thesphererp | Memory share.

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Memory share.

[This version of Chant is from the London version, and can be seen in it's entirety here. I've taken some liberties with it obviously, due to the nature of it being a staged show.]

That was not six months. That was not six months. You hear your own voice in your head above the clamorin’ of the train, above the sound of the papers that your husband’s shuffling around so that two of ya would avoid talking. Not that ya got much to talk about right now, not when the train is so close to up top and you’re so angry that ya can spit nails and venom. When the two of you fight underground it’s bad enough--to fight so close to the surface would be catastrophic to the mortals that you’re already trying so hard to protect. They’re gonna have hard enough of a time considering that it’s still basically the end of July and that they’d ain’t even had a spring to act like a cushion in order to get things starting growing when you came up. Then again ya can’t remember a proper spring neither or a fall that he ain’t carved out of your time in order to fill the ever-growing void in your husband’s chest.

When ya first signed the contract, when ya’d first eaten them pomegranate seeds, it’d seemed romantic—that clause about coming to when your husband called ya and letting him decide when you’d go back up top. At first it had been small, them pieces of time he’d taken, but as centuries had gone on what had started out as minutes or days that ya didn’t mind had turned into weeks and months. Your brother stored up the sun so summers were always too hot and winters were always too cold and your husband started to take advantage of it as the prayers that you heard for a good spring and fall this year had fallen into bitter beggings for the release of death.

Then Hades would show up and over them a contract for an end to their earthly sufferings and the beginnings of their ones as shades as Hadestown grew and grew.

Gods above and below you hate it. Ya resent it every time. The sound of the foundries and the factories makin’ things for the rich folks up above who ain’t ever gonna need to worry about starving as long as they got money. The poor ain’t ever gonna have any option but dying or dying and becomin’ the shades that make hell go around. And then there’s the stones of the never endin’ wall he’s building, higher than anything above ground, and setting stone and stone on top of it just to keep giving the shades something to do for the rest of their eternities. You hate it. You hate everything about it. But ya can’t hate him.

Gathering up your hair from your neck, ya shake it out, and at least if nothin’ else Hadestown will be cooler than the sun Up Top, or so ya think anyway, until the train comes into the station, and ya find yourself taking hold of your husband’s hand as you step off the train. It’s a sort of reflex, older than civilizations, going back to the first time he’d brought ya down after he’d laid ya in your mama’s garden. His skin is cool and it reminds ya of better times, and for a moment ya dare to hope…

But then ya can hear it already, even here, the sound of the machinery and the shades workin’ it: Oh, you gotta keep your head low
If you wanna keep your head
Oh, you gotta keep your head low
Keep your head, keep your head low
Oh, you gotta keep your head low
If you wanna keep your head
Oh, you gotta keep your head

Then ya realize what you thought was the residual heat from the train isn’t. Instead, it’s Hadestown itself, and it’s hotter than ya can ever remember it being. There’s a part of ya that wants to slam down the basket that’s overly filled with things you’re gonna need to get through the Winter, but it’s too precious for that. Still there’s anger as you set it onto the platform at the station. Shrugging off your fur coat and angrily throwing it over your arm, you can’t keep the disgust out of your voice as you spit the words at your husband as he removes his stupid damned glasses that he needs when he comes to summon ya down: “In the coldest time of year
Why is it so hot down here?
Hotter than a crucible
It ain't right and it ain't natural!”

The words are sharp and harsh and above all other things angry, because you can see how bad things are now, and how Hades’ chest puffs up as he responds, his voice deeper than the deepest pits of Tartarus. Hell, he even looks proud of what he’s done as you stare at him in obvious anger and disgust. Gods, how can he be so damned blind?!: “Lover, you were gone so long
Lover, I was lonesome
So I built a foundry
In the ground beneath your feet
Here, I fashioned things of steel
Oil drums and automobiles
Then I kept that furnace fed
With the fossils of the dead
Lover, when you feel that fire
Think of it as my desire
Think of it as my desire for you!”
He reaches out to touch you then, and you just raise your hand before he can even come close. Your anger is hotter than his foundries, and rolling against the sweat that’s dripping down your spine. Instead, you pick up your basket and start walking, moving towards the palace at the center of the factories which act as the first line of defense of the walls that your husband has created to keep you “safe.” Safe. It sounds like bullshit even to your ears normally, never mind when you’re this angry and it feels like a gilded cage more than anything else.

As you walk, you can hear a prayer, and the voice is familiar. It belongs to the poet’s wife. In your mind’s eye you see her at the beginning of the summer, so bright and full of life as ya handed her your flask and drew her into the dance. Orpheus is your favorite mortal that you’ve known in a long time (even if he technically counts as a cousin or some such thing. Godly family tree’s ain’t exactly ever been known for their clarity) and you were cheering for him and the woman he loves. But you know Euryidice’s voice, once warm and full and it’s becoming fainter and weaker as you slam your boots in each harsh step that’s even more fierce than the sun on the hottest of days. Setting down your basket, you just scowl at the husband who’s slowing his pace to keep up with ya, as if he’s frightened to let you out of his sight again and spit: “In the darkest time of year
Why is it so bright down here?
Brighter than a carnival
It ain't right and it ain't natural!”

The light here is brighter than the sun was when he pulled that dog whistle to summon you down, and it hurts your eyes with the fakeness of it. Somehow it’s not as bad to his eyes, but to your own, it’s too damned bright and too damn artificial and lacking what the sun should be. But as always Hades has a response for you: “Lover, you were gone so long
Lover, I was lonesome
So I laid a power grid
In the ground on which you stood
And wasn't it electrifying
When I made the neon shine!
Silver screen, cathode ray
Brighter than the light of day
Lover, when you see that glare
Think of it as my despair
Think of it as my despair for you!”

It’s easy for you to forget that part of it in these roles that both of ya play (or that both sides of you play anyway) how much he misses ya when you’re gone. Whatever else and there is a lot else your husband does love you so this time when you stop to look at one another, you let his fingers brush along your cheek. It’s gentle—Hades has always been a gentle giant with ya since the first time he saw ya in the garden—and there is a tentativeness in the gesture and in his eyes that hurts ya all the way down to your heart so it’s all ya can do to nod at him in response.

Hades, your lover and your husband since the world began takes your hand in his own, and that too is a call back to the first time that he meet ya in your Mama’s garden, holding it to his cold lips for a long moment. You want to touch him in response, because you do love him even with everything else, but you can hear it again, the prayer coming even fainter, the girl’s voice losing even more of herself as she asks for shelter from the winds and the storms that your fighting is stirring up above. But the goddess of livin’ things and spring and summertime ain’t what’s hearing it now. No, this is the part of your power that’s aligned with death and with the comin’ of that too damned harsh winter. The girl ain’t got long and you know it, and worse you know from the way your husband’s eyes meet your own that he’s hearing it too and you can’t keep that angry despair from your face.

So, you jerk your hand away from his lips, ignoring the sharp pain that flashes in the dark earth tones of his eyes. More than that, you take a few steps away from him and start walking once more, leaving him to scramble to catch up with you. Your only response to that is to just drop back behind him, so that he has your voice over the massive, broad line of his shoulder blades: “Every year it’s getting worse!
Hadestown, hell on Earth!
Did you think I’d be impressed
With this neon Necropolis?!
Lover what have you become?
Coal cars and oil drums,
Warehouse walls and factory floors
I don’t know you anymore!
And the mean time up above,
The harvest dies and people starve!
Oceans rise and overflow!
It ain’t right and it ain’t natural!”

For the first time in a very long time, your husband’s anger is actually towards you and not towards the situation that you’re placed in, and you just watch his eyes harden into flint and the black diamonds that dot the black dress he prefers you to wear down here--as if his shades could ever forget that ya ain’t the same as them and ain’t the boss’ husband, and ain’t someone to be talked to or to touch. But his anger bites, digging into your skin as ya try and draw steel across your heart but ya ain’t the same as he is and plants wither and die in the face of such sharp and arctic cold. Hades’ voice matches his eyes when he speaks, and you have a sudden and terrible fear. Even before he finishes talking, you know exactly what he’s going to do to that poor girl, and for the first time, you believe that this man who you’ve loved since almost before there were humans was someone that you could actually grow to hate!

“Lover, everything I do
I do it for the love of you
If you don't even want my love
I'll give it to someone who does
Someone grateful for their fate
Someone who appreciates
The comforts of a gilded cage
And doesn't try to fly away
The moment Mother Nature calls
Someone who can love these walls
That hold her close and keep her safe
And think of them as my embrace
of you.”

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

You loved your husband and then hated him...

[She pauses thoughtfully, her voice remaining soft and sweet.]

I am sorry. I never loved the man who kept me. I am... uncertain if we were married but he kept me there for some time. Until a thief chose to steal me from him. [Her view of those events are a little unclear.]

I didn't hate him. Don't hate him either, but it was the first time that I thought that I could.

[And it happened again and more when he took the girl up to his offices to try and make her jealous. And even again once the boy was there. But hatin' Hades just ain't in her, at least not yet.]

Whatcha mean, kept ya?!

[There may be a dangerous tone in the goddess' voice, one that mortals back home would have flinched from. There's a reason that she's got so many names.]

Oh. I misunderstood. [She pauses and then adds.] I apologize. I have never hated and I'm not sure what that feels like.

[She's still learning the different harsh emotions. Her sister is much better at such things and while Angel has felt those feelings through their connection, it isn't exactly the same.]

We might have been married. I'm not sure. He told me so but Johnathan said we weren't. I'm not a citizen in any of the Earth countries. It's all a little confusing but he kept me in his home. He said he wanted a child.

Johnathan stole me from him. Johnathan is a friend of mine. A thief actually. He taught me how to lock pick and said I should do that whenever I'm locked up again. He seemed to think it'd keep happening. [And he was not wrong.]

Ya ain't married to someone unless ya agree to it. That's how marriage work. Did ya agree?

That's what Johnathan said too.

[She pauses and then adds.]

And no. Not exactly. He bought me and said that I couldn't leave. I didn't want to hurt anyone so I stayed until Johnathan came to steal... something else, I think. He found me by accident but I don't think he liked Dusk very much, so he took me instead.

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