XENIA

A cold early-July wind sliced through the warped wooden slats of his office. The door blew shut behind him, slamming home like a jail cell gate. His boots crunched the dusting of snow that had followed him in, as he trudged across the plank floor to his desk, each step sending a lance through his aged knees, joints furious at the extra weight they were obliged to support. He hadn’t always been heavy, and he couldn’t remember eating, and yet in those rare moments when he stood up straight, he couldn’t see his toes.

The desk chair creaked, the chair that had stoically suffered his bulk for more years than he could recall, the chair that never fit properly to his hips. He spent an obligatory five seconds wriggling, trying to become comfortable in it, and failed.

An enormous binder, open to its final page, bowed the center of the desk. Another numberless milestone was approaching, of a kind he had stopped celebrating an eternity ago. The top drawer of the desk contained a pair of beaten wire-rimmed spectacles, with two overlapping attachments that further magnified his vision. He perched these atop his nose and lowered his face to the page, squinting, silently mouthing the last column of entries. The cramped letters in their tiny print blurred together, but for the second time this year he checked each record and verified its accuracy.

As he stood with a firework crackling of vertebrae, a faint, fluttering hope stirred in his chest. Had he felt this before, perhaps the previous year or the year before that? He couldn’t remember; last year was ten thousand years ago, or so it felt. But he breathed warmth into that hope, trying to ignite its tepid embers without extinguishing it. His withered heart suggested, timidly, that this year could be the last. When they set him free. When they end his pain. When he could set fire to his contract with a flame ignited by the heat of his accumulated yearning.

He carried that fragile cobweb of hope through the heavy door behind his desk, and into the echoing, high-vaulted workshop. A grimy leather tool belt hung on the wall just inside; he cinched it around his waist with bent, arthritic fingers. Here, upon a workbench scarred and pitted with hammer dents and chisel cuts, was where he worked his magic, or so the ignorant masses believed. And it was magic, of a sort. In the vastness of this drafty, ice-chilled warehouse, time stretched out and thinned itself like dough through a press. As long as it took, the allotted hours would suffice, and his work took a very, very long time.

He sighed, arranged his tools, and began to ply his trade. One by one, hundred by hundred, the fruits of his labors piled up. His knuckles and back ached. His head ached. How many times did he dream of giving up, of hurling his weariness and hollowed-out pride as far away as he could, praying they would not return? But the gossamer threads of his hope sustained him. This could be the end. Gods, it could! Were he to stop now they would simply punish him, corporally, and he would be returned to his labors all the same.

Time kept stretching until it frayed at the edges, its fabric so threadbare that the centuries parted like cheesecloth and lost all meaning. His warehouse darkened with the shadows cast by the hills of his gewgaws and knickknacks, his boxes and parcels and sundries, each one a masterwork. He toiled through the bitter days of thin light and thinner air, and through the frigid nights, where out of scratched and grimed windows he could glimpse a brittle sky of frozen black velvet. The hills became mountains, the mountains became massifs, but the warehouse held everything he made, until the millennia had piled up alongside his wares, and one day, one day out of a million, he was finished.

It was late October.

Now came the labor he most dreaded. Each and every object he had made needed to be carried from the warehouse, toted into the skirling winds and ice-edged air, and loaded with painstaking care. There was no one to help him. Elves were but a myth. With those same twisted fingers and creaking arms that burned after the long age of crafting, he lifted each article and brought it outside.

This was when he most needed his guttering hope to carry him. Before a subjective year had passed, his legs began to cramp from cold and overwork. Inside of a decade his joints were screaming a ceaseless protest. In a century, all was numbness and frozen bruises. Back and forth he shuffled, slower with each trip, his boot-soles dragging troughs across the packed earth floor of the workshop, troughs that would surely be furrows as tall as olive trees were the ground not infused with ice.

It would be the easiest thing in the world to let gravity have its way, to lay his cheek upon the frosted soil and retreat into a doomed sleep. But his hope, by now no more substantial than a spider’s breath, was enough.

He had done so much. This could be the end. It had to be the end.

As the year drew to a close, he set down the final parcel and bent over, hands on his knees, breath condensing to crystals that clung to his crusted beard. Somehow, as was always true, everything fit. The wooden conveyance that held his wares contorted space the way his warehouse warped time. And so he had finished all but the last of his labors.

“Make ready, Santa.”

Hades materialized out of the gloom, leading eight doomed souls bound into their antlered forms. It was not for him to know why they were being punished, but he knew their tortures could not be greater than his. All they had to do was fly.

He whispered his hope in a wheeze through wind-chapped lips. “This will be the last time, won’t it? One more flight, and I can lay down my burdens?”

“My answer is the same as always,” Hades chuckled. “Complete the journey, Santa Claus, and then I will consider the terms of your contract.”

He cringed. “Your scouring aeons have stripped me of everything, Hades. At least address me by the name men once feared.”

Hades smiled. “As you wish, King Sisyphus of Ephyra. As you wish.”

* * *

He flew above the world. In some dark recess of his mind, he knew it was beautiful, the lights of mankind like fallen stars amidst the forests and rivers and fields of the Earth. But time had burned his ability to appreciate beauty down to a cinder. Only the thinnest thread of smoke still rose from it.

His fingers stiff in the high altitude, Sisyphus gripped his list; he squinted at it through a spray of falling snow. Then down, down, directing his reindeer to land on a tilted rooftop. With a cold-befogged sigh he hefted his sack, squeezed down the chimney, rummaged for the proper toys. Filled the stockings. Set down the parcels. Ate the cookies and drank the milk, which had once tasted sweet but now choked his throat like sawdust. Then back up the chimney where the eight tortured beasts waited.

Off to the next house.

And the next.

And the next.

House after house. The subjective hours turned into subjective weeks and years and centuries. All the while, the wind whistled past while the world spooled out beneath the sleigh.

Below him waited a small home in a large field, like a lone playing piece on a blank white board. Sisyphus circled above, his furrowed brow rimed with frost. There was a chimney, but its bricks had caved in and collapsed onto the roof slates. He directed the reindeer to land on the snowy ground.

The front door was adorned with a scraggly wreath. He shouldered his pack and nudged the door open with his foot. Locks were no impediment to him, and not announcing his arrival was a vital part of his remit.

He could see perfectly well in the dark, but six steps down the hall, a light clicked on, blinding him. His sack of toys thumped to the floor as he flung up his hands to shield his eyes.

“Who are you?”

When he’d blinked away the spots, he beheld a girl, maybe eleven or twelve years old, dressed in dark green pajamas. She held an unwavering device against her shoulder, sighting down its length aimed at his chest. Some vague understanding moved in him; the thing was a deadly weapon of the modern age.

“I…”

This was outside all of Sisyphus’s long experience. Children should not be awake during his visits. Children should not see him. That was how it worked! He trembled in his battered boots, not with fear, but with sudden hope. All he had to do, he realized, was take a menacing step forward, and his punishment might end. This girl could do what Hades would not.

“I’m… don’t you know who I am?”

“I know you’re dressed up like Santa, but you’re really a robber. I think you’ve stolen lots of things already.” She indicated the sack with a flick of her eyes.

“No, I…no. These are for you. For children, like you. I have a…” He focused on her face, stirring up knowledge like silt. “I have a t-shirt you wanted. The Taylor Swift one.”

He reached for the bag, but the girl barked back, “No! Papa says I should tell you to keep your hands where I can see them. And everyone wants Taylor Swift stuff. Look, mister, I know the law. I can shoot you right here.” Her fingered tightened on the metal trigger.

Sisyphus stared. “What law is that?” He kept his hands raised and still.

“Papa says we got a Stand Your Ground In Your Castle law. If bad people try to come in, we should shoot them to protect ourselves.”

He tried to read something in her expression though he was far out of practice. She looked nervous but resolute, confident for someone so young. But she couldn’t suppress a tiny tic at the edge of her mouth.

“What happened to your chimney?” he asked her.

She worked her jaw a little. “Fell over when I was little. Mama says it’s too expensive to fix.”

“Where are your parents now?” He hadn’t seen any of the new horseless chariots on the property.

She seemed conflicted about how to answer. He could see her wrestle with the desire not to admit she was alone. She rubbed her thumb along the body of the weapon before answering in a defiant voice. “Working. They both clean at Hillsborough General.”

“Even on Christmas Eve?”

“Mama says it all counts for overtime and money’s always tight. But why do you care? I still think you should leave.”

He nearly did.

“Can I sit, if I promise to keep my hands out? I want to tell you a story. It won’t take long, and when I’m done, you can decide to shoot me or let me go.”

The girl appeared to ponder for a few seconds, then nodded. She kept the weapon raised.

He eased himself down awkwardly without using his hands, wincing as his knees complained. “Yes. Right. A long time ago, there was an evil king named…named Sisyphus.”

“I know that name,” said the girl. “I think he was in Percy Jackson. Wasn’t he being punished for something?”

So the tales of my suffering have endured? And yet she does not recognize me.

“Yes. He…he was. Sisyphus founded a city called Ephyra, which was later known as Corinth, in the southern reaches of the land you now call Greece. Sisyphus was very powerful and very cruel. He delighted in deceit and…and bullying. He thought that if people were afraid of him, he would be a more successful king.”

He licked his dry lips. The girl only stared and waited, though she had lifted her eye from the length of her weapon.

“Have you ever heard of Xenia?”

The girl frowned and shook her head.

“It meant…it means ‘honor of guests.’ It was the highest law of Greece. That if strangers should come to your house, you should feed them, and give them wine, and not even ask their names until they are sated. Should they need a roof, you provide it. And when they leave, you should send them away with…”

His voice caught. The irony never lost its sharp edge. The punishment should suit the offense, Hades had told him.

“…with gifts.”

“And Sisyphus,” said the girl. “Did he do those things? I’m guessing he didn’t if he was a bully.”

“No.” His voice came out in a whisper. He coughed his throat clear. “No, he…sometimes he would invite guests to his house, and…and murder them at his table, or in their beds, and show his subjects the severed heads as a warning. Show them he could do as he pleased, even violate the most sacred laws. It delighted his cruelty and made all his subjects afraid.”

The girl pulled a face. “Why was he so mean?”

Sisyphus felt his mouth tremble and tears start in his eyes. “I…I don’t remember. There must have been something broken inside of him.”

“So what happened to him? Is that why he was getting punished, even though he was a king?”

“Yes. That is why. He was crafty, was Sisyphus, and he tricked both Hades and Persephone, but one can only outrun the gods for so long.”

“I know about the gods,” said the girl. “The Greek gods, I mean. Like I said, I read the Percy Jackson books. Hades is the god of Death.”

Sisyphus blinked, nonplussed. Close enough. He continued on. “Hades finally caught Sisyphus and punished him with…an eternity of torment. Death was not consequence enough for the sins he had committed. He had violated Xenia many times and in the worst ways, and for that, there was no punishment too great, no penalty too severe. Even today, he is still suffering for his crimes, though he regrets them terribly.”

The girl tilted her head. “That’s a strange story to tell on Christmas.”

“Maybe. But Xenia is still part of us, or should be. And the Gods still hold it dear, and will find ways to punish those who betray its principles. I am a stranger come into your house, and I mean you no harm, and would not have you anger Hades by committing the same sins as…as Sisyphus did.”

She peered at him with open suspicion. “Maybe you’re saying that just so I don’t shoot you. And Hades isn’t real.”

“That doesn’t matter,” he told her. “Any god or goddess worth their name would feel the same. I’m not personally asking for anything. I just…I want you to know. There is no good deed that outshines kindness to a stranger, especially one in need.”

She thrust her chin toward the sack of toys. “You don’t look like you need anything.”

“No,” he admitted. “I have…I have everything I deserve. But I still want you to have your gift. I’m going to stand and back up to the door, but leave the sack. You can reach into it and take the first thing your fingers touch. Then you can aim your weapon again while I come back for the bag.”

She puckered her lips, clearly suspecting a trick, but she didn’t shoot as he braced against the wall and pushed to his feet, then backed six steps away. When he had stopped, she inched forward, keeping the weapon aimed unerringly at his torso. Never taking her eyes from him, and keeping one hand on the trigger, she crouched down, propped the weapon on one knee, and reached blindly into the bag. After a second of groping, she withdrew a piece of cloth and shook it out, unfurling a white t-shirt with a red heart pierced by two swords. The phrase “I can do it with a broken heart” was printed over the design, and below that, the enigmatic words “The Tortured Poets Department.”

The girl’s breath caught, and the weapon dipped.

“I’m going to take my bag now and go to the next house,” he said. “I want you to have a happy Christmas. And remember how you practiced Xenia this night. You made a traveler safe in your house and were rewarded for it. As you should be.”

* * *

An unknowable time later, Santa Claus returned to the North Pole, landing his sleigh unsteadily on a runway covered in snow. Hades stood nearby in a black shroud untouched by any flake; he always waited, eager to reclaim the souls inhabiting his reindeer.

“Another year done,” said Sisyphus wearily. His feet landing on the ice sent a throbbing pain up his spine. “And tomorrow, I know, it will all begin again.”

Hades waved a hand at the reindeer, which dissolved into white dust that lost itself amidst the snowfall.

“Sisyphus. Walk with me.”

Confused, he followed the God of the Underworld back to his office. At the door, Hades stopped.

“Sisyphus of Ephyra, I have consulted with the lords of Mount Olympus, and we have decided to dissolve your contract.”

The slow movement of time somehow slowed further, until it seemed to halt its march altogether. Sisyphus held his breath.

“You will find that many things have changed during the long years of your sentence. Time has moved on faster than you can imagine. But you have always been a resourceful man.”

Hades motioned to the door, which was no longer wood, but a black rectangle cut out of the world. “You may walk through when you’re ready, and resume your own march of years. But if you wonder what you might do with yourself, I will say that the world is in great need of Xenia. Someday your soul will come to my realm for judgement, and the scales of your life are badly balanced, son of Aeolus.”

Sisyphus trembled and fell to his knees. “I…I will do what I can, for as long as I can. I will act as though Xenia were branded upon my eyes.”

Hades gave the slightest of nods. “Then until our next meeting.”

The God of the Underworld vanished, leaving Sisyphus alone to face the door that would lead to a future without torment. Or would it? Was this some final trick of the gods? Would he walk through and find himself once more in his office?

No. He didn’t think so.

Sisyphus, one-time King of Ephyra, stepped into his future.