The Ferryman Of Lazarus Island

The lake had been poisoned many generations ago. It was believed that the people had done it themselves to prevent invaders from utilizing its bounty. Some said it was a biproduct of industry that poisoned the lake. Either way the effect was the same. The lake was dead. Nothing swam in its depths. Nothing grew at its shores. From a hillside nearby its reflection of the sky appeared yellowed and distorted. It was littered with decaying birds who should have known better than to land on its surface, skimmed with an oily layer that prevented flight and burned lethally within minutes. No one dared cross it as the air surrounding it was also poison. Instead they walked for hours, steering far wide of even its view. It was a bad place. A bad, dead place indeed.

I say the lake had been poisoned generations ago but in reality, it could be millennia. I know of no one who knows someone who knows anyone who had seen it alive. The only reason we collectively believe it was once alive is that all the other lakes upstream from it are alive today while the lakes and waterways downstream are slowly dying too. This implies an ongoing process as opposed to a static state of being. Being dead, that is.

It was not a small lake, nor was it particularly big. Half a mile wide and snaking two or three miles into the canyonland. But its haze made it seem much larger. From near its graveyard-like shore one could see only a few hundred yards across, at best. The steep cliffs of the far shore were swallowed up by the killing mist.

It is important that you understand what I am saying. it is important that I relay to you the utter bleakness of the lake. Its complete opposition to the idea of life. The lake was not deadly, it was death! I need you to understand and accept this dismal truth. It is no exaggeration. Nothing, no fish, no insect, no seaweed, nothing could abide within or near it. Nothing!

And so it is, with this declaration of complete expiration that I come to tell you this fantastic tale, devoid of possibility, this true story so improbable as to easily be confused as impossible. But it did happen. I was there. And if I am lying, may you drag me by my boots and throw me kicking and screaming into that acid bath, that dissolver of all things material.

I stood one day upon the sulfur shore, eyes fixed upon some dim specter out in the fog. Too blurry to make out any detail but something there indeed, interrupting the steady grey of fog. Something within. And from that specter a thin line cleaved the water, heading north of my spot. I made my way north, staying clear of the mud at the shore, sometimes hiking far inland to stay safe from the polluted soil. All along, keeping my attention on the bleak figure that I thought I saw and the strange thread that I certainly saw, slowly coming to the place where it ran directly between me and the specter. A rope!

A thick braided rope heading right toward the shore. As I made my way down through the dying grass I saw where the rope terminated. It lead up to and around some massive nautical spool with a metal crank and an aged wood handle. Had it always been there, unseen? The spool perhaps but certainly not the rope. This was something new.

I grasped the handle and tested the crank. It was rusty and stubborn but not stuck. I pulled hard and with a great groan the mechanism turned. Very slowly the rope coiled, moving in from the dead lake like a great grey serpent whose tail still remained in the fog which obscured whatever was tied to its other end.

But in time that unknown thing in the haze began to take partial form, clarifying little by little as I pulled in the mysterious rope.

I remind you once more and once more only that for whatever duration of time you care to apply to this lake, it has always, to my knowledge, been dead.

And yet, as I cranked, sweat dripping from my brow, my arms fatigued, in a sudden revelation the haze retreated and that eerie specter became clear! A raft! A flat raft, and upon it a man! He wore a long black coat, a large brimmed, black hat and in his thin, pale hand a staff. What had once been obscure was suddenly, impossibly, crystal clear before me. A man on a raft on a dead lake, approaching. 

I immediately stopped turning the spool and stood there, mouth agape. The slender figure dipped the long pole into the murky water and continued on without my help. I was frozen in awe and fear!

And though I could make out no human features beneath that dark hat he wore, I swear to you now.

He was staring directly at me!