Author’s Note:
This idea came from an open prompt on Wrizzit. I was too late to submit for the prompt, but I still love the story it sparked.
I submitted my 791,424th request for time off this morning. I used to submit them daily. Then weekly. Then monthly. Now I submit them annually. It feels less optimistic that way.
I’ve never had one approved. Fucking Hades is the worst boss ever.
You’d think ruling the dead for several thousand years would teach a man empathy. Or delegation. Or at least the value of competent staff.
No such luck. Instead, he developed opinions about paperwork.
I hear the dead bitch about corporate life every damn day, but they have no idea… Hades invented it millennia ago.
My request this year was modest. I asked for three days. That’s all I asked. Not a century. Not a millennium. Three miserable little mortal days.
I wanna go to the beach. I want to be near water. Real water. Not the Styx or the Acheron. Not the Phlegethon, which frankly smells like burned goat and regret. And definitely not the damn Lethe.
An actual beach. With warm sand. Blue water. Waves that don’t whisper unfinished apologies into the dark.
I even attached supporting documentation. Exhibit A: catastrophic burnout. Exhibit B: lower back pain from eternity. Exhibit C: evidence that I have not taken a vacation in approximately nine thousand years, four months, and whatever this week is.
His response arrived before lunch: DENIED.
No explanation. Just his signature at the bottom in aggressive red ink. I hate that gods-bedamned ink. I hate his handwriting — like he learned his alphabet early and has resented it ever since, so now he shows who’s boss by purposefully making every letter jagged and malformed.
And I especially hate that he added a smiley face emoji this time.
Asshole.
As I ferried across the third boatload of the day, I was tuning out the whining and the “Are we there yet?” by imagining the taste of a mai tai, when I happened to hear one of the deadheads say something interesting.
“They say the death rate of that new virus is terrifying. We may have missed the worst of it by dying now,” orated the blood-covered man in the white lab coat. His glasses were askew in part because he seemed to be missing an ear. His entrails were dangling limply from his opened gut like sad sausages, and his arm ended just below the elbow.
“What happened to you?” I asked him in my deepest, most sonorous voice. It scares the tourists, which makes them more likely to listen and respond rather than complaining about how they weren’t supposed to be here.
The guy looked down at himself, his glasses almost sliding off his scratched-up nose before he pushed them back into place. He shook his head sadly and said, “It was Edna. You wouldn’t think a woman named Edna could be dangerous, but the virus turns them ultra-violent. She came at me with a butter knife, then started using her teeth.”
“Virus?” I asked. “What virus?”
The lab coat made a soft, wet sound as something shifted unpleasantly in his abdomen. “The new one we made.”
“How new?”
“New-new. Like brand new, new-new.”
I stopped rowing as I considered this. We drifted silently across smooth black water, and the souls in the boat went utterly quiet. They always do when I stop rowing. There are very few things more unsettling to the recently deceased than the sudden absence of progress.
“How many?” I asked.
“How many what?”
“How many will die? Was it just you and this Edna?”
The lab man blinked at me in confusion. “Um... I don’t know. Probably everyone or close to it.”
It was my turn to blink then.
“Wait… what? You mean they could all die? All of the stupid humans up there?”
“The modeling results varied,” he answered. “But most said between 59 and 96% fatality.”
I hate scientists. Even dead, they can’t answer a simple question without building a little fence around it first.
“Guess the final number.”
He swallowed, which was ambitious considering the state of his throat.
“Billions.”
For the first time in nine thousand years, four months, and whatever this week was, I smiled. Because billions sounded like… leverage.
Not policy or morality or even the kind of leverage gods pretend to respect before ignoring it completely. It sounded like real leverage — the kind that happens when the only man with an oar decides the damn river is closed.
I began rowing again without another word, building a plan in the silence. Once I’d reached the other side and let the deadheads go on to face judgment from those arrogant dead kings who still thought they should be running things, it’d be time.
I watched them climb out of the boat and touched lab coat guy on the shoulder, and he flinched away from my skeletal hand.
“How sure are you?” I asked.
He looked down at himself again, catching the slipping glasses automatically this time. As we looked, another loop of intestine slid out from beneath the white fabric and hit the path with a wet slap.
“Pretty sure,” he answered. I nodded and watched him walk away.
Then I sat down in the prow of the boat, lay the oar across my knees and began to wait. Before long, the boat began to drift. On the far shore, the dead stared at me — waiting.
The first messenger arrived twelve minutes later. One of Hermes’ boys, obviously. Management always sends the fast ones when they want the problem solved by someone else.
The man with the knock-off winged sandals hovered over the boat, eyeing the dark water with open concern.
“Charon, sir,” he said, “I have a message for you from Lord Hades.”
I said nothing. This was apparently not the correct response. He cleared his throat awkwardly, then continued, “He wishes to know the cause of the delay in ferrying the dead for judgment.”
I raised an eyebrow. You might wonder how a skeleton can have an eyebrow, but the effect works even without the hair.
The messenger cleared his throat again. “What response would you like me to send him?”
In response, I simply held up the request form with the word “DENIED” written on it.
He took the paper, scanned it, and paled slightly. “I see,” he said. “I’ll deliver your message immediately.”
I smiled. And kept waiting.
The messenger returned seven minutes later. This time his little winged helmet was askew and his white uniform was singed at the hem. His skin was almost the same gray as the waters of the Cocytus.
“Ahem. Lord Hades was not pleased to be seeing your request a second time,” he said accusingly.
I didn’t respond.
“What exactly are you asking?” he sighed, shoulders slumping in defeat. I almost felt bad for the guy. Scylla and Charybdis had nothing on this little battle of wills.
“Finally someone is asking the right question,” I muttered. “Simple. I want five full days of vacation on a beach as soon as I decide the current crisis is over, support staff for the upcoming apocalypse, and absolutely no communication while I’m gone — no messages, no prayers, no divine emergencies — nothing.”
The messenger nodded and turned to go. Then I quickly added, “Oh, and three guaranteed days every year after that. Approved in advance.”
He winced. Sighed deeply. Nodded and flew away.
As I waited, the dead stared from the far shore, confused and afraid, and I almost felt bad. Almost. Then my lower back cracked like old marble, and the feeling passed.
It took nineteen minutes this time. Then the water boiled. The shadows bent. The ground on each shore trembled. And the Lord of the Dead appeared in the boat in a storm of smoke, gold dust, and managerial disappointment.
“Charon.”
I lifted one bony hand, “I’m on break.”
Hades growled. I just bared my teeth. It didn’t look any different than the rest of the time, but he knew.
“You need to be reasonable,” he finally pronounced, as though I were the difficult one. “You have a job to do.”
I tilted my head slightly. “I know. I’ve been doing it for millennia without a break. I want a vacation. Your wife takes one half of every year.”
The god’s eyes began to swirl black and red with rage.
I cleared my throat and looked away while the god reined in his anger. It took long enough to make me wish again that I hadn’t made that crack about Persephone. Everyone knew his mother-in-law was a sore subject.
Finally he spoke, his tone even and controlled, “If you don’t do your job, there will be consequences, Charon. You won’t like them.”
I snorted. “Yeah. Okay. I’m fine with that. Can’t be worse than eternity listening to these whining mortals bitching about their asshole bosses.”
The growl was back in his voice when he said, “The dead need passage. They must be judged and sorted. Would you just leave them to suffer?”
If I’d had eyeballs in my sockets, they’d have rolled hard at that point. “Try again. They’re not suffering any more than they did while they were alive. And I suspect your arrogant kings would love the break.”
Hades sighed so deeply it sounded like he’d pulled that breath up from the depths of Tartarus. “This isn’t really an apocalypse. It’s been blown entirely out of proportion.”
I raised an eyebrow and said nothing.
“Really. It could be as few as a couple million.”
I didn’t even dignify that with a response.
He sighed again. Deeper, if that was possible. “This just isn’t the time, Charon. How about you take an afternoon, then get back to work?” He said it as though it was the most reasonable idea in the world.
It was my turn to sigh. I looked out over the black, still water and patted the oar sitting across my knees.
“Look. It’s time to be reasonable. Don’t make me replace you.”
I perked up. “Oh? I can be replaced? In that case, I quit.”
Hades actually paled. “I mean, it’s not that I want to replace you. You’ve been doing this a long time. You are certainly the best qualified…” His voice trailed off.
I grabbed the oar and put it in the water, then began rowing toward the opposite shore. Hades perked up and looked pleased. Then worried.
“Are you getting back to work then?” he asked hopefully.
“What? No, of course not. I just quit.”
There was silence for half the width of the river — this was a battle I was confident I’d just won.
“Three days,” Hades muttered angrily.
“Five days,” I answered calmly. “Five this year. Three every year after. Guaranteed.”
He didn’t answer. I started rowing again.
There was a crack of thunder and the ground began to shake. I kept rowing. The shore was rapidly approaching when a loud crack sounded. I didn’t even look up.
We were pulling up to the dock when Hades thundered at me, “Fine! FIVE DAYS!”
“And three each year after.” I added carefully.
“I’ll have the paperwork drawn up,” the god said. And then he was gone.
“Support staff?” I said into the silence.
There was another crack of thunder, and in the distance Cerberus began to bark furiously.
I grinned and pulled into the dock for the next load of deadheads. The next few weeks would be rough, but I’d spend it picturing my vacation. Warm sand. Blue water. Five full days without a single soul asking if we were there yet.
Also the look on Hades’ face when he realized I planned to submit my request for next year tomorrow.
‼️ If you liked this, check out some of my other satirical hot takes.
🐒 Did this story make you roll your eyes, cough, or raise a brow? If it did, buy me a cup of existential dread and maybe I’ll write a little more.
i read this over on Wrizzit, it's a fantastic story. I loved your wife takes half the year off ... 😂
Oh this was good!