Persephone by Bob MacKenzie For me, it is always darkest winter, and even that part of me who can live outside always feels the cold reach upward to pull me back and down into that dark palace where I hide: I, Persephone, waiting for some spring to come to darkness, fearing dark Hades instead will find me. I am Spring, named in a time when fashion named children after flowers and seasons, named for a time of rebirth and new life, named by Hades, who desolates all light and beauty and called himself my father, called himself Love in the light but grew dark with the lust to destroy all spring, all life. Before memory, my father was all-- to me tall and handsome and wise and kind-- all Persephone must have thought Hades as he walked out across the sunlit fields and smiled at her and invited her home somewhere down the river: a dark palace he described as glittering and vibrant. That long ago Persephone escaped with half her life locked in Hades' palace but half again filled with sun and flowers; my Persephone hides in a dark room deep below the palace and cannot leave, and even Spring, who waits outside, always walks in darkness and deathly cold for her. I had forgotten most of my lifetime. Spring lived on eternal in the present, needing no past life and planning no future, and Persephone was well and truly buried; Spring lived on, but heard the voices, past lives whispering their dark vaulted words: remember your sister deep in the palace. I am Spring, I cried, I have no sister, no Persephone, hid in some dark room. I am Spring, I cried, and I knew I lied to hide something and had no idea what dark secret lay below the palace protected by my long forgetfulness, protecting, as much as anything, me. Spring remembered my father in a time he loved my mother and he loved me too; he was Daddy, my protector, my God. In the memory, I am a young girl, seven at most; Spring has no memory after that until I am a grown woman. Persephone remembers all of it. Persephone in the dark in her cell remembers all of it and wants to tell if only Spring will batter down the walls and release her into the white sunshine she recalls so well from ancient times when Daddy was a God Persephone could trust to guard her from all the darkness. It was she who came to me in my dreams: Persephone from that dark underworld where for thirty years I had hidden her, thought her dead and gone and all memory taken with her into some deep black hole far beneath the palace, where I was safe, where Spring was safe from forgotten terror. In my dreams, I became Persephone, lost to me for all those forgotten years, and Spring became like a dream hovering out of my reach but close enough that now my hope for Spring was my greatest torture, my fear for Spring's agony greater than any terror Persephone might endure. I am Spring, born in the sunshine to live seven glowing years, then asleep thirty before waking in dust, in grey ashes from which I rise in agony and seek life for me and for Persephone below. Thirty years have I walked among the dead and been one of them; now I live again. There was a body Spring that walked the earth, had friends, had men, was seen by all to live and prosper--destitute and void inside. Spring never let the friends inside the wall she had built with such care; she used the men for physical comfort, all without love. Spring had men; Persephone never did. Persephone persisted deep inside that black hole watching Spring, the waking dead, doing what others expected of her, touched by nothing: void inside, void outside. Persephone, alone and forgotten, longed for release, for freedom, for sunshine, for the life she knew she could give to Spring. Persephone was there when Spring awoke, her hand rising out of the dark ashes to take Spring's and guide her out of the dark. Spring ran screaming through the darkness, away from that apparition, from that dark hand reaching out from the dark cell she had built in pain so long ago and thought was safe. They named me Spring Sunshine more for fashion than anything else and called me Spring without Sunshine forever after; I am Spring, dark and without soul, lost in dust and ash. I knew Daddy died when I was seven, and the other took his body and soul, and the other in him took Spring for himself. Persephone ran into the darkness, away from that greater dark inside him, ran deep into the palace, where she hid, locked in a dark and windowless closet Spring had built for her; Persephone ran, and Spring lay down in the ashes and died just as her Daddy had--but lived within. Spring was thirty five when he died again. They told her he was dead; she knew better. She knew Daddy's soul was lost long ago, and now the body was gone, but she knew that dark thing inside him would never die, and she began to be afraid again. Within two years, dark dreams came to find Spring. As far as she could see, grey ash spread out across a broad, even plain to the sky, a sky so grey there was no horizon, so that Spring's world was without form and void. Near her side the grey ash moved and took shape as she watched fascinated; a grey hand rose from below, reaching for her own hand. Spring fled into the ashen haze spun up by her own flying feet until she vanished and even she was without form and quite void in this grey world bereft of memory. Somewhere far away, she could sense an arm sinking slowly through grey ash to some black hole below, and she wondered how she knew. Spring ran and ran through the grey, not seeing the grey run into black, bind her in black. Persephone felt the rope chafe her wrist as her sister hung in some dark closet and knew who had done this; Spring saw dark shapes, nothing more--but she knew some dark evil had come back for her, and she knew terror. Hanging in the closet by her wrists, Spring sensed the dark being who had hung her there, but could also feel that grey arm and hand reaching out to her; somehow she drew hope and knew the owner of that arm would help. The rope cut into her wrist and she prayed the darkness would go away forever. Out of the grey plain the darkness came down, falling on Spring with something long and lithe: skipping rope, or belt, or serpent of fire burning fiercely as it whipped into her flesh. The sound came, at first distant, but growing to fill the vast plain, to wrap and fill Spring; Persephone knew the sound was her screams. Once, the grey hand brushed against hers briefly, then was gone, but it gave Spring brief solace, and she understood her sister was near. So was the faceless form that tied her up, beat her, raped her, battered her, made her fear her life would end; each time she dreamed, she saw the face becoming clearer, and she knew him. Spring knew the face forming from the blackness, but she could not quite make out who it was; Persephone knew, but she could not tell, not name the evil that Spring saw in dreams. The dreams changed only a little, but grew, so the plain took on form as the face formed on the blackness, and Spring formed memories. The sun warmed Persephone as the man smiled at her and held out his hand warmly. Come in here, he said, and see my palace; I'll show you a world you'll never forget. Hades crossed the meadow into darkness; as he walked into the dark pit, she called, Daddy, wait for me--and the dark took her. The rape came to Spring softly, like a scene in a play, done and done again to her or someone else; she was never certain. Was it Persephone bathed in blood red light on the stage, and Spring watching the show? Or did all the black of night cover Spring as Persephone sadly watched her die? Without mercy, someone had been beaten; someone had been bound, tied for days and left, hung in a closet, hid in a basement, always with the door shut and no windows, hung in the dark; someone had been tortured, torn apart by some dark and monstrous being. Spring wondered, had it been Persephone? Once, when Hades briefly stopped watching her, someone took Persephone by the hand, led her deep into the palace, deep below where Hades never went--a secret room. Here you'll be safe, the other girl told her, then began to brick up the door with black bricks. Dark sorrow closed in on Persephone. With Persephone safe, though forever trapped deep in Hades palace, Spring escaped, but found no sunny meadow waiting her. As far as she could see, grey ash spread out across a broad, even plain to the sky, a sky so grey there was no horizon, so that Spring's world was without form and void. Like whirling dust devils from her childhood, whirlwinds rose from the ash and formed themselves, subtly becoming forms of a gone world Spring might once have lived in, stripped to reveal all the outrage and terror just below, in that dark palace; only Persephone-- only she--knew there was no room for Spring. In the grey before dawn, her room was plain, forcing its form out of the fading night as she sat up in her bed, not yet sure the still black corners did not hide lithe forms waiting the right moment to pounce on her, to tear her from her bed, back to darkness Hades had led her into long ago. Persephone cowered in her black room, hid in a corner, tried not to be seen. She had heard that great door of stone open, heard the darkness come to life with demons set free, heard them rushing from the palace into Spring's world, and heard them rushing down some dark stairs toward her, Persephone. Spring sat up in her bed, watching shadows from the darkest corners, grey mists dancing, dervish forms slipping out of the darkness to grasp her and hold her pinned to the bed. As he had so long ago, he came now from the blackest corner of eternity. Hades came again to Spring and took her. Spring knew the face that formed from the blackness, knew it was Hades, knew he was changing, putting on the mask, forming the face she knew. The face became clear as Hades took her, covering her in all blackness and death; in that brief moment, the face became clear. Hades took Spring by force; Spring saw his face. Persephone screamed as the wall crashed in, then fled the blackness pursuing her, fled her small black cell, fled that black palace, and ran up and up along the river seeking spring sunshine above the grey ash. Persephone felt the pain and knew Spring, her sister, had seen the face of evil. Spring fought, but there was no escape for her. The darkness held her arms and legs tightly and Hades came and smothered her in black death that took her as it had long ago. Spring died the death of the living, buried herself deep in her heart, leaving nothing for him; no, she cried, no Daddy, don't! The grey hand rose from the ash grey of dawn and reached for Spring somewhere in the darkness; Persephone rose from the sea of ash slowly, wary of the darkness waiting to take her as her sister was taken. She rose until she could see that evil Hades taking her dying sister, Spring. The grey hand rose from the ash grey of dawn; grey as her hand, the woman from the ash stood naked before Spring--a woman Spring thought she knew, a woman as beautiful as Spring had ever seen; Persephone put her hand out to Spring and forced a smile as she moved toward Spring and black Hades. As she lay dying, Spring stretched out her hand far into the ash, deep into her heart, down into that black palace of hatred where so long ago she had built a wall to keep Persephone safe from her pain, where she hoped Persephone waited now. In the dark, the grey woman took her hand. They touched hands and became as they had been; Persephone entered and became Spring as sunshine burst through the haze and flowers blooming in the ash drove away the black gyres that tormented Spring and held her down. As Hades died a third and final time, Spring took her first steps out of the darkness. ...with thanks to the Ontario Arts Council for support. |