Upside Down Flowers

Persephone cupped the dying lily in her small, rosy palms. The patch of lily of the valley had wore out its blooms and bowed before the changing season. "Who is the god of Death?" she turned to her mother. The innocence in her raised eyebrows and wide green eyes made Persephone look young for her age. "You've spoken to me about all the other gods but him."

Demeter's sweet corn colored hair turned flint brown. "Hades is not like us, dear one. Not like you. Everything he touches will wither and die. He will never know life."

Dew drops formed in Persephone's eyes, glistening like diamonds under the spring noon sun. "He sounds awfully lonely." Her sadness lingered in the air, a sillage like the scent of orange blossoms on the wind.

"Think on him no more," her mother sliced through the wind and the reverie. Demeter bustled about, sowing the earth nearby with summer crops and flora. She shook her head one more time at Persephone before bustling off to the next patch of field.

Persephone turned her attention back to the dead lily, and wondered about the man, who had stolen its life. She imagined a dark sort of man, wrapped in a coat of the crinkling, decaying leaves of wilted lilies. She thought of him, perhaps standing under the earth, beneath her body, as she laid in the grass. Maybe he secretly yearned for the warmth of a growing thing. Persephony brushed her fingers over the eart,h her goddess powers swirling sparkles around her fingers.

Another lily began to grow, this one pink and spotted and fragrant. But unlike the other flowers that Persephone tended, she only saw the roots growing. Instead, the flower stretched downward, deep into the belly of the earth. A glimmer of life and color glowed in the underworld, hovering above the outstretched hand of Hades. He marveled at it, delicate and beautiful like the giver. His black dead eyes flashed with life, and then turned upward. They seemed to pierce through the earth, to gaze at Perseephone. And then, surprising himself, he smiled, not feeling lonely any more.