Before the Waters | Corrina Chan
Time doesn’t flow right on the river Acheron. Several days on Earth could be a mere moment here, a grandmother could pass through long after her granddaughter, a single trip across could take years. Despite this, the river represents order, represents change and justice for all the lives on Earth—a passing from one state of existence to another, from one life to another. I serve as caretaker of their souls. I do my duty, what I was created for, and I do it well. I deliver them to their fates, but only for a certain price.
A Silver Dollar, 1935
Pass.
A Peso, 1840
Pass.
A Bànliǎng, 378 BCE
Pass.
A Honey Cake
I stared down blankly at the older woman. She held the plate up in her hands, the little honey cake, golden and perfect, glistening in the low light of the Underworld. It smelled divine—slightly fruity, with a caramelized glaze.
I lifted my eyes from the pastry back to her. “Step out of line.”
She looked like she was going to say something, but I interrupted her, already knowing the question. “No coin, no access.”
She looked down, despair running over her face like I’d seen billions of times before. I sent her back to the water’s edge.
A Roman Gold Coin, 309
Pass.
A Mink Fur Coat
Step out of line.
Two Two-pound Coins, 2048 and 2060, and an Urn Containing the Ashes of a Husband
“No bodies in Hades,” I declared.
“But I was buried with this! You cannot take him away from me! Not again!” “Leave the urn here or step out of line.”
“But I brought enough for both of us! I made sure he would be able to come with me.” “You are permitted to board. It,” I gestured to the plain metal vase with the engraving of a name and a date and nothing more, “is not.”
The woman hugged her possession tighter and stepped away.
A Burmese Ruby Necklace
Step out of line.
“Wait! Do you know what this–”
Step. Out. Of. Line.
A Rupee, 2013
Pass.
A Scythe, a Black Cloak, and a Quarter Dollar, 2003
Pass – “Oh, hello again.”
“Charon.” Death tossed the coin to me and it evaporated instantly.
“What do you want this time?”
“One report per century, Charon. You know the rules.”
“Has it really been that long?”
“No.”
I looked at him quizzically.
“I am told that millions of souls are being held up somewhere. I came to check-in. I knew it would happen here.”
“People aren’t being buried with as much wealth as they used to be. I cannot accept their non-payment.”
“You cannot discriminate against the poor and forgotten. They are being buried with wealth. Just no longer of the monetary kind.”
“I cannot accept these treasures,” I replied, shaking my head.
I took a look behind the old man, two figures shrinking away behind the ruffles of his cloak. I looked back into Death’s decayed face.
“They cannot enter.”
“They can and they will. They are under my protection. I have supplemented this woman’s non-payment.” He retrieved a golden Drachma from his sleeve and patted the woman’s head. “And I will argue on behalf of this woman’s husband,” he gestured to the second figure behind his coat, “and ask that Hades allow a mortal body, though no longer a body, into his realm.”
He tossed me the coins and they vanished less than a foot away from my face. I didn’t blink, but I stood still as they climbed into my boat. We rode across the river in silence, the two women holding their treasures close, and holding themselves even closer to Death.
A small, bright honey cake sat on the seat of my boat as I departed back to the other side. I dissolved it, accepting the non-monetary gift. I flinched at the new sensation. It wasn’t overly sweet, and I realized that the fruity scent I had noticed earlier was from the cherries. I looked up and its maker nodded back at me as I sailed away, satisfied.
“Good, Charon.” Death’s voice echoed in my head. I rolled my eyes, the honeyed taste still lingering.
An Heirloom Scarf and a Bundle of Rosemary
Step out of line.
A Blindfold and Pieces of Rope
Step out of line…
An Umbilical Cord
Please step out of line…
Nothing at All
I’m sorry.
A Five-Yen Coin, 1960
Pass.
The others watched as she stepped into my boat and we sailed away.
A Love Token
Step out of line please.
“Wait, what do you mean?”
“I will accept this token, though it holds no monetary value, for one person and one person only. Your partner will have to wait.”
“No, no, no,” one of the men shook his head. “We need to go together. We promised. Together in death. We couldn’t be together in life. You have to give us this. Please.” I stared at them for a moment. I stared at the coin in his outstretched hand. I stared at them again, their pleading eyes boring into mine. Damn it. I sighed and dissolved the coin.
Pass.
A Javanese Gold Ingot Coin, 732
Pass.
A Sumatran Electrum Coin, 1077
Pass.
A Forget-Me-Not, Wilted and Twisted at The Stem
I twitched, deciding. The little girl looked up and handed me the little flower. I paused for a moment, considering the implications of a broken rule. All the while, she waited, still holding the tiny offering up to me. I took it carefully and put it back into her hair. She giggled as I helped her into my boat.
Pass.
One Hundred and Twenty Eight Thousand and Forty One Reales, 1499-1515, a Rapier, and a Dagger
“Where the Hell am I? Who the Hell are you?”
Pass.
I didn’t respond other than that. I was used to the occasional dictator, conqueror, emperor, or even “Karens”, as they used to say, so I really didn’t care to deal with the abuse. “I’m not getting on that Godforsaken dingy. I commanded thousands of ships—my own fleet! I require something much more suited to my standing. I am offering you more than any other man could give. I deserve lateral compensation.”
Pass.
“How dare you insult me in such a manner! I should have you flogged just for speaking to me as such.”
“Do you want on the ‘Godforsaken dingy’ or do you want to step out of line and wait a century?” I responded curtly.
The man pulled the rapier from his belt and aimed the tip towards my chest. I gave him an indifferent look and tossed his “offerings” into the river. He screamed as they sank below the surface and lunged towards me attempting to pierce where a heart should have been. It passed right through like the wisp of a long-forgotten ghost. I grabbed the hilt and twisted it from his grip, tossing it, as well, into the Acheron with the rest of his wealth. He pulled the dagger from the scabbard attached to his thigh.
“I am Nuño Beltrán de Guzmán. You will obey me. I will never bow to lesser men!” Step out of line.
With that, he grabbed the little girl with the forget-me-not in her hair from her seat on the boat and slashed her throat, shattering her soul into nothing but dust and a memory. I grabbed him by his throat, crushing it, spitting in his face, “I am no man.” I released him into the river. He can burn and drown with all that he ever cared about. Humans.
A Golden Dollar Coin, 2420
Pass.
A Silver coin of Aphilas, 680
Pass.
An Alexandrite Ring
So close. Step out of line.
A Scythe, a Black Cloak, and Another Drachma, 514 BCE
“Charon.” Death was the only being I allowed back over the river once across, save for Hades, but he doesn’t get out much.
“What.” I didn’t take my eyes off of the infinite line of souls to meet his. I was getting tired of these interruptions.
“Be nice.”
“Why do you care so much about these people? Why would you go out of your way to fill up my boat for two humans who couldn’t even pay the proper fare?” I asked him as we rode alone.
Death considered this for a moment. “I see them on Earth. I see them as human and not just passengers, as you do.”
I scoffed at this.
“But it’s true,” he went on. “What do you see when a child gives you a smooth rock as a gift? Or a woman gives you a honey cake as an offering?”
“They’re just things.”
“And why do you say that?”
“Because they are. They just are.”
“You see, I don’t see things that way. I get to be with the humans up close. I get to see the moment a mother’s face lights up when she scoops the stone out of the river and hands it to her child because it is just as small and round as he is. I get to see the years and years it took for that older woman to perfect that honey cake recipe with her husband and continue to make it for him long after his death. I see the history in the scarf that was passed down for generations from mother to daughter, the one that was hand-stitched by her great-great-great grandmother and gifted to her on her wedding day.
“Humans are strange and I will never truly understand them, and that might just be because I am not human,” Death said to me, “but what I see in these offerings is their entire lives. Their love and their souls. I see everyone that has ever loved them, and I see everyone they have ever loved. It never truly goes away. I see their passions and their hopes and every experience that has ever led them to the edge of your river.”
I stared at him, just then realizing that I hadn’t been rowing in a long time. “So what am I to do then?”
Death shrugged as he stepped out of the boat and onto the bank. “That is up to you, but remember that they had lives before you and, soon, they will be lost to time. They are humans, not just another passenger in your boat. Are we clear?”
I watched as he disappeared into Earth’s light, then turned back to the infinite line of souls before me. The memory of the tangy cherries and the sweetness of the honey danced on my tongue.
A Love Letter, 2013
…
Pass.
More about the author:
Corrina graduated from Lewis & Clark College in Oregon, where she majored in psychology and later English literature with a focus on creative writing. While attending Lewis & Clark, she wrote for and edited the student journal, The Mossy Log, founded the Prose Club, a creative writing group, and was the fiction editor for the youth-run literary magazine, Diamond Gazette. She was also an editorial intern at Future House Publishing. Combining her curiosity about all things literary and a willingness to take on new challenges, she hopes to continue to write and publish more of her work.