Pivoting on my heel, I strut back to the lever. My arm is outstretched and my fingers inch closer. I’m just about to push the red bar up when a bright light reflecting off one of the television screens catches my eye. Turning, I face what is behind me. My mouth drops open, my eyes widen.
Rotating on its invisible axis is a hologram vers
ion of earth. With bright blue, green glowing colors, and tiny red dots placed sporadically all over it. I smile, kind of amused. It looks like the earth has what mortals call the chicken pox. I slink closer to the hologram in awe. The lights flicker in my eyes and I reach out to touch it, but when I do the tips of my fingers skim right through it. I jump back, startled when a computerized voice screeches, “Name please.”
“Name please,” the female voice repeats.
I don’t have a name to give her. I’m puzzled. Then it dawns on me. This has to be how Hades keeps track of all the dying mortals in the world. Or all the mortals in the world in general. When you have to give them judgment on how they’ll live out eternity, I imagine that you have to watch them throughout their lives too. The world continues spinning and I wonder something; I wonder if Hades can keep track of the immortals too.
“Name please,” rings out a third time.
Stepping forward, I’ve got an idea. “Demeter Jones,” I say softly. Maybe if I can actually see mom I might feel a little better inside. I’m more worried about her than I am myself.
The earth whirls around so fast it becomes a blur. “Locating, Demeter Jones.” All of a sudden the hologram earth vanishes. In place of it is a picture mom. Underneath her image are written words.
Demeter Jones
Member of the Immortals
Goddess of the Harvest and Fertility.
Most recent place of residency – Klamath Falls, OR.
“Wow,” I gasp. Hades really does know everything. Focusing on the floor, I exhale and then I hear it…sobbing.
Mom’s photo fades from the screen. In place of the photo is a streaming video. I’m baffled and elated at the same. How is Hades able to do this? Does he plant cameras in every household on earth? The questions in my head drift away when I get a better look at mom’s face. Her eyes are bloodshot, with purplish circles underneath. Like she hasn’t slept in days. Her skin is pale and her cheekbones are sunken in a tiny bit. If I know her, she hasn’t eaten either. She hangs her head low and sobs uncontrollably. Zeus steps into view and places his hand on mom’s shoulder and caresses it gently. “Demeter, we’ll get her back. I promise.”
I try to touch the hologram, but just like before, my fingers slide right through it. “Mom!” I shout. “Can you hear me?”
She can’t.
Seconds later the feed disappears and is replaced with the hologram earth again. Seeing mom like that shreds me to pieces. I’m pounds of raw hamburger being forced through a meat grinder. Red and pink pieces curling onto a Styrofoam tray, waiting for the butcher to package me for sale.
No more distractions. No more exploring. I have to get out of here. Now.
Stomping back to the keyboard. I push the lever up with so much force I almost snap it off. I am going to get out of this realm of doom and gloom. No matter what it takes.
Persephone
After getting lost three times and wasting what seems close to two hours, I finally find my way to the double doors that lead outside of Hades palace. I take a deep breath and yank the doors open, stepping out into a realm of emptiness, death, and misery. And after standing outside the palace for only seconds, all I want to do is turn around and go back inside.
There’s something levitating in thick air of the underworld that makes me feel like every ounce of goodness has been drained from my body. Now I can see why Hades is the way he is. If I had to look at this devastating depressing realm every day for all of eternity I’d be bitter and cold too. The exterior of the palace is made of black hardened rock that reminds me of tar, bubbling for centuries in a tar pit, then cooling permanently in odd shapes and sizes. Circular towers stretch upward pointed like a sewing spindle, disappearing into a line of heavy gray smog. Dead trees line the walkway, with limbs like broken bones, bent and misshapen. And encircling the perimeter are asphodels. Asphodels everywhere.
I run over to the white and pink speckled flowers, determined to destroy them. I rip the asphodels from the ground, tear them in pieces, throw them down, stomp on them and kick them. If I never see another asphodel for the rest of my immortal life I’ll be perfectly content with that. But it doesn’t matter. Seconds after I’d destroyed some of them, the bare spots on the ground are replaced with new ones. The white blossoms bloom before my eyes like they’d been sleeping all winter and have just been graced with the spring sunshine.
Screaming in frustration, I drop the remaining flowers in my hands and sprint through the canopy of dead trees. Bats flap their wings above my head and I use my arms as a shield and cover myself. The walkway made of grayish clay stretches on for a half a mile and I’m too afraid to drop my arms. This place is full of uncertainty and I have no idea what it has in store for me. And I assume that means there will be worse things than a few bats.
At the end of the walkway, I come to a halt and peak through my arms. Thick, impossible to see through, smog looms above me, but I don’t see any more bats so I lower my limbs. Two feet in front of me is a wide gap in the ground. Connecting each side is a narrow cemented bridge. A bride so narrow, it looks almost like a balance beam. Peering over the edge of my side of the gap, I shudder at the drop. It has to be at least one hundred feet. Jagged rocks stick out at various angles and I wince when I think about having to recover from a fall that severe.
Backing up to give myself some running room, I make a mental note to just sprint forward and not look down. But then I center on the other side of the gap. There is a wall of smog so thick it reminds me of a brick wall. A barrier. A blockade, keeping one side of the underworld away from the other. One side is Troy, the other a clever Greek king named Agamemnon. The Trojan wall was a fortress of safety, but the entire world knows that no matter how big the barrier, cement can’t block intelligence.
I know my freedom waits on the opposite side of this gap. Even though I’m terrified of what awaits me, dead things mostly, I have to push through it. I just have to. Adrenaline pumps though me and I hop up and down amping myself up. I close my eyes and exhale, listening to the calm sound of rushing water. “This is the key to your freedom,” I say aloud. I’ve come to the conclusion that the only way I’m going to find this Charon guy is by crossing this bridge.
So I charge forward, feet pounding into the clay, staring straight ahead. Loose rocks breaking off and smacking into the walls of the deep ravine fill my ears. Panting, I keep going, pushing myself. A few more paces. A few more paces and I’ll be on the other side. And before I realize it, I’m an immortal wrecking ball blasting through a wall of thick gray smog.
Hades
The God of the Dead leaned against the wooden frame of his future queen’s door. Her comforter was flipped over and her violet satin sheets were a crumpled mess. She had definitely slept in her bed, but that left him wondering; where was she now?