The ferryman stepped off the dock and looked upwards over the low-rising hills.
The flow of passengers had abruptly stopped in the mid-afternoon. When he’d returned from his last journey to the distant shore, it was unearthly quiet as he docked his boat back at the point of embarkment.
He’d seen moments like this before…when the platform was devoid of souls and he’d have a few minutes to sit. He set his pole against the boathouse and this time, sit he did.
“Now that’s unusual,” he thought to himself. He’d been looking up and down the shoreline. Not one of these stragglers was in sight. Never in his memory had he seen this setting so empty and devoid of souls waiting on the shore for the ferry.
He looked again to hills and saw something different this time. If he’d ever seen anything other than dark, overcast days, he might’ve thought that a bright light was rising over the hill. A small and distinct radiance appeared to follow the line of the pathway that wrapped through mounds of earth.
After another moment, the glow appeared less bright as it approached. He could now see the distinct outline of a man walking down the path, presumably to the dock. When he was less than 50 strides away, the man didn’t appear as bright as his path down the hill suggested, and the ferryman could see his features well enough to see that this soul looked much like many who had made passage before this time.
From his appearance, it was clear that the man had suffered quite a bit before his arrival here. Clearly he’d been beaten, and various wounds on his body suggested a brutal ordeal. As he turned the last part in the path, the ferryman could see that he’d been whipped numerous times across his back.
He rose to greet the man and grabbed his pole leaning against the boathouse. At the foot of the dock entrance he stood in a wide stance while holding the boat pole in his right hand. The man and he were nearly a stride apart now.
The man looked very tired. This wasn’t unusual, of course, but the boatman noted how clear his eyes were… as if he were someone awake in the middle of his workday.
“Do you have the fare?” the ferryman challenged. The man stared at him a moment and gave no hint of whether he had the fare or not.
“I said do you have the fare?” said the boatman a bit more impatiently. As in the past, often the passenger would take a coin that had been placed in their mouth and then put the fare in his palm.
The man took two steps forward until he was just inches from his face. The man slowly rolled his shoulders back in a relaxed manner and simply said, “I am the fare.”
“What?” he asked. This had never happened before.
The man repeated it.
“I am the fare.” And then after a few seconds, he added, “The price has been paid for all…and for all time.”
Not normally intimidated, he demanded again forcefully, “Pay the fare.”
The man didn’t move.
In a firm, but gentle tone the man continued with, “Stand aside. It’s time.”
Charon stood for a moment. This man wouldn’t be the first he’d used the pole on. Even the difficult ones rarely required a second smack with the pole.
But this man…
The ferryman felt his feet step back…involuntarily complying with the stranger’s request. He stood aside the entrance to the dock and the man strode forward towards the boat. As he walked past him, he gently commanded the boatman, “Come with me.”
What’s happening here, he thought…who is this man? And why didn’t I stop him?
He followed him to the end of the dock and watched as the man climbed into the boat.
“Who are you?” Charon asked.
The man looked up at him and said, “You may call me Emmanuel.”
They stared at each other a moment more. Although this Emmanuel was hard to read, he got the sense that this man already knew him. This made him uneasy.
“That’s my boat. You can’t steer it to the other side.”
“It’s your boat… for now. Come in and take me across the river,” the man said in a low voice.
Charon looked around again…vaguely, on the hope that there were other souls to take across. But none were there.
The boatman took his place in the boat and untied it from the mooring. Emmanuel sat in the middle of the boat as he pushed his pole along the shallow waters.
They took their journey into the falling darkness. The journey wasn’t that far, but those who rode in the boat often described it as being as long as the night. And so it was this time…darkening as they pulled away from the dock until it was pitch-black…and then emerging on the other side to the dull grays and blues of an overcast day much like where they’d begun.
Charon steered the boat to the side of this distant dock and looped the rope onto the mooring. Emmanuel climbed out and then stood facing the ferryman, still in the boat.
“Wait here. I’ll be back very late, before darkness,” he said. Charon, a bit bewildered by his statement, blurted out, “It never falls to darkness here… just over the river.”
“I assure you, the darkness will follow upon my return,” Emmanuel affirmed, and he started walking down the dock towards the world beyond.
The boatman shouted after him, “But what about those waiting on the other side? I have to get back.”
Emmanuel turned around and said in a low, but still audible voice, “Believe me in this one thing…there’s no one there for you to bring to this place. Wait. I’ll return.”
With that, Emmanuel ambled out onto the dirt path and made his way into the thickets that ringed this river shore. Within a moment, he was gone from sight.
So Charon waited…
He could have disobeyed this man and taken himself back to the departure point. That he had a job to do tugged at him…and yet…he sensed that something now had changed.
Time for the ferryman was often measured in trips across the river. But now he sat…and waited. And waited. And waited. He didn’t believe he’d ever waited for anything this long in his existence.
And as he waited, he noticed that the sky did start to darken. It darkened much like he would see over the river when he returned passage.
When it was nearly too dark with but little light to see anything, he heard a distant rustling through the thickets. Charon strained his eyes to see who was coming.
First out of the thicket was Emmanuel, followed by another man, and closely followed by a woman. They made their way from the dirt path down to the dock.
The boatman felt very uneasy…no one had ever made the return trip except himself. “What are you doing, Emmanuel?”
“I’m taking them home,” he answered as he helped them into the longboat. Both the man and the woman settled into the boat and eyed the boatman with uneasiness. “Everything will be all right,” the man assured them.
Charon looked at the couple again, and somewhere in his deep memory, he sensed that possibly these two had been his first passengers. He wanted to ask questions, but his growing sense of dread kept him silent.
Before he moved to get into the longboat, Emmanuel looked at the sign over the dock. He stared at it for a moment before grabbing it and pulling it down from where it had been nailed. Nearly as long as he was tall, Emmanuel lifted the sign over his head and threw it into the river. As it drifted down the river, Charon could still read the words of the sign—”Omnes relinquite spes, o vos intrantes.”
Now Emmanuel climbed into the boat and bade the ferryman to start the journey back across the river.
The boatman now knew…the world as he knew it had changed. The old order of things had been overturned, not in war between the living and the dead, but in an act of defiance—throwing that emblem of despair into death’s waterway itself.
As he poled the boat along the shallow waters, the darkness was not as great as when they’d left the departing shore. In fact, as they got closer, the black darkness cleared before them. Had Charon known it for what it was, he would’ve described the daylight emerging as beautiful.
As they pulled nearer to the dock, Emmanuel directed him to the shore instead. As the boat shallowed, the men jumped out and helped pull the longboat onto the shore. The woman stepped out onto the riverbank and made her way over to the path.
Charon stepped out of the boat and looked with fascination at the large, round, yellow crest that was peeking over the hills. He barely noticed as the men then pushed the longboat back out into the river.
As the boat drifted back into the river, Emmanuel came over to him and put his hand on the boat pole.
“What are you doing?” the ferryman cried.
“It’s finished,” replied Emmanuel.
Emmanuel attempted to pull the boat pole away from Charon, but he wouldn’t let go. “It’s finished,” repeated Emmanuel…and with another pull, Charon now let go.
Emmanuel and the other man took the longboat pole over to one of the bulkhead moorings. They each took an end and bent it in the middle against the thick, woody stump until it broke in half.
Then they took rope and lashed the two pieces together to form a slightly askew form of the letter “X.” The men smiled at each other and at their handiwork. They took the cross and planted it into the loose soil of the riverbank next to the dock entrance.
The woman, smiling, waved for them to come with her up the path. Emmanuel clapped his hand on the back of his companion to indicate it was time to go away from this place. The man started to follow the woman up the path and was by her side within a few strides.
The ferryman was distraught. “What am I to do? Are there no more days of passage across the river?”
Emmanuel smiled.
“There will be many more days across the river…just not this one. The way of death is done.” Emmanuel intoned. He then made his way up the path towards the man and woman already halfway up the hill. After about 20 paces onto the path, he looked back and implored,
“Come, follow me.”
Charon looked back at the drifting boat…and then to the cross. He took the first steps east and started to follow the sun.
[su_panel background=”#f2f2f2″ color=”#000000″ border=”0px none #ffffff” shadow=”0px 0px 0px #ffffff”]Robert Goodman is an aspiring poet and short story writer who lives along the Jersey Shore. Much of his writing work revolves around the human condition with influences from history, myth, faith and observation of the inner journey.
