For all its Sturm and Drang,
the actual conclusion of the
Hades & Persephone myth
is left strangely vague.
They came to love each other.
But how?
Why?
And does that actually mean
they ended up living happily ever after?
The resolution of their tale
leaves us with numerous
unanswered questions.
This romantic drama
sparked countless retellings.
Even after civilization had long
stopped gossiping about
Zeus’s myriad affairs,
we continued
to tell again and again the story of
Hades & Persephone.
Some even argue that their
love story inspired
Beauty & the Beast.
But as many
a broken-up couple
could tell you…
Love
does not necessarily equal
Happy Ever After.
And who hasn’t heard of or lived through
a relationship equivalent to Hell?
For all we know,
the immortal Hades and Persephone
are miserable to this day.
And surely, the most cynical
mythology readers must wonder
about our warmer springs and summers.
Is it…
Global Warming
or
Persephone’s Rage?
The truth shall set you free.
That’s what they say in all the superhero stories—if not flat-out, then in that beneath the words and actions way. How had his much smarter prisoner referred to the things that went unsaid when Hades forced her to do normal couple things, like going on dates to see the Marvel movies he loved so much?
Like many muscular guys with his build, he hates cardio and can’t stand jogging. His knees whine vaguely about having to bounce so much weight as he jogs around the perimeter of the housing division he’ll be leaving behind in a couple of days. But that morning he pushes past the pain and racks his brain for the word until he remembers it in a sudden flash.
Subtext. That’s what she called it when she explained why it wasn’t the CGI-laden action that made his beloved Marvel characters worthy of such long screen times.
According to her, it was the hard choices that made them superheroes. Choices like confronting their deepest fears, opting for a more complicated good over a straightforward evil. Actions like telling the truth. Even when it meant they might lose everything
Well, that is connerie…bullshit.
Hades had confronted his fears. He’d opted for the more complicated good over the straightforward evil by giving Persy a choice instead of locking her down again. He told her the truth. He listened to Swamp Boy, the wannabe superhero still lurking inside of him.
And the only thing it got him was a shattered heart when Persy’s eyes iced over and she said, “I choose Tess. Of course, I choose Tess.”
Hades was many things, but a promise breaker wasn’t one of them.
He’d given her one more choice. And she chose leaving. So, he let her go.
But it hurt like hell.
Things go better if they want to be there.
Waylon's words echo in his ears as he approaches the open-gate entrance of Carnation Estates.
He remembers the last time he drove through those gates, with Persy sitting by his side. They’d just come back from Louisiana in the Porsche he’d given her, with him driving this time and her in the passenger seat. They’d also just survived their first big fight as a not-so-official married couple. But he'd remained in a state about what he’d done in Louisiana. Worried his opposite-of-superhero choice had rendered something irreversible.
His anxiety about their future must've shown up on his face.
“Stop worrying, mon beau,” she said, reaching over to cover the hand he kept on the stick shift, even though this sports car was a manual.
“We’re fine,” she assured him with a teasing laugh. “Everything's going to be fine, no matter what.”
He knew that wasn't true. But he played along. He smiled back at her and lifted her hand to kiss her knuckles, like a caricature of a gallant French man, because he wanted to believe her. Hoo Lawd, how he wanted her words to be true.
But unlike her, he remembered their first encounter here in Ohio—the real first encounter, not when she woke up in that hospital bed.
The real first time, he’d watched her from afar as she walked out of a small brick building with a bunch of the cast and crew members from the community theater troupe who paid her a whopping $100 per production to sew and choose all their costumes.
He was a grown man in his thirties now, not an uncertain twenty-one-year-old boy. But a gong beat in his heart as he watched the beautiful woman he hadn’t seen in three years say goodbye to everyone involved with the current production of Noises Off.
“Want a ride home?” one of the actors asked her. He was younger and slightly more handsome than any of the other cast members. His offer was smooth and friendly. But his voice shook with nerves as he added. “Maybe we could hit a bar on the way to your place? You know, hang out?”
Hades tensed in the shadows, the old violence rearing its ugly head.
But then Persy answered in a clipped tone, “No, I don't do that.”
“You don't hang out?” the actor asked, laughing as if she were making a joke.
But Persy didn’t laugh along with him.
“No, I don't hang out,” she answered, her voice hard and weirdly flat.
“Oh, okay…” he said. “Well, we don’t have to stop anywhere. Let me just give you a ride home. It’s getting dark.”
Hades balled his fists at his side. He could just see the actor’s plan to hammer away at the friend zone she was trying to put him in until she agreed to go out with him.
But Persy shot back with the perfect answer. “Yes, it’s getting dark, so I should get on my way.”
Maybe she didn't hear the actor’s offer to throw her bike in the back of his SUV as she rushed toward her bike. Or maybe she did.
She kept her stiff back turned from her would-be suitor as she put on her bike helmet in a way that struck Hades as practiced protocol. That’s probably why she didn’t see the actor approach her from behind with a hand reached out to get the attention she was purposefully not paying him…or Hades step out from the tree he’d been standing behind to glare at him in such a way that immediately made the shorter and much skinnier man back the fuck away from his woman.
In any case, he had to call her name—the name he’d chosen for her—to get her attention. “Persy.”
She froze. Like a whooping crane who just heard a gator swish in the water behind it.
He assumed she was going to run, and he stepped forward to let her know that wouldn’t be a good idea.
But then she swung her whole leg around in an arc and smacked him in the face with her foot. She roundhoused him. Actually roundhoused him like Scarlet Widow before he could even get the words “Don't run” out of his mouth.
* * *
The memory is almost enough to make Hades chuckle as he jogs toward the Ohio house he will soon be leaving. Not selling, though.
They had been happy here for almost a year, so he doubted he could ever do that. He might not even be able to bring himself to rent it out. But he also can’t keep living here without—
Hades comes to a dead stop when he sees the car sitting in front of the house’s double garage. Persy’s Porsche.
Persy has more pride than most—to the point he’d been surprised to see she’d kept the car when he returned to their empty Ohio house.
For all he knew, she’d had Tess help her drop it off—purposefully waiting for when he went out for his much-hated Sunday morning jog.
Still, he rushes into the house before his own pride can remind him not to get too excited.
Only to come to another dead stop when he finds Persy sitting on the steps of the grand staircase in the front foyer.
His lungs stop working at the sight of her. She’s dressed in sweatshorts and an oversized hoodie, the same as she was when he stepped out of the shadows and back into her life. Even the backpack she carried that night has returned. It’s sitting on the stairs at her feet.
There’s no air to be had. But somehow, he manages to choke out, “Ma belle, what are you doing here?”
“I remembered,” she answers, rising to her feet. “I remembered everything.”
She lets him know this, her expression thunderous with anger.
Then she asks, “Why didn't you tell me what really happened?”