Heracles has long been considered the greatest hero of Greek legend, renowned for his 12 labors, his singular rage and for dressing like an animal several thousand years before furries were invented. Despite his extraordinary feats, however, paparazzi photos prove recent rumors that the mighty hero has come up on hard times. With his retirement fund dwindling, Heracles has been forced to perform additional labor to make ends meet.
“Yeah, honestly, I was just running low on drachma, but with a 5,000-year gap in my resumé, I couldn’t exactly find a nine-to-five. Fortunately, I’m more of a gig work guy anyway,” he said, pulverizing a feral pig’s skull with his club. “Like, for instance, right now I’m doing invasive species removal.”
Perhaps the most prominent of Heracles’ new labors has been his position as an Uber driver. While his speed is unparalleled, his rating sits at 2.5 stars, with riders complaining of his reckless driving, intense road rage and the bottles of poisoned satyr’s blood that he keeps in his glove compartment. “He ran over like three people at least,” reads one review, but the rider adds that they “got to [their] meeting on time tho.”
Initially, Heracles reports, “I was mostly just killing monsters. But there aren’t that many, and people tend to get weird about it these days. How was I supposed to know Bigfoot was a big draw for tourists?” He went on to list several other creatures he had slain, including a chupacabras, eight horses that were “giving [him] a massively bad vibe,” and Mitch McConnell.
“Nowadays, I kinda just do whatever I can get paid for. Ah, shit, I gotta do a Cameo real quick. Hey, Tim Wilkinson from Daytona Beach!” His other recent tasks have included such unpleasant work as dredging the Hudson River, cleansing the land of Arby’s and demolishing beloved Raymond Avenue businesses, but Heracles adamantly refuses to do “anything I don’t fuck with. Morally, ethically, if it just icks me out, whatever.” He has categorically turned down any military jobs, saying, “War is all fucked up these days. Back in olden times, it was just two horny guys fighting over their oiled-up sidepiece, and if someone got speared to death, well, that’s part of it. Not anymore, man. Have you seen this?” he asked our interviewer, producing the Wikipedia page for “Israel.”
As for the future, Heracles is thinking big: “I’ve been thinking about starting a small business, honestly. Once I have the capital, I think I could rake in some serious cash selling cookies, or, like, beating people dead with my big, thick, gnarled club. Wait, beating my big, thick, gnarled club… I’m gonna have to get back to you.”
Heracles isn’t the only hero of Greek myth and legend to find himself struggling with bills. Odysseus spent a few weeks driving for Lyft, but is currently lost somewhere in Los Angeles with a drunk guy who needed a ride home; Jason insists that he will launch a second Argo, but needs investors to do so. Outside of the Greek pantheon, similar problems have emerged: Tlaloc has pioneered Infamix, a baby-based dietary supplement, Maui is trying to make it in the world of pro wrestling and Thoth has masterminded a pyramid scheme.
The only mythological figure that seems happy with present economic conditions is Sisyphus, who says that filling out job applications is “on the whole basically the exact same as pushing a boulder up a hill for all eternity. Actually, maybe a little bit less productive than that.”
As of press time, Heracles has announced that, should money continue to be tight, he will be starting an OnlyFans.