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thank you very much, so you could drive a chariot across the sky during the
day, then continue back underneath on the backside, and emerge again just in
time for the next morning. Flat was good enough for Helios, so when
presumptuous Signore Magellan and company thought, no, they knew better
about the shapes of things than a god!, well, Helios just plain ignored the
“facts” and continued on as he had since before Cronos lost his tiff with the
Titans (look it up). “Flat! Ha!” said Helios, “I’m the one who is up in the sky
looking down on the earth, and if it looks flat to me, then flat it is, now and
forever.” For once a god has spoken, there shall be no contradiction. And I
suppose, from his perspective, he’s right. Who’s the one with the chariot,
getting up at the crack of dawn, literally (it’s Helios’s horsewhip which makes
the cracking sound), every morning day in, day out, without fail? Well, with
two failures, one of which is the subject of this story, and the other is
referenced within, but that’s not a bad record, two dawns missed, in all of
eternity. I don’t think you could do better. “Still,” you cluck -- I can hear
you -- “two dawns missed? Room for improvement.” I ought to warn you to
keep your clucking to yourself; there’s a god listening in. And if he’s in denial
about the shape of the earth, well, he might just as easily be in denial about
your existence, and I give you pretty poor odds, you against a god.
Forewarned.

Singing at dawn; what horse wouldn’t be delighted to spend the day
flying at great height above the earth, eh? Well, the answer to that seemingly
rhetorical question will undoubtedly disturb you. Come with me on a visit to
the other side of the chariot’s journey; to the edge of the western sky just at
sunset. The horses are no longer singing. In fact, they’re screaming. In terror
and pain. They’re also begging Helios not to drive over the western edge of the
world.

“The other side of the western edge is death!”

“The other side of the western edge is darkness!”

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