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On The River Styx
It will end the way it started; a noise that no one will hear. They arrived a mere few weeks before it happened. A small contingent of Canadian peacekeepers, for the higher authorities assumed that it was just a small sunburn that would quickly fade with time. Surely it was just a small blip on the radar screen that would go unreported. Minor irritants. And to think, all it took was three months to alter the lives of so many, and only a few seconds for them all to forget that it had ever happened. Yet the fact remains that it did.
For the weeks they had been there, the keepers had been calling back and attempting to tell the world exactly what was going on. But no one listened. No soul was salvaged. They asked only for the right that these people had to live, nothing more. They were dying, and the only thing that anyone wanted to do was turn a blind eye for it was easier to ignore than to save what they saw as an insignificant life. But not even the smallest approximation of guilt was felt, with them simply backing away from a crisis that was politically complex yet morally simple.
It was on a humid morning in the mid-April sun that they heard the helicopter explode into a fireball. Together, they ran towards it, fearless of their own lives and fearful for the lives of those inside the cursed monster. This is what they were here for; the big show had started.
“Aidan! Get over here with the kit! Hurry!” Someone yelled to the rookie doctor that was straggling along behind the rest of the troupe. “Remember your training boys! Go, go, go!”
They ran as fast as they could and reached the charred wreckage in seconds, with Aidan following closely behind. But they were too late. The president was dead, and it would forever be Aidan at fault.
* * *
The sparrows were flying again. Beautiful, graceful, bound together by their concealed connection. Collectively, trance like, they flew in unison, veering, cascading in a corkscrew , down, down, coming together in a black cloud, faster and faster and faster until- . . .
He was back. The nightmare was real again. He awoke from a cold sweat, still picturing the expressionless faces, the swollen bellies and that faint glimmer of hope in each one of their eyes, begging, pleading, that someone, someday would save them. He kept replaying that ghostly image of the fireball over and over in his mind. It was the fire that got to him. He could never escape it.
Since he had returned to Ottawa there had been nothing to do and nowhere to go, except down into the deep recesses of his soul where his mind rarely wandered. The problem was that once you got there, you could never leave. And there was the river. The river. Everyday, not mindful of the weather or of what needed to be done, there he went. He didn’t know why, but it reminded him of something and he felt it led somewhere, back to the memories maybe, but probably the lake, and then the ocean and eventually back to the river. It was all relative. But something there was real and there he went.
Today was no exception. Just like every morning since he had returned, he awoke from his living nightmare, threw on his still blood-stained uniform and left his bedroom without a word. He hadn’t said anything since he had returned. Nothing to say he supposed, or maybe nothing that anyone wanted to believe. It was strange though. Whenever he left the house, he always took his cell phone with him, just in case someone out there needed to be heard.
The eternal flame that bound together all of Canada stood majestically at the end of the walkway to the Parliament buildings. As he left his downtown apartment, people gave him strange looks and made callous remarks behind his back. He couldn’t really blame them. Dressed vagrantly in the same clothes he wore every day, he often reeked of alcohol, his only escape, and wore a mask that distanced him from the rest of the world. But what did they know? They were trapped in their perfect snow globe of a world, never knowing what was waiting for them on the outside of their protective bubble. Maybe it was better that way. It was hard to imagine them knowing what he knew, and yet he wouldn’t wish it upon them either. He sometimes wondered if he had ever come back, or if his soul had died along with everyone else and only his empty body had returned to Canada. He couldn’t believe that it had been ten years . . . it was only yesterday. But then again, for human kind, life is a perpetual yesterday.
He remembered he used to smile in awe and pride every time he walked by the Parliament buildings, then Rideau Hall. His favourite had been the regal Peace Tower, the beautiful crowning gem of the Parliament buildings, symbolically epitomizing everything that Canadians stand for. But that patriotic love seemed to die along with every sense of sanity and reasoning he had ever had. Even the emblem of the Canadian flag that stood stoically over his heart seemed to epitomize that last bit of mocking pride he still felt.
He toyed with the cell phone in his pocket. It’s about time, he thought. Around the same time every day, someone would call his phone, needing to be heard, and he was there to listen. It was slightly ironic though, considering that he wouldn’t say anything, but at least he would listen, something that he wished someone had done for him all those yesterdays ago.
In an instant, he had the phone flipped open, cradled between his ear and his shoulder. The voice on the other end was very sweet, child-like, as if she were lost in a dream.
“Are you interested in upgrading your cell phone plan? We offer new services, including free weekends and evening starting at six. And don’t forget, we also offer the lowest overseas calling rates in the business!”
Silence.
“Hello? Should I call back another time?” He moved his ear slightly closer to the receiver as he walked, trying to hear and emulate the breathing on the other side. He wondered what the person was like. Their hair colour, the way they smiled if the moment was just right, the way their eyes squinted just a little while their forehead wrinkled when they were deep in thought, the freckle that lined up perfectly with the right corner of their mouth. . . just the details. Even if you didn’t remember them right away. Nothing else mattered.
“Uh, sir? Ma’am? . . . anyone?”
Silence.
“They killed my parents and raped my little sister.”
* * *
It was a night such as that one where even the most optimistic person would find it hard to tell if they existed. It wasn’t quite right to be alive in a world that wasn’t really a World. Or, in other words, what they had once perceived to be the world. Time flowed differently in these parts, and one wondered whether it truly existed at all. For if God had any real compassion and sympathy for his children instead of being hopelessly blissful and blind, time would have flowed quickly. But maybe even God couldn’t save them. Sadly, every moment was an eternity.
He was sitting outside opposite another keeper around the fire as it cracked and sparked. The flames rose up towards the heavens and retracted, grabbing his long gaze and drawing him in. He had been staring at it for what seemed like hours, thinking about everything. After the peacekeeping mission was over, he was going to have it all, and yet his mind was filled with such child-like egotism that he was blind to what the world was trying to show him. At least that was what his reality had been only days ago.
“Aidan?” A form slouched to ground beside him. Another keeper, curly hair, in his thirties. Danny, he thought his name was. For a moment, the awkward, unresponsive silence separated them. “You know Aidan, you did real well today. Seriously, I mean it. Don’t be too hard on yourself; we couldn’t have done anything else. I know you think you choked but . . . honestly, there was nothing else we cold have done for him; he was gone before we got there.”
Danny trailed off and started poking at the burning embers, immersing himself in the fire. Choked, Aidan thought, that’s a funny way to say it. In the back of his mind, Aidan knew what happened today had implications that were beyond anyone in the camp. Something was coming, something big. If he had known then what he knew ten years from that moment, there would have been no way he would have let the world sit and watch.
More silence followed as he continued to stare into the flames, dancing their eternal dance. After a moment, he got up and staggered towards the door of the hut. Scarcely upon entering, he stopped mid-step, but just for a moment. Eyes sullen, as if looking into a never ending black hole, he whispered, “You can always do more.”
* * *
The river was a torrent that day. The banks were high and were quickly eroding the muck away from the shoreline even though the sandbags had been put in place that morning. He walked along the embankment, making a photographic catalogue in his mind of everything that he saw. Up above, the sky was clear. The freedom that the river allowed him was beauty in its highest form, but it had its price. Just as we experience one moment of pure happiness and reprieve, we undergo uncountable moments of complete hell.
Every time he came to the river, he imagined that he remembered that he imagined the stars being out. He never actually saw them, but he fantasized that they were out there, blanketing the sky with wonder and beauty, concealing us from what we didn’t know.
For that time of year, the coniferous trees were more full than usual, creating a large partition between him and the sunlight of the rest of the world. But some light managed to protrude, letting him see the shadows. A panic button turned on in his brain, and he started to quicken his gait until it turned into a full out run. Quicker and quicker, until the trees all became a blur, until all the trees became one, until he imagined the gorillas were back.
* * *
There they stood in the doorway. The black gorillas formed a wall about them and carried the keepers into the night. That was the last sane thing that anyone in that hut ever remembered for the rest of their lives.
After about a mile trek deep into the night, Aidan was the first, he could only assume, to regain consciousness. He was completely lost in the burlap sack that he was being stored in, but he could hear the ominously calm gurgling of the river nearby. With this realization, his qualms only rose out of fear and anticipation, for if there was a river, there was a village nearby. The power and potential of these black gorillas now became a frightening reality. The keepers had heard whisperings of these Interahamwes, but never in his wildest imagination did he think that they would mobilize. He could hear them marching, speaking in a sort of Aramaic idiom, their words flowing off their forked tongues with ease. As they were walking, he was trying to formulate an escape plan when he heard the first screams coming from the village.
The pitter-patter of little feet echoed in his ear. A child perhaps, running towards the black men who she could only assume would be her saviours. Long pleated hair, he imagined, tall for her age with an air of sophistication beyond her years, eternally smelling like the breakfast that her mother had made for her that morning. She came screaming. “Help me! Please! They killed my parents! They raped my little sister! Please, help us, they burn down our houses with the families still trapped inside, you must- . . .”
But her words were cut short to a gurgle with a swift movement of a blade. The black gorillas moved like machines; systematically taking out all that lay in their path, but leaving enough for the ignorant to see. They were all trapped, surrounded by the river that enclosed the village. It was all an overwhelming dream. It was a dance; they had rehearsed, and they now slaughtered with such fluidity and grace that all who tried to emulate them would be envious of their skill. They marched in perfect unison, irreverent towards their own demise, pleased with the death that came from each passing moment. They did not spare a soul and laughed mockingly at the face of the Devil himself. For anyone who was present there, they had succumbed to a fate worse than eternal damnation. An eternity with the Devil would have been becoming. The gorillas did not even grant them that final plea.
In a moment, Aidan’s world was thrown upside down, literally. He flew head first out of the burlap sack and was once again knocked unconscious.
When he awoke for the second time that night, he found himself strapped to an upright log with a pile of sticks underneath his feet. The smell of death was overwhelming . . . it was everywhere. Once again, Aidan was drawn in by the fire that was all around him. Everything was ablaze. If only he could get to the river . . .
His first reaction was to move forward, which he did, but his legs were bound tightly. The ropes only became tighter and chafed his skin. The screams from inside the huts only grew louder with the intensity of the fire. All was anarchy. But he remembered the details: the deep, rich red of the earth, the shape the blood made when it hit the ground, the remnants of the evening meal that littered the vomit that was all over. He so badly wanted to help. Never in his life did he feel so useless, so alone. He kept his hands moving, as to loosen the ropes, but all he achieved was more blood but he continued anyway. There must be a way.
A mother and her child were shot down right in front of him at his feet. The river that once brought life now became a river of death. He closed his eyes. He couldn’t take it anymore. If only he could escape, if only he had made them listen, if only he hadn’t let the president die . . . suddenly a cold, lifeless hand latched onto his leg and a shrill voice let out a blood curdling scream.
“Open your eyes! This is what you have done. I want you to watch this. Pay attention to all the sweet little details that even the Devil himself would be proud to have created. You let him die. You let this happen. You, you, you, you! . . .”
“STOP!” Aidan yelled at the top of his lungs. For a moment, everything did stop. It was as if he was caught in a hurricane, and he had just entered the eye of the storm. It was eerily calm. Even the river became mysteriously placid, as if an arctic wind came out of the night and immobilized it.
“Jesus . . .” Someone whispered beside him. He looked over as far as he could, and it was the first time he realized that Danny was beside him.
“Danny?”
He looked over in the direction that Danny was staring, and came into quick realization of what was about to happen. There was a boy, no older than ten, strapped to a log just like he himself was. He was staring directly at Aidan, begging him, pleading with him to save him. His eyes were oceans, but they were full of loss. The oceans scorched his very soul. A lone tear escaped and gently rolled down the curvature of his cheek. Aidan prayed that it never hit the ground.
“Someone please,” Aidan pleaded in an utter, then he was yelling, “The tear-”
“They’re going to burn him alive.”
* * *
Ten years, and those eyes still burned his very soul. He began to light a fire beside the river. It tried to grab him, but he wouldn’t dare let himself get caught again. It burned him, but he didn’t care. Pain was nothing anymore. Pain was the last thing on his mind. In the meantime, he had collected a pile of rocks and situated them between himself and the fire, in proximity to the banks of the river.
He picked up a few sticks and the twine he had brought with him and created a little star. With careful precision, he wrapped dried grass around each one of the five sides of the star, until he had something that somewhat resembled a body. But the right leg was always just a little bigger than the left, he remembered later. Just the details. He added a little tuft of hair, exactly the right colour, along with a nose, a mouth and two marbles for eyes. The oceans.
After he finished, he admired his work. Then, in one swift movement, he instantaneously threw his hand, along with the doll, into the fire. When the real pain finally came, he welcomed it. The searing flesh, the sound his skin made when it bubbled, the blackness. He took his hand out and watched the doll for awhile, until there was nothing left except his haunting hollowed eyes. He began to weep, his tears flowing everywhere uncontrollably, knowing that the birth of man was the birth of sorrow.
For the first time that evening, his mind staggered back over the threshold of reality. Wiping his eyes, he sighed. He glanced over and remembered his pile of rocks. Walking over, he picked one up and threw it into the river. It made a splash and created little ripples that licked the outer banks. Maybe one day the rock would cultivate enough moss and change the course of the river, no matter how futile his efforts seemed at the present time. One day, he hoped. And that since he changed the course of the river, he would change the levels in the lake, and the currents in the ocean, and the ripples in time.
As he sat by the riverbed, he could hear the final cracks of life leave the fire that still glowed behind him. Up ahead, the sparrows were flying, the ones that flew only when the nightmares weren’t there to catch them. He stared out unto the river. Gathering his thoughts, he arose, dusted off his hands and turned his back on the river for another day.
Arriving at his apartment, he fished his keys out of his uniform and opened the door. He stumbled into his room, and without turning the lights on he jumped into bed. Deep within his soul, he knew that one day he would actually come back home and be Aidan again, but not until his debts were all repaid, not until he escaped his perpetual hell. Until he and the river met again, he closed his eyes, slipping back into the nightmares that stole his every thought.
River Styx was where sages started their journey to meet Charon, the ferryman. The Elysian Fields was where souls supposally went to. Sorry, don't mind me. Greek Mythology has always been a hobby of mine. 
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