A Deal with the Ferryman

“You’re a musician?”

The Ferryman with hands of bone asked me as I sat across from him on the small dinghy which carried us across the River of Death. The Ferryman studied me with hollowed eye sockets in a perpetually grinning skull, his dark tattered cloak fluttering faintly in the cold Underworld wind.

Strange. I hadn’t realized there was wind in such a place.

I looked down at the wooden instrument with intricate symbols carved into polished hardened Maplewood, cradled lovingly in my arms. It was my pride and joy.

“I am,” I answered the Ferryman, unafraid of his chilling gaze. I realize I should have been afraid, but there was something about this poor unfortunate soul that left me feeling sorry for him instead of frightened by him.

The Ferryman sighed, a death-rattle-like sigh, full of wistfulness and yearning.

“I remember when one of your kin came down this way.” His voice was soft and ponderous.

“A musician like you, he was. One of the most talented I’ve ever heard. He was searching for a long-lost love—his wife, I think. The way he played, he could have tricked this place into giving her back to him—if such a thing were possible.”

I realized then that this was an ancient being—one who had been upon these dark and frigid waters for an unbounded amount of time. And now, a shiver did go through me. I clutched my lute a little closer to my chest.

The Ferryman tilted his head, regarding me curiously. “Is that why you have come, musician?”

I shook my head shortly. I didn’t have a long-lost love I was seeking, hoping to bring her back into the realm of the living. I knew nothing about that sort of love. All I knew about love I held in my hands.

I knew how to play songs that would make mortal men weep unabashed tears, making them feel things they hadn’t felt since they were children running through the open grassy plains. I knew songs that could make them laugh—louder and harder than they’d done since they first knew what it was to be happy and filled with joy.

I knew music, and what’s more, I knew people. That’s all I knew about love. A good musician can move their listeners with their performance, but a true artist has to be able to move the hearts and minds of men with but a few notes that speak directly and deeply to them.

That’s the sort of artist I am, I told him.

The Ferryman seemed to frown if such a thing were possible. “If you are such an artist, how did you find your way down here—to the Underworld? You’re not dead—and only the dead come to my ferry to cross over to the other side.”

As we drifted along the River of Death, the Ferryman listened while I told him my tale.

I wasn’t dead, no. But I may as well have been because the very thing upon which I truly lived—my music and the joy which came with playing it—had fallen upon deaf ears. No matter how hard I tried, people in the land of the living did not have the time to sit and listen, to really listen to a beautiful tune.

They went about their busy lives with driven determination, obstinately ignoring everything around them but that which they were driven toward. They ignored the very things that made the world beautiful and life worth living. Poetry, music, art, nature, literature, and even other people—these were all things that had been forgotten.

There were seemingly more important things. And so, I fell by the wayside, forgotten along with the music I loved to play.

With nothing keeping me among them, I wandered the world, looking for a place where people remembered what they’d forgotten. I’d heard of the sirens’ alluring calls, which led sailors astray to drown them in the ocean deep, and I saw that same call filling the ears of the world at large.

No one stopped; no one listened.

I could play my music all I liked, but the world would never know nor care. They had not the time nor desire to hear what I had to play.

And so, I finally made my way down here, to the Underworld. The myths and legends of old all say it’s a difficult place to find, but I found it well enough. All I had to do was travel deep below the earth on winding paths of hewn stone, not trodden upon by mortal man in many moons. I walked down past the catacombs of the deep which served as the final resting place for so many souls, and there, the entrance to the Underworld.

There I stood, in the deep dark bowels of the earth in a subterranean land of misery and woe. I stood on one side of the River of Death, watching the waters teem and roll. I wondered if there was any other place for me to go.

Out of the mists which clung to the river’s banks and crept along the river’s surface appeared a small dinghy, pushed across the silent waters with a long pole of hardened ash, held by a Ferryman with hands of bone. The boat ran up along the shore of cut-glass stone and shards of broken bones. The Ferryman beckoned to me with a crooked finger and a grin.

I sighed. What did I have to lose? I clambered on board, and we pushed off from the river’s bank.

As I fell silent, the Ferryman knew that my tale had ended. He was quiet for a moment, then he spoke in a hesitant, faltering voice.

“It’s been a long time since I’ve heard a song of any kind. Would you care to play one for me, I wonder?”

There was a hint of longing in his voice—a longing that felt true.

I studied him for a moment and then nodded. I stretched my fingers experimentally before lifting my lute.

I’ve always felt that music—true music—can go unaided by words. Words falter at times. They cannot cut to the heart as deeply as music can.

But for the music to be felt as deeply as able, it must be authentic and true. And so, I studied the Ferryman in front of me.

I wondered what it must be like to travel back and forth across the River of Death for all eternity. I wondered if he had started out as a man, full of life and love, caring deeply about the souls he ferried from Life to Death, before time took its toll and robbed him of everything. How long had he labored all alone, with naught but the dead to keep him company? And of those dead, who paid him any mind at all?

I tried to put all of those thoughts into feelings, and those feelings into music. It wasn’t a perfect translation, but it was close. And that was enough.

I lost myself in the music as I played. And I only found myself again after the last somber note’s echo faded across the cold dark waves of the River of Death. I didn’t know how long I had played. I found that I was sweating and panting heavily. My fingers stung, and callouses rubbed raw against the strings.

The Ferryman said nothing. He simply continued pulling us across the waters with the long pole of hardened ash.

All was quiet once more, and I began to shiver from the sweat that dampened my clothes. I realized with a start that we had reached the other side of the river and had beached upon the shore of cut-glass stone and shards of broken bones.

The Ferryman still said nothing, and I felt foolish—like I had wasted my time and energy playing music for him. I stood to depart from his boat when he spoke, his words quiet and earnest.

“Wait.”

I paused, hearing the plea in his voice.

“I travel back and forth across the River of Death, day after day,” the Ferryman told me. “I take poor unfortunate souls from one side to the other, from Life to Death. Some are sad beyond belief. Some wail with unspeakable misery and others rage at the injustice of their deaths. All the while, I push my boat. None of them speak to me—much less thank me for carrying them across.”

Here, the Ferryman hesitated, and I could tell he wanted to ask me something. I shifted my lute, slinging it across my back as I waited for him to continue.

“Hearing your music…” the Ferryman trailed off and shook his head slowly. “For the first time in a long while, I felt that I was not alone. Your music reached me. I didn’t know such a thing was possible anymore.”

The Ferryman set down his long pole of hardened ash, resting it against the dinghy’s wooden hull. He drew closer to me, his tattered robes of pitch-black night fluttering in the wind slightly as he did.

I stayed where I was, rooted in place. I wasn’t afraid, but a tremble went through me, a tremble of anticipation. Whatever the Ferryman wanted, he would tell me now.

“Stay here,” the Ferryman suggested. “You’re looking for a place where your music can be truly appreciated—why not here? Play for the poor souls being ferried across these waters, ease them of their troubles and their sorrows. What better use for your music than that? They have nothing more to distract them. They will listen to you with wholehearted attention. Perhaps they’ll finally remember.”

The Ferryman shrugged. “If nothing else, if they still will not listen to you and your music, I will listen, dear musician. I promise you that. I have all the time in the world, and music is something I’ve sorely missed.”

The Ferryman held out his hand for me to take. “Well? What do you say?”

I didn’t have to think about it too much. I smiled and shook his hand.

It was the icy cold hand of Death that I gripped, but it wasn’t an unpleasant handshake. Not in the least.

The Ferryman with hands of bone still travels from shore to shore on the River of Death. From one side to the other, he travels for an unbounded time. He ferries the poor unfortunate souls from Life to Death, day after day. The boat stops to pick up passengers and drop them off, but other than that, it is always moving, never stopping. Much like time.

Nothing seems to have changed. But it has. Where once there were wails of misery and woe, something else has taken their place, something not oft heard in the Underworld before. There is sadness still, but there is also laughter and the sounds of mirth and joy.

And if you listen very closely, out across the frigid once-silent waters, you can hear the faintest sounds of music being played. Music that is heard. Music that matters. Music which reaches the hearts and minds of mankind and helps them remember what they’d forgotten. Music to which they finally, at long last, listen.

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