Devonne Brown

 “People are the seeds of silk and plastic flowers,” Janice let loose with her favorite metaphor. Everyone around the her stepped back and took a big swig of whatever was in their hands. Coffee, tea, beer, absinthe, didn’t matter. None of them wanted to engage in that discussion. 

“Persephone was the goddess of spring, innocence, and the underworld. Since she was the queen of the underworld and presided over the dead, I don’t think she’d approve of your metaphor. In fact, if there were any death blows to be struck, you’d be right in the line of fire. She wouldn’t like that,” Mom never liked Janice’s sense of humor, most people never got it. It really pissed Dad off. In fact, right then, he turned red and walked out on the porch.

“Come on. How many times have you driven past cemeteries? What do you see?” She had a point. 

“Wreaths,” said Jeanette. She was always the passive aggressive one of the family.

“I get it,” Leland was grinning. He was a lot younger than Janice, but loved being the devil’s advocate when it came to the family. He was growing into black sheep status and saw this as an opportunity to enter the flock. “All those flowers on the graves, all of them are silk and plastic. Mostly silk these days, they look better longer. Fade resistant and better for the environment.”

“Whatever.”

Janice beamed at him. Jeanette and her brother Paul both turned and walked out on the porch with her dad where they put there heads together and pointed back to into the house. Everybody saw their fingers wiggling and waggling through the window. Their faces were red. Her dad got so worked up he slumped in the porch swing and held his head in his hands. “Where did I go wrong?” We all heard him wail.

Leland and Janice looked at each other. They weren’t sure if they should laugh or cry, but did end up snort giggling on and off all afternoon. Something as beautiful as spring deserved another story. Easter bunnies and crucifixions were all well and good, but what about the other mythologies? They too were worth telling. A beautiful story deserves to be remembered the same as a bloody one. 

“Sure a battered dying man on a cross makes a lasting impression on a lot of people, but let’s lighten up a minute and think,” said Janice. Her statement just won the blasphemy prize from the Bible and every Sunday school class in America and there was no backpedaling.

I heard lightning coming for her.

Everybody froze exactly as they were for a few seconds. To this day folks don’t know what to do with blasphemers. Most of them are never charged. Blasphemy gets tricky under the law pretty darn fast.

Lightning, afterall, has been the weapon of choice by the gods for centuries. Lightning doesn’t care about prescedents either.

 “Wait, before you start slinging books and lightning bolts. Persephone is beloved because she brings the green and blossoms back to the earth every year. What’s not to love? Can’t a goddess, a woman, a muse herald the spring?”

Lord Byron said she, “She walks in beauty and leaves real flowers in her wake.” Let her do her thing and celebrate it.