The Myth of Diesel and Pollution
(or, Why Diesel Became So Bad for the Environment)
by Blaze Ginsberg
Once upon a time there was a
young goddess named Diesel. For many years, Diesel had wanted a lover but had never had one. One day she
fell deeply in love with Apollo, the Sun god, and thought he was to be her
lover forever. But Diesel’s restrictive
parents, Gas and Ignition, commanded Apollo to kiss another girl in Diesel’s
presence so that she would drop him. Diesel’s parents had other plans for her. They
wanted her to marry a god named Catalytic who was touchy-feely and really
lovey-dovey toward Diesel, which Diesel couldn’t
stand because she hated the idea that he would be such a slave to her affection. Soon, Diesel
rejected Catalytic for a god named Pollution.
Pollution was a young god who
spent every day obsessing over how his favorite game show kept changing its
format and sets and how depressing that was for him. Like Athena,
Pollution was born fully grown and in full armor. But in this case, Pollution
sprang from his mother’s head. His mother’s name was Waste.
Pollution’s family was always challenging him
and trying to get him to think about answers to questions. They wanted him to
marry a fairy goddess named Environment.
Environment was a goddess who was a little older than Pollution. Environment told the flowers how to grow, the
sun how to rise and how to set, and earthlings how to breathe. But she cared
for nobody but herself. She wanted to
boss Pollution around and tell him what to do and how to live his life.
Pollution hated Environment and always made fun of her when he was with his
friends. He said she was overweight and that her voice sounded like a
hippopotamus dying.
Pollution had an immortal
friend named Two Stroke Engine, or just Two for short. Two and Diesel had also
been friends since they were babies and one day, Two had asked Diesel to make a
former goddess of Mount Olympus named Winter Wonderland a mortal. He hated Winter Wonderland because she had
been isolating him since he was a kid. Winter Wonderland used to keep Two away
from other gods and goddesses and made him feel incredibly lonely and cold. Diesel had called in a lot of favors and managed to get
Winter Wonderland made into a mortal. Two then killed Winter Wonderland and as
a punishment he and his family lost their immortality and Two lost his ability
to speak and control his body.
When Pollution was a still a
young god and Two was on his last days of life (since he was now mortal), Pollution
would go to Two’s lair to see him every day. And every day Pollution’s family would tell him
to stay away from Diesel. Since Two’s family had become mortal, Diesel
had been coming around helping Two around the house, but was really looking for
a way to hook up with Pollution. However,
in the meantime, Diesel had changed her mind about
Catalytic and they had gotten married, but she still secretly loved Pollution.
Hanging out with Two Stroke had become especially difficult for Pollution
because he also loved Diesel, but Diesel was
strictly unavailable to him. He arrived
at Two Stroke’s lair and Two Stroke’s father, Sir Six Cylinder greeted him.
“Greetings, Pollution! Here
to see Two Stroke I presume?”
“Correct as usual, Sir Six
Cylinder.” Pollution said.
“He is in his den with Diesel,”
Sir Six Cylinder
said.
Diesel came running out in tears. “Oh Pollution, fair god,
you have come at just the right time.
Two Stroke is sick, he might go today. Oh, I don’t know what to say!”
“There, there, fair Diesel,”
Pollution said. “It is that Winter Wonderland’s fault for isolating him.”
“Indeed. So he did not want to spin some web exactly
all four angels spread out even, He did
not want to… Oh balderdash! I have been but stuck saying these same words over
and over and over again every day fifty thousand times,” Diesel
said crying.
Two Stroke began having
seizures and then fell asleep. Diesel tried to wake
him up but he would not stir for two hours. When he did wake up he started hopping
around like a frog. At that time, the
message man came with a summons for Diesel. Her husband Catalytic wanted to see
her but she couldn’t tear herself away from Pollution. Two Stroke suddenly
couldn’t move anymore and kicked Diesel and Pollution out of his den.
“I am dying,” he spelled out
on stone tablet. “Get out.”
Diesel and Pollution went to
tell Sir Six Cylinder
that his son was dying. Sir
Six Cylinder
then started wailing about how his son was leaving and going to the underworld
to be with Hades. He wailed so loudly that Hades himself came up from the
depths.
“So this is a new soul for me
and my beloved underworld,” Hades said. “Just look
at him lying there. So sad, huh? Boo hoo. But let me make you a deal, Sixer.
I’m sick of Persephone always whining all the time down there. If you let me
have your wife Combustion for my wife in the underworld, I’ll let your son
live. I’ll even consider giving him speech and immortality back.”
“NEVER!” Sir Six
Cylinder shouted.
“Fine,” said Hades, “Fates,
cut Two Stroke’s lifeline.”
“Wait, stop! I’ll do it, I’ll
do it,” Sir Six Cylinder
said.
Meanwhile, Combustion came
out of her room screaming, “Are you crazy, Six? You can’t just send me down to
Hades!”
“Diesel, give Pollution a
ride back to Mt. Olympus,” Hades
commanded. “Things are about to get
ugly.”
Diesel and Pollution rode
back to Pollution’s home on Diesel’s white horse. Throughout the next few weeks Pollution did
not stop thinking about Diesel and Diesel did not stop
thinking about Pollution. Finally, Pollution got so angry at Environment who
was relentless about hanging onto him that he asked Athena
to take away her immortality. Athena and Pollution were best friends because Athena was Pollution’s godmother. So Athena confiscated Environment’s immortality and arranged
for everyone, including Diesel and Environment to go over to Pollution’s house
for dinner. On the night, while everyone was gathering, jealous Diesel
slowly crept out of the dark where she’d been hiding, watching all the action, drew
her mighty dagger from her cloak and thrust it into Environment’s head, which
fell straight off her body. Pollution was pretty happy about this, but it
really upset his family and they disowned him.
Meanwhile, even though he was
married to Diesel, Catalytic still had a very bad touchy-feely problem. Around
the time Diesel was killing Environment, Catalytic
was being touchy-feely with the wrong goddess, Hera,
who did not stand for that kind of thing. Hera
immediately confiscated Catalytic’s immortality. It was then easy for Diesel to
draw her mighty dagger one more time from her cloak and thrust it into his
touchy-feely heart.
Now Diesel and Pollution
could finally be married. Unfortunately, nobody liked either of them and they
were never invited to any parties. They never lost their immortality, but after
they were married, Diesel and Pollution ended up doing slave work for eternity
for a god named Corruption.
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