"It's storming again ... " she thinks, staring out the window into the grey "Why is it always storming ?"
She turns to her vanity, sits before the mirror and begins to brush
her hair. "Mother always said not to do this" her thoughts continued
... "to stare into my own eyes at the mirror. She said I would lose
myself inside ... "
"My lady ?" the handmaiden spoke from the door, "It's time." She
cannot contain the quiver in her voice, a sadness in preparation.
"Thank you, Saffron. Be well while I'm gone. Allow no one."
Persephone closes her eyes and returns to the underworld. It's time for the harvest.
________
Hades was a bad man, if he could be called that at all ... "And he
smelled worse alive than dead !" thinks Persephone as she stares at her
husband's drained corpse from across the dinner table.
Chewing the apple from her tart which her teeth failed to slice, it
slides from the pastry and she thinks "Fruit ... " while fingering it
into her mouth as she chews ... and with a swallow she shouts. "Charon
! Reverse the waters !"
The nameless would have his token army. The dead will rise. And
when they do ... "when they do ... " she whispers and thinks ... "I will
close these gates and burn this land."
"Charon !"
________
"Dearest husband," Persephone muses to the bluish corpse seated at
the dinner table. "You truly are starting to turn ... I think it's time
to be rid of you completely."
"Pre-se-pho-neee." he begins to crackle, "What have you done ?"
"I've killed you. Finally. But you only know that because I just
gave you the life force of this piece of fruit to borrow. A
pomegranate." She holds one up, drained and devoid of color. "Get it
? Anyway. Shut up. That's not what I'm talking about."
"Pre-se..." he begins again and she punches him in the mouth with
more force than any god would ever have known she had. If he hadn't
himself been a god, he would have no head at all. Instead the heavy
dining chair he's tied to flies over and slides across the dining hall.
"Shush. Anyway I went to a library today. Because I can do things
now, right ? And did you know how many celebrated human paintings and
sculptures have titles beginning with 'Rape of' or 'Abduction of' ?
Neither do I, but let me tell you, there are many. I saw them in
books. You've heard of those."
"How did you ... " he wheezes on.
"! I told you to shut up !" she screams as she kicks the chair
another three feet into a stone pillar, shattering both and showering
her beloved in rubble. The echo is new to them, far and wide stretching
down empty corridors, tunnels and caves, they are completely alone. A
silent awe is shared.
"I was going to tell you that, so shush. Now of all of these
depictions, do you know how many show me being raped or abducted by you ?
She stares waiting for his interruption but there's only terrified
eyes watching from a broken drained body and jagged breath.
"Many." she continues. "But here's the funny thing." with twisted
sarcasm and a twitch of the head. "Your name isn't in the title of any
of them. Did you know that ? No one seems cares about you at all !"
He stares.
"Truly. Your best idea was an afterlife a giant cave with moaning
people a river and a boat ?" she stares back at him with a furnace in
her eye
waiting for him to speak. Wanting him to as her fists begin to clench.
He does not.
"So. The ... short of it is, everyone likes the devil more than
you. You have no worshipers. And everyone loves me. This means that
finally you've become weak enough, and me strong enough that I could
finally just ... kill you ! So I stabbed you from behind with your
mother's sword. A lovely blade. I'm going to go return it to her,
right now !" She drags the long blade along the dinner table as she
picks it up.
"Oh and I also researched the many ways to turn methane into
explosives, and ... well ... this is a land of the dead so ..." she
looks at the brightly colored digital watch on her wrist which she
received in a fast food meal, "in one minute and seventeen seconds this
place will cave in beyond an archaeologist’s worst nightmare.
You
however have just over three minutes left of life in you so ... those
last couple of minutes are really going to suck. I want you to spend
that time thinking about what you've done."
And he watches her walk away from him forever, heels clicking into the darkness.
________
Orpheus and Euridice neither knew nor cared that the underworld
caved in at the first moments of their reunion. They didn't know that
they were the reason she decided to do it so long ago. Well hidden in a
nearby tree a tear falls from her eye as she watches them kiss for the
first time in thousands of years ... and she is gone in a wisp before it
touches grass.
"Rhea." Persephone says now standing behind her in her kitchen.
The old titan drops her wooden spoon in the broth with a start and a turn.
"Sit down. Guess where I went yesterday."
Rhea eyes the bloody sword she gave her son as a wedding present.
"Where was that, dear ?" as she turns her body slowly to square herself
with Persephone.
"First thing first, Rhea. I told you to sit down." Before time
passes Rhea's forced backward onto the stove, sword pinning her through
no irreparable organ, legs dangling like a child's.
"I went to a library. Did you know that the root of your name is the same word for 'pomegranate' ?"
"What do you want from me?" she hissed while attempting to pull the sword from the wall.
"Feeling weaker than in the old days, yah ? Me too. But not so much as you."
"It will happen to you too ..." with vehemence spitting between clenched teeth. "Whore. Betrayer. Murderer."
"Excepting the fact that I'm not nor have I ever been a prostitute
... you're right. But not for the reasons you think. Dress is on fire."
Rhea swats to put out the burning hem of her flowered dress. "Why
then are you here with such tone, Whore, if not to take what's mine ?"
she growls while resuming her push against the blade's broad hilt.
"To return your sword. Your son loved that sword." Rhea slows her
struggle as her true question is answered. Her son is gone.
Persephone sits at the edge of the wooden dining table in front of
her. "Do you know how many times he started a sentence with the
words 'Persephone, by my mother's sword I will' ... ?" She turns off the
stove. "and then did ?"
Silence.
Glancing at her bright watch, "Hades isn't currently dead but he
will be again in thirty-three seconds. I resurrected him long enough to
feel the weight of the underworld cave in on top of him before he dies
again. She leans in to stare deeply into Rhea's lowered eyes trying
somehow to see her mind. "That's what he's feeling ... right now."
Turning her eyes downward she removes a cigarette from Rhea's pack
on the table and lights it with the match laying next to it with a
swipe. Deeply inhaling and counting down in her mind she watches the
tear roll down Rhea's cheek.
"I don't know you, Rhea." She exhales and stands as Rhea draws back
against the wall. "I don't know what you did ... or what you didn't do
to raise that ... thing."
Inhaling a long drag she falsely swears to herself that the tear
welling in her own eye will be the last she ever sheds for any of it.
"And maybe it wasn't your fault at all, but this was justice today. And
you ..." staring again, deeply probing as the tear is loosed.
Three, Two, One. And with a final pause for judgement, "Are just
going to have to _Live with it !"_ Shattering the blade in a spiraling
kick of blue smoke, she's gone.
"It's storming again ... " she thinks, staring out the window into the grey "Why is it always storming ?"
She turns to her vanity, sits before the mirror and begins to brush
her hair. "Mother always said not to do this" her thoughts continued
... "to stare into my own eyes at the mirror. She said I would lose
myself inside ... "
"My lady ?" the handmaiden spoke from the door, "It's time." She
cannot contain the quiver in her voice, a sadness in preparation.
"Thank you, Saffron. Be well while I'm gone. Allow no one."
Persephone closes her eyes and returns to the underworld. It's time for the harvest.
________
Hades was a bad man, if he could be called that at all ... "And he
smelled worse alive than dead !" thinks Persephone as she stares at her
husband's drained corpse from across the dinner table.
Chewing the apple from her tart which her teeth failed to slice, it
slides from the pastry and she thinks "Fruit ... " while fingering it
into her mouth as she chews ... and with a swallow she shouts. "Charon
! Reverse the waters !"
The nameless would have his token army. The dead will rise. And
when they do ... "when they do ... " she whispers and thinks ... "I will
close these gates and burn this land."
"Charon !"
________
"Dearest husband," Persephone muses to the bluish corpse seated at
the dinner table. "You truly are starting to turn ... I think it's time
to be rid of you completely."
"Pre-se-pho-neee." he begins to crackle, "What have you done ?"
"I've killed you. Finally. But you only know that because I just
gave you the life force of this piece of fruit to borrow. A
pomegranate." She holds one up, drained and devoid of color. "Get it
? Anyway. Shut up. That's not what I'm talking about."
"Pre-se..." he begins again and she punches him in the mouth with
more force than any god would ever have known she had. If he hadn't
himself been a god, he would have no head at all. Instead the heavy
dining chair he's tied to flies over and slides across the dining hall.
"Shush. Anyway I went to a library today. Because I can do things
now, right ? And did you know how many celebrated human paintings and
sculptures have titles beginning with 'Rape of' or 'Abduction of' ?
Neither do I, but let me tell you, there are many. I saw them in
books. You've heard of those."
"How did you ... " he wheezes on.
"! I told you to shut up !" she screams as she kicks the chair
another three feet into a stone pillar, shattering both and showering
her beloved in rubble. The echo is new to them, far and wide stretching
down empty corridors, tunnels and caves, they are completely alone. A
silent awe is shared.
"I was going to tell you that, so shush. Now of all of these
depictions, do you know how many show me being raped or abducted by you ?
She stares waiting for his interruption but there's only terrified
eyes watching from a broken drained body and jagged breath.
"Many." she continues. "But here's the funny thing." with twisted
sarcasm and a twitch of the head. "Your name isn't in the title of any
of them. Did you know that ? No one seems cares about you at all !"
He stares.
"Truly. Your best idea was an afterlife where everyone stands
around and moans ?" she stares back at him with a furnace in her eye
waiting for him to speak. Wanting him to as her fists begin to clench.
He does not.
"So. The ... short of it is, everyone likes the devil more than
you. You have no worshipers. And everyone loves me. This means that
finally you've become weak enough, and me strong enough that I could
finally just ... kill you ! So I stabbed you from behind with your
mother's sword. A lovely blade. I'm going to go return it to her,
right now !" She drags the long blade along the dinner table as she
picks it up.
"Oh and I also researched the many ways to turn methane into
explosives, and ... well ... this is a land of the dead so ..." she
looks at the brightly colored digital watch on her wrist which she
received in a fast food meal, "in one minute and seventeen seconds this
place will cave in beyond an archaeologist’s worst nightmare. You
however have just over three minutes left of life in you so ... those
last couple of minutes are really going to suck. I want you to spend
that time thinking about what you've done."
And he watches her walk away from him forever, heels clicking into the darkness.
________
Orpheus and Euridice neither knew nor cared that the underworld
caved in at the first moments of their reunion. They didn't know that
they were the reason she decided to do it so long ago. Well hidden in a
nearby tree a tear falls from her eye as she watches them kiss for the
first time in thousands of years ... and she is gone in a wisp before it
touches grass.
"Rhea." Persephone says now standing behind her in her kitchen.
The old titan drops her wooden spoon in the broth with a start and a turn.
"Sit down. Guess where I went yesterday."
Rhea eyes the bloody sword she gave her son as a wedding present.
"Where was that, dear ?" as she turns her body slowly to square herself
with Persephone.
"First thing first, Rhea. I told you to sit down." Before time
passes Rhea's forced backward onto the stove, sword pinning her through
no irreparable organ, legs dangling like a child's.
"I went to a library. Did you know that the root of your name is the same word for 'pomegranate' ?"
"What do you want from me?" she hissed while attempting to pull the sword from the wall.
"Feeling weaker than in the old days, yah ? Me too. But not so much as you."
"It will happen to you too ..." with vehemence spitting between clenched teeth. "Whore. Betrayer. Murderer."
"Excepting the fact that I'm not nor have I ever been a prostitute
... you're right. But not for the reasons you think. Dress is on fire."
Rhea swats to put out the burning hem of her flowered dress. "Why
then are you here with such tone, Whore, if not to take what's mine ?"
she growls while resuming her push against the blade's broad hilt.
"To return your sword. Your son loved that sword." Rhea slows her
struggle as her true question is answered. Her son is gone.
Persephone sits at the edge of the wooden dining table in front of
her. "Do you know how many times he started a sentence with the
words 'Persephone, by my mother's sword I will' ... ?" She turns off the
stove. "and then did ?"
Silence.
Glancing at her bright watch, "Hades isn't currently dead but he
will be again in thirty-three seconds. I resurrected him long enough to
feel the weight of the underworld cave in on top of him before he dies
again. She leans in to stare deeply into Rhea's lowered eyes trying
somehow to see her mind. "That's what he's feeling ... right now."
Turning her eyes downward she removes a cigarette from Rhea's pack
on the table and lights it with the match laying next to it with a
swipe. Deeply inhaling and counting down in her mind she watches the
tear roll down Rhea's cheek.
"I don't know you, Rhea." She exhales and stands as Rhea draws back
against the wall. "I don't know what you did ... or what you didn't do
to raise that ... thing."
Inhaling a long drag she falsely swears to herself that the tear
welling in her own eye will be the last she ever sheds for any of it.
"And maybe it wasn't your fault at all, but this was justice today. And
you ..." staring again, deeply probing as the tear is loosed.
Three, Two, One. And with a final pause for judgement, "Are just
going to have to Live with it !" Shattering the blade in a spiraling
kick of blue smoke, she's gone.
