The Gold in the Tube

The apartment smelled like a mixture of turpentine, stale chicken-flavor ramen, and despair. It was the signature scent of Felix, a twenty-four-year-old illustrator who had mastered the art of shading but failed the art of eye contact.

It was Valentine’s Eve. Outside the frost-fogged window of his studio apartment, the city was alive with couples holding hands and buying overpriced roses. Inside, Felix was wearing sweatpants with a hole in the left knee and staring at a blank piece of cardstock.

"Just draw a heart," Felix muttered to himself, swirling a brush in a jar of murky water. "Draw a heart, write 'Happy Valentine's Day,' and hand it to her when you order your oat milk latte. It’s normal. People do it."

He knew he wouldn't do it. He would walk into *The Roasted Bean*, choke on his own tongue, order a black coffee he hated, and leave. Maya, the barista with the laugh that sounded like wind chimes, would remain a distant, terrifying deity.

Felix sighed, reaching for a tube of paint he had picked up at an estate sale in the Village last week. The label was peeled off, save for the handwritten words: *Ancient Gold*.

"Maybe you need a little sparkle," he whispered.

He uncapped the tube. The paint didn't smell like chemicals; it smelled like ozone and crushed pomegranates. He squeezed a dollop onto his palette.

It bubbled.

Felix leaned in, squinting. The gold globule hissed, expanding rapidly. It swirled, rising from the palette like a genie escaping a lamp, growing taller, wider, and infinitely brighter.

Felix scrambled back, knocking over his easel. "Whoa, whoa!"

The light coalesced into a form. A woman. She was six feet tall, draped in a shimmering chiton that defied the laws of physics, with curls of golden hair that seemed to be floating in an unseen breeze. She held a lyre in one hand and a wreath of myrtle in the other.

She looked around the messy apartment—at the pile of dirty laundry, the half-eaten noodles, the crumpled sketches of hands and feet.

She sneezed.

"By Zeus’s beard," the woman boomed, her voice resonating off the thin drywall. " The dust in this temple is an affront to the senses."

Felix sat on the floor, clutching a rag to his chest. "I... I think I inhaled too much thinner."

The woman looked down at him. Her eyes were pools of ancient, judgmental starlight. "You summoned me? You? I was expecting a warrior poet. Or a king pining for a sea-nymph. Instead, I get..." She gestured vaguely at his sweatpants. "This."

"I didn't summon anyone!" Felix squeaked. "I was just painting a card."

"With concentrated ichor? Foolish mortal." She stepped over a pizza box, her bare feet hovering an inch above the linoleum. "I am Erato. Muse of Love Poetry. Inspirer of Desire. And I cannot return to Olympus until the intention of the summoning is fulfilled."

She leaned down, her face inches from his. "Who is she?"

"Who?"

"The woman," Erato groaned, rolling her eyes. "You reek of unrequited longing. It smells like wet dog. Speak her name, mortal, so I may weave the tapestry of your union and get out of this hovel."

"Maya," Felix whispered, before he could stop himself. "She’s a barista."

"A pourer of nectars," Erato nodded solemnly. "Acceptable. Tomorrow, we march. You shall claim her."

"I can't claim her! I can barely talk to her!"

Erato plucked a discordant twang on her lyre. "Then it is fortunate you have a Muse. Go to sleep, little painter. Tomorrow, we go to war for love."