Thor and the Imp.

"So much depends upon the presentation of the lure, brother."

Asgard!
Its crystal waters flowing into the endless void of ether.
Upon the far shore Thor and Loki fished
In peace for the ever the hungry SnakeFish.
"You still have much to learn from me, dear Brother,"
Spoke Loki's twisting tongue.
"I have something!" Expounded Thor.
His once sedentary reel aflame.
But the centre of those flames
Sourced a whirling eye of changing.
For Thor, even time and space were melting.
"You shouldn't have eaten those mushrooms, brother,"
Loki sparkled in jest.
But Thor was far too busy
Being sucked into Pandemonium.

Many full calendars seemingly disappeared into ashes
Before Thor awoke, Mjolnir his pillow.
As the sense was poured back into him
He, once again, attained his power.
His attention quickly turned to the tiny being
Sat in the dust next to him,
Whittling oak into toothpicks.
"Where am I?" the God of Thunder demanded.
Many human lifetimes passed before the creature
Lolled his head lazily in Thor's direction,
"Well, it's not quite hell."
Thor, in his younger days,
Was warlike and predatory,
And the sparks of his petulance arced
Through his arms and legs,
Like a charging vengeance,
And Mjolnir sprang from its temporary bed
Into his dissonant hand.
"Do not test my patience, little one", he ranted.
The little one shimmered with mischief,
A wide, toothy grin splitting his face,
His pointed ears pricking and
His eyebrows quivering in rebellion.
Thor immediately sensed
That this encounter was not accidental,
Which riled his temper further.
He felt within a deep guttural growl growing.
Could it be that this imp
Was reducing him to an animal?
He realised the vortex was perpetual
And he was being stretched even further
Through into self-destruction.
Each slight movement of thought
Cascaded into a deeper fury that
Only Pandemonium could deliver.
He now knew where he was…

Looking at himself from above Thor understood:
In order to champion the weak,
One must experience the weakness.
For the first time in his extremely long life,
Thor wasn't sure he was strong enough.
The imp, in Thor's eyes, seemed to be growing:
In stature; In vigour, and; In sheer size.
Every negative thought was greedily
Consumed, processed and converted
Into bulk, which began to overtake Thor.
Would Thor be fully devoured by a mere imp?
He began to feel defeated; no amount of thunder would help.
And defeat compounded his shame.
What would Odin think?
His son not only defeated by a meagre imp,
But total eaten, like a smidgen of tiffin.
This reminded him of the time
That Loki had turned him into a frog….
How he had cried inside, the sheer
Humiliation of having clammy, cold skin,
The horrendous taste of Clapfly,
The close sensation of his mother
As she wrapped him in his favourite blanket,
She never judged him, she always had the words,
The words to put Loki in his place…
Loki…
What did she say?…
"A Gundershot will never shed its horns…"
"What!", cried the imp,
Who appeared to be impish once again.

Loki and Thor laughed all the way home,
"Brother, so much depends upon the presentation of the lure!".

Johan Gottschalk Wallerius, Swedish Chemist and mineralogist, was born today in 1709.

Pär Lagerkvist, Swedish author who received the Nobel Prize in Literature, died today in 1974.