The Simple Truth

William laid on his back, trying to catch his breathe.

The last thing he remembered was a bus coming at him as he crossed the road. Now he was looking up at a ceiling mural, showing a dog running across a field with a house behind it. It would have fit right into one of his three year olds story books.

As his breathing returned to normal, he heard singing. He couldn’t understand the words, but it sounded beautiful. The voices seemed to surround him, filling him with warmth. William closed his eyes, and let the music wash over his body as he tried to think.

His blazer and dress pants were still on, and whatever he was laying on was hard. So where was he. The bus was the last thing William remembered. A chill ran down his spine.

A small giggle interrupted his thoughts. He tilted his head slightly, and opened his eyes.

“BOO!” a small boy yelled, as he jumped up beside William.

William, used to his own child trying to scare him, smiled and sat up. “Hey there, what’s your name?” he asked.

“You can call me Charon.” the boy told him smiling.

Something tugged at Williams mind, but he couldn’t place it. “Charon do you know where we are?”

“We’re at my place,” Charon said. He looked at William like he was a new toy. “Can you do any tricks?” he finally asked.

William scowled at Charon. The kid was wearing an old t-shirt and jeans, he couldn’t be older than eight. Where the devil were they? “Charon where are your parents?”

“I don’t have any.” Charon grabbed his arm and pulled him off the table. “Come on,” he said excitedly, “time to go to the doors.”

William had time to be amazed at how easily the child was pulling him, before they left the small alcove. His jaw dropped.

The room was enormous, stadiums would have been lost within it. Large towns would have fit comfortably within its walls. A gentle light seemed to permeate the air. It had no source and William knew instinctively it needed none. Distances were meaningless in the room, what looked close one second vanished into the distance the next. And everywhere people worked, played, ate, and slept.

A choir of a thousand singers stood at the far end. They wore a thousand different costumes, from rotting animal hides to the latest fashions. Every race, every type of person stood on the stage singing perfectly. There was no conductor, no pages, yet no singer stumbled or faltered. They all sang on key, perfectly timed, and it drove deep into Williams soul.

The floor beneath the stage moved forward, causing William to stumble as his eyes adjusted to the new perspective. Dancers moved gracefully and fluidly in time with the music. Like the singers their clothes had no rhyme or reason. They relied on their bodies and their movements to draw the eye, not flashy costumes or exotic makeup. They moved so smoothly, as if they were boneless.

“SILENCE!” Charon yelled.

The singers stopped at once. The Dancers jerked to a halt. All of them stood shaking, gasping for air, sweating. From the look of them William wondered why they weren’t collapsing. They looked exhausted, heads bowed, eyes black, holding each other up, the stronger ones muttering words of encouragement to their weaker companions.

People ran up to Charon and William. Some began leaping in the air performing flips and summersaults. Others contorted their bodies into complex shapes, forming grimaces into insane smiles as their bones and joints popped unnaturally. A woman began telling a story of a horse and mouse.

“Go away, I want to be alone with William right now.” the child told them.

“Who are all these people?” William asked, as the people scurried away.

“They are my entertainers. I’m bored, so we make a deal. They entertain me, and I don’t put them through a door.” Charon said this as they walked through a field of statues.

Dragons, humans, trees, and demons loomed over them, carved from marble, wood, stone, and bone. William stared wide eyed at them all. Collectors and museums would go bankrupt paying for the poorest statue. He expected the statue of a sleeping man to suddenly start snoring. He wanted to pull the jewelled apple from the marble tree to make sure it was only a stone. Yet the boy walked between them without even a glance.

The few people chipping and sanding the unfinished statues, bowed their heads as they passed, and began working faster as soon as they moved on.

“W-what’s the door,” William asked as he stared around him.

“The doors. More than one. It’s where people go when they come to my house.”

“Why am I at your house, I don’t even know you?”

“You died. Everyone comes to my house when they die.”

“But I’m not dead!” William protested. “I don’t feel dead.”

Charon stopped and looked at him. “Have you been dead before?”

“No.”

“Than how do you know how you should feel?” Charon grabbed his hand again and started walking. “You’re boring. So lets get this over with.”

William tried to protest as he was dragged onwards by the child. But no matter how hard he tried to dig in his feet nothing happened. He couldn’t stop and he couldn’t break the iron grip of the child. He pleaded for help to a few of the people they past. They ignored him. A few just shook their heads slowly and continued with their work.

They came to a wall covered with hundreds of doors. All of the doors were plain, lightly stained wood. They looked to be in good condition, no scratches marred their polish. No dust covered the knobs. They stopped at one, apparently at random.

“Now you stay right here and I’ll decide which door you go through,” Charon said sternly. William could only nod his head as he felt the very air grab his legs.

The boy pointed at a door and began speaking. “Enie meenie mini mo,” he chanted pointing at a new door with each word. “Catch a tiger by the toe. If he hollers let him go. Enie meenie mini mo!” he shouted as he reached the end.

The door opened by itself and William felt himself lifted into the air, slowly heading for the door. A shriek of pain and rage came from the entranceway.

“Oh!” Charon said . “This is a nasty one. Sorry.” he giggled.

“Wait this isn’t fair!” William shrieked. “I never did anything bad. Why are you doing this? You can’t just pick at random. It‘s not fair” he pleaded.

Charon held up his hand. William stopped moving, but remained suspended in the air. “I have been here for an eternity of an eternity,” the boy said in a very deep voice. “No one comes except the dead. No one told me how to do my job. Our creator just clapped its hand and disappeared. No door will accept me, so I just send people through them as they come to me.” The boy looked longingly at the open door. “I used to carefully pick and choose which door a person should go through. It took me eons to realize the simplest truth in the world. Once I figured it out I decided to follow it as well. Do you want to know what that truth is, William?”

William nodded his head like a madman, anything to buy some time.

Charon looked up at him, his eyes no longer looked like a young boys. They were the eyes of an ancient, broken man, who knew he was damned. “The truth is, no one cares. Good bye William”