Divine Modernity: Baldur at the Gym

Divine Modernity: Baldur at the Gym

Prologue

In the year 2020 AD of the Gregorian calendar, the world changed forever. Humanity learned the truth of mythology as an army of gods, lead by Zeus of Olympus, attacked the various peoples of Earth. Zeus had expected an easy victory, with a devastated humanity bowing before him and those who followed him once more, but he could not have been more wrong.

Humanity had grown far stronger without the gods' meddling than any of them had realized and won the war. With humanity claiming victory over the gods, a treaty was formed. No longer were any gods allowed to stay separate from the Earth, they all had to walk among it. Many of them were barred from using their powers but those who had not followed Zeus had been granted fair lenience.

Humanity now lives side-by-side with the gods of old, as those gods try to figure out how to live in a world that has far outgrown them.

Baldur at the Gym

Angela Schafer had gone to the same gym twice a week for nearly three years. It was a fairly typical gym, with all the standard equipment that one would expect to see there and all the standard people who would use said equipment. Some women would do yoga in one corner while ludicrously buff men would lift weights on the opposite side of the gym. Angela herself would mix up her workout as often as she could while she people watched to whatever random podcast had managed to keep her attention that week.

It was her hobby of people watching that caused her to inevitably take notice of one particular guy at the gym. It wasn't the fact that he braided his beard, that he muttered to himself in a language that she was pretty sure was Scandinavian or even how his slim body never seemed to gain tone that had captured her attention so thoroughly. It was his workout.

Every day she came to the gym to workout, she would do so with whatever she had decided to use for about an hour. Before she even walked in the door, she would see him on the treadmill and he never left it the entire time she was at the gym. Even after she finished using the gym's shower and headed out, he would still be jogging away on that exact same treadmill.

Curiosity eventually got the better of her and she asked one of the attendants about him. The young employee confirmed what she had already suspected, that the treadmill was the only piece of equipment anyone ever saw him use. She began to come to the gym more often every week, just to see if the slender man would ever get off the treadmill but he never did.

Eventually, her curiosity about the man simply became too much to bear and she decided to simply talk to him so she could finally stop obsessing. She went in on a Tuesday and found the man right where she expected and thankfully, the treadmill next to his just so happened to be empty. She went onto it and started up a power walking routine while she pondered how exactly to speak to the mysterious jogging man next to her. She noticed that he seemed to be singing under his breath in that foreign language while he jogged, almost as if he were using it to keep a rhythm going.

"What song are you singing?" she asked to break the ice.

The man looked at her and blinked, as if he couldn't believe that she had actually spoken to him. She gave him a smile that she hoped wasn't awkward and walked in place on the treadmill as she waited to see if he would actually respond. The silence had just become unbearable when he finally answered.

"It's some old rowing song I somehow remember from a very long time ago. The words don't mean anything but it was always very catchy to me for some reason." he said easily despite the intensity and length of his workout.

"A rowing song? Really?" she asked, curious.

"Well, I don't really get much into pop music these days." The man answered with a smirk and a chuckle.

Angela couldn't help but chuckle along with him despite the fact she didn't really understand the joke behind his words. She held out an unsteady hand as she her treadmill began to slowly speed up under her feet.

"I'm Angela, by the way. Sorry if I put you off." She said. The man cocked an eyebrow as his smirk grew deeper before he took her hand and shook it.

"Ah, I know why you seem familiar now. You're the woman I've kept catching staring at me all this time. I was hoping that you just found me handsome." he said as he kept a hold of her hand.

Angela found herself suddenly blushing and nearly tripped on the treadmill. The man's hand kept her upright until she found herself steady once again. She hadn't expected that he had noticed that she had been watching him. If anything, he always seemed far too focused on his workout to be able to notice the world around him. She felt as though she'd gotten caught with her hand in the cookie jar.

"Oh... well, I mean..." she stuttered out while her brain rebooted. "It's not as though you're not handsome, I just got curious because I noticed that you never seem to do anything but jog on the treadmill. For a really long time too. I was really curious as to why, Mister...?"

"Baldur." He finally said, "And as for why I only jog, well... it's really all I can do. Strength training is impossible for me."

"Impossible?" Angela wondered.

"Well, yeah. I'm Baldur." he said as though it explained everything.

Angela resisted the urge to blink at him, in case it came off as sarcastic. She honestly had no idea what she was supposed to infer just from his name and could nothing but offer a polite smile as she shrugged and shook her head. Baldur seemed un-amused.

"You aren't very well read on mythological history, are you?" he asked her with a slight grimace.

"Mythological history? What is..." she began to say when the obvious finally dawn on her.

She lost her footing once more and fell forward. She barely managed to grab onto the handrails to prevent being thrown off the treadmill entirely and slammed the off button before the machine's belt could toss her like a rag doll.

"You're a god?!" she whispered harshly as she scrambled back onto her feet.

"I'm not sure why you're whispering, but yes. I'm a member of what you humans call the Norse Pantheon these days." Baldur said in a normal tone as he jogged on as if he were talking about nothing more serious than the weather.

"Were you one of the ones who... well... you know." she wondered quietly.

Baldur groaned loudly, rolled his eyes and shut off his machine so he could turn to face her fully with an irritated expression. Angela suddenly felt worried for her safety and reflexively shrank as far back from him as the handrails on the treadmill would allow her to.

"No." he said in an irritated tone. " I know you don't humans don't live for all that long compared to us but the God War was barely over 50 years ago. They teach kids about it in history during elementary school. How do you honestly not know that Loki was the only member of our pantheon who was involved in that whole affair? Especially since he was a double agent for you humans!"

"I... never really did well in school. Sorry." she replied, a bit dejected.

Baldur sighed, shook his head, then gave her a small smile.

"Don't worry about it. Just... maybe get caught up on your history, in case you ever meet another god. Alright?"

Angela nodded her head as she returned his smile with her own awkward one. Baldur turned back around and returned to his jog. Angela didn't really feel much like continuing her workout and decided to call it quits for the day. She grabbed her things and walked away, with one last glance behind her to the god she had unintentionally provoked. He gave her a kindly, unconcerned smile she tried her best to reciprocate as she walked out of the door.

Maybe she could make today up to him next time...