Are you familiar with the legends of the fates? No? Well, I guess that shouldn't surprise me. Since you aren't very busy, I may as well take this opportunity to inform you all about them. Are you comfortable? Good.

Let me see now. It all began many eons ago, shortly after Prometheus created humans, when Zeus fathered two sets of triplets; both sets were females. Being a caring father, Zeus wanted his daughters to feel important and he placed these demi-gods in charged of the human race. You have, no doubt, heard about the graces: Euphrosyne, Aglain and Thalia. After all, they received all the good press. But enough about them. Nice people are so dull to talk about.

The fates on the other hand had a much more serious job to perform and people hated them for their tireless work. How many times have you heard of someone cursing fate for bad luck. Yet, have you ever heard anyone thanking fate for their fortune. No, people are only self-made when the outcome is positive. But I digress. Let me get back to the sisters.

Lochesis was the eldest of the fates and it was her job to design a person's future. The seemingly unfair distribution of good life and bad life weighed heavily upon her for the first few thousand years until at last she grew insensitive to her dilemma. The new found inability to care about the lives of mortals made her an expert at her job.

Sometimes when she became bored, she would mix a batch of irony into a person's destiny. Achilles was her crowning glory. His dual destiny offered him fame and a short live, or long life and no fame. The outcome won her much praise from Olympus and for once, the sometimes maligned and often forgotten fates became the toast of the town.

The sudden fame appealed to Lochesis so much that she decided to give every mortal twin destinies. And although her official story was that this was to give mortals a bit of a choice with their lives, her sisters believed that her real agenda was to improve her standing with the deity elite.

Whatever Lochesis true motive, it was met with disapproval from the second eldest sister, Clotho. You see it was her job to weave the threads that contained the destinies of mortals. Since the mortals now had two destinies, Clotho's workload was, in effect, doubled. Now Clotho was always the most violent of the sisters and when she was told that he had to weave out two futures instead of one, the heavens shook with the conflict.

Clotho had never been satisfied with what she saw as the blue-collar job and she had often tried to force Lochesis to trade for what they both considered the more glamorous position. Lochesis was the favourite of Zeus and he sided with her. Thus, forced to work twice as hard, Clotho spent many a year weaving and planning her revenge. A demi-god is not an easy being to destroy and as such Clotho could not undertake the murder of her sister alone, but she was patient and more important, devious.

Her opportunity arose when Olympus sent word of a mortal who was to have only one fate; an excellent long life. The gods interfered in the lives of humans all the time so this was nothing new to the sisters. Clotho relayed the message to Lochesis and told her that the mortal, who would be called Phaeton, was cursed by Zeus and that he was to have a short, miserable existence. Lochesis found this job to be somewhat unpalatable, but never being one to anger a full-fledged god, not to mention the king, she complied.

Now you must have heard what happen to Phaeton? No! What on earth are they teaching in the schools today. Oh well, I shall attempt to encapsulate in a few sentences his brief life. He was eighteen years of age before he found out that his father was the sun-god, Apollo. Far from being displease to finally meet with his child, Apollo set out to make amends for his failure as a father. In an attempt to do so, he granted the youth any wish he desired. Phaeton stated that he wished to drive the chariot that pulled the sun across the sky. Apollo tried dissuade his son by telling him that the job was too dangerous. Phaeton insisted and since a god never goes back on a promise, Apollo relented.

Everything went well until the chariot climbed high into the noontime sky. It was then that Phaeton's fear of heights paralysed him and he lost control of the horses, which began to head straight for Earth. Zeus was forced to protect the humans and the Earth and he reluctantly threw a lightning bolt at the chariot; killing Phaeton and releasing the sun. Apollo was so angry that he killed Lochesis on the spot before she could even maintain her innocence. This in turn angered Zeus, who looked to Clotho for the answer to what had happened. She maintained that Lochesis had become jealous of Phaeton and planned his death.

Perhaps Zeus would never have learned the truth if Clotho had not become overconfident. She was still bitter with Zeus over his siding with Lochesis and decided to seek further retribution. Eventually word had come down to weave another excellent, long life for a mortal woman who would be named Semele. This was because Zeus knew that he would eventually fall in love with her. Clotho again spun only one thread, incorporating her own version of the double-jeopardy which had caused Phaeton's death. In all honesty, this was a true piece of work.

The years passed and Zeus, who was never one to remain faithful to his wife, set out to seduce Semele, who had grown into a beautiful young woman. In an attempt to show Semele how much he loved her, Zeus promised to give her anything she wanted. The foolish girl asked to see the god in all of his splendour, unaware that she would be destroyed by the brilliance. Zeus begged that she change her wish but the poor girl was fated not to do so. And as I have said, the gods do not go back on their word.

If Semele saw Zeus in all of his greatness, then Clotho witnessed him in all of his wrath. So terrified was she that she blurted out the entire truth. She confessed that it had been her and not Lochesis who had caused Phaeton's death. She cried that Semele's death had been a just revenge against an uncaring father. Begging for mercy, she threw herself down at Zeus's feet. She received none.

This left only one of the fates, Atropos, to do the three jobs. Originally it had been her job to cut the Thread of Life. And although she had cut the thread which ended Semele's life, she was doing only her work. Zeus saw no malice in her intent and did not punish her; although from that day forward he never spoke to her again.

Atropos tried to do the three jobs but after a decade or so she began to feel the wear and tear of doing so. Then one day in frustration she devised a plan. She would allow people to plot out their own lives. This would mean that she merely weave the same thread for everyone. The mortals who were not used to thinking for themselves remained a banal lot, with only a few emerging from the uninspired masses. A bigger problem came in the fact that everyone who was born at the same time, died at the same time.

Of course Prometheus was livid that his beloved creators should be so poorly treated and he petitioned Zeus many times for his intervention. Despite his anger with the fates, Zeus realized that he was powerless to do anything since Atropos was only fate left alive. Besides Prometheus was far from being a favourite of his and he declared the matter closed. But Prometheus was a hothead and he argued with Atropos for years over what he considered to be her poor job performance. It was finally agreed upon that Atropos would continue to allow mortals to form their own fates if on occasion she would custom make one and in return she would cut the thread in random lengths.

Although Prometheus wasn't overly happy about the agreement, he knew he could hope for no more.

So that was the legend of the fates. Oh, remember the threads? They were so strong that not even Zeus himself could break them. The only thing which could sever the threads were the shears of Atropos. Humans were usually lucky with the cut. If it was a clean one then the death would be instant: car accident, heart attack, or killed in a war. The possibilities have always been quite endless. The only rule was that Atropos was allowed to make one cut only and it was due to this rule that some people suffered long deaths. Sometimes, in her haste, she would only nick the thread causing it to slowly unravel. In some cases people took years to die. Atropos felt badly about this but was powerless to do anything about it.

I can tell by the way you are struggling that you find this story silly and I do believe that you are surprised to find that you can't break that slender string which binds you. Well I guess it's time I was honest with you. I supposed when I approached you in the bar tonight and asked to go back to my place, that you thought you were going to, what is the phrase? Get lucky?

You see, you have been caught in the compromise made between Atropos and Prometheus. I am sorry that I led you here under false pretences and it was really nice of you to allow me to fasten the thread around you. I really hate it when people struggle.

I suppose that in a way that you are lucky in the fact that you will see the shears. So few mortals have been given this honour. See how sharp they are. They can easily cut this fine thread, but then again there is nothing in existence that they cannot cut. Legend says that the fates were ugly harpies. Luckily, we were quite attractive or I might not have been able to lure you here so easily.

Oh, before you run out the door, you have been such a gentleman that although the cut was clean, I have decided to give you an hour to get your affairs in order. Yes, you had better hurry. With all my talking, you only have fifty-eight minutes left.