Sisyphus by François Bereaud
from Betrayal: a PUNK NOIR Magazine series
Zeus & Hades –
How fucking could you? Let that man – I won’t even say his name – off. You said eternity. Eternity means forever. To infinity and beyond. And yes, the first thirty thousand years were great. Watching him push that boulder up the mountain. His evil face twisted by pain, ankles soaked in blood, shit running down his leg. I took great pleasure in that sight. Cruel some said. Well, they didn’t see my son. My beautiful boy who had just come to visit him, present him with a bowl of our red mangoes, the finest anywhere. And that man killed him for sport, his head rolling in the public square as if it had no more worth than a plastic bag. I wanted him to suffer eternal slings and arrows, to laugh at his undying well of pain. Now I see him chuckling and skipping across a field, a marble at his feet.
You have undone all that is righteous and I curse you.
Madame Trahie
Dear Madame,
We have little to offer you. All that you have said is true. Though we are gods, we failed to foresee erosion.
In deepest regret,
Zeus & Hades
This story appears as part of Betrayal, a PUNK NOIR Magazine series, originally published May 2024.
Bio
François Bereaud is a husband, dad, full time math professor, mentor in the San Diego Congolese refugee community, and mediocre hockey player. His stories and essays have been published online and in print and have earned Pushcart, Best of the Net, and Best Small Fiction nominations. He serves as an editor at The Twin Bill, Roi Fainéant Press, and Porcupine Literary. The Counter Pharma-Terrorist & The Rebound Queen is his published chapbook. In 2024, Cowboy Jamboree Press will publish his first full manuscript, San Diego Stories, which is the realization of a dream.
PUNK NOIR, the online literary and arts magazine that looks at the world at its most askew, casting a bloodshot eye over the written word, film, music, television and more.
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A mythic scream folded into bureaucratic despair. I love how this piece performs collapse, not just of justice, but of eternal systems themselves. The marble at his feet feels like a relic of a broken loop, spinning new meaning.