Wesley Johnson stood on the shores of a dark river. He couldn’t remember how he got there. He just felt tired. More tired than he had ever felt in his entire life.
He dropped down to his knees. He could see his face, illuminated by the moonlight, reflected in the water below. He looked pale and something seemed to be wrong with his head. When he reached up to touch it, his fingers made a squishing sound.
“That doesn’t sound too good,” Wesley said. “Funny how it doesn’t hurt.”
Just then, someone came up next to him.
“Hello, young man,” an old woman said. “Do you have a coin I could borrow?”
“What?” Wesley said. “What do you need a coin for out here?”
“To pay the ferryman,” she said. “I can’t understand how I forgot to bring some money. I never leave home without it.”
Wesley dug in his pocket and held out two shiny silver dollars. The old woman’s trembling fingers felt ice cold.
“Thank you, young man,” she said, taking one. She began to laugh and then started coughing, a gurgling sound coming from her chest.
“That cough doesn’t sound good,” Wesley said.
“I don’t pay it no mind,” she said. “Oh, look, there’s our ride.”
Wesley looked out onto the water and could barely make out a boat approaching through the dark.
“Have your coin ready,” the old woman said.
The boatman wore a long black robe and the hood covered his face.
“All aboard,” the ferryman said in a tired, ancient voice.
The old woman stepped in and handed over her dollar. Not sure what to do, Wesley followed her. He held out his coin. A hand poked out of the man’s robe and took the coin. Wesley thought it strange that there was no skin on the hand, just bones.
“What the—” Wesley said.
He squinted in the darkness as the ferryman turned toward him. All there was under the hood was a grinning skull!
“I don’t want to go!” Wesley suddenly screamed, trying to get off the boat.
“It’s out of your hands now,” the skeleton man said, pushing Wesley down.
The boat began crossing the river. Wesley kept screaming…
***
At the Eternal Rest Mortuary, two men bent over a body.
“Looks like this one needs to be cremated,” the older one said, looking at a chart.
“Hey, why do they put those coins over the eyes?” the younger man asked.
“You don’t see this too much anymore, but there are a couple of explanations,” the older man said. “One is that sometimes people die with their eyes open and the coins help to keep the eyelids closed.”
“What’s the other?” the younger man said.
“Well, according to Greek mythology, the dead need to pay the ferryman who takes them across the river that separates the living from the dead.”
“What happens if you don’t have the money?”
“If you can’t pay, you’re condemned to wander the shores for a hundred years,” the older man said. “Anyway, I don’t think this poor fellow will need these where he’s going.”
He then removed the heavy silver dollars from the corpse’s eyes and slipped them into his pocket. Suddenly, the dead man’s eyes and mouth popped open.
“He looks like he’s about to scream,” the younger man said.
“Can you blame him?” the older man said.
He switched on the oven.