Gods and men live together in Caliburna. Jupiter still thunders, but from a telex machine; Neptune directs a water works; Minerva instructs at a school of tailoring. Only Apollo is on unemployment benefits: he sits all day before his television set, switching from one channel to another, and from now on there are no gods on the screen. In the factories where men work seated at computers, watching with quick looks the movement of the data that cross them, and with long spells their eyes are fixed on the floor and on the ceiling, to catch the signs that the godly moored in the beams and in the wiring trunks still bestow or withhold from each wire and light bulb its electric bounty. In the streets, suspended by thread, like spiders, among the cast-iron palisades of the veranda s, since it is unsafe to stand on the stone slabs of the floors, there are only washladies. And Apollo, switched off, in the houses where the curtains hide the antennas: a herd of Apolos resembles a herd of donkeys. On the whole, Caliburna’s economy is doing well; but everyone wonders what kind of prosperity will remain when all the men have the form of Apollo and only the godly can be humankind. So a congress of representatives is elected, partly of gods, partly of men: and they decree that, in each family, the man must remain as he is and the god must become man, if there are several gods in the family the smallest must remain god and become man the others, and so on until all the men remain as they are and all the gods have become men. As soon as the law is passed, Caliburna’s sky becomes a flight of gods who fly here and there seeking a place to hide and not become men; while on the earth’s terraces, Gods abondon their places to drop down one by one into the families where men are waiting to become gods. And the television remains empty of Apollo. Caliburna’s economy is no longer doing well. They convoke a new congress, of only men, and they decree that, in each family, the god who has become a man must become an Apollo and the man who remains as he is must become a god. And Apollo, switching on all the televisions, disappears from Caliburna’s sky; and on the terraces, men who have become gods seek places to hide and become Apollo s. And the television remains empty of Apollo. Caliburna’s economy is no longer doing well at all. They convoke a congress of solely Apollo s and decree that, in each family, the man who has become an Apollo must become a god and the god who has become a man must become an Apollo. And, suspended terrace by terrace, many Apollos hide one another. And the television remains empty of Apollo. Caliburna’s economy is no longer doing well at all; but everyone is content, since no one can change his state any more and it doesn’t matter who becomes whom. Sometimes, when I switch on my television, Apollo sits before me and stares at the blank screen with his blank face. ‘Why have you become man?’ I ask him. ‘Me why god?’ he answers. And we both remain Apollos, suspended in the terrace’s shadow.

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