by K.M. Hale

“Do you ever dream?”

If Hermes were to have asked a millennia ago the answer would have been a simple no. For how could Charon have dreamed when he was obliged to the dead? His feet stayed firmly on his skiff as it bobbed and swayed on the river while he waited for the next shade to board. Mortals were so often impatient to meet death.

Now, however, it was complicated and the ferryman felt ashamed. His eyes trailed so easily upward to the entrance of the Underworld where the sun parted the darkness. Waiting, he was always waiting, not for the moaning spirit but for the soft fluttering of winged sandals. For delicately tanned feet to land on the ashen ground and leave small pockets of green and crocus and wild strawberries with every step. When Hermes smiled, by the gods, Charon felt the brittle vines and roots that wove through his ribcage shiver with a flicker of life. What right did he have? This Chthonic daemon, this decomposing man, filled with a fluttering seed of hope nestled in his cavities.

He could not pinpoint the moment when this began. These hazes, filled with thoughts of when Hermes might return to him, as sweet as liquid sunshine. How Charon might leave his post to drag his tired bones and half flesh across the docks to meet the flying god at the edge.

Were these dreams?

“I find myself wishing more than dreaming,” Charon’s chin tilted towards his willowy half-skeleton chest as he gazed down at the messenger god on the dock. If the ferryman took one step backwards, he would be back on the safety of his skiff, but he felt bold with his wanting. Had Hermes noticed how the ferryman leaned towards him like a poppy towards the light? How the pale of Charon turned pink with desire?

“A wish is but a yearning of the heart, a dream spoken,” Hermes grinned. “Tell me, friend, what is it you wish for? A larger boat? The river brimming with coin? I can only imagine having insatiable desires in such a place as this.”

They were arrogant, Charon’s wishes; the quiet pleading he invoked to the gods to bring the mortal realm to heel. For flood, plague, war—for death to march through their cities and drag them down through the earth to his docks. The gods thought it work, reclaiming souls, yet to Charon it was an act of selfish pleasure. The shades beg and scream for mercy, but he would not hear them over the beat of sandal wings. The coin was worth nothing to him. The shades only means to an end.

It was Hermes that Charon paddles for all of time, wades through the river of souls and rocks against the lapping wakes. For the moment he delivered, passing between hands, a small but holy touch. To Charon those moments, fleeting as they may be, were everything. He wishes, dreams, of Hermes.

It seemed so impossible to articulate.

“I wish…” Charon turned his face slightly so that the fleshy man of himself could be seen. He knew he was not handsome, not as the other deities and nymphs and gods. He understood the stark white of his bones and the glowing blue of his eyes made him less. Made him horrible. For Hermes he wished to soften. “To see the world as you do, perhaps. The wind bends to you. There is nowhere you cannot go. The world is yours as it is for the birds and the sun and the moon. While I… Well. There is only so far the river flows. It bends as it pleases and I am only to follow it.”

Hermes moved closer to the space where the dock met ground; the grass and flowers and berries bloomed joyously under his warmth. Charon felt something akin to jealousy towards the fluttering green.

“There is beauty here too. There is something to be said about the comforts of steadiness, to know there is something always promised when you turn. Your eyes have just grown accustomed.”

“How easy for a god with no tethers. You are not beholden to stillness, your opinion is soaked in luxury!”

Hermes laughed brightly. It reminded Charon of the trumpet of daffodils. “Believe me, my friend! There is something enchanting here and I find myself missing it terribly when I’m away. The skies call, of course, but so do the dark waters of the Styx.”

Charon felt a nagging question catch in his throat. A budding of something scarlet and tender. How could he articulate it? Hermes gazed back at him with a mischievous smile, an auburn curl falling between his brows. The ferryman could ask, simply and without suspicion, what it could possibly be that brought him over and over, other than his messenger duties. He could scoff and yawn and act as if the answer did not tear him up inside. Pull out the roots of his heart.

Before Charon could utter a sound, Hermes took a deep inhale until his chest ballooned with his own words. His feet left the ground and Charon felt a sudden coldness at the realization of his departure. It was too soon, their time too short—

A golden hand reached out towards the ferryman.

“Come with me?”

Charon stared at the hand. The improbable, small, soft, godly hand.

“Come with me, Charon? I want to take you somewhere.”

“I cannot—“

“Of course you can!” Hermes lunged forward and wove himself around Charon before he could refuse in earnest. “The dead have nothing but time.”

✿

The open air pulling at his limbs reminded Charon of the river. He had fallen once and the water took him; the strength of it, the lost shades that swam through it, had pulled his body so easily that he was helpless. It wasn’t until he had washed up on a muddy bank that he could right himself again. It had humiliated him so deeply that he had not fallen since. Yet as he gazed upon Hermes, who cut through the thundering stream of air with ease, Charon felt that Hermes needed no bank. He was not helpless.

Lake, valley, field, and shooting star passed them like shadows as the messenger god led them through the Underworld. Though it was not earth’s beauty beneath them, Charon felt a sense of gratitude still. Hermes was granting the ferryman’s wish. What did he get out of it, Charon wondered. For he could not return a fraction of such majesty.

It wasn’t until they came upon a curtain of stars and gates of horn that Charon knew where they were. Hermes took them down until their feet met plush, damp moss. The ground did not bloom as it did by the river, the air did not glow as it did at the dock when Hermes arrived; the land just was.

Hermes released Charon to walk towards the gate through which mountainous trees glowed in the fog. “The Land of Dreams!”

“You are clever,” Charon mumbled. He stood unmoving as Hermes went to enter.

“Come, come! The sands of your freedom fall slowly, but I do not wish to waste another grain.”

Charon could not refuse him. Did not wish to. So he moved a few paces behind the messenger god who skipped with the excitement of a boy. Inside the fog draped over them like wool. It was warm and heavy and almost brought Charon to his knees.

“Only a little further and you may rest your bones with me, my friend.”

The words came so easily as if they did not rattle Charon from the inside out. So charming was Hermes with his sweet words picked from the vine. It made the ferryman feel drunk and sick and perhaps a bit hazy as he felt when Hermes was nothing but a memory in his mind. Charon should thank the gods for such a gift.

Hermes stopped at a shorter tree whose branches and leaves grew wider than the rest. He removed his hat and satchel, laid down against the roots, and pulled his cloak into a blanket across his lap. With a smile he patted the ground next to him; Charon obediently followed. They laid side-by-side on the bed of moss and faced each other.

It was so quiet.

“Dream with me,” Hermes whispered. The soft meat of his cheeks grew pink and round with his happiness. It had felt like a dream from the moment Hermes came to the river and whisked Charon away like a beautiful nymph. How much further could he sink?

Charon felt the rush of boldness twist in his chest again. Something tapped against his ribs, something balmy and verdant. “I understand why the poets call you Giver of Joy.”

“They only wish to adulate because I am a god. The poets know nothing of my wicked tongue and nimble fingers.”

There came an itching at Charon’s chest again and he slid a hand under his cloak to press against his tunic. “Joy can be found in your mischief. Your laugh is like wind through willow branches.”

Hermes grew brighter. Drew closer. “Do not tell me you bend for my godhood too?”

“I would not stoke your ego. Your pride would make you too heavy to fly,” Charon grinned.

“Hark! He blasphemes the god of travel! Of message and shepherds!”

They laughed together. Their legs kicked and tangled under the cloak. Charon spoke honestly: “My compliments are true. I would bend not for your blood but for you, Hermes.”

Perhaps it was far too raw. Perhaps when he returned to the river and his skiff and his souls, Charon would come to hate himself for speaking so affectionately. Still, he could not contain the ivy of emotions that spilled from his heart and climbed out of his throat looking for Hermes.

Charon opened his mouth to weed his sincerity from their dreaming. All that came out was a croaked sigh.

Pain shook his fragile frame as something in his chest forced its way against his skin. It thumped and throbbed—panicked, Charon threw the blanket and his cloak from himself. A gaping hole ripped through his tunic along his chest as green serpents slithered between his ribs and the fingers that tried to hold them in. Their heads drew closer to Hermes who stared in wonder.

Charon coughed at the pain expanding in his chest. When he looked into his boney hand it was dotted with delicate red. The serpents wriggled and barbed and twisted further towards Hermes’ warmth. They trembled and strained against Charon, starved for the messenger gods touch. His affection. At last their heads popped. The flesh of them fluttered in a quiet massacre of silky, wine red to their laps.

Hermes reached out and caressed their heads, dripping with viscera. “Roses.”

❀✿❀

K.M. Hale (they/she) is a 27-year-old writer from the East Coast. They are constantly testing the bounds of genre and storytelling with queerness and self-reflection. Their work has been accepted by: The Icarus Writing Collective, Missive Mag, and All Existing.