The Lotus Eaters' Shore

An unnamed island that appears after a week of storms, green and welcoming, with smoke and soft sounds drifting over the trees. The people are loose-faced and barely clothed, moving slowly, pausing often, uttering only murmurs and giggles. No weapons. No boats. No tools. They sit in a clearing and offer a fruit, the lotus, with both hands and a smiling face. The smell is honey and a warm promise that pulls deep in the skull. The three scouts who eat it cease to be the men they were. One sifts sand through his fingers as if it were rubies. One tilts his face to the sun. One dances like a snake in the grass. Odysseus has to drag them back to the ship and lash them to the benches. They do not fight. They do not reach for more. They do not ask to stay. They simply weep through the night when they come back to themselves. The shore is the first place where the danger isn’t a monster. It’s a kindness that ends you.