The Long Way Down

It was nearly closing time at the airport. The terminals buzzed with the dull hum of fluorescent lights, the occasional rolling suitcase, and the gentle snore of a weary traveler curled across vinyl seats. At Gate 13B, the Cinnabon stand was still open, miraculously, and a man in a slate-gray hoodie leaned casually against the counter, his golden sunglasses pushed up onto his head like a halo made of Ray-Bans.

“Extra frosting,” he said, flashing the cashier a grin. “My companion takes his pastries very seriously.”

The cashier blinked at the man’s sandals—odd for July in Minnesota—and then at the jackal-headed silhouette seated at a table just beyond.

“Uh... sure,” she said, ringing up the order.

Hermes waltzed back to the table, balancing the tray like a waiter with centuries of experience, which, to be fair, he had.

“I told them you’d smite me if I didn’t bring the good stuff,” he said as he slid the box across.

Anubis did not look up immediately. He was dressed sharp, as always—black button-down, gold-threaded cuffs, and a linen vest the color of sun-bleached bone. His canine ears twitched.

“I would not smite you,” he said, opening the box with reverence. “I would weigh your heart against a feather. It is a more civilized approach.”

Hermes chuckled and flopped into the seat opposite him, stealing a bit of icing with a plastic fork. “Yeah, and the feather always wins. Which is funny, considering all the feathers I’ve seen fall over the years.”

“You collect them?”

Hermes tilted his head, thinking. “I don’t know if I’d say collect. More like… notice them. Here one minute, gone the next. Bit like…” He trailed off, biting into his own bun.

Anubis made a quiet sound that might have been agreement, or might have been appreciation for the cinnamon’s sacred spice. “There is something eternal in the way these pastries stick to your fingers,” he said, holding one up. “Like memory.”

“Or regret.”

“Or sugar.”

Hermes laughed again, though softer this time.

They sat in silence, save for the occasional peeling of paper off sticky pastries and the murmur of overhead announcements—mostly delayed flights and gate changes. They didn’t need to speak, not really. But words had their place, especially when circling the things no one dared to name.

“You know,” Hermes said after a long while, staring at the rolling conveyor belt of empty luggage carts, “this place is kind of perfect.”

Anubis quirked an ear. “You enjoy airports?”

“Not enjoy. Appreciate. They’re… in-between places. Nobody really lives here. Everyone’s coming or going. Everyone’s tense, or tired, or clinging to hope like their boarding pass. And nobody questions a guy like me hanging around.” He tapped his temple. “I fit right in.”

“I suppose that makes sense,” Anubis said, dabbing the corner of his mouth with a napkin. “Though you strike me as someone who prefers motion to waiting.”

“I am motion.” Hermes stretched, the tips of his winged sandals peeking out from beneath his jeans. “But waiting has its charms. Gives you time to think.”

“Dangerous pastime.”

“Necessary one.”

They both fell silent again. The air between them thickened—not uncomfortable, but heavy, the way silence gets when it sits long enough to gather meaning.

Finally, Anubis said, “I watched a boy let go of his mother’s hand today.”

Hermes looked up.

“She was ill. He kissed her fingers before the machines stopped beeping. He didn’t cry. Not then. He waited until she couldn’t see.”

Hermes was quiet, his fork halfway to his mouth. “You were there?”

“I am often there.”

He said it as though it were a commute. As though it were a job. As though it were not the oldest truth the earth could whisper to the living.

Hermes looked down at his sticky hands. “I saw a girl sit up on a stretcher in the back of an ambulance,” he said. “Asked me if she was late for school. Her house was still on fire behind us.”

“Did you answer?”

“I told her there was no more late. That everything ahead was right on time.”

Anubis nodded solemnly. “That was kind.”

“I don’t know if it was true.”

“Sometimes kindness is more useful than truth.”

Their eyes met across the table—golden and deep, ancient and heavy with centuries of watching mortals break and mend and break again. Neither said what they both knew: that they were the ones who walked alongside, unnoticed. That they never pushed or pulled—just offered an open hand, a knowing smile, a last bit of mercy.

Hermes pushed the last bite of his bun toward Anubis. “I never understood why you liked these so much. Until now.”

“Why now?”

“Because they remind you of home, don’t they? Not the temples. Not the tombs. The offerings.”

Anubis paused. His long fingers hovered over the pastry.

“Bread for the journey,” he murmured. “Spice for the soul. My priests used to bake them before embalming began. The cinnamon was meant to keep away corruption.” He smiled faintly. “Funny. Nothing keeps corruption away now.”

Hermes’s laugh was hollow. “No. Not anymore.”

They both sat with that truth, letting it settle like powdered sugar on a quiet surface.

Anubis pulled a small charm from his pocket—a tiny carved ankh, dull with age. He turned it over in his palm as he spoke.

“There was a time when people called me by name. Invoked me with hymns, oils, silence. Now they say 'Anubis' like it’s a trivia answer. Or a Halloween costume.”

“I get that,” Hermes said. “I used to be the face of diplomacy, thieves, commerce, invention. These days, people think of me as the guy on floral tea packets.”

“That’s a step up from being mistaken for a CGI character.”

Hermes grinned. “Hey, you’re cool CGI.”

“I am not certain that is better.”

They laughed together this time, the sound echoing through the empty terminal like wind through old stone.

“You know,” Hermes said after a pause, “we’re not so different.”

Anubis raised an eyebrow. “You wear track pants.”

Hermes tugged on the waistband. “They breathe.”

“You talk too much.”

“I am the god of speech.”

“And mischief.”

“And transitions.”

Anubis tapped the table, thoughtful. “I guide.”

“I run.”

“I weigh.”

“I wing.”

They looked at each other.

“And we both wait,” Hermes added, more softly. “At the threshold. At the door. In the space between heartbeat and hush.”

Anubis nodded.

Hermes leaned back in his chair, arms behind his head. “You ever get tired of it?”

“Of cinnamon buns?”

Hermes smirked.

Anubis took his time answering. “Some days, I miss the silence.”

“I miss the music,” Hermes said. “The funeral flutes. The way mortals used to know. Used to see us.”

Anubis stared into the distance. “Now they see men in coats. Machines. Forms to sign.”

“They try to make sense of the end by pretending it’s something else.”

“A detour.”

“A sleep.”

“A mistake.”

They both knew better.

Hermes reached into his hoodie pocket and pulled out a small, worn deck of playing cards. He set it between them.

“Game?”

Anubis considered. “Do you intend to cheat?”

“Of course.”

Anubis nodded. “Then yes.”

They played for a while—Go Fish, then Old Maid, then a round of Greek-Egyptian fusion Poker that had no official rules. The world outside the windows faded into stars.

Somewhere far down the concourse, a janitor whistled. Somewhere beyond the walls, the moon turned its pale face to watch.

“I think they’re afraid of us,” Hermes said suddenly, almost absently.

“Mortals always are. Not of what we are, but what we imply.”

Hermes shuffled the cards again, slowly. “They act like we bring it.”

“We don’t.”

“No.”

Anubis folded his hands. “We’re just there when it happens.”

“Like ushers at the end of a play.”

“Or the quiet after the last note of a hymn.”

A beat passed.

Hermes leaned forward, drumming his fingers. “I saw a man today who smiled as he stepped off a ledge.”

Anubis looked at him sharply.

“He wasn’t afraid,” Hermes added quickly. “He… he looked relieved. Like something had let go inside him. Like a knot finally unraveled.”

Anubis was quiet.

“I caught him,” Hermes said.

“Did he thank you?”

“No. He just asked me if I’d ever flown that high before.”

Anubis nodded slowly. “And had you?”

Hermes smiled, something distant in his gaze. “Not in a long time.”

They both understood that man. Perhaps too well.

“Sometimes,” Anubis said quietly, “I wish we could tell them what’s next.”

Hermes looked down at the cards, then up again.

“They wouldn’t believe us,” he said.

“No,” Anubis agreed. “But they’d be less afraid.”

“Maybe. Or maybe the mystery is part of the gift.”

“Even if it burns?”

“Especially then.”

They fell silent once more. The Cinnabon box was empty now, save for a few smears of icing and a crumpled napkin.

Hermes stood, stretching with a yawn. “I’ve got one more pickup tonight. A quiet one. You?”

“A hospital two towns over,” Anubis said, rising as well. “Room 408. He’s ninety-three. He’s ready.”

Hermes nodded.

They lingered a moment longer, neither moving to go. The terminal was all but empty now, but something about it felt full—weighted with memory, reverence, and cinnamon.

Hermes reached out, clasped Anubis’s shoulder.

“See you on the other side?”

Anubis met his gaze.

“We’re always on the other side.”

And with that, they walked their separate ways—two old friends slipping back into the folds of the world like shadows at dusk, their names forgotten by many, but their presence never truly gone.

They did not speak of death.

They didn’t have to.

END.