Persephone: The Modern Olympus

 In the heart of Middle America, there was a small town called Olympus, a town of picket fences, green lawns, and friendly folks. In this town lived a beautiful young girl called Persephone. Her father, Mayor Zeus, often described her as ‘the perfect embodiment of the wholesome, all-American values Olympus stands for’, an opinion which had kept him in office for many years. Indeed, his subjects couldn’t deny the problem queen and class president’s charm, especially when she was working with her mother, Demeter’s, at local florists, where she sang her weekends away.

“Watch out, Zeus she’ll be running of to L.A. one of these days. And with a sweet voice like that they’ll make her a star in no time”, Zeus’ friends at the country club would joke.

“Aw no, not my Persephone,” the mayor would shake this head. “She loves this town and her Ma and Pa too much to ever wander that far.”

But one weekend, on the first day of autumn, Persephone’s song was drowned by the roar of a dozen motorcycles. Curious she stopped what she was doing and watched the dust settle as they growled to a halt outside the florists. The riders, clad in studded black leather jackets, were one other than the infamous Hades and his gang The Underworld, the most feared motorcycle gang in the land. The customers eyed them warily and backing away slowly as they strode into the store and straight up to young Persephone. She looked up at them, her nervous stare reflected in their dark sunglasses.

“Can I help you, sirs?” She asked, directing the question at the biggest one, whom she assumed to be their leader. He smiled out the corner of his mouth, where he held a smoking cigarette between his teeth. He took it out, flicking the ashes into a vase of roses.

 “You Persephone?” He asked, a white mist circling his face as he spoke.

“...Yes.”

“Wow, you’re even more beautiful than they said,” he said, rubbing some kind of white powder from his nose. Before Persephone could answer a black sack was pulled over her head! She screamed but was quickly silenced by the click of a gun as the leader pointed the barrel at her terrified mother behind the counter.

“Nobody move or a bullet goes in her pretty little head,” he snarled tapping the barrel against Persephone’s forehead.

  All Demeter could do was watch helplessly as they dragged her out of the shop, threw her onto the back of Hades’ bike, and speed away like demons in a cloud of smoke.

The moment they left the town spiraled into panic as the search for their beloved Persephone began. But no one, not even Mayor Zeus himself, was more distort than Demeter, who worked relentlessly to find her daughter. She went on all the news channels, pleading with Hades to give her back. She drove to every roadhouse and bar, demanding information on the gang’s whereabouts. She placed her home all night waiting for the phone to ring with demands of ransom. All the while the flowers in her store withered and died without her care and the streets outside were abandoned the moment darkness descended, the town hiding behind closed doors, listening for the roar of motorcycles.

 When they call finally came to Mayor Zeus’ office, his wife begged him to give them anything they wanted. This he did, against strong advice from the police, whom he told to never go near the bikers, as per the demands. But it wasn’t until the dawn o spring that Persephone returned. However, the girl Demeter threw her arms around looked very different. She donned a studded black leather jacket. A blood-red streak that matched her painted lips ran through her golden locks, which had now sheered short. And a blue bruise on her fair cheek. Even her scent of roses had been replaced with the stink of cigarette smoke. But it was the fine white powder and she rubbed off her nose that told Demeter with a twist in the gut that she was not the same girl that was so brutally taken from her.

“Oh what did they do to you, my darling?!” she cried.

“What no one has ever done for me: given me freedom”, Persephone told her.

“Did they give you that terrible bruise?” her father pointed at her face.

“No father, they never laid a finger on me. I got it of my own accord.” 

This was all she had to say on the matter and that of her former captors. And so Persephone returned to her life in Olympus, acting as if nothing had ever happened. This was despite the name embroidered on her jacket is the only proof to the townsfolk this scarlet-lipped girl was indeed the Mayor’s daughter. With her back in the store, the flowers flourished once again under her gentle touch, and the town gradually ascended back into peace. But Demeter noticed she hardly sang anymore, and when she did her voice was tinged with sadness. She didn’t want to think of why or recognize the distant look in her eyes. But as the leaves yellowed and the roar of motorcycles rumbled through the crisp air she knew there was nothing she could do to stop her precious daughter rushing out, jumping onto the back of Hades’ bike, and wrapping her arms around him. Once more she could only watch her speed off in a cloud of dust and smoke, and wait for spring to bring her back again.