Philip Allen, “Stormy and Trumptaeon” (2018), photomontage
It was decreed that no one could gaze upon the nakedness of Artemis, the Stormy Virgin Goddess…unless, of course, they paid their subscription fee for the really good stuff.
Doomed Trumptaeon, not having done so, attempted to make another kind of deal, and paid handsomely for Circe to perform a reverse spell, from Pig to Man, and make himself, a son of Midas, irresistible to the unknowing Huntress.
After having given herself to Trumptaeon and feeling nauseous remorse, she set off to tell her terrifying father Zeus of her downfall. On her way to Olympus, Trumptaeon’s men attempted to assuage her wrath with gifts of gold and precious stones, and, failing that, they sent one of Echidna’s horrid brood to offer her harm if she spilled the beans.
But Zeus’s word is law, so the grotesque transgressor, having seen the Goddess naked, was delivered to Stormy Artemis, who would decide his fate.
After peppering his flesh with her deathly silver shafts for several millennia, she grew weary and wanted closure, whereupon her handmaiden Callisto, ever of sweet disposition, put forth this proposal, “Why not, dread Mistress, transform Trumptaeon into a Stag so that his own Dogs, McConnell, Ryan, and Pence, will not know him and will rend his flesh from his bones until your uncle Hades should find a fit eternal torture for him in the underworld beyond Styx.”
Stormy Artemis thought this was a swell idea, and soon the pack of Slavering Hunting Dogs rid the earth of the abominable Trumptaeon and the Stormy Goddess was Virgin once more.
