Adrienne Raphel

JUNIPER, NEPTUNE, MINERVA, AND MOMUS

Jason has a new house on Mount Olympus, and he invites the Agency, who is his family, for a Team Meeting, which is a cocktail party.

Davina wears her new look, a lamb in brunette’s clothing. Heather and Emma haven’t even rented their dresses, they’ve borrowed them, that’s how much they’ve arrived. Side boob, side eye.

I have an announcement, says Jason, and even the Agents stop chattering. We’re expanding the office into the underworld. This has been a hard year for everyone, says Jason. But we’re having our best year yet.

All souls on deck, says Jason, and we’ve already hired two Agents.

The Underworld Agents are all in white, and they’re dead. The Underworld is great, says the female Agent, there’s a pool and a gym.

At the tiny cocktail table Heather pulls Emma aside. What do you think of the male one, says Heather, is he your type? He’s twenty, says Emma. And he lives in the Valley? And he’s also dead.

Vanessa pulls Jason aside. Jason, she says. You know my sister, I dedicate my career to her. I think she would be great Underworld agent.

Jason’s head shines with lotion.

She’s also dead, says Vanessa, in white.

Try to do something, and let envy not sit as a judge—nothing at all pleases Momus.


ADRIENNE RAPHEL is the author of Thinking Inside the Box: Adventures with Crosswords and the Puzzling People Who Can’t Live Without Them (Penguin, 2020), Our Dark Academia (Rescue Press, 2022), and What Was It For (Rescue Press, 2017). She holds a PhD from Harvard and an MFA from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. She teaches at CUNY Baruch and serves as a mentor with the Periplus Collective.


Issue Thirteen
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