London was bathed in the early morning light as Cora made her way along the Thames towards Southwark Tube Station. The river was sometimes riotous and choppy but today there were only a few eddies and ripples that interrupted the serene flow of water. On occasions like this she was captivated by the allure of London: its history, its vastness and the possibility of new discoveries around every corner. A global centre, it attracted ambitious wayfarers from all over the world in search of success and the high life under the bright lights.

In the distance she glimpsed the Shard, the capital’s newest skyscraper, shooting out of the urban mass like a silver sword, the sunlight reflecting off its glass exterior, a guard tower of London’s values. These skyscrapers contributed to the mythical aura of the metropolis but Cora was sure that her own aspirations were in no way influenced by it. Her life plan was foolproof: find a respectable career, a steady relationship and a comfortable routine. Occasionally London became hard and overbearing, and she often felt anxious, but whenever she had doubts she clung to her worldview all the more.

As the crowds began to swell on Cora’s daily commute, a niggling alienation grew with it. People streamed down the escalators in Southwark Tube station, thousands of workers making their way into the centre, like ant workers on their way to ant colony headquarters. The machinery of the city was creaking into life: advertisers, entrepreneurs, management consultants, bankers, baristas, women in expensive dresses, men with leather suitcases, all rushing together as one organism through the subterranean dimension of the metropolis.

Cora was not a thoughtless or gullible woman. She was just like thousands of other young graduates pulled into the gravitational orbit of London. The insidious thing about this attraction was not that it was evil or sinful, but that it was unconscious. The narrative of doing well at university and getting a steady job had been ingrained into her by society and a conventional family. Her brother was an accountant, her mother a lawyer and her father a teacher of classics at A-level. It was through her father that Cora had been instilled with a love of Ancient Greek mythology.

If the economy was a league system, Cora wanted a premier league job. Law and medicine were no longer the only elite professions; marketing, communications, digital media and corporate strategy also had pedigree. Science graduates tended to enter fields like computer tech, data analysis and finance; while humanities graduates had the trickier task of navigating the service industry. After a six month limbo period of competing against every other millennial for such a job, she found a junior marketing position in a company called Cott Beverages in late 2007.

*

Cott Beverages was a Canadian carbonated drinks company which had recently started selling in the UK. Its slogan was It’s Cott to be good! The company sold two drinks: Red Rooster and Blue Charge 24. The marketing team’s current strategy was to fill the vending machines of sports centres around the country with as many Cott soda drinks as possible.

That morning she stumbled into her office. It was situated in a high rise building near the City and through the window she could see the Gherkin. The office was sleekly designed with white walls, spotlights, and desks laid out in an elliptical, looping pattern. There was not a right angle to be seen. This was 21st century fashion in full flow when every company wanted to project an image of slick modernity. Cora had been thrilled to see this office for the first time because it implied to her that she had her first foothold on the ladder of career success.

She began her day by trawling through Linkedin, adding the details of any relevant people working in sports centres to the company’s database.  Then she was on social media duty. Scanning Twitter for any links she could make between current trends and Cott’s drinks, she noticed online discussion about the American TV series 24. Her brain sprung into action and she hammered out on the keyboard: Kiefer Sutherland back in action last night on 24. Get the same intensity and strength by drinking Blue Charge 24.

Later on, the team sat down for a meeting to come up with new slogans for Red Rooster. One colleague suggested Thirst asks nothing more. Cora willed her to mind to find an equally catchy phrase but her thoughts were stilted and fragmented. Cassius, a fellow rookie, proposed, with a glint in his eye, Your all day wake up call. This was the clear winner and the marketing director went with it.

As they returned to their desks Cora’s energy was wilting. New thoughts floated into her head. Could there be a more redundant activity than helping a nebulous corporation get its soda drinks onto the market? Why was she twisting facts about Red Rooster and Blue Charge 24 so that they appeared healthy organic juices to unsuspecting sports players around England?! It was almost like the economic prosperity of society depended on the bad health and unhappiness of the people. The glare of her computer screen radiated into her head and she could feel her mind shutting down.

All of a sudden she came back to her senses. She had been daydreaming for longer than she thought. She looked up and saw the marketing director eyeballing her sternly.

“Cora, can I have a word please?” he asked.

She followed him obediently and sat down opposite him as he leered at her through his spectacles. Mr. Minos was a plump, red faced man in his fifties, opinionated and vociferous, but good at his job.

“You’ve done some adequate work for us, Cora. You impressed at interview and that’s why I took you on. But at times you’re distant and unmotivated.”
“Mr. Minos, what just happened was a moment of complacency. It won’t happen again.”
“Cott Industries is a business which requires efficiency and productivity of its workers.”
“I will make up for it in the future, I promise.”
“You must talk to me if you have any problems, Cora. I take your refusal to communicate as a sign of arrogance.”
“I’m not being arrogant. I just lack confidence at times.”
“In this line of work you must be confident.”
“I’m doing my best.”
“Prove it to me. Soon we will give our annual presentation to the board of directors, and I want you to be on the team which gives it. This is make-or-break time.”
“Yes sir.”

With that she left her boss’s office and let out the staggered breaths of someone in the grip of high nervous tension. She had only been in the job three months and already there was the possibility of being fired.

*

Later that day she finally escaped from work and raw, knotted emotions were given space to untie themselves. She had to walk, walk anywhere, feel her body moving, feel who she really was again. The rain lashed down and buses and cars skidded down the road, splashing water onto the pavement as they went. Always the greyness, the darkness, the bitter cold during these winter afternoons which seemed to go on forever, and her own heart numb, clamped down, all vitality eroded.

Immediately next to her office was Lloyds of London Insurance, an impressive building and a testament to the edginess and class of the banking district. It was an ingenious idea to make the building’s interior its exterior and she had once wished to work in a building half as grand. But today she felt a slight nausea as she passed by, because she knew the questionable nature of the work being done inside.

She was making her way from the City up to Russell Square along High Holborn Street. Every now and then she would pass statues of historical figures which she had once viewed with awe, but which now seemed ugly reminders of a greatness she could never attain. It was not that she wanted to be a ‘great person’. But she wanted to do something of significance, worth and meaning. Why was she here if not to fulfil her potential? It was because she treated life with such wonder and esteem that she wanted to do something commensurate to it.

Hundreds of people whistled past her, each absorbed in their own world, desensitized and cut off from each other – what were they all doing, she wondered, which gave their lives purpose? How could they be so content while she felt so directionless? She hopped into Chancery Lane Tube station. Down the escalator she went into the cavernous depths of London. More faces passing by her which she could only glance at before never seeing again. All these people, their impact on the world hardly noticeable, anything of value absorbed back into the collective mass of humanity.

She stepped onto the train and it rattled forwards. A group of strangers in a string of metal boxes, all marooned within their own skulls. A person’s innate self-centeredness made it almost impossible to connect with another human being. Her own feelings were so immediate, urgent, real; other people’s feelings had to be communicated to her. The train continued to weave its way through the underground tunnels like a snake, the electric cable screaming overhead.

The doors snapped open and the mass of people waded up towards the city of glass and metal. The screech of cars and traffic, the patter of a thousand footsteps, the roar of roadworks and the shouts of newspaper sellers hit her ears. By this point she was barely thinking. All concentration had dissipated and her head was buzzing with tension and dizziness. She stumbled through Russell Square and along Montague Street. She did not know where she was going but she had to keep walking.

As her muscles soaked up the exercise and the biting cold brought the blood to her cheeks, she gradually reconnected with her mind. As she did so she looked up and noticed that she was right by the British Museum. Now there was a building of true majesty! Its noble stone columns provided the support for a triangular pediment. There was just time for her to explore the museum before it closed and the impulse burning in her to enter could not be resisted.

*

Up the steps she marched to the entrance with a sudden lightness in her step and she barely noticed the crowds anymore. She wandered through the halls dreamily, almost lackadaisically, the millennia of cultures and civilizations on display a reminder of the sheer longevity of the human race. The artefacts, mosaics and sculptures transported her into different worlds, whether it was India, Celtic Britain or Egypt. At last she came to Ancient Greece and found herself in the room containing the Elgin Marbles.

As a young girl she had loved accessing the world of Ancient Greece through its mythology, heroes and Gods. Her father had read her the Iliad and the Odyssey as bedtime stories. But this was the first time she had come into contact with Greek culture in a tangible way. She looked at urns and plates and artwork with fascination and it dawned on her that Greece was not a fantasy world but very real. Hundreds of thousands of living, breathing people had walked through the city of Athens two thousand years ago. What was life like for the average Athenian? What were her daily joys and struggles? How were their lives different to the lives of modern Londoners?

The centrepiece of this room was a line of eight Olympians either standing or sitting, all looking out with stoic, regal gazes. Hermes, wingèd messenger of Zeus, on the far left, and in a relaxed sitting position next to him Dionysus, God of revelry, and further along Persephone with her mother Demeter, and next to them Athena, Goddess of wisdom, who emerged into existence directly from Zeus’s head. On the next plinth sits Hebe and Dione, with Aphrodite, the Goddess of Love, lying back in her arms. On the final plinth stands a horse pulling the chariot of the sun-God Helios.

Despite each God representing some quality of existence, for some reason Cora felt drawn towards Demeter, the Goddess of the harvest, grain and fertility on earth. There was a dignity in her pose, and her expression was one of acceptance and composure. Demeter also rested her chin upon her hand, which was a conventional gesture of mourning in Greek times. Her grief was for her daughter, Persephone, and Cora was curious to learn more about their relationship. She thought of her own strained dynamic with her mother, whose obsessive focus on work ethic and financial security had impacted upon Cora’s life.

Earlier that afternoon when passing the statues of historical British figures, Cora had felt frustrated and annoyed. They were nothing but an aggrandisement of the great deeds of aristocratic men. These marble deities, however, seemed to speak to something wider. Though transcendent and not of this world, they were emblematic of deep human truths and virtues which anyone could know and understand. They were beyond nature and yet ingrained in nature. Cora felt a warm glow within. The seeds of a deeper calling had been planted in her heart.

*

Cora returned home, full of contrasting emotions. She replayed in her head the scene with her boss earlier that. Why did Mr. Minos dislike her so much? If she lost her job and he gave her a critical reference, she would be in career purgatory, drifting from menial job to menial job, dependent on others for money, a welfare leech while everyone else had respectable jobs. She could not allow this to happen.

She was glad to finally lie down in bed and as soon as her head hit the pillow she drifted off. Images from the Greek myths she had read as a child flooded her dreams: Phaeton recklessly riding Apollo’s chariot of fire, Actaeon witnessing the naked Artemis in a forest, Poseidon’s rallying of the Greeks during the Trojan War. The wind outside grew stronger and tree branches brushed against the window. Then, as if a thunderbolt had struck, the window burst open and a being of silver-white light swept into Cora’s room. The room shook with tremors and Cora shot out of bed in fear.

Gradually, the details and contours of the figure became clearer and Cora saw that it had a female form. It resembled a statue Cora had seen in the British museum. What was earlier that day a stone representation of her was this time the Goddess in full. She wore fine robes, a golden wreath and possessed an unparalleled loveliness. Cora’s initial fear turned to strange fascination. Behind those penetrating, immortal eyes emanated the light of the cosmos. Her skin was not the kind you could touch and her being appeared pure energy, pure spirit.

“Who are you?” asked Cora.
“I am Demeter, Goddess of the harvest, presider over the fertility of the earth and enforcer of divine order.”
“Why are you here?”
“You asked me to come. I will tell you three stories about the Gods and mortals of Arcadia. They are for you to interpret how you wish.”
Cora proclaimed, “This is a dream. You’re a figment of my imagination.”
Demeter replied, “Perhaps, perhaps not. That is not important. What are important are the myths I have come to tell you. The first is that of my daughter, Kore.”
“Kore?!” Cora exclaimed. “That’s my name.”
“Indeed it is.”

Cora was still in a state of shock. A Greek Goddess rose before her in her bedroom. She was sure that this must be a vision, and while fearful of such hallucinations, the hot blood pulsating through her veins signalled an important experience to come.

“My daughter Kore was the Goddess of maidenhood. Hope flowed from her like water from a spring, yet her innocence blinded her to the deceitfulness in the world. An example of this deceitfulness lies with my brother Hades, whom I despise. One day in the vale of Enna, she sat by a lake playing with her companions, when Hades happened to pass by. Immediately besotted, he hid stealthily and waited for her companions to leave. When the right moment came, he leapt out at Kore, and with the full ferocity of his immortal being he dragged her off to the underworld.

I lost myself to sorrow and wandered foreign lands in a desperate search for my daughter. Just as I raged, so all the elements of the world raged. Thunder cracked, winds roared, whole forests swayed, the ground shook and the rivers bled. A mother wants to keep her child safe from such wickedness! The land became fallow and human beings starved because of my negligence.

At last a river nymph told me of her whereabouts and I implored Zeus to make Hades return her to me. He agreed to this as long as Kore had not eaten anything while she was in Hades’ kingdom. But alas! She had eaten seeds of pomegranate…

So an arrangement was eventually carved out that her time would be split equally between Tartarus and Mount Olympus. Thus it was that seasons came into existence. While Kore was liberated in the free world, the bliss of spring and summer prevailed, but as she descended towards the underworld, autumn and winter overtook the earth.

‘Why did she eat seeds of pomegranate?’ I hear you ask. It took enormous willpower and effort for her to accept her situation, but once she did so she was able to perceive beauty and light even there. Her eating of pomegranate seeds was a form of submission to the greater forces of the universe, which by their very existence suggest a deeper structure. Understanding that her experiences were integrated into this structure allowed her to accept them. The crops grow all the more vibrantly every spring when she returns, and her exposure to this ordeal strengthened her character beyond measure.”

*

“My second tale is that of Erysichthon, a profane person and a despiser of the Gods. One day he ventured into a grove of trees sacred to me. The roots of these trees enrich the soil and their elegant branches are wondrous to behold. These living organisms provide the very oxygen which human beings breathe. Yet Erysichthon had a twisted appetite for the destruction of nature. He began mercilessly chopping these trees down.

He then came to the tree most sacred to me, a huge oak which was covered with votive wreaths, a symbol of every prayer I have ever granted. His companions tried to restrain him but his anarchic attitude could not be abated and he chopped this tree down too. The Dryads came to me and asked that I punish Erysichthon. I instructed Famine, who lives in the land of Scythia, to deal out my justice and she sped through the air to the bedchamber of the guilty man, breathing herself into him and infusing her poison into his veins.

The next morning he awoke with an unbearable hunger. He was wealthy and for a time he could afford the expenses of constant eating. But gradually his riches diminished. At length he had only his daughter left, a daughter worthy of a better father. Her too he sold. Poseidon, out of pity, gave Erysichton’s daughter the gift of shape-shifting into any creature, so that she could escape from her slave master at will. Erysichthon used her shape-shifting ability to sell her numerous times to make enough money for him to eat. But even by this base method he could not procure enough food for his wants, and at last hunger compelled him to nourish his body by eating his body, till death relieved my fierce vengeance.

Now Cora, when you look around the world, who is it you see destroying nature and cutting down the rainforests? What creature alone has the capacity for such an act: the human being. And do the people of this city not have a never-ending hunger too? A hunger for possessions, for money, for fame, for entertainment, for pleasure, for a comfortable home. Where is home? Is it between the four walls of a house, or is it this world, this universe? You are hungry, too. I see it. I see in you the constant, gnawing, malnourished sense of having had and lost some infinite thing. Don’t you see that everything is here for you right now?”

*

“Endymion is the heroic mortal of my final story. He was a young shepherd who spent his days wandering with his flock over mountains on the Peloponnese peninsula. He had milk-white skin and a poetic soul. The pastoral landscape of rolling hills and glistening rivers was only heightened by his sweeping imagination. Often the light of his sense became usurped by powerful reveries, but he did not mind, for in those flashes he saw the invisible world, where the numinous and the ecstatic dwell.

His favourite hour was in the quiet moonlight, when he would sing bittersweet laments before falling asleep. Now Selene, the Moon Goddess, despite being known for her virginity and her iciness towards men, melted at the sight of the sleeping mortal as she shone down on him. She slid down from heaven to earth and cast a spell upon him that he would remain perpetually asleep and perpetually young. Selene took care that his fortunes should not suffer by his inactive life, for she made his flock increase and guarded his sheep and lambs from the wild beasts. Forever after, she watched him night after night in his elevated state as he lay possessed and caressed by his dreams and imaginings.

This is a simple story, with few events, but Cora, you can learn many lessons from Endymion. The most important of these is Maya, which means a magic show where things are not as they seem. What appear as separate entities are a web of relationships in which a deep harmony arises. Man lives through perceptions and the myths he tells about those perceptions; the veil of Isis cannot be lifted. Yet the ambiguity of our perceptions brings freedom. Hold more lightly your myths.

Endymion rested in the peace of the world, in the presence of still water, under the day-blind moon. He loved music, believing it brought soul to the universe. He treated ageing like the passing of flowers, believing its sweetness and its transience were intertwined. You are in a rush to achieve success and become ‘someone’. You are already someone. Slow down. Do not be so sure that you have grasped reality.”

*

Drained and exhausted from a tumultuous night, Cora sat at her desk with the embers of her dream still flickering in her memory. Verity, one of her only friends in the office, leaned over and asked:

“You ok?”
Cora replied, “Sleepless night, that’s all.”
“Want to smoke?”
“Sure.”

They took the lift down, walked through the glossy, marble floored foyer and exited through the revolving doors. They leaned back against the wall and watched their smoke vapours trail upwards to the looming skyscrapers.

“You know we’re not on a break until twelve?”
Verity replied idly “Oh you know, we’ve got to do it occasionally. I’ve been here for a few years, so my place is secure. They know I’m a good worker.”
“They don’t feel that way about me.”
“Don’t worry about Mr. Minos. He’s just breaking you in. In six months you’ll be in the same position as me.”

She smiled broadly and Cora felt warm towards her. Verity was fresh faced, gregarious, a hard worker at Cott Beverages but a hedonist on weekends. She complimented Cora’s quietness well.

“How are you finding the job?” asked Verity.
“It’s all new to me, I’m still finding my feet. Have you ever doubted that this job was for you?”
“All the time. Working for a corporation like Cott Beverages was never my dream as a kid.”
“But you like London?”
“Yeah. It’s important to feel grounded in a place and relate to society at large. I know the system’s rigged but don’t blame the player, blame the game.”

Back in the office, Cassius walked up to them and launched a sarcastic attack.

“I heard you two outside just now. I’m terribly sorry for you both that you have to work here. What a cruel, capitalistic world we live in.”

Cassius was a sleekly dressed twenty-something who was viewed as a hot shot by executives in the company.

He continued, “You know, there are systems in this society for a reason. Economic stability, interest rates, growth. It’s only the miracle of the free market which means that you’re not destitute or starving right now.”
“Go back to your work, Cassius” said Cora.
“I just want to know if you think I was wrong to study hard, get good grades and do my job well?”
“Nothing wrong with that.”
“Then what makes you superior? You’re part of this society, you’re a product of it.”
With an irascible edge in her voice, Cora said “It’s possible to have an identity independent of the society I belong to.”
“Would you rather be a serf living in feudal times? We’ve reached the pinnacle of human progress in this country.”
“By what unit are you measuring progress? Material benefit? GDP? Consumer demand? You equate our moral and spiritual health with whether or not we’re buying enough shit.”

Cassius returned to his desk in contempt. He was not a bad man. He was neither uneducated or ill-informed. But his nature was not of a questioning kind as Cora’s was.

*

During her lunch break, Cora was sitting in a neoteric cafe near Bank tube station when she saw an unusual looking man nearby. He seemed out of place among the analysts, consultants and traders. Bearded and tanned, as if he had just arrived in London from a windswept expedition in the Arctic, he gazed enigmatically around him. A calmness emanated from him in the midst of the chatter. She found herself walking towards him. This was unlike Cora, usually submissive and meek, but she was suddenly unafraid.

She joked, “I think you belong down the road in Shoreditch. Lumbersexuals are big there right now.”
He laughed.
“This is my first time in London so I don’t know where I belong yet.”
“Your first time in London!”
“I’m not a fan of cities.”
“I’m Cora, mind if I join you?”
“Sure, I’m Jason, what do you do Cora?
“Marketing.”
“I know nothing of marketing. I’m a grower. I used to work at a community in Wales but now I’m wandering between farms in the south west.”
“Don’t you worry about stability and feeling rooted in society?”
“Stability is not my goal in life. I’ll never be integrated into society but what does it mean to be ‘integrated’? Do you like London?”
“Well, it’s cosmopolitan and vibrant and historic. But it’s true that my life has never been more erratic than since I arrived here.”
“To me London is part of a brutal system in which both perpetrators and victims are harmed. Everyone in this cafe, including you and me, are predators without realising it.”

Despite their differences in background there was something drawing her towards Jason. For all his ragged, dishevelled appearance, he was a mirror image of herself, refracting new angles of self-perception and shining a light into parts of herself she had never explored. She felt safe in his company. As trust grew, she decided to reveal her recent dreams of Demeter to him.

“You’ll probably think I’m crazy… but I’ve been having some vivid dreams recently. A Greek Goddess called Demeter has been visiting me. She’s been telling all kinds of stories which echo what you’ve been saying.”
Jason was neither surprised nor amused.
“You want my advice? Listen to her. It’s a sign.”
“Really?”
“Yes. Hidden parts of ourselves communicate with us all the time. We must be receptive.”
Jason paused, and looked at her with intrigue. He then made a suggestion.
“You should visit my community this weekend. You could learn a lot. Are you free?”
Cora hesitated, but consented.

*

On Saturday morning Jason and Cora were on a train speeding through the English countryside. How long it was since Cora had seen fields! After a complicated journey involving two trains, a bus and a walk along a countryside track, they arrived at the entrance of Brithdir Mawr community. Surrounded by fifty acres of vegetable plots, orchards, pastures and arable fields, the focal point of the community was a wooden roundhouse.

This was unfamiliar territory for Cora and she wondered how the residents would react to a city girl like herself but a new-found energy in her heart spurred her on. As they approached, two women in their twenties bounded out of the roundhouse towards him with beaming smiles. Clearly Jason was popular here.

“Jason! It’s good to see you!”
They hugged him.
“It’s good to see you too.” he replied.
“Where have your journeys taken you?”
“Devon. I’m feeling more confident about setting up my own smallholding now.”
Following them was a more reserved man, around 30, but no less whole-hearted in the hug he gave Jason.
“How are you, Michael?” asked Jason.
“I’ve been looking after the garden in your absence. If I say so myself, it’s flourishing nicely!”
“I don’t doubt it. Let me introduce you to Cora. She’s a high-flyer in London with a bohemian edge.”
“I’m Michael, Jason’s oldest friend here. Come in and eat.”

Inside the roundhouse was a rustic, homely feel. Fifteen people sat eating, many of them identical-looking to Jason: young, weathered, wearing dirty boots, men with coarse beards and women with long straggling hair. There was boisterousness in the air and Cora saw in their eyes a vitality absent in Londoners. They welcomed Cora warmly, asking her questions and bubbling with conversation.

That afternoon Cora helped Jason and the others work in the garden. They lay mulch over soil beds and planted beetroot and chard. The residents joked like little children and Cora had never laughed more. The clutter of her office had been replaced by green hills and rural vistas. Frost-covered grass and bare trees revealed the beauty of winter, and she thought of Kore’s unifying presence behind all seasons.

In the evening the group ate a hearty meal and gathered around a campfire, singing songs and inebriating themselves. The blaze brought warmth to her cold bones and she lost herself in the flickering flames. Their enchanting changing shapes reminded her of what Demeter had told her about Maya. Perhaps life was an illusion in which things were not what they appeared. Badges of success like her career, her social status, her appearance, had no meaning unless she gave them meaning.

As she watched her thoughts, she wondered who the watcher was. If she was thinking the thoughts, how could she also be watching them? Gradually she noticed that the watcher was coming from a different place in her being. She burrowed deeper and deeper into this space until she could fully comprehend its strength and magnificence. There was no centralised, fixed self orchestrating her actions and thoughts. There was no ‘Cora’. There was only the space around her, within her.

In the distance she saw the setting sun, which glowed with a dream-like, magical effulgence. She felt tied to this wonder more strongly than ever before, linked with the sun’s rise and fall, in step with all the natural forces that are at work at each moment. While it was mysterious to her, there was an obscure meaning in its beauty. She felt a holy, everlasting bond to it. They were held by the same pattern.

*

Back at the office on Monday morning it was as if the adventures of the weekend had never occurred. She reflected on what had been a perplexing series of events over the last few weeks. Observing her colleagues she saw that they lived on a diet of productivity and efficiency and endless doing. In the Brithdir Mawr the emphasis had been on being. The workers here competed; the residents there co-operated.

At Cott Beverages time was always of the essence and she forced herself to resume work on the presentation. The deadline approached, her finish times were getting later and later and her mind was growing wearier. One evening, a team member, also furiously researching and typing away, defended the company:

“We have it comparatively easy here. Traders on the stock market, for all the money they make, work these hours all year. No amount of Barbados holidays could make me do that. My friend is a property lawyer who spends every weekend at his desk.”

During her research, she was surprised to find that Cott Beverages had many policies on sustainability. Apparently it sourced its ingredients mindfully, developed crop-specific programmes for its suppliers and pushed for changes in the agricultural industry. Or so its website said. In actual fact, Cott Beverages relied heavily on industrial farming; its packaging operations left a huge carbon footprint; and it had over-extracted underground water for its bottling plants in the Indian state of Kerala, causing water shortages for the people there.

Cott Beverages also promoted the health benefits of its drinks. There was constant reference to a recent Daily Mail article stating soft drinks were healthier than natural fruit juices, even though this article had been debunked by scientists. The company was developing zero calorie alternatives to its drinks and introducing a phone app calculating the amount of exercise needed for the amount of calories ingested. Whether or not these initiatives represented evidence of real health benefits was debatable, Cora thought…

Why did Cott Beverages not acknowledge its drinks as merely tasty and sugary? Why did it pretend to be an environmentally friendly company? It was because there was a conflict between the capitalist status quo and a rising awareness of ecological/health issues. Somehow Cott Beverages had to accommodate both dynamics. How she wished she could focus on any other areas than sustainability and health!

That night she could barely sleep. Her body was fraught with tension but gradually it released her from its stranglehold. She dreamed she was inside a great temple. Limestone walls were lined by tableaus of Greek heroes and fret patterns. At the front was a golden altar to the Goddess Athena. A chorus of voices met her ears, humming a mysterious chant. They wore masks, and their hymns had a deep, sonorous sound.

*

The next morning she rushed to work, her body palpitating with nervous energy. She made her way through the hustle and bustle of commuters, past Matalan, John Lewis and American Apparel, into her swanky office block and up to the boardroom. She breathed in the lukewarm insipid air and wished she could destroy the god of plastic comfort to replace him with the devil of reckless abandon.

Ten people made up the board of directors of Cott Beverages, all of them in their sixties, all of them the elite, the gold standard, the captains of industry – who many others aspired to one day become. She wondered if they were happy, as the clock ticked down on the end of their lives. The conditions of opulent living had smoothed out their wrinkles and their fine suits oozed wealth but they had a hardness about them and a supercilious manner. She saw no joy there.

Cora watched the other two team members give their presentations, enumerating key sales transactions that year and their main clients. She sat nervously. It was not that she did not know the relevant information but that she had no experience of public speaking and could feel the pressure of their judging eyes. An unease, separate from her nerves, grew at a deeper level.

At last she stood up and began. She explained how a focus on sustainability had improved Cott Beverages’ public image. With a sense of hypocrisy, she argued that Cott’s support of charities like WWF and Friends of the Earth correlated with an increase in sales. She remembered the myth of Erysichthon and snapshots of him cutting down trees tormented her brain. Her defence of Cott’s environmental record was no different from his contempt for nature.

By the time the section on the Daily Mail article came around, she was struggling to maintain her concentration. Her nerves were frayed and nausea swelled in her stomach. As she uttered the following phrases – visual campaign orchestration – customer experience – targeted segmentation – she realised their vacuous nature. The directors before her appeared mere bags of skin containing egos. A career – a house and a car – a mortgage – was that what she wanted? In a world of deluxe comfort sofas, ultra slim laptops, neutrogena therapeutic shampoo, widescreen plasma televisions, electric tin openers, did she want to be adding Blue Charge 24 and Red Rooster to that list?

Like a dam giving way, her resolve finally broke. She could not keep up the pretence any longer. A mixture of glum surrender and bold intention caused her to abort her speech and sit down abruptly. The directors looked at her in confusion and Mr. Minos’s agitated glare ordered her to resume. She could not. She rushed out of the room, made her way to the foyer and lent on the nearest handrail to steady herself.

Only those who have peeled back the layers of their story – their identity – could know how she felt. Only those who have known their youthful expectations turn to dust in an instant could feel the tremendous thudding pain she now experienced. Was there any escape from this awful emotional flatness and emptiness? She put her head in her hands.

In this state of despair, an image of the Goddess Kore descended upon the hallways of her psyche. Shrouded in a sombre air and dressed in black, there was yet a sophic smile on her face. Just as Kore had endured Tartarus, perhaps Cora too, in this perilous situation, could hold onto hope. She walked shakily towards the entrance. There, waiting for her, was Jason.

“What are you doing here?!” Cora asked in astonishment.
“You told me your crucial presentation was today. I know you don’t have many friends here so I thought you might need some support.”

She felt her heart expanding and hugged him with joy. She was simultaneously splitting apart and becoming whole. In the warmth of human contact, all the constructs and surfaces of the outer world, the buildings around her, the thoughts in her mind, the sensation of self, her conception of reality, slowly merged into one flowing of energy.

That was Cora’s last day in London. A new life with Jason in Brithdir Mawr awaited. There was much for her to learn and experience in the wider world before she could ever return. On the journey, she fell asleep… She dreamed that she was in a foreign country. The orange-tinged earth, the browning vegetation and the sun-kissed olive trees revealed to her where she was. Aegean waters lapped against the shore and jagged mountains rose with a more dominant splendour than Zeus himself could muster.

Never had the sky felt so close to her, and never had it been so glassy and so full of mystery. To the left were layers and layers of billowing clouds, as if the sky was wearing a woolly jumper. She imagined Demeter looking down at her from the heavens, radiant and glowing as ever, with maternal concern. She found herself running, running as fast as she could up a steep hill, her bare feet skimming over the scorching ground, her cheeks burning and her face shining. At the top of the hill, she surveyed the lands of Arcadia all around her. Cora was home.