Artistry Without Motion
By: Set3

Gary made his way through the thick jungle hacking away at the foliage with his machete in search of a rumored lost temple he heard legends of. Gary considered himself an old-fashion adventurer, at six-foot sis, and a quarter, he was built like a line-backer and years of building muscle in the gym had only added to that. He was proud of his physique and used to to swoon rich women to fund his adventures, like the one he was an now. He had heard whispers of a temple in the jungles of central Afrika that worshiped the gorgon.

Such an odd contrast considering that gorgons were from Greek mythology.

"Or was that Roman mythology?" Gary thought idly. Either way, the creature should have been far removed from African culture that even if the same creature in description were similar, the names would be vastly different, from just the culture and language alone. It was this that took his notice, and why he was here now in the middle of what can be called no where relying on word of mouth and hearsay. Though, he was able to narrow the general location down thanks to conversing with some small towns and one or two indigenous tribes. And so, with several locations marked on his map, he set off to find the lost temple of the gorgon.

It was the better part of a year that took him to clear two of the potential five locations. And, while he believed he was heading in the right direction, the small nagging part of him telling him that this was a fool's errand was getting stronger if only incrementally. But, he persevered onward regardless as his ego wouldn't be satisfied until he exhausted all possibilities first. With that thought in mind, he put a bit more oomph into his next swing of the machete to clear his path forward. A few more swings to punctuate his defiance and he was through and entered a large clearing. Ahead of him stood a massive structure made up of carved stone pillars arranged in a circle. In fact, there was a second layer of carved stone pillars that stood on top of the first layer. The pillars had been carved in the ancient Greek style. The structure had been moderately overgrown by vines and other flora that it made the clear and shining silver-domed top stand out all the more as if it just been placed.

Gary fell to his knees, "This has to be it!" he said to no one while he got out his map to mark the location. He was beside himself, he was so happy. He had found the lost "Temple of the Gorgon".

He was still congratulating himself and thanking the gods when he spied a woman coming out from the temple carrying brush behind her and dropping it on a pile that was out front he hadn't noticed till now. The woman was tall, wearing what looked to be a toga of all things. She had long dark hair that she must have dyed a deep green. She also seemed to have her hair done up in either thick braids or dreadlocks.

The woman was walking back when Gary called out, "Hey!" the woman's head snapped around startled to see him but relaxed when she finally saw who he was before turning back into the temple, uninterested in him.

"Hey!" Gary called out again, running after her. when he caught up to her he could see she had an olive complexion, placing her heritage as European. A part of his mind considered Greek based solely in conjunction to the Greek-styled temple before them. "What are you doing here?" he asked.

"I am cleaning out my families' summer home," She replied in a thick Greek accent.

Gary bulked at that, "What do you mean summer home? This temple has been abandoned for hundreds of years!"

The woman gave him an annoyed look, "I'll admit my family let it get a little rundown. But, that was just to avoid the annoying tourists. You won't believe how annoying it is when you humans come and start worshiping on the front lawn. That's why we made our summer home here instead of over in Greece like the rest. There's only so many times you can tell a human that's worshiping you to go away until they start wanting to kill you. Now, I don't need you worshiping me, so go away!" she said with a dismissive wave.

Gary got incensed at that and grabbed the woman's arm, "I don't need a bitch like you telling me a bullshit story about you being a god or something," he growled at her.

She yanked her arm back with surprising ease, "I never said I was a "god"," she said as she examined her clothing for dirt where Gary touched her. "I'm what you would call an alien," she stated.

Gary laughed at that, "Either way, you're still crazy! I don't know how you got here but I'm taking you back with me! A padded room will suit you better than your "summer home"," Gary said as he made another move to grab her to do as he promised.

The woman hissed as her braids seemed to come alive revealing the ends of her hair to be snake heads, poised to attack.

Gary threw his arms up in meager defense when he felt himself stiffen. He wanted to look down but couldn't. But, he could see the clothes and skin on his arms turn white like marble stone. The last of his breath came out as he could no longer move, now becoming a solid white marble statue. Gary began to panic. He couldn't move! He couldn't breath! He couldn't even feel his heart beat! He wanted to turn away from the woman and run, but he couldn't. No matter how desperately he wanted to.

The woman seemed to have calmed down and her snakes, save for one, returned to their relaxed state. The woman even took a quick breath to center herself.

"It's always exhausting to have to do that," she breathed before stepping gracefully over to him running a hand over his petrified form. "Now, what to do with you," she pondered as she examined him. A spark seemed to glimmer in her eye as a thought came to her. "It seems that your arrival wasn't so much of an inconvenience after all. Seeing you like this has stirred my artistic side. Come along now!" she told him in a friendly manor as she effortlessly picked him up and carried him into the temple. She then carried him up to the second level and continued further up till they were new the dome at the top of the temple. The woman put him down briefly to open a door then picked him up to bring him inside. She placed him on a pedestal in another room then left.

Gary could feel the room around him shift and move before it seemed to quiet down to a dull low rumble. It dawned on Gary that the domed top to the temple wasn't really a cap piece for the temple at all but a landing platform for her flying saucer. He couldn't believe that she was telling the truth after-all. And here he was, an over-sized lawn ornament. He was beginning to wonder what would happen to him now when the alien woman returned.

She seemed to ignore him at first, going to a bench and going through some tools. She returned to him with a chisel and hammer. If he wasn't stone right now, he would be shaking in fear right now. The alien woman began to hum as she started chipping away at him. Pieces of Gary began to fall to the floor as she worked. the woman paused a few times to step back and look at her progress.

Gary felt parts of himself get chipped away as she continued to work. He couldn't tell what she was doing until she started on his arms. To his horror she chipped his hands off. He began to cry as she worked her way down. As she worked, his arms got smaller and smaller. He was grateful to see hands appearing from his arm stumps, even if they seemed to be smaller than his original ones were. Even what was left of his arms were smaller. Gone were his hard earned muscles and replaced by what he'd call toothpicks. Eventually, she finished at his shoulders and stepped back to take a break, marveling at what she's done so far. Gary didn't have long to dwell on this brief respite when she went back to work.

This time on his head!

Gary did nothing since he could do nothing. He didn't feel any pain throughout all this but that hardly registered. He had been turned to stone and worked over in the most medieval way. He wasn't sure which was worse, the alien doing this while he's stone, or flesh and blood. He wanted to sneeze, blink, twitch, anything as she chipped away at his face. At long last, she seemed to be done as she set her tools on the bench and walked around Gary.

"Some of my best work, I have to say," the alien woman said, pleased with the end result. She reached up and pulled Gary off the pedestal to set him down on the floor grabbing a cloth to wipe away the dust left behind. It almost went past Gary that he seemed to be shorter.

"Oh no, she did something to my legs too!" Gary said to himself. First, these pip cleaner arms and now, his legs. "I'm probably a midget now!" he whined silently.

The thrumming in the room stopped making the woman smile, "And to think I was going to skip the party this year," the alien woman chided herself as she picked Gary's frozen form and carried him out of the ship. Gary had just calmed down enough to marvel at the sight of outer space as they moved through the clear tube from the woman's flying saucer to an alien station. As they went, Gary could see cigar-shaped ship as well as triangle-shaped ships.

"All those times I heard of people saying they saw flying saucers were real!" Gary thought to himself.

The alien woman carried him through several corridors of the alien station until they reached an open area of the station. Gary's captor set him down, apparently next to several other sculptures that he was able to see. He was also able to spy what had to be other aliens that resembled the creatures from Greek and Roman mythology. He'd seen minotaurs, harpies, other creatures like the alien that abducted him but they had their snake hair fully out. He happened to see some aliens that looked human but had animal heads instead. Egypt went through his mind. Music had been playing without his prior notice. A multitude of various voices were talking all around him. If these aliens had been human, he really would assume this to be just a high-end party.

Gary was distracted when he heard a female voice nearby talking the alien that brought him here.

"I must say, you have outdone yourself this time dear," the voice praised his captor.

"Thank you. I have to admit, this really is my best work. I had great material to work with. I call this piece: "Beckoning Repose""

"An appropriate title indeed. Natural materials always bring out the best in art pieces. Will you be keeping this one?" the amused voice asked, now coming into his vision. The voice belonged to a woman who had a large eagle head instead of a human one. She was dressed like an Egyptian from the pharaoh's time.

"No, I plan to return this one back to its home. Art should be fleeting. To keep it boasts negative ego and complacency. This is my best work so far, for sure, but I look forward to the next one. I just wanted to show it off for now.

The eagle alien nodded at that and drank from its glass it was holding before speaking again, "So, have you shown your art piece what she looks like? I assume she didn't look like this when you started," she queried.

"She looked quite different from when she started. And no, I have been so busy shaping and bringing her form out that I have not had the thought to. Would you like to do the honours?" she asked the eagle lady.

Somehow the eagle-headed alien smiled around its beak and handed her glass of to someone that passed by. With her hands empty, she made great sweeping motions in front of Gary and a floating mirror appeared in front of him. What he saw threw him into shock.

"This can't be me!" Gary thought as he unwillingly gazed at his reflection. Instead of his tall and well-muscled form, there stood a much more slender woman with her arms outstretched in a way as if she were calling a lover over to embrace her. Her face showed a beautiful yearning, as if she were waiting to kiss the approaching lover. She was dressed in a traditional Greek woman's style toga. Gary didn't know what the actual term was but that's what it looked like. There was a split in the dress showing off one of the long slender leg that lead to a heeled style sandal. The ethnicity in the woman's face showed a European descent close to Greek specifically. She had long hair that rested briefly on her shoulders before continuing down past them, out of his view down her back.

A beautiful Greek woman seemingly carved from marble stone.

Gary had never more wanted to scream than that moment. His distress went unknown by everyone at the party.

And that's how the party went. Gary would be pleading to anyone possible to help him but no one did. Every once and a while some one would comment on his beauty but would move on shortly after to engage in conversation with some one else. By the time the party ended Gary had been burned out emotionally and was just nodding off to sleep despite his eyes being permanently open when he was jostled from his stupor by his captor picking him up and carrying him back to her flying saucer. The alien went on and on about how she was grateful she was to him and how she got several proposals in thanks to him. Gary didn't care. He just wanted to be human again.

Soon enough the two were back in the flying saucer and Gary was once again placed on the pedestal before the alien left the room. The thrumming could be felt through the room again and Gary guessed that the ship was moving again. With Gary being worn out by his ordeal and without the constant stimulation of the alien woman working on him, the thrumming had lulled him to sleep. At some point, he dreamt that the alien woman kissed him on the lips.

He had awoken from the sound of intense humming with a gasp and looked up just in time to see the flying saucer flying off into the sky. Still sleepy, he laid there for a moment slowly waking up. When Gary finally sat up he could feel a weight pulling at his scalp. He reached back behind his head and pulled forward long locks of dark auburn hair.

He was supposed to be blond.

He briefly stared at his slender fingers before snapping them to his chest to find soft mounds of flesh instead of his hard pecks. One hand snaked its way to his crotch to find his once proud member missing. He took in a deep breath before letting out tears of happiness. He was human and alive again. He could move on his own again. He had never been so happy to move under his own power that the fact he was no longer a man didn't even register. It would be an hour later till he realized that he was still wearing the Greek toga dress and sandal heels and not much longer after that to discover that he was in the hills just outside of Florence, Italy. He was in a different continent, let alone country, from where he started. As he struggled in his heels down the hills to make his way to the city.

He wasn't sure what he was going to do about his newfound gender, but, he knew he was going to stay away from lost temples.

Or at least alien summer homes. Who knows what would happen to him next if he found another.

The End.