The God of Friendship by Allison Burris
249 words
Issue 6 (Fall 2024)
She twirls one half of a bejeweled BFF heart as she decides how often your best friend will write to you once you move away. She accepts sacrifices of time and secrets. She lives for the small confrontations and the drama. Mostly she speaks in inside jokes and pinkie promises. For a goddess, she has major FOMO. She wants to know why she wasn’t invited to the Greek pantheon’s party. She can be spiteful. She can be a sunflower of generosity. Sometimes she gets on Tik Tok to discuss the best romance trope (I’m sure you’ve guessed, it’s friends to lovers). She thinks the best stories are the ones she’s had a hand in (but she would never rub it in). She connects people to each other with shiny purple threads. She watches as people get caught in the webs. Arachne hates the mess but admits that it catches the light. Some people resist her charms, like the old woman who seems to have cut all her strings. Try as she might, the goddess hasn’t been able to draw any new ones out. Once she decided to appear before the stubborn mortal and Agatha told her about her late wife, Ruth, her lover her best friend in the entire gods-damned universe, the chandelier in every room. No one compares to her. No one. So what’s the point? The goddess nods. She understands this—the pain of a friendship lost. How it severs. She often cries in wonder at her gift.