Lucid Waking

Archive for June 27th, 2011

Choice and Chance (Part 4)

        “What’s your name?” he asked his opponent as he dealt the thirteen cards for the game.
        “I can’t remember,” he said as if he was talking about a forecast of consistently sunny weather. “That’s the problem of being led down the Lethe. You forget things.”
        Ted surveyed his cards. “How many rivers are there?”
        “Five.”
        “And where do they go?”
        “The Underworld doesn’t really have a name, which is kind of weird, now that I think about it. And, well, only people who can afford it go, but it’s not a bad existence. You get assigned to a job and you do it. Once they find you a perfect job, you stay there. I haven’t gotten there, yet, though. We’re still trying to figure it out.”
        Ted nodded and they continued play in silence before the gondolier asked, rather quietly:
        “Do you remember?”
        “Remember what?”
        “Your name, how you died. Anything from when you were alive? Some people do, but I don’t talk to them much because they’re either crazy from shock or too snooty to bother talking to those of us who don’t.”
        “Um, well, I remember my name is Ted Ryner and I worked as a security guard and I played black market poker on Saturdays. You couldn’t have picked Poker, huh?”
        The gondolier smiled. “I’m not very good at it.”
        That’s a shame, Ted thought as he studied his cards. He was doing better than he thought he might.
        “What is black market poker?”
        “We would bet on illegal stuff that people would represent with vouchers. Don’t worry, I always got cash since I didn’t want anything too incriminating on me if the cops stopped the game. I had a wife and kids to worry about.”
        The game seemed to be taking a turn for the worse for Ted. Panic hit him again, but he managed to push it out of the way.
        “You had a wife?”
        “Listen, you’re better at this game than I am. Do you mind if we don’t talk so I can concentrate?”
        “Sorry,” the boatman said so quietly Ted almost didn’t catch it. At the end of the game (Ted ended up winning), the boatman shuffled the cards and repeated his question.
        “Yeah. Michelle was her name. We met in high school and weren’t really close, but she was the only person I knew in college, so we became friends. It took me a long time to realize she was the girl I wanted to marry.”
        “Was she pretty?”
        “Kid, she was beautiful.”
        “What was she like?”
        “She became a physicist in a small lab almost right out of school and she stayed working there. She was incredibly bright and a hard worker. And she loved to sing. She played piano or guitar to accompany herself when she thought I wasn’t home or the kids needed calming down. She used to sing to herself, too, when she thought she was alone. I don’t know if she loved singing more than physics, but she certainly did it a lot when she was lost in thought. She loved gardening too, which was fine by me. As long as she had a garden and plenty of yard, she was quite content.” Ted stopped talking, still stuck on his wife and the last time he saw her. The kids were out in the garden, it was sunny, and she was bent over some pink flower he had never heard of. And then, there was a knock on the door and…
        He snapped back to the game. “Are you ever going to finish shuffling?” he asked, not meaning to sound hostile but coming across that way all the same.

Author’s comments on post 416: Sorry for the ending, gang, but that’s how I’m going to have to end it for a little while. The whole thing thus far should be up on the page called "Choice and Chance" for your convenience.