The alley twists
into a daydream landscape.
Impossibly tall buildings
rise
all around us.
Towers
lean
at odd angles.
Some have crumbled
to reveal
twisted metal skeletons.
Hermes guides an elder woman
by her elbow
past rows of rusted metal chariots.
Her bare footsteps
through the rubble
bring agonized winces
to my lips.
Sallow-skinned daimones
with sunken eyes
follow,
singing a lament.
"Even my chores will end,"
Hermes states.
To them?
To her?
To me?
"Someday,
when the last mortal
surrenders her last breath
and shuffles
toward the graveyard of humanity,
then, I will be at rest."
My eyes reopen
on the familiar streets of Thebes.
Safe.
Except for the shivers.
I carried a mild chill
into the dream.
Bone-biting ice
followed me home.