Ick looked in to the mirror and beyond. There her sisters were, providing inspiration to mortals that were to bring delights and wonders into the world for the pleasure of the gods. It was an unintended benefit that the works of the mortal artisans often pleasured humanity as well. At least Ick did not think that most of the gods that created, destroyed, betrayed, or uplifted certain mortals did it for anything other than their own sense of whimsy. They were mostly self-absorbed. She thought perhaps one day they might become mere myths to the mortals whose minds they now ruled. Of course that was her job - to be the inspiration of things that generally made mortals and gods alike groan in a sort of uplifted let down. Currently she was working on a sound she called the rimshot. It was definitely going to have a U, and a B, and a D and an M - of course an AH. The order was still unknown - but she spent at least 10 minutes of every day standing in front of her chosen mortal for this rimshot creation, whispering - I CAN POKE MY HEAD THROUGH THIS HOLE - and then making a tiny circle with her thumb and index finger. Then she would lay the circle against her forehead and use her other hand to poke a finger through the hole. The receiver of her inspiration always looked somewhat pained in an amused sort of way. A muse named Ick could ask for nothing more; except the exact sound of the rimshot that would ultimately be heard around the world of slapstick. Another of her projects involved a group of boyish men that were being inspired to have races with shopping carts, leave alligators in their mothers home, completely wrap their bodies in plastic bubbles and then do tricks on bikes, and her personal favorite - the partyboy. He ripped his clothes off and bounced to techno music in front of confounded asian men while wearing a bow tie and a thong. It was even better than the godzirrah inspiration she had bestowed. She loved her job.
Oh, there was her sister, Urania - she inspired those that would discover and define the things in the sky, far beyond the reach of mortals. She often appeared as a great ball of fire and flew across the night sky. Ick supposed that was one way to get mortals to look up. She enjoyed randomly appearing in crowds as a woman with wide open eyes and a mouth forming an OOOOOOO, while lifting her arm and pointing a finger at nothing in particular. She was sure she got more mortals to look up than ever Urania ever had, but of course then they all turned and stared at each other in confusion and shrugged, unable to find the wonder that the unknown woman had obviously seen.
Her sister, Calliope had inspired Homer to write the Iliad. She supposed it was a fairly epic poem. Though she had decided to inspire some of her chosen to use the concept of trojan and greeks for something other than battle in some comedic form. In time, all in time.
Ick had found a boy that had a box and given him the inspiration to cut a hole in the bottom of it and insert his finger, then covering the surrounding area with tomato sauce. He then put the lid on the box and ran to his friends who were busy with another of Icks inspirations - writing poetry that generally began with rhythms like THERE ONCE WAS A MAN FROM NANTUCKET, HE SHOUTED ONE DAY OH... and so on - and right then he would fling the lid off the box and say - LOOK!! MY FINGER!!. His friends would stare at the tomato sauce covered appendage and then say YOUR MOM IS GONNA BE SO MAD!!!! YOU CUT OFF YOUR FINGER!!!! - but then the boy would pull his finger out of the box and lick the tomato sauce off and stagger while his friends punched his arms and laughed. Recently Ick had been visiting with a mother that was determined to give her children the best Halloween party ever. While pasta noodles were waiting to be slathered in sauce, Ick dumped a bowl of grapes in. The mother put her hands into the bowl to plump the limp noodles without looking and felt the grapes among the pasta. She shrieked, 'ICK!!!' - in surprise, but then she thought her children might enjoy putting their hands in a bowl of noodles and grapes in the dark, while their father came in and asked where his bowl of cow brains and eyeballs had gone to. Ick agreed with the mother's thought that the children would be too busy shouting 'EWWWWWWWWWWEEEE' and asking for the bowl to be passed to them to wonder why father had a bowl of cow brains and eyeballs. She turned away from the mirror. Her sisters could have their abilities to inspire grand and glorious poems and stories, the world changing advances in science, the most exsquisite works of art - she enjoyed them herself, but what she really treasured inspiring was a giggle and an ewweee - or two.
