Spoil

As a boy, Narcissus was a pudgy kid with constant sniffles and a habit of manipulating the various hollows of his body to simulate farting. But in the summer of his fifteenth year, the baby fat melted away, he outgrew his allergies (if not his obnoxious habits), and he emerged as beautiful as hammered bronze. With his sea-foam eyes, long muscles, and jawline like an artist’s stroke, he drove the whole village crazy—young and grown, boys and girls alike—and they endeavored to return the favor. At night, virgins fretted outside his bedroom window. Old men composed poems for him, crumpled them up in embarrassment, and then flung these poetry wads at Narcissus as he drew water from the village well.