In a place where the stars didn’t shine, a sedentary hut lay at the bank of the River. The hut was shabby, its frame constricted by dark brown vines, its wood rotted and gnawed out by a greenish mold, and its windows built of more crack than glass. Despite looking like it could be felled by a simple breeze, the hut had sat on this bank longer than the sky had a name, the oceans had been populated by fish, and the heavens had been alight with stars. East of the hut was a field of browned grass that went farther than the eye could see. West of the hut was a riverbank that led to the River, which faded into a sprawling wall of mist. 

There were only two splashes of color in this rather drab land. The first was a single White Chrysanthemum sitting on a windowsill of the hut. It sat in a small clay pot with the image of a heart burned into it. As everything around the flower seemed to be barely clinging to form, its petals stood unperturbed in the darkness, glowing with a soft, pale light.

The other splash of color was the River itself. It was blue but unlike any blue possible under the Sun. It was as if someone had compressed all the possible shades of blue into a single color, letting the River embody a range of emotions. The River moved with sluggish certainty, its water in no rush to get where it needed to go, for it knew it would never make it there. 

Sitting on a bench at the bank of the River was a man whose skin wore the tone of moonlight. He was unusually tall and equally skinny, resembling a skeleton not quite comfortable wearing human skin. He donned a white collared shirt and had a tie so dark it was seemingly cut from the fabric of night itself. This man was looking out over the River, slightly frowning as he peered into the giant wall of fog obscuring the other bank.

This pale man’s world was silent for a long while. It tended to get like that, with nothing more than the meandering of the River to keep him company. The pale man didn’t mind the loneliness too much. It was a quiet respite from the often tedious goings of his job.

In the distance, there was a set of small crushing sounds, footsteps. The pale man did not react very much, for this was a very familiar sound to him. He raised his head to look at the sky, as the blackness was slowly filled with a gradient of purple, not unlike the color of twilight. With a small sigh, the Pale Man got to his feet and walked over to the front of his hut. As the Pale Man’s feet touched the ground, the brown grass withered and grayed. 

The owner of the footsteps was a wrinkled elderly man with a hunch. He wore an old golf cap and a latticed wooly coat. A bag of rusted golf clubs lay on his back and a pair of golden spectacles dangled from his neck. The Old Man’s eyes darted around the Riverman’s property as he shivered despite his coat. Even though the Old Man was getting closer to the cabin, he seemed to shrink, his hunch becoming more pronounced, his arms squeezing ever closer to his chest. He came to a stop several paces from the cabin, his face in a conflict of wonder and fear as he looked at the pale figure in front of him. Eventually, coming to a decision, the Old Man approached.

The Old Man spoke with a tremor in his voice. “Excuse me, young man, I seem to be a little lost. Could you tell me where I am?” 

“You have arrived at the River.” The pale man spoke in an oddly melodic voice, with gentle overtones overlaid over a harsh scratchiness. The Old Man had never heard quite a voice in his entire life. 

The Old Man frowned. Then he looked over the pale man’s shoulder, and his eyes widened at the sight of the brilliantly blue river and the wall of mist.

“I see…” said the Old Man slowly, “And you are?”

“I am called the Riverman,” 

“Suppose that would make sense,” mumbled the Old Man under his breath. Raising his voice back to full volume, he asked, “I seem to have gotten a little lost. I was just going out to play golf with my daughter and her children, but I must have taken a wrong turn. Could you show me the way home?”

The Riverman lifted a spectral hand and pointed to the wall of mist looming ominously across the River.

“That’s where my home is?” asked the Old Man, putting on his spectacles to get a better view. 

“That is where home is.” affirmed the Riverman

The Old Man shifted uncomfortably. “Well… how do I get across?”

“I will take you.”

The Old Man’s face broke into a large smile, his checks moving nicely into often folded seems. He adjusted the position of the golf clubs on his back. “Splendid. Thank you so much, young man.”

The Riverman made no motion to move as the Old Man waited. Eventually, the Old Man’s smile melted slightly, “Well… aren’t we going to get going?”

“Can’t.”

“Why not?”

“The boat? When will that come?”

The Riverman looked up at the twilight sky. “When you are ready.”

“But.. I am ready now,” frowned the Old Man

“You are not ready,” said the Riverman in a bored voice. His lips moved instinctively to create the words as if they had spoken them a million times before. 

The Old Man was silent for a long moment, taking another glance at the blue River and the wall of white mist. He blinked several times before nodding slowly and taking two tentative steps backward. “This has to be some sort of dream,” he murmured to himself. He took two more steps backward. The Riverman made no move to stop him, and so the Old Man wandered off, following the flow of the River. The Riverman did not watch the Old Man. He simply stood at the foot of his cabin, waiting boredly. He sighed and checked the sky. The Riverman idly wondered why all mortals made this so tedious and difficult. He gave a scornful look at the White Chrysanthemum.

“Surely you could have made them more prepared for the end.” complained the Riverman. “It would have made my job far easier.”

The Chrysanthemum did not answer. 

The Old Man’s footsteps trailed off, and the Riverman’s world was silent once more. 

That is until the pitter patter of the Old Man’s footsteps could be heard emanating from the opposite direction that he had walked. The Old Man looked up with surprise and stopped suddenly in front of the Riverman’s hut. 

“What-, how-,” sputtered the Old Man, “How did I get back here?”

The Riverman did not answer.

The Old Man glanced backward to the field of brown grass, and his frown deepened. “How did I even get here in the first place…?”

The Riverman shrugged.

 The Old Man pressed in his eyebrows, squeezing his mind for his very last memory. “I was on my way to the course… It was a very hot day.”

The Riverman stood silently, giving the man a peering look.

“I was tired,” The Old Man was speaking more for himself than the Riverman’s benefit. “More tired than I remember being in a while. My chest… ah yes, my chest had started to feel funny. I reached into my bag to get a sip of water and accidentally tripped. I fell. Then I got up-.”

The Old Man paused for a moment before going pale. “Then I-, well… I don’t really remember what happened after that…” he said in a slightly shaky voice.

He paused for a long moment, standing shocked still as if his brain had short-circuited. The Old Man’s neck stabbed upward as he looked at the Riverman with a new dawning fear.. “I-, You-, No, no, it can’t be.” 

He looked at the giant wall of mist and took several shaky steps backward. “I must have gotten up…”

The Riverman was silent. The Old Man opened his mouth and then closed it. 

“I must have gotten up!” he repeated forcefully.

The Old Man stood for another few moments before immediately marching off in the direction he had initially gone before. Again, silence, and again, the rising sound of footsteps started from the opposite direction. This time, the Old Man glanced at the Riverman but did not say a word, his face slightly redder. The Old Man disappeared off the horizon… only to return back to the cabin once more. This process repeated itself for quite a while, as the Old Man’s face became more and more akin to the color of a tomato with each pass. Almost like a mirror, the sky also changed with every pass, the twilight purple being burned away by splotches of blood red. The Riverman watched the sky idly, waiting for the color to fully change.

Only after the Riverman had become a more common sight than the Sun did the Old Man stop once more. His face practically on fire and flushed with rage, the Old Man bellowed. “Leave me alone!” and stormed off from the cabin… only to return moments later. 

Huffing with frustration, Old Man stormed towards the Riverman. “What do you want from me?” he asked in a weak, almost pitiful voice.

“I don’t want anything from you.” said the Riverman simply. “It is you who demands something.”

The Old Man made a noise that was between a snort and a scream. “What does that even mean?!” The sky, at this point, had completely turned red and flashed with fire as the Old Man’s rage exploded from him.

The Riverman didn’t answer. He looked at the sky and rolled his eyes. So dramatic…

The Old Man balled his fists, speaking with barely contained fury. “I asked you a question, young man.”

The Riverman yawned, and this pushed the Old Man over the edge. 

“ANSWER ME!” bellowed the Old Man. In a bout of rage, he swung his fist at the Riverman. The Old Man’s strike at the form and structure of a man who had been in a ring for many years. Despite the excellent punch, as his fist connected with the Riverman’s unmoving face, the Old Man suddenly found himself howling in pain. A ghost of a smile crept onto the Riverman’s lips as the Old Man stumbled back, clutching his hand. Where he had touched the Riverman, his skin had charred and blackened. Slowly, it faded back to its normal color and texture, and the Old Man stopped grimacing in pain.

“W-What, are y-you?” The Old Man’s shoulders shook violently, and he took several steps backward. His anger was replaced by a spike of fear, and the red in the sky vanished like a candle vanquished by a particularly strong breeze. 

The Riverman put a hand to his chin and pondered the question for a moment. “I’m not sure.”

“P-Please, just let me leave,” begged the Old Man pitifully. “My daughter must be getting worried that I have been gone so long. I was supposed to meet her and my grandchildren today.” As the Old Man begged. The twilight sky became dark and hardened into a brilliant gold. The Riverman cringed slightly as the brightness reached his eyes.

The Old Man desperately fumbled through the folds and pockets of his woolen sweater. “There must be something you want! Something I could give you to send me back!”

The Riverman sighed. “There is nothing- ” However, the Old Man was not listening. 

“Is it money? “Do you want money?” He brought out an old leather wallet, pulled out a handful of cash, and shoved it in Riverman’s hand. The Riverman looked down at the money and gave a small smirk as it disintegrated to ash and faded into the wind. 

“Is it a new house? If you take me home, I can buy you a much better house.”

The Riverman turned and looked back at his old shack with a slightly offended frown.

“Are you bored? It must get very dreary out here all alone” asked the Old Man, taking off his golf bag and thrusting it into the Riverman’s hands, “Here now you can play golf.”

The golf clubs disintegrated.

“Sir please,” Old Man clasped his hands together and practically fell to his knees, “I just want to go home. It can’t be time yet.”

The Riverman again pointed across the River. 

“No, that’s not home. There is no fog where I live.” protested the Old Man meekly. 

“You can’t go back. Only forward.”

The Old Man took a steadying breath as a small sob escaped his throat. “Then take me across the River. I don’t want to be here with you any longer.”

“We need the boat,” said the Riverman, “It is still waiting.”

“For what!” 

“For you.”

“I don’t know what you want from me. I’ve given you everything I have.,” flared the Old Man, “I-, I-, I-…”

The Old Man’s shoulders slouched, and he hung his head. “-just don’t want it to be over.” The gold in the sky faded sharply and was replaced with dark navy blue.

The Riverman’s face softened at these words. “You don’t get to decide that.” There was no malice or superiority in these words, only truth. 

The Old Man wiped his eyes with his sleeves and gave a curt nod. Head down, he walked over to the Riverman’s bench and sat. The Riverman didn’t turn to look, but he could hear the Old Man’s muffled sobs. 

After a long while, the Old Man looked up from his crying at the wall of mist that awaited him. He was tired, and he was tired of being tired. His will had ebbed like the banks of the River, washed away by his existence in this horrid place. He could no longer remember how long he had been waiting by the coast of the River. Time no longer had much meaning to him.

The Riverman idly played with a strip of peeling wood from the side of his cabin. The navy blue sky cast a dark shadow on the already dull landscape. This was the phase that often took the longest. There was nothing much to do here but sit and wait. 

So they waited. The blue sky fading darker and darker until…

“Is there anything stopping me?” croaked the Old Man from the bench after a long time looking at the wall of mist.

The Riverman stopped playing with the strip of peeling wood. “Stopping you?”

“From jumping in.” Old Man’s eyes were glassy and brittle. “From ending it all.”

The Riverman turned to the White Chrysanthum sitting on his windowsill, frowned, and then sighed. He idly wondered why her creations were so adamant on self-destruction. Then, he walked to sit on the bench next to the Old Man. 

The Riverman looked out at the wall of mist for a long moment. “I wouldn’t recommend it.”

The Old Man gave a weak, cracked laugh. “You didn’t answer my question.”

The Riverman seemed to think for a second and then eventually said, “You could stop you. You could choose to stay here, with all the pain and with all the hurt.”

The Old Man gave another broken laugh, this time mixed with a few sobs. “Then there is nothing stopping me.” 

The Old Man started to get up, then hesitated, frozen in an odd half-crouching position. The Riverman watched as the Old Man waited for a few seconds. Finally, the Old Man came to a decision and got to his feet. As he took a step towards the River, something fell onto the floor next to him with a plop. 

The Old Man looked down and saw that his leather wallet had slipped from his pocket. It was empty except for a few pictures. Staring up at the old man was the face of a young girl in a graduation gown, hugging a, significantly younger, Old Man. They both wore identical ear-to-ear grins. 

The Riverman slowly reached down and grasped the wallet. The leather case faded into ash, but the pictures they lay cradled comfortably in the palm of his hand. The pale man offered the picture to his standing companion. 

The Old Man sat back down on the bench next to the Riverman and accepted the picture with his hand shaking. For another small while, the only sound that could be heard in the property was the rushing River. 

Eventually, the Riverman leaned forward in his seat. “Who is that?”

“My daughter,” croaked the Old Man in an odd voice. “Well, my daughter 15 or so years ago when she graduated. She is even far more beautiful now.”

With slightly shaking hands, the Old Man removed the first picture, revealing another picture of the Old Man and his daughter, this time wearing golf bags in the middle of a sunny putting green. He continued to shuffle the pictures, revealing moment after moment of their time together. One picture showed his daughter’s birthday party, with her staring greedily at a cake with five candles. Another was his daughter holding a small silver plastic trophy with a beaming smile. Picture after picture, with nearly every major moment of her very successful life.

“She is now married, of course,” as the next picture revealed his daughter standing at an altar facing a handsome young man with a childish grin. “I didn’t think the boy was worthy of her at first… but he has grown on me,” said the Old Man with a small smile. “I suppose without him, I wouldn’t have my grandchildren. The next picture revealed two buck-toothed children, a boy with a dimpled smile and a girl with curly hair.

The Riverman did not say anything. The Old Man was talking more to himself at this point. “She had been an amazing mother so far,” said the Old Man ideally. “I was worried, you know, we lost her mother in a car crash when she was very young. Grief, at such an early age, can do things to a person. And I had no idea what I was doing, of course. I’m sure I made plenty of mistakes with her.” said the Old Man with a small bark of laughter. 

A ghost of a smile crossed the Riverman’s face, and the Old Man continued. “But somehow, despite my shortcomings, she turned out better than I ever would have imagined…”

The Old Man trailed off into stories about his daughter. Her first steps, her first words, the time she embarrassed herself at a school talent show, the time she got accepted into the college of her dreams, the time she graduated. The Old Man talked and talked, and the Riverman politely waited and listened to the Old Man ramble on. 

Finally, the Old Man slowed down and stared at his wallet for a few minutes. Finally, he turned to the Riverman and gave an inquisitive look. “Do you… have a daughter?” 

At this, the Riverman sat up straighter. After a moment, he slowly shook his head, “No.”

“A family? Anyone at all?”

The Riverman looked at the White Chrysanthemum with a longing expression. “There is someone, but she is very busy and only comes along sparingly.”

The Old Man paused for a moment and glanced back at the decrepit old hut. “It must get very lonely living out here by yourself.”

The Riverman thought about that for a minute, “At times, but there is always company eventually.” 

The Old Man pursed his lips, “And when there is no more company to come and join you?”

“Then it will be very lonely. “As tedious as it is dealing with you mortals, I must admit your company does add color to my existence.”

The Riverman looked at the White Chrysanthemum shining from the porch of his house. “Perhaps that was her gift to me when she made you all so incompetent in the end.” 

“Aren’t you scared?” frowned the Old Man, “Of being alone forever? Of never having another person come. Is your purpose here just ending?”

The Riverman was silent for a long time. “Not in a long time. I have had many opportunities to interact with you mortals, and when the time comes when there is no one else in need of my services, I will have the memory and solace of having those opportunities and of having this purpose.”

The Old Man was silent for a long moment. Long enough to make the Riverman turn and frown. 

“Perhaps I have been too greedy.” said the Old Man as he looked down at the pictures of his daughter. “I wanted more time with her and with the rest of it all. But I have been blessed more than I ever really deserved with the time I’ve had. I have had an active and wondrous life filled with love and loss and happiness and sorrow. Maybe you are right, and the memories and experience are, and forever will be, enough.”

At these words, the sky exploded into a symphony of vibrant colors as a sunrise expanded from behind the wall of mist. Suddenly, out of the fog, a small, rickety canoe drifted triumphantly across the river. It languidly cruised over the water in no obvious rush to reach the bank. Neither the Old Man nor the Riverman made a move to get up. 

“It appears you are ready,” said the Riverman softly.

“It appears I am.” said the Old Man, “As ready as one can be anyway.”

Silence again as the boat continued its slow journey to the bank of the River. 

Old Man peered at the boat with mild curiosity. “You know, I always expected this place to have more clouds, a few angles, perhaps a golden gate.”

The Riverman shrugged. “It could have. You aren’t there yet.”

The Old Man scrunched his eyebrows. “You have never seen the other side?”

The Riverman shook his head. “I only bring people across. I cannot go yet. That is my purpose.”

The Old Man frowned for a long time. “You must be awfully curious,” 

“I am,”

“Will you ever get a chance to see it?” 

“I hope so,”

“And what if there is nothing on the other end?” 

“Then I will be happy to have an answer.”

The small boat reached the bank of the river with a small thud. The pair looked at each other and then slowly got to their feet. They started to walk towards the bank of the River and into the boat.