these choices lead to the same passage?->"Just let me finish my peach cobbler and I'll be off."]]