The Ferryman Part 1

Telling the truth is easy. It's telling lies that takes a skill, talent and an enormous amount of delicious neck.

That's why Tric liked liars- they at least had interesting stories to tell him on their way down to Judgement. They would regale him with the tales of all the good deeds they ever did to man, child and beast- each more extravagant than the last. The truth tellers on the other hand were always pious and mopy and boring. Distinctly grey. And not at all interesting.

Tric had dubbed them 'blanket souls'. They all trickled down the river the same way, with the same sorrowful expression. The truthful dead. They were the god-fearing ones, the ones who would offer up each of their minutia of sins- like he was their last confessor or something. By the end of the journey they would step out of the boat, lean on the prow and their grey gaunt faces genuinely looked like they had soaked up half the river.

Those that lie were so much more interesting.Their untruth stories seeped out from their skin as they sat in the boat. The men with chiseled cheekbones and smoke soft eyes who would send ribbons upon ribbons of untruths down his ears. Blissful little lies about the scores of girls who fell in love with them. The old ladies who came down their necks dripping with mismatched gold and silver pieces, who boasted their countless good deeds to man kind. He had one woman actually claim she had made her fortune collecting young children off the streets, "Giving them a lovely roof and home", Tric remembered she smiled about those children with malice and gripped the wooden stick she used to walk with a touch harder. Tric thought that although he was stuck on a boat forever now- he wouldn't have rathered been those children. On the other side of her ebony cane.

She didn't seem to think that he had kept some of those very children company on this very journey. Huddled, scared children who hunkered over their small bodies on the river as if- even in death they were attempting to protect it. They cowered like animals who knew they were broken. Their spirits snapped in two. 

While Tric liked liars and hated the pious truth tellers, he made an exception for children. Usually they were sad, and lonely, didn't know where they were and often in that fear they were very truthful. Tric listened to their sad stories and instead of despising their truths he told them a few lies of his own.

Magnificent jeweled lies about how once they stepped beyond the darkness of the cave there would be the biggest birthday party that they could ever imagine was on the other side of the darkness. Full to the brim with giant slabs of pink coconut ices, and the richest chocolate cake they had ever seen. Plates of candied oranges would be passed around and twirling pretzels would be the only remotely 'healthy thing' they would have the option of eating. There would be dipping platters of peanut and almond butters with gigantic bowls of popped corn strewn from the ceiling on strings and garlands.

By the time Tric had finished appeasing them with tales of the food and friends that awaited- their curiosity and hunger were desperate to be sated.

Sometimes he wondered if it was wrong to lie to those who went back into the unknown, but then he consoled himself with the fact that he had no idea whether he was lying or not. He had never been through the cave. Although he was inclined to think that the welcome would be of a much more amiable nature were it that simple.

Still, he argued with himself- it was a kindness all the same.  The children normally had short desperate lives that were cut down before they had anything to be admonished for at Judgement. They deserved a modicum of happiness to see them through the veil. He routinely ignored the small voice in the back of his mind that said disappointment when one has been brought to the edge of despair is so much greater than if they simply remained sad.

It was a kindness. It made Tric uncomfortable to see children cry on the boat. He could ignore their shouts when he left them behind on the shore.