The Bridge of Persephone

Word count: 903
What if Persephone chose to stay with Hades?

She looked at the dead dirt path ahead of her.  Her ruby red shoes that were so unlike her were a stark contrast to the grayish colored earth.  The soft yellow lantern light barely illuminated the cavern she was in, but at this point Persephone was used to that.  It had been months since she was dragged to the underworld, months since she had seen anything but gray and black and red.  Persephone kept walking.  She had to.  If she stayed still she was sure the screams of the dying would catch up to her.  Their wails were overwhelming. 

Persephone walked for what felt like hours, walked until those ruby red shoes pinched at her feet so hard she was sure they were bleeding the inside crimson.  Persephone paused at a crossroad, leaned against the earthen wall of the cave, and removed her shoes.  The dirt was cold beneath her bare feet, but everything was cold in the underworld.  Persephone straightened up and looked around.  There were three passages ahead of her and there at the end of the left most passage was something bright. 

Curious, Persephone walked toward the silver brightness, leaving the ruby shoes behind her.  As she neared the brightness, the light from her lantern no longer seemed to matter and Persephone hurried forward.  One last moment of darkness seemed to cling to her like a second skin and then she emerged into silver light.  Persephone breathed in wonder, the cold air bit into her skin through the thin layers of her black dress, but she couldn’t bring herself to care.  For the first time in months, Persephone was standing in sunlight. 

Transfixed by the almost solid wall of silver light, Persephone crossed to the center of the earthen bridge in the middle of the cavern chamber, leaving her lantern somewhere behind her.  Persephone gazed up at the silver light in awe.  Tears welled in her eyes, from frustration or sadness she didn’t know, but Persephone angrily wiped them away.  There would be no crying.  She was stronger than that.  She was stronger than her mother believed, stronger than HE believed. 

There was a time when she wasn’t.  There was a time, when she would have burst into tears from being surrounded by all of this cold darkness.  Persephone was by nature a creature of the light.  Her dominion was over nature and things that lived and grew.  For that Persephone, the idea of being surrounded by nothing but cold dead earth would have caused the girl to weep until there was nothing left to weep, and, in fact, that is what happened.  Persephone had grown from her imprisonment.  She had become stronger than any would have thought she could.  A small part of her cried out for her to be grateful to HIM.  It proclaimed that she would have lived her life in ignorance and naivety if not for HIS love.  Was she not better now?  Was she not improved?

“No!” Persephone cried to that part of herself.  “I am not grateful to him.  I miss the sunlight.  I miss flowers and life.  I miss my mother.”  But that little voice would not leave her be. 

“Were you not lonely before?  Did you not long for a companion that your mother would never give you?”

“I had Artemis and Athena!  I was not alone.”  She proclaimed, but doubt gnawed at her. 

“You lie to yourself.”  The voice seemed sad.  “It is true you were not physically alone, but the goddesses are not the type of companion you were hungry for.  You longed for a man.  You longed for the intimacy of a soul mate.”

“There were other ways.”  Persephone quietly said. 

“There was no other way.”  The voice answered.  “Your mother turned away every suitor that asked for your hand.  She denied every opportunity for you to be with a man.  She wanted you for herself.  She wanted to keep you prisoner in that field of flowers, a child forever ignorant of the ways of a woman.”

“What would I have become without HIM?”  Persephone questioned.  “Would I have ever changed or would I still be picking flowers?” 

Persephone mournfully looked up at the silver sunlight.  There was little to love in the underworld.  The screams of the dead permeated the air and the world was always gray and black and red, but in some ways, the underworld was almost peaceful.  Its coolness was almost calming.  HIS presence was almost comforting. 

Persephone had lived in the land of the light for hundreds of years.  Helios’ radiance was glorious and filled with energy, but how long can one live in a world of nothing but light?  Persephone realized she was tired.  All of her struggles to escape and all of her fighting against HIS darkness had led her here to this bridge, standing beneath the light of the sun.  If she screamed from here, Helios would hear her.  Her mother would sweep her from this place and back she would go to the field of flowers, never to escape.  She would never see HIM again.
Persephone looked from the glaring light into the cool darkness of the inner cave.  Her lantern had fallen just before the bridge.  Its soft yellow light was warm and without a second thought Persephone scooped it up.  As she left the cavern chamber and headed back into the cave, back to HIM, Persephone never once looked back at the silver light.