Cupid's Counseling

Happy Easter everyone! Here is a teaser of a throwback short story I started when I was in undergrad. I had done this as a follow up to “The Heart of Death,” a short story I published in Adventures in Camland. In this excerpt, Hades and Persephone are sitting down to counseling with Cupid and unpacking some of their grievances. Enjoy.

It was not just Cupid’s job to fix couple’s problems or tell them when to call it quits but to help couples remember why they fell in love in the first place, if in fact it was love they fell into and not lust. But when these two came in, for the first time in his life, he would have recommended a legal separation and then immediately a divorce.

Hades, the god of the underworld and his wife Persephone, a goddess of harvest and seasonal change had stepped into his office. He instantly wanted to laugh because there clearly had to be some mistake or a cruel joke as to how these two people got together. But then Hermes, Zeus’ little messenger fairy came in and ordered they go through counseling and that if Cupid failed, he would have his wings clipped.

Now Cupid wasn’t afraid of Zeus’ empty threats but he figured he had better do as he was told, lest there be a feud between him and Aphrodite. So he ushered the couple into his office and had them take a seat so he could begin deciphering their problems.

“Well, first of all, let me say that there is nothing wrong with your marriage if you are coming to couple’s counseling,” he began and quickly chased it with the thought Except if you are a god of death and a goddess of life. Yet he continued, “By coming to counseling, it actually means you love each other enough to want to make the marriage work.” However wrong it may be. “So what seems to be the issue or issues?” he asked, hoping to get to the bottom of things, if it ever could be reached.

“He’s cold,” the goddess spoke first. “And thinks I’m silly for wanting to return to my mother.”

“I just think you are a little too old to be that attached to your mother. And I only seem cold because I don’t have your unrealistic, sunshine view of the world.”

“Its not unrealistic. If only you would spend time with humans, you would get to see that they are not all too bad.”

“I do spend time with humans,” he retorted.

“Dead ones. Try some live ones. You might find you like them.”