I’d kind of zoned out, I didn’t notice the guy sit next to me, until he said: “Oat and I mast.” that didn’t make much sense I must be more zonked than I realised. He said it again, this time it made much more sense when I thought in Greek, “Where are we?”, kind of weird accent though. Deep sexy voice, but weird accent.
“Taco Bell.” That didn’t seem to need translation.
“No, WHEN are we? not where.” Still talking Greek. That was silly of me, ‘when’ and ‘where’ are nothing alike in Greek.
I looked at my phone, 16:37, “About half past four.”
He seemed a little exasperated, “What year?”
Even in my half baked state I could remember the year, “Two thousand and fourteen.”
“In which calendar?”
Now that was a weird question. It took me a while to think of the answer to that, what calendar do we use? “The Christian one.” I finally looked at him, more weird. He was wearing a toga and a turban, or something like that, Halloween wasn’t until next week so I did wonder what that was about. All in white, no colour at all. He was really quite handsome in a weird way. He did weird well.
He was looking pensive stroking his beard, quite a full long beard with mustache to match. He noticed me looking at him, “I’m sorry, my manners.” He extended his hand, “Pythagoras of Samos.”
Still being kind of weird here, still in Greek of course. I took his hand, a thrill ran down my arm, almost like he was electrically charged. I shook his hand and replied in kind, “Crown of England.” That didn’t sound quite right when I said it in Greek, I would have added, “Not the Crown of England.” But I couldn’t work out if that would translate, articles are a bit slippery in Greek. That was when I considered the name he used. In English I’d have said “Not THE Pythagoras of Samos?” but those damned articles slipped away. So I settled for “Not the famous Pythagoras of Samos I presume”, I’m not sure I used the right word for presume though.
“Your hypothesis is not correct. I am the famous Pythagoras of Samos.” Weird again, now he’s claiming to be a dead Greek.
“If you’re that Pythagoras of Samos, haven’t you been dead for three thousand years.”
His response wasn’t quite what I was expecting, but the weird level was up there, maybe I should have. “Thank you, that answers my question.”
“Which question?”
“When are we?” It seemed there was logic there somewhere, but in my current state, I was failing to grasp that.
However logic seemed like a suitable weapon to battle Pythagoras. “If you’re that Pythagoras of Samos, what are you doing in a Taco Bell in Palo Alto in 2014?”
“Don’t you know I can travel in space and time.” He really was going for weird now.
In the face of weird, it’s usually best to act normal, it defuses them. “No, I’d never heard that about you.”
“Am I not famous for that then?” He seemed somewhat downcast by that revelation. My heart ached for him, I didn’t want him to be sad.
“I can’t say I’ve ever heard that about you. The last time I heard anything about you you were being called a phallus.” I thought I’d better add, “That’s ‘dick’ in my language, it’s a crude version of the word.” If there was an equivalent profane way of saying dick in ancient Greek, it never made it to my classical education.
“Why would someone call me that?”
“Because of your theorem, the one about right triangles.” He seemed to understand what I was saying. “In this story I was reading, the hero was having to travel around a storm. So he complained he travelled ninety thousand paces, but only got thirty seven thousand paces closer to his goal ‘because Pythagoras is a dick’”. I though I’d insert the english word there. I mimed the sides of a right triangle in the air. Pythagoras chuckled.
“That’s what I’m famous for?”
“The triangles, yes. It’s got your name on it.”
“Not the music?” Again he was downbeat at that.
“Not so much, most of your work has been lost, the story about the hammers doesn’t seem quite right.”
“Or my cosmology?” Sad again.
“Not that either, just triangles to terrorise school boys for ever.”
Well, that put a damper on the conversation. Pythagoras looked pensive, with the break I realised I was still holding my slightly chewed burrito. “Where are my manners, would you share my meal?”
“That would be most kind. What are these?”
“These are chili-cheese burritos, very tasty.” I’d ordered three of them, I could spare one. “This is pintos and cheese.” I named them in English, I couldn’t think of any Greek for them. “I don’t know what you’d call them in Greek, except ‘cheese’ means cheese.” Pythagoras took a burrito, it seemed to agree with him, and then some of the pintos.
“Not quite ambrosia, but very pleasant.” Then he looked slightly worried, “Is there animal flesh in this?”
“It’s difficult to say with Taco Bell, they claim there’s, … Oxen in it.” Forgetting the word for beef.
“Have they been used to plough the fields?” He was pushing the weird meter back up now.
“We don’t use Oxen for that anymore.”
“Well that’s alright then, a moral man should not eat plough oxen, rams or beans.”
I didn’t have the heart to tell him what a pinto bean was. He seemed so passionate in his beliefs, he really was rather handsome and his deep voice very sexy. I was getting quite turned on, the next time our gazes met, I held the look for longer than might be decorous.
“Tell me, what season is it?” Back to the weirdness, I couldn’t quite work out what he was asking.
“How do you mean?”
“What time of year? Is it summer or winter?”
“Neither, it’s autumn.”
“Is winter sooner than summer was.” I think that was the question, it didn’t sound right, I think he’s asking if it’s early or late autumn.
“Winter will be soon.”
“That is good, we should not copulate in summer.” I couldn’t work out what summer had to do with it, but copulation sounded interesting. He was really turning me on, I was squirming in my seat. I looked across to my hotel, it was hidden behind the trees and across the freeway.
We were sitting on the bed, that didn’t seem strange at the time, he said he could travel in space as well as time. We were naked, that also didn’t seem strange at that point, seemed to go with the traveling. His dick was sticking straight up, it seemed just natural that I suck on it. I lowered my head to it and sucked it into my mouth. His dick wasn’t exactly small, there wasn’t a lot of room for it. It was both hard and silky smooth it bumped the back of my mouth and didn’t want to go any further. I nodded up and down and swirled my tongue around the head.
Pythagoras said something, it sounded complimentary, but that word wasn’t in my vocabulary. He pulled me up off his dick, I was quite sad to see it go and pushed me back on the bed. He felt up my boobs, and licked and sucked on the nipples. That was, … interesting. He lined himself up between my legs and aimed, his dick slipped inside, it was plenty wet in there. The feeling is quite indescribable.
“BECAUSE PYTHAGORAS IS A DICK!”
The exclamation brought me back to my senses. Pythagoras wasn’t there. It took me a while to get my bearings, there was laughter from my right. Reality asserted itself, that was Dawn (my wife). She was holding the book, inside its red dust cover, we’d bought the week before. We’d run into a talk by the author and got it signed.
“Eros Eos.” Was the first thing I said, not unusual, It was something I said quite often, it was supposed to mean “I love Dawn.” or “I love the dawn.” It was about as far as my Greek actually went. That stirred memories of the dream, “I was dreaming, it was weird.”
Dawn looked over at me, “Sorry Stephen, did I wake you? What was the dream about?”
The details of the dream were slipping away, “I can’t quite remember, but Pythagoras is a dick.”
“You were dreaming of Pythagoras?”
“I think so. I think he appeared in the dream.”
“Well only you would get turned on by geometry. Do you want some help with that.”
She indicated to my dick with was quite obvious. “That sounds good.”
She crawled down to my dick. “What does the blowjob on the hypotenuse equal?” She asked before taking me into her mouth. I never got a chance to answer the question, and the blowjob displaced the last vestiges of the dream from my head.
—
Later, I opened my MacBook and there was the Wikipedia page on Pythagoras. The dream came flooding back, he seemed to make a lot more sense once I’d read the Wiki article again. It’s weird how you change in a dream, like you can understand Greek, or are a woman, that was different.