I’ll be honest, my muse and I have some issues. You know Clio, Zeus’ daughter. She is the muse of history, pictured with a scroll and books. She moves me to write, but there’s one draw back. Clio gets carried away.

For example the other day, I was scanning incoming e-mails when Clio cocked her head my way and grinned. "They found the ruins of Atlantis off the coast of Japan," she said in a deep honeyed voice.

"No they didn’t." I flashed her a tight-lipped smile. "I already heard about it, an underwater structure off the coast of Okinawa 12,000 years old. But, scientists have not ruled that it is artificial." With an upward tilt of my head I primly told her. "They concluded at this point that it is not man made."

"Do you believe that?" She asked with a toss of her head.

"Yes, Clio I do. The scientists know what that they are doing. And the bottom line is I’m not about to write anything, I mean short story, novel, nothing, on Atlantis."

"Stone terraces cut at right angles with staircases and columns. Five sites have now been found off the coast of three different islands," Clio cooed.

"It’s a legend. It’s been done and over done. We have no real knowledge of what these people looked like, what they ate, how they lived, or what they believed. We don’t even know if they existed," I retorted.

"My dear Cornelia, of course they existed." She laid her pile of books and scrolls on the floor and sat atop the dusty volumes with all the aplomb of a queen on a cushioned throne. "I ought to know."

"That’s right." I remembered. "You were there." 

Her brows arched upwards and she pressed her hand against her chest as if in dire distress. "How dare you. That was 12,000 years ago. I am not a day over 2,500." With elbows flexed and palms outstretched she said, "I was born in the great Athenian age. I’m a muse. Zeus’s daughter," she added in a condescending tone.

"That’s right. Atlantis was even before your time. Wow!" I turned my head and mumbled in the air, "It is old."

"Never mind that." She stood and strolled across the floor as she adjusted the mounted golden ringlets of her Greek hairstyle. "I was saying, I was the muse that inspired Solon to talk to the Egyptian priest that told him the story of Atlantis. And I inspired Plato to write of it years later."

"You were bothering people, way back then."

"Enlightening people. I never bother anyone." With a glint in her eyes, she proudly declared. "I made them famous."

"How lucky they were to have met you."

"Indeed." She stuck her chin in the air. "What else have you heard of Atlantis?"