I Am Ferryman

"I am Ferryman."

I don't really care for where they end up. My sweet, sweet lust for coin is fulfilled or I receive a lovely set of fingers to cherish either way. Oars of the boat, digits of the disrespectful and a bag full of coinage, that's all that is fathomable down here.

The last few I took across were solemn. They were similar but they never saw the each other to confirm my suspicion of that they were linked. They bore the same garment, harrowing really. One was old, another older and the third as ancient as I. Their features each sunk in as they handed in their toll at the withered register.

I shall tell you the tale of my recent past. The man of this trio who stood last, his is a little more expressive for the mortal palate. He came on the Thursday, centre balance. He materialised on the bank as any do, walking into their shape as they hobble down to the boat. Speaking of her and my home, I will allow for a brief moment in this time to appreciate it, the Styx of corse. I must admit however, I never think of her as oft as I should yet I urge that we return to the tale of the man soon after.

So, I bode you a fine welcome to the phantasmagoric, spectral of a spectacle sea of eternal life and death, yin and yang, the road to the afterlife, The River Styx. This place is seemingly enraptured by a cove, underground, yes? Despite this, as you shift your form forth to the pale water, which I slumber upon, your mind alludes to how it is a mere fault of the Universe's way. Yes, we are certainly outside in the vast abyssal space of purgatory. I am deadly sure of how this surpasses the mind of the newly fallen bodies from the home of dirt and beyond, yet it is a fact that each fanatic must hold true. With this boggling realisation, another notable point of The River is made known. This is its colour. You, as the human once was, will witness the colour of the water as it bends red and blue; an in between of colour, named falloff. This wicked eye candy appears as a pale red or crimson that some say resembles blood of a hellish intent which is simultaneously contrasted with a choking, air filled baby blue that moves as it pleases as if at contestant conflict with the attributes of red. The falloff blue-red mix forms a single colour of indescribable beauty for me, though an unsettling, unstoppable force of death, change and chaos for those who just arrive. You shan't be seeing it for long. I assure you of this.

The ruptured hubris of your past self, as I do repeat often, may also note the ever decaying willow trees or the skeletal husks and beings that tend to this place alike me, though I am merely the divine chauffeur that hoists the deceased into their next resting point in the afterlife of their afterlife, for I am The Ferryman. I have our vessel and the oars in which guide your fate down the river to the next temporary pit stop. The other ones are the tendering gardeners of this place. They keep the beauty and harmony alive; how ironic in such a place that reeks the stench of death. This is all commonplace for the regulars though. And the irregulars? The ones like you for instance, who die on decided terms of a decade see the things that are out of place which are placed as if in perfect place.

Many of you speak to me with rage and rancour like a poisonous flurry that has prevailed with them through the spite of their bereavement, yet, I don't blame them for having such attitudes. I do see that the passing scary for them as they never seem to know or remember that they end up back here, many of which with a horrid time in life before them so their pitiful rage is oft course of action.

To example this, I shall continue the tale I was to tell earlier. The one of this man and his trio prior.

So, the first of three seemed naturally solemn as he appeared to hand in his coin. I gave him a slow tug down the river whilst his lifeless arms rested gently atop his knees as he sat opposite in the boat. His eyes wandered along the sights around the river and we ended at the end, as the norm. The one notable thing about this man was his garb. It was white-ish with a blue filament strip around the neck and nape of his robe. Very human indeed.

The man's precursor is one of similar features and strikingly similar cloth, like borrowed robes of the first man of that hour. However, replacing the blue streak was an orange one. He stepped forward, head glued to the ashy ground and he held a hand out bearing change and then leant over and placed himself in the boat. I never like it when two of the same or similar pass through as it never ends well, for me and the others down here anyway. I send him on his way and head back to the dock, liquid falloff as cool as day as I dipped my oars strait through.

Here at the bay of loss I patiently wait as I fawn over my jar. Yes, my collection of the disrespectful fingers, I make sure I take the good one or two when they damn me with their lack of payment. They deserve ill and wicked things or a clogged windpipe at that. Something or other to stir their turmoil would be apt.

But sadly, these thoughts are interrupted by my third watery client of the day, this one appeasing my horror filled delight. This is the one I initially alluded to earlier; your intuitive self should have picked that up already. So anyhow, my contact here with this situation was a wayward'n. Here the complexity to his features were sublime. The wrinkles of history seared and scared his face as he boastingly stepped forth with his sunked, supple, sunky, supplementary, sunken, spunky, sputtering of an absolute coward's shoulders and legs that wobbled with boggling ease! Yes, my dear listener this is the grim reality that bestows my mind here! For I, Ferry man, the robed one with skeletal hands and skeletal wrath! My features obscured by the deathly shade of my hood and my boat that blights the water of the underworld! My carved oars lay as if they exude some sickly essence and my bountiful stash of cash and coin is a symbol of my insurmountable greed that is given to me by the one! One, O' One, save us from this other. His digits seemed coarse and brittle and his hand enrapt' mine, so take him! Take him far, far away to the hellish extent of hell. For I, I the lowly FerryMan begs of your approval. I cower before your giving hand of life and death. He giveth and he taketh away! My rant here is my prayer to you, so is why I will recite his journey to you and the mortal before me. Here we venture forth. You, you venture forth!

Yes, the wickedness corse through my veins although I have never had any before. Now, I shall strain this story out to you.

So this man, this previous mere mortal arrives on the shore, his vessel appears older than mine. He hobbles down toward me brandishing a cane for support as he sits neatly opposite me in my boat as all do. He wearily holds out his free hand to bestow a shilling or two. Instinctively, I snatch up the payment; my bone hands and his withered flesh mitts briefly touch and I think no more of it. However, the elder leans over further after accepting his fee and grabs my wrist, wrapping his hand wholly around. Therefore I swiftly yank on his wrist with my other hand, breaking it with a few bountiful clicks.

Due to this abysmal action I brandish my crooked knife, poised to retrieve a succulent finger of his which would act as further remittance. I do this with ease, pulling his arm toward me to cleave the finger off with a few hacks. After doing so, he leans back to his upright position and holds his cane between his leg. The delirious oldest remains in silence, his hand clutching and shaking at the handle of his cane as we set off to his hellish place of destiny.

We go down the Styx for a while until I gain the intellect of what just happened. I knew this was no ordinary happenstance due to the detail I failed to mention prior as of my vexation. This detail being that he bore the same apparel as the previous two. Here I insisted the deed I had to accomplish. What a damned wasted of soul stuff to be certain.

Aye, of corse I kicked him over. His frail body plummeted into the gullet of the unknown. It was funny to see, I do admit that I let out a petty chuckle as it happened and that was all for his story. That was all for you though. For me, this took on a whole new meaning. For me, despite the fact that I revel in such things, it slowly dawned on me like a pack of gnawing plague rats that the end of times march ever closer just like the stampede of rats I described. He (the old one of the trio) is the harbinger of this event. We'll just have to see who survives the flood of loss. I can only hope that little old me will for it is forsaken to damn a soul without permission. I did it for good reason so I do not remark a wish for my banishment.

So, I hope I am not sent to the void. I hope you hope this too, for the good of me, sure, but for the good of yourself and your next passing. I'll see you there, eh? You'll visit the ol' Ferry Man once more? I can only hope my child, I can only hope. But until then, I will never shirk my duty. Never my lad, not until it is all written and done. Never. Until death do us part!

Right, off you pop, just leave me to wither!