I love spring.

Grass wet with morning dew, water sparkling with the rays of the sun like little fairies on its surface, flowers blooming, love—or just pollen—permeating the air, and the world waking up from its winter slumber—it all embraces me in its open arms like a big soft bear hug. Truly the best time of the year.

So why is it that the worst day of my life happens smack-dab in the middle of it?

"You're... dumping me?" I ask my partner of fucking millennia. "Are you serious?"

She bites her lip and casts her green eyes downward. A subtle spring breeze caresses her long chestnut curls.

"Sorry, Eros," she says. "But, come on, we've been having problems for a while and—"

"You're dumping me?" I scoff. "For him?"

This is a joke. A cruel, stupid joke. If I strain my ears to their limits, I bet I'd hear Hermes and Momus laughing themselves all the way to Olympus.

The scowl she gives me is like an arrow skewering my heart. "He's changed."

"Oh, yeah?" I bring my fists to my sides, glaring. "Tell me, Psyche, how does one change his ways while spending all his time staring at his own reflection as a fucking weed?"

"He was a flower!"

"He was a self-obsessed moron who ignored his girlfriend until she wasted away to literally nothing but her voice!"

I need to work on my lung capacity. This mouthful almost made my voice give out.

"Exactly. Was." Psyche glares. "This is why I'm breaking it off with you. You think that just because you have magical arrows and some chicken wings, you understand love and what people do for it. Well, you don't. And it's your—"

"Chicken wings?" I take a step back, those words impaling me through my ass and out of my mouth.

She holds her head high like she's trying to sniff the air. "I said what I said."

"I'm the god of love!" I spread my arms out. "Are you fucking kidding me? He's the literal definition of a narcissist and he's a pretty flower, but I'm the embodiment of attraction and I have chicken wings?!"

"Your mother turned him into that flower; take it up with her!"

Yup. There it is. There goes the last fibre of rope keeping my heart intact. I can almost hear myself shattering into a million pieces before her. What a fucking disgrace.

"Don't you dare talk about my mother," I snap through my clenched teeth. "She was right about you. I gave you immortality and you're spitting in my face."

"Or maybe I'm just sick of your shit, ever considered that?" She crosses her arms. "Whatever. Go crying back to Mommy if that's what you want. I'm done with you."

As she walks away, the awful tearing of my heart gives way to an unrelenting wave of fury. A fire courses through me. Not my mother's fire of passion, but my father's all-consuming rage that flows through my veins like lava as my nails dig into my palms hard enough to juice them for ichor like one would squeeze lemons for lemonade. My bow and quiver rattle with my shaking form as Psyche's retreating back blurs and turns red in my vision.

"Fine!" I bellow, my voice rattling like a war cry. "Leave! What do I care? I'm the god of love! I can get anyone! I don't need you! But don't come crying back to me when you're making out in the bathroom and he licks his face in the mirror instead of you! Don't come looking for the god of love to help you when that happens, you hear me?"

Side note: Maybe I don't need to work on my lung capacity; maybe I just need to get angry more often. I'm not even out of breath after all this.

Psyche stops in her tracks and turns. When she speaks, it's barely above a whisper, but I hear her loud and clear.

"Why would I go to a god of love who has been dumped?"

And, with that final shot through the heart (and she is to blame), she vanishes.

Question. When you mortals are about to throw up, do you have this weird, rumbly feeling like something's trying to eat its way out of your stomach? That numbness at the back of your throat? Is that what's happening to me?

I didn't think she could hurt me any more than she already had, but this last jab defied my expectations. Why? Why does it hurt more than her leaving me for Narcissus? Why is it a bigger insult than everything she's thrown at me, bigger than calling me a Mommy's Boy, bigger, even, than announcing that my wings would taste well grilled and seasoned in barbecue sauce?

"Because she's right," I whisper to myself, my anger deflating like a sad clown's balloon animal.

Why would she, or anyone for that matter, come to me for love? I have one job in this immortal life, and I just failed. I failed in the most epically miserable way one could fail. Imagine Poseidon draining all the world's oceans, or Thoth in his wisdom saying something asinine like 'If humans evolved from monkeys, how are there still monkeys?' Or the godly bard Bragi losing the ability to find what rhymes with 'bat'. That's how badly I just failed.

You wouldn't come to a virgin for sex advice, so why would you come looking for love from a god recently dumped for the narcissist, of all people?

This is embarrassing. More than embarrassing, this is career-ending. Word will travel fast, people will see her with that snob, and the rumour mill will do its thing. I'll be laughed out of Olympus soon enough.

No.

No. I refuse to let this happen.

I'm not going to sit back and take their bullshit until they fire me. I will die before that happens, and I can't fucking die even if I tried.

Before I change my mind and stop myself, I whip my bow out. The runes are incredibly intricate, meticulously hand-carved with an attention to detail only Hephaestus can muster. It's one of those works that you see more details of the longer you look at it. Its shape is tailored specifically to my comfort, and the drawstring works in a perfect balance of power and ease of use. It's beautiful craftsmanship.

And it easily snaps in two against my knee.

"Fuck this shit." I throw the two splinters and my heart to the ground.

Nobody's gonna laugh me out of Olympus, nobody's gonna take my arrows because I break them as well, and nobody's gonna fire me because I quit.

And it's somewhat relieving. I heard humans talk about how good some dumps are. Not breakup dumps, but the kind of dumps that come out of your other end. I heard them say how some just make you feel light as a feather, like you lost half of your weight. I can't relate to that, as neither am I human nor do I shit, but I imagine it feels similar to what I'm feeling now. Light, unburdened, free.

Do you feel a foreboding sense of dread every time you take a massive dump, though, or is that just me?

No matter. I've had my hissy fit. It's time to figure out what to do next.

They'll probably hear about this from Olympus and send someone after me. My mother won't be happy, that's for sure, and I don't want to face Aphrodite and her 'I told you so's for at least the next few centuries, thank you very much. I need to retire somewhere they wouldn't look. Somewhere nice and warm but just unpleasant enough for everyone to want to avoid. Now where would that be...?

I ponder as I step out of the meadow and into the town by the woods. It's a very early Easter Sunday morning, and few people are up, so I take my leisurely time walking down the road. 

Maybe Jamaica? No, the weed will probably attract Dionysus. Croatia? Possibly, but all the tourists are wreaking havoc on the place. It's good for deterring my family, but bad for attracting me.

Rolled-up newspapers lie on some porches that lack mailboxes. Easter Sunday is a weird time for newspaper delivery, but there seems to be an exception for everything these days. My eyes fall on one paper's giant headline, and I stop in my tracks. Coming closer, I squint as I make out the words behind the plastic wrapping.

"Florida Man Arrested for Masturbating at Urinal Claims He Had an 'Itch'"

The smile that stretches across my face is wide enough to hurt.

Of course! This is genius! Florida. How did I not think of this?

Well, Miami beaches and bath salts enthusiasts, here I come. Save me a spot at Bingo, Bertha, because Cupid is retiring.

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