souls line up, all desperate to get to their own torture cells, places where they will never forget what life was like and never remember how it felt to be alive. despite the fact that they are losing themselves with each step into damnation, they beg to be let in through the gates—to stop feeling half alive and to start a new life in the darkness of the world below.

they see a lonely figure, rowing to them on a boat alight with the worst sinners with the most beautified crimes. they can't feel emotion, so they don't feel relief. just a little glimmer of hope arisen from the chasms in their soul.

but it's extinguished, just like every other spark of brightness in this dank, damp reality that isn't really real anymore. they beg and they beg and they beg but he shakes them off, says no, it's not time yet…

time yet time yet time yet…

they cry and grasp and bleed tears, losing all their faith, but he only takes a select few before rowing back through the icy water which is them, with its swirling tide and spent eternity. desperate, so so desperate to run away, to become someone else, some jump into the river, into Hell incarnate, a place where they can't come away from.

wailing fills the empty space as they sail the currents, looking like liberty but falling like death. no one helps, for they are not humans and not compassionate and not loved and not lovers.

mothers watch children drift away, children watch fathers, fathers watch mothers—all in a dead, dull way. there is nothing left for them. once they cross this river all that is left is the cleansing of impure souls.

and the souls, the souls! the ones guilty of the seven sins, of avarice and pride and every damning thing in between. because it is in between, and they are in between. guilty not only of crime to others, but also to their humanity and the humanity. guilty of not being mortal, of defying godly limits.

the man comes back, his boat empty but with traces of greed and gluttony left, dripping across the centuries old wood. wood which has traveled with its same ruler along the same path, with the same crimes, with the same death. but with different souls, each shells of what they could have been.

but it is not as it should be, as it whisks away another bout of the gone, singing their deadly song.

ashes, ashes

and

we all

fall

down

.

.

.

Fin.

.

.

.

Bet nobody saw that coming, eh? R&R!

-WGG