The Underworld

Every time I get to this part of the story, it reminds me of all the times I've had to go to the underworld. Everybody who wants to be an adult has got to go to the underworld. The underworld in the story is a physical place. Or is it?

Stories are interesting in that way. Sometimes when a story says a rose is a rose, it is a rose. But then, there are times when the story says a rose, and the rose is not only a rose, it is also something else. When I think about the underworld, I think about the feelings inside myself that I might not want to look at too closely, or even admit that the feelings are a part of me. But going to the underworld also makes me think about the times in my life when I didn't know what I was doing or why I was doing it, but I knew I had to do it. Those are the times like what both Cupid and Psyche are going through right now. Neither one of them can be the person they used to be. But they are not yet the person they are going to be. They don't even know who that person is. Neither Cupid nor Psyche can become new people—and by that I mean adults—until the childish part of themselves dies.

Cupid had been lying in bed like a dead person in a casket. Psyche had been lying in the basement like someone put in a grave. Cupid's "death" was close to an end, but Psyche's was not yet complete. These deaths and underworlds are not the same for men and women. I could try to explain that, but the story is jumping up and down on my foot and pulling on my shirt because it wants to know what is going to happen to Psyche. Isn't that interesting? Even a story doesn't know how it is going to turn out because who knows what a storyteller will say once he or she gets going good. Sometimes even I don't know until I hear the words coming out of my mouth.

Chapter end