The Persephone

New York City, 1994

In May, I left Dixon, Illinois with my bandmates Blud and Spyke for New York City. I had tried to convince Blud that we needed to go to Seattle if we wanted to be a real grunge band. He had insisted the Seattle scene died with Kurt and we’d be at the forefront of the next big grunge movement. I begrudgingly agreed, mostly because I got out-voted. Spyke worshiped Blud, which suited Blud’s ego just fine.

When we got to NYC, I took a job as an overnight security guard at a big art museum downtown. Whichever one you’re thinking of, that’s probably it. I shouldn’t have even gotten the job, being a small-town eighteen year old with zero work experience and a wealth of facial piercings, but the head of security was this old butch named Marth and I think she felt me a bit of a kindred spirit and took pity on me. Either that, or they couldn’t get anyone else to work nights.

My first night, Marth gave me a tour of the building, giving me a spiel about each room’s security cameras, the most important pieces of art, and the rounds I would have to make each hour. We took a pit stop at her office where I was given a uniform, badge, and other security equipment.

“Why do I need a taser,” I asked her. “There’s no one here.”

She just rolled her eyes at me and kept walking.

Finally, we made our way to a large, wide-open, well-lit room at the front of the building. The walls were stark white and held only a few ancient stone tableaus of Greek and Egyptian origin along with little wooden plaques describing the medium, history, and significance of each work of art. In the center of the room stood an unassuming marble statue of a woman cupping a flower in a raised palm, long wavy hair flowing down her back. As we approached it, however, I could see that there was much more to it. The statue was life-size, true to scale though the figure was clearly petite. She was also extremely life-like. She was thin but fleshy and you could see that where the “skin” slouched and held taut aligned perfectly with her pose. While she was clearly young and healthy, leaving little imperfection, you could see details like the lines on her face, the contours of her collarbones, and the dimples on her cheeks and low back. I swore I could even see a tragic gleam in her sleek white eyes.

“Ivy,” said Marth, “meet our Persephone. She’s the pride of our museum, the most important thing in this entire building. Guard her with your life.”

I laughed nervously, but Marth wasn’t laughing.

“Now here’s where it gets weird.”

I turned away from Persephone towards Marth, intrigued. Marth checked her watch, an oversized digital monstrosity. She took a deep breath and dropped her arm to her belt. As she did this, I heard a sharp rap at the front entrance of the museum. Marth moved to answer it and I scurried behind her, unsure if I was about to be kidnapped or be initiated into a cult. Neither happened, but what did was even stranger.

When we reached the formidable front doors, Marth unhooked her massive ring of keys from her belt and shuffled through them until she found what she was looking for. She placed it in the door’s lock, turned it slowly, and pushed open the large door with the heel of her palm. Standing on the concrete steps was a tall, eerie looking man. He was somehow gaunt and muscular. He was deathly pale, likely mid-thirties, with dark purplish eye bags and longish dark brown hair that fell straight across his forehead. He wore dark jeans, black Doc Martens, and a black leather biking jacket over a plain white t-shirt. The look on his face read sheepish and depressed.

“Ivy,” said Marth, “meet Mr. H. Mr. H, this is Ivy. She’s our new night security guard. You’ll meet with her from now on.”

 “Mr. H” did not reply. He merely nodded and slipped inside when Marth stepped back to clear the way. He looked back and forth at us for a moment before proceeding hastily to the front room we had been in moments ago.

“He’s a little timid,” explained Marth, unhelpfully.

“Yeah, but who is he,” I whispered back.

“Mr. H, to put it mildly, is an odd but extremely rich duck. He came to us a few years back when he started showing up daily during business hours to stare at the Persephone. Gradually, his behavior got… weirder. Frankly, he was freaking the other patrons out. Eventually, management had to have a little sit-down with him. They agreed that he could visit the Persephone every Thursday after close for an hour, supervised, in exchange for a sizable donation to the museum.”

“He has visitation rights for a statue?”
“Eh…  more or less.”

I glanced over at Mr. H. He was slowly circling the statue and seemed to be muttering something rapidly under his breath, though I couldn’t hear what.

“So,” said Marth, “here are the rules. His visit starts at 11:00 every Thursday and ONLY Thursday. He should leave promptly at midnight. There is to be absolutely no touching of the Persephone. He can bring in anything he likes, within reason, but anything that gets left behind you trash immediately after his departure. He’s not to enter any other part of the museum, though, trust me, that won’t be a concern. I know he looks scary and unhinged, but he’s really just a harmless lunatic. If you ask him to stop doing something, he’ll stop. He follows our rules, it’s just that sometimes he needs a reminder. Any questions?”

I shook my head, trying and likely failing to mask the shock on my face.

“Good. You got this, kiddo,” Marth assured, delivering a heavy-handed slap to my shoulder.

A short while later, Marth requested Mr. H make his exit and he obliged, just like she had insisted he would. She locked the door behind him and we went on as before, touring and rounding the museum. I saw the archives, the back office, and a few other hidden features of the building before we handed the keys over to the morning staff and I went back to the studio I shared with Spyke and Blud to sleep off the first day of the rest of my weird life.

The subsequent shifts were much more normal. I started to get the hang of the routine, Marth seemed to think me a little less naïve, and I was given full security clearance.

The following Thursday marked my last evening shadowing Marth. The day passed like normal until around 10:50 when we made our way to the front of the museum. We passed Persephone on the way. I looked up at her on her pedestal, admiring the curves of her stomach, the delicate way the cloth draped around her waist seemed to be almost slipping off her round, muscular hips. I could see why Mr. H was so fond of her, how one could convince themselves that she were flesh and blood, the kind of flesh and blood that one worships at if given the chance.

We made our way through the front room to the main entrance. Marth twisted the key in the lock and pushed the door open, revealing one Mr. H, poised and ready to knock. He dropped his hand, nervously wiping it on his jeans, and gave Marth a quick nod before making his way to the front room.

“He is always on time. You can set your watch by him. In fact, I have before.”

Marth and I made our way to a bench in a corner of the sparse room. Tonight, Mr. H was reading to her from an old, used book. I couldn’t tell what language he was speaking. Perhaps Greek, though I’d never heard it spoken before. Whatever it was, he spoke it with a passion and urgency. He sat at her feet in a cross-legged position, staring up at her as he read. He didn’t seem to actually need the book all that much, he spent most of his time with his eyes fixed on her face. Tonight he was wearing light wash jeans, a black turtleneck, and dress shoes. This look, along with his edgy, straight dark hair made him look the rebel poet, a fitting look given tonight’s activity.

He continued on like this, reading and staring, occasionally remembering to flip a page. Eventually, Marth nudged me and showed me the 11:59 flashing electric blue on her wrist.

“Tonight, you’re going to shoo him.”

I felt my face flush red. “I can’t do that. Marth, what? He’s not going to listen to me!”

“Listen, kiddo. I have been working the night shift for the past fifteen years. I’m getting old and I can’t keep doing this shit. I’ve got someone at home who loves me and three cats who fucking hate me. I want to get home to them. I’m a manager now and I finally have a path out of this. I’m not going to let you ruin this for me. Now, you are going to march your little butt up to that crazy man speaking Aramaic and tell him it’s time to skedaddle! Alright?”

“Alright.”

I approached him timidly, shaking and sweating. I could feel the tears welling up in my eyes. I told myself that crying isn’t punk rock, which made me laugh under my breath and allowed me to relax a bit. I got within about ten feet of him before my legs forced me to stop. He was still reading aloud, just as fervently as he had been an hour ago. I took a deep breath.

“It’s midnight,” I stammered. No response. “You have to go now.”

After a moment, the recitation ceased. Slowly he lowered the book and his gaze, uncurled his legs, and stood up. He gave me a nod just like the one he had given Marth and made his way to the door. I followed a safe distance behind and locked the door behind him. Through the glass, I watched him descend the steps and mount a motorcycle parked on the street below. He started the bike and revved the engine. He paused briefly, then turned his head towards the large window of the front room, blew a kiss, and sped off into the night.

“Fuckin’ weirdo,” I muttered under my breath, then breathed a sigh of relief.

“Nice job, kiddo,” exclaimed Marth, approaching, “I knew you had it in you.”

I simply glared.

“Hey, don’t be like that. I wouldn’t have sent you over to him if I thought he was going to freak out on you. He always respects the rules, always listens to any reasonable request. You do have to hold him to the agreement, though. And you did. Just like I knew you would,” she smiled, pleadingly.

I relaxed a bit, shrugged.

“Atta girl, Ivy! You’ve got this, I know you do.”

We finished up the shift as usual. At the end of the night, we parted with a hug and another pep talk from Marth. Then I went home and crashed.

The following weeks passed quickly and bled together. Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Sundays meant twelve hour shifts at the museum. Mondays and Wednesdays meant band practice with Blud and Spyke. Friday meant getting shit-faced at some dingey punk bar. Saturday usually meant a gig; slathering my face in bold makeup and playing bass onstage as “Poison Ivy” to some half-interested crowd, usually getting shit-faced again afterwards.

Despite finally having the opportunity to play my music onstage, even making a bit of money and a tiny cult following from it, Thursdays oddly became the most interesting part of my week. Marth was right, Mr. H was always respectful, came and left like clockwork, always abided by my requests, each night saying hello and goodbye with merely a nod.

The regularity of his behavior towards me allowed me to relax a bit and simply become fascinated by his irregular, erratic behaviors that he saved for Persephone. Each night was different, unpredictable. Some nights he read to her as he had before. Other nights he propitiated her with strange gifts or offerings that I would discreetly trash after his departure. On rare occasions he would spend the entire hour sobbing and wailing at her feet. He seemed to be pleading with her, though it was hard to tell because though he spoke to her in a myriad of languages, English was rarely one of them. Most nights, however, he simply sat and stared at her in adoration, though changing position and perspective for each visit like this. I spent each Thursday watching these behaviors, in awe, trying to understand his motivation, his state of mind. At midnight sharp, my newly acquired digital watch would beep, I would ask him politely to leave, and he would turn to me, nod, and make his exit.

Then one night he spoke to me.

It was early December, snow and sleet had already intermingled with the dirt on the streets, making for an ugly sight and uncomfortable trudge to work. Mr. H had just completed a saucy performance of some play, poem, or rhetoric in what I now knew to be Greek for certain (I had heard one of my neighbors speak it since my first day with Mr. H). I had let him know his time was up with his inanimate beloved and he had turned, nodded, and made his way to the door per usual. I was holding the door open for him, thinking about what type of creamer I wanted to put in my break room coffee tonight, when he stopped and turned to me.

“Your name is Ivy, right?”

“Uh… mmhmm,” I stammered.

“Enchanté,” he breathed as he clasped the fingers of my available hand and planted a soft, chaste kiss on my knuckles. His eyes met mine for the first time in my entirety of knowing him. I stared, debating whether or not to confess to him that I was a lesbian and he had the wrong idea. Then I remembered I was probably a bit too alive for his tastes.

Before I could muster a response, he gave me another nod, this time more expressive, descended the steps with surprising dexterity given the slickness of the night, hopped on his motorcycle he was still inexplicably driving in December, and disappeared down the street.

I stood in the cold and wet for a moment, trying to make sense of it all. When at last I determined there was no sense in his behavior, there never had been, I retreated inside, locked the door, and made my way to the break room.

After that, I began my rounds with warm, fragrant coffee in hand. I looked at my watch. 12:35. I was officially nineteen. I continued my rounds, eventually winding back up in the front room, the first light of day just peeking through the windows. The Persephone looked more alive than ever. I liked the way the sunlight danced on her face, highlighting all the little details that made her so special, so real… just shy of human, not quite there yet. God, he was starting to rub off on me. She was a statue! An uncomfortable chill ran down my spine. I left the room swiftly, feeling like I had just encountered something paranormal, something uncanny. I was freaking myself out, to put it plainly.

I spent the next week debating what I would say to him on Thursday. I had to play it cool, act like it didn’t phase me. Otherwise he wouldn’t talk to me again. Or worse yet, he might take advantage and bend the rules if he realized just how intimidated I was by him. I laid awake in the mornings, thinking of his cold hand and her dazzling face.

Finally, Thursday came. I shuffled my way to work in the snow, taking the long way despite the cold. When I got in, I did my rounds, hands shaking the entire time. I caught myself pacing the corridors rather than truly rounding more than once. My thoughts raced. Why was I so scared of him? He hadn’t done anything more erratic than previous, hadn’t done anything threatening. But he had touched me, and in doing so became real to me. He was a real man, a real potential threat rather than the strange, goofy character I had watched like television for the last several months.

Then it was nearly time. I paced to the front of the building, doing my best to avoid eye contact with the Persephone as I booked it through the front room, forgetting to turn the light on like I usually did before the arrival of Mr. H. As I passed the threshold, I checked my watch. 10:53. Fuck. Now I would have to spend seven minutes pacing the lobby waiting for the Phantom of the Museum.

I was on my third lap from the main staircase to the door when I heard a loud crash echo out from the Persephone room. Suddenly, everything sped up to one hundred miles per hour. Out of the corner of my eye I saw something dart across the dimly lit room. Hand on my taser, I sprinted into the room, not considering the absurdity of my actions. Once in the room, my gaze darted lunatically around the room until I saw it. I no longer felt in control of my body, my hand unstrapping the taser, pointing it at whatever monster lurked in the corner of the room. The bright electric strings launched themselves gracefully out from the warm plastic in my sweaty hand, arcing and landing blithely atop the biological mass of unknown origin and motivation.

A horrific high-pitched shriek erupted from the thing. Sparks erupted and the dark form, which I now realized was also hairy. The creature shook and twitched. My soul began to re-enter my body and in one final act of bravery I took a step closer to the thing to see just what I was up against.

A New York fucking City goddamn sewer rat. The biggest one I had ever seen, to be fair, but overall, just your standard subway fare. Its foot twitched suddenly and I jumped back. Just residual from the electrical current, I thought, breathing a sigh of relief. I stood there for a moment, catching my breath, trying to ignore the smell of singed rodent. I looked up to the Persephone, still as complacent and serene as ever. I glanced back to the mega rat just in time to see it spring back to life, flip itself back upright, shed the taser wires, and make a mad dash towards where it must have come from; a large air vent in the floor, the art nouveau grate covering it pushed aside, likely by the rodent’s entrance. I screamed, caught off-guard by the sudden resurrection of a creature I thought for sure must have been dead. A sudden rapping sound like ghosts at a séance. I screamed again.

Coming to my senses (what was left of them anyways), I holstered my taser best I could, tried to collect my thoughts, pushed the grate over the vent, and scrambled to the front entrance. I didn’t make it before I heard more knocking, this time more frantic. I ripped my key ring off my belt, searching furiously for the correct key. I dropped the ring several times in the process. Finally, I came to the correct key and shoved it into the lock. I caught Mr. H preparing for his third round of incessant pounding. He sniffed, scrunched his nose a bit, and gave a confused look before returning his face to its normal neurotic neutral.

“You’re late.”

“Am not,” I whined. I glanced inconspicuously at my watch. 11:04. Shit.

“You are indeed. I get,” he glanced at his watch, which was something expensive, Rolex-y, “five extra minutes with her.” He blew past me, through the corridor and towards the Persephone room.

“You get four,” I yelled after him, “four extra minutes, not five!”

He held up his hands in mock surrender, his back turned to me, and crossed into the room.

I let him have five extra minutes with her. He just talked to her tonight, paced back and forth in front of her and spoke as if he was having a real conversation. About what I couldn’t tell, this certainly wasn’t a language I was familiar with. At the end, when I told him it was time to go, he placed a single rose that he withdrew from the interior of his jacket at her feet. The rose, having sat inside his jacket for a motorcycle ride and an hour of lively one-sided conversation, was a bit crumpled. Still, the gesture was oddly charming and I hardly doubt she minded.

As he passed into the cold night he bade me farewell with a single word; “Adieu.”

“Enchanté” and now “Adieu.”

“Are you French,” I blurted out. After all, he did have a slight accent, one I hadn’t yet been able to place.

“Heh, not exactly.” He chuckled and disappeared into the night.

The next night of note with Mr. H was two days after Valentine’s Day. I was pacing the Persephone room when I saw through the window an Aston Martin parallel park at the front of the museum. I recognized the model at once because it looked just like the one Spyke’s dad bought when he turned fifty. We took it for a joy ride once while he was out of town. I remember thinking it was beautiful but not flashy and making a mental note that this was the kind of thing “real” rich people drove, since Spyke’s family was one of the few seriously wealthy ones in our town.

I was admiring and reminiscing, thinking that this one must be even newer than the one Spyke’s dad drove when I saw that the man climbing gracefully out of the driver’s side was none other than Mr. H, dressed in a decadent maroon suit.

I watched as Mr. H walked around to the passenger side, opened the door, leaned, and pulled out an absolutely massive bouquet of flowers. He shut the door with his shiny dress- shoed foot and began the trek up the museum steps.

I clamored to the front door, fumbling for my keys as I went, eager to see what this wack-a-doodle had in store for his statuesque lover.

We reached the door at the same time, 11:00 on the dot, and I held the door open for him, giving him a wide berth.

What unfolded over the course of that hour was nothing short of a Bacchanal. Once he had reached the Persephone room, Mr. H began by placing the flowers to the side, revealing a sizable box of chocolates underneath, each chocolate meticulously prepared and arranged within the clear plastic box. He placed this in front of her, a few feet away from her base. He then withdrew a bottle of red wine from the pile of flowers, a vintage, something I expect you’d find in the wine cellar of a Rothschild’s mansion. He also retrieved a corkscrew and a crystal chalice from the flowers and poured her a glass. Only one glass, so I suspected they wouldn’t be sharing, though this had more the air of a pagan ritual worship than a romantic candlelit dinner. The chalice was placed beside the chocolates after a short deliberation period where he attempted to find the perfect spot for it.

Then came the flowers. He began to pick them up a few at a time with little regard to color or type (he had everything from blue orchids to orange zinnias to plain old white daisies) and arranged them concentrically around the base of her daïs. Gradually, he began to work outwards, incorporating the wine and chocolates into the display until much of the floor, the floor her feet never deigned to touch, became a sort of mandala, bursting with color and life. It was like nothing I had ever seen. Mr. H, too, seemed impressed. He spent a moment with his hands on his hips, admiring his handiwork, soaking in the view. After his moment in the midnight sun, his face dropped and he slowly approached his stony paramour until he was at her feet. With sudden rapidity, he dropped to his knees, crushing wisteria and jasmine as he fell, and began to sob, a wailing mourning, a visceral, horrible sound erupting suddenly in the silence. He sustained these noises for longer than I thought human lungs could, tears rushing like waterfalls as he screamed. After an eternity, the shrieking subsided into weary child-like hiccups. I realized my watch had gone off, inaudible amongst the thundering storm of emotion. I opened my mouth to coax him out of the building, but before I could, the blubbering lamentations began again. In a flash, he threw his head back, increasing the intensity of his voice, stood up, and threw himself at her, placing his hands atop her marble feet.

“Hey, no touching,” I yelled, straining to project myself over the sound.

Nothing. No response other than the sounds already bursting from his throat.

“Don’t… don’t make me taser you. I… I… I’ve killed a rat with this thing before! Well… almost!”

Slowly, a vocal and lacrimal deceleration, a retreat of hands. Before he could start again, I tiptoed carefully over to him, placed a hand on his shoulder blade and a hand on his elbow, and led him gently outside, rubbing his back as he went. Right before I shut the door behind him, he turned to me, red-ringed eyes and twitching lip, and gave me the customary nod. I nodded back and watched to make sure he got to his car safe.

This left me to clean up after him. I thought about sampling the wine and chocolates but thought better of it. I heaved both into a large trash bag from the custodian’s office but saved the glass. It looked like real crystal. I had this idea that I could return it to Mr. H the following week. The flowers got heaped in afterwards, then the lingering petals until finally the room looked mostly as it had before. I stopped to scoop up the final few stems and petals that hid on the dorsal side of her base. That was when I saw the plaque.

I had thought this one to be associated with the depiction of Pygmalion sculpting Galatea that hung on the wall beside it, but it was actually the one describing Persephone:

Persephone in Springtime

C. 319 B.C.E                     Sculptor Unknownz
Crete, Greece                 Pentelic Marble

This rendering of the Greek goddess Persephone, cupping a water lily in a hand raised to the sky, depicts Persephone celebrating her return to the upper realm at the beginning of spring. This work is one of the most famous statues from the Late Classical period. This is largely due to the startling realism created with such an unforgiving medium. Despite its popularity even among contemporaries, the artist is unknown and academic attempts to attach a name to this work have been grossly unsuccessful. The statue’s liveliness and mysterious origins led to the development of an old myth that claimed this is not a statue at all, but rather the goddess herself turned to stone by Medusa.

A pause, a realization setting in. Then I burst out laughing. I was having a fit. Tears streamed down my face; I rocked back on my heels and landed on my backside. Then my back. I was laying on the floor of an esteemed art museum losing my shit. Mr. H thought that Persephone was a God incarnate. Not only that, he hadn’t even come up with the idea. He’d read it on a goddamn piece of pressboard five feet from the goddess herself and his delusional brain had just… taken it for fact! His intricate mental world that I had perceived him to have faded away to garden variety psychosis. The museum board not only accepted this but enabled it because he had paid them off. Truly, you could get anything you wanted in New York with enough money.

Eventually, the giggles subsided and I was able to carry on with my job. The trash got shoved in the dumpster and the crystal in my backpack. I spent the rest of my shift and my commute home delirious. I couldn’t tell if this made things darker or lighter. I didn’t much care. The delirium gradually subsided day by day until Thursday, when, shoving a potentially priceless crystal wine glass into my grubby JanSport, I realized I felt just about as normal as anyone could feel given the circumstances.

At 10:58 I entered the grand hall, key in hand, ready for whatever my lunatic would throw at me tonight. At 11:00 sharp I stepped up to the plate. Behind the aged glass of the door I found no Mr. H. I unlocked the door and stepped out into the bitter air. No Mr. H, no motorcycle, no Aston Martin. I waited a few minutes. Nothing. I finally went inside and locked up. The rest of the night I spent as much of my time as was possible in the front of the building, quickly making my way back to the front whenever I was forced to stray. He never came.

He missed his next appointment as well, and the one after that. I didn’t even look for him the third week. I was fine, nothing actually bad had happened. And yet, the world had gone a bit grayer.

The Tuesday after his fourth week of absence, I awoke midday to prepare for my evening shift. It was warm, just like it had been the last few days, and I hoped the nice weather was here to stay. I spent a few minutes just lying there on my futon, soaking up the sun from the window and stretching myself out under the soft covers.

Spyke, whose legal name was Norman, walked into the apartment. He was wearing a knit sweater with flannel pajama pants, his long, slightly wavy hair looked unbrushed. He had a tan messenger bag slung across his body. In his hands he held a little blue coffee cup and a newspaper.

“Spyke, you read the newspaper? What are you, fifty?”

“Yeah, man, every day, and I think you’re gonna wanna take a look at this one.”

He tossed the folded newspaper down on my blanketed chest. I could see that it did indeed look slightly worn like it had been read. I unfolded the paper, revealing a large color photo of a fancy room caked in dust. As the morning floaters cleared from my eyes and my brain processed what I was seeing, I realized I had been in this room. One could even say I had frequented it. This was the room, the Persephone room. Where the goddess should have stood there was now merely her daïs, a lousy Doric platform seemingly abandoned by its godhead. The top of the daïs and most of the floor was covered in a fine talcy film. Pygmalion and Galatea were barely visible in the background. The title read “Persephone’s Spring Break.” My heart sank. I began to read. The story explained that yesterday evening during a power outage that took out the security cameras, the museum’s prized Persephone statue was stolen. The thieves had chiseled the statue from her base, leaving a large amount of marble dust behind, and retreated with her through a large air grate in the floor that had been left unscrewed and unsecured. All this occurred in less than fifteen minutes, leading law enforcement to believe that this was the work of a large, professional crew.

I was in shock. I dropped the paper to my lap.

“That’s your museum, right,” asked Spyke. “Do you know that statue? Is it really as important as the story made it sound?”

I swallowed, my throat dry and scratchy. I nodded at Spyke.

“Shit,” he said. “Sucks for you guys but that’s kinda badass.”

I barely registered this comment. At some point, Spyke shuffled to the dirty galley kitchen to fry eggs and bacon. I didn’t go into my shift that night, just sat there thinking and smelling grease. I didn’t go in on Thursday either. On Friday, Marth left a concerned message on my answering machine. On Monday after I missed my Sunday shift Marth left me another, colder message letting me know that I’d been let go but that she hoped I was doing alright.

I vacillated between lying in bed for hours and wandering the city all day and night. I missed practices. Then performances slipped, too. It was hard to come up with justifiable excuses for my absences when I lived in a single room with my bandmates who could see me lying in bed. When they asked me what was wrong, when my parents called, concerned, I couldn’t explain what had happened to me. What could I say? That the bastard finally did it? That he took advantage of my naïve and fanatic interest in his peculiarity to scope out the joint for months? That this wouldn’t have happened if I’d secured the grate or notified someone of the missing screws? Or worse yet, that I missed them both? That all of New York City seemed bleak and pointless without my Thursdays with Persephone and Mr. H? Or, worst of all, that a tiny little part of me believed the fantasy, that I thought that maybe she had just walked off her pedestal, her marble body glistening in the moonlight, off to find her darling disciple and thank him for his tireless worship? Perhaps I could simply tell them I’d lost my mind and let them shut me up somewhere where I could work through these delusions.

I never told them any of this. Weeks went by and my routine of lying and wandering solidified. I got a job at a coffee shop that lasted two whole days before I accidentally slept through a shift and never came back out of embarrassment. There came a point when bills had to be paid with money I no longer had, all my sources of income choked out by melancholy. My parents bailed me out of my overdue bills in exchange for returning to Illinois and moving back in with them. I agreed, and told them I would start applying to colleges in Chicago for next fall, though I’m not sure I really meant it at the time. They purchased me a plane ticket and I packed my luggage with what few belongings I could bear to take with me. I said goodbye to Blud and Spyke and set out for one last final wander around New York.

The weather had progressed from warm to hot. The air was still humid despite how late it was. It was dark but not really, not with all those lights. Human activity organized mostly around bars, clubs, and theaters. I watched the groups mingling, stumbling, laughing, as they passed me on the sidewalk. They didn’t seem real, or maybe I wasn’t real. Then the night started to feel alive, I lit up. The brilliant neon signs came into clarity, the couples on the street seemed the same species as me. Maybe it would be alright. I continued to walk and observe, the night dying and coming to live, back and forth, endlessly before my eyes.

The world came to life again for the thousandth time when I first spotted him. It was Mr. H, dressed in the latest fashion, walking with a woman. There was something wrong about his face, or something different, anyways. I realized it was a smile. The small woman he was with was gorgeous, dressed to an equal caliber. She wore her long, black, curly hair loose. She had brilliant caramel eyes. I couldn’t help but admire her physique, slight but muscular and curvy. She looked up at him and smiled and when she did, two perfect dimples revealed themselves. That was when I knew I knew who she was. For a second, my eyes flashed from her to him. He was staring straight at me. When they neared me they stopped in the middle of the sidewalk, a few feet away from me.

Mr. H cocked his head slightly to the side and stared for a second. He smirked.

“No one’s ever going to believe you.”