She used to watch every edition of the News on every television channel, but now she surfs the Internet, receiving constant updates from wire services of all the latest disasters, skirmishes in distant wars, political scandals, and election and sporting results around the world.
Alas her pernicious influence has spread to the other goddesses and gods. For instance, she once whispered the word 'market' to Mammon who passed on the word to her illegitimate half-brother Economix. Now every economist - or follower of Economix - around the world uses 'market' indiscriminately to justify inequality and impoverishment. The powerful in particular love phrases like 'market forces', for when the exercise of your power causes suffering - as, alas, it must - it's marvellous to have to be able to assert that some impersonal, ethereal 'force' (economists call it 'the Hidden Hand') has caused the unemployment, starvation and desperation instead.
Actually Ephemera is having a long-running affair with Mammon. They love to meet in the dark of the night in warehouses full of clothing or electrical appliances or, on warm nights, in the wide open spaces of new car depots or markets, rejoicing, as they lick each other lasciviously, rejoicing in the built-in obsolescence of things...
