Lôtos et Thanatos
- Type: short story
- Genre: crime fiction
- Number of characters: ~ 13000 (including spaces)
I wrote this short story for a contest on the theme of "Nuit noire / nuit blanche" ("Dark night / sleepless night") for detective or crime fiction. Here again, it was a category I knew little of, but the theme was inspiring. I developed two subjects (recurring ones for me), psycho-tropes and a reference to Greek mythology.
Lotophagi are an indigenous people which Odysseus and his companions met during the Odyssey. They feed off the fruits of the lotus-tree, a drug which puts them in the artificial bliss of oblivion. Odysseus and his men lose all desire to go home. This time, it isn't the love of Circe, nor the prison of the psychotic and slightly erotomaniac nymph Calypso, but a drug that hinders their journey.
Obviously, I took liberties as to the composition and the use of this drug…
