The Toll
(Random
2-word prompt- pavement, toll)
“How
much?!” Flower threw his hands in the
air in frustration. He could feel the
heat in his face radiating to his ears.
“But you just let the two people in front of me pass for free!”
The tall burly man crossed his
arms tighter, then growled a noise that indicated he didn’t care. He seemed to grow, muscles bulging in his
shirt, his large body blocking access to the bridge even more so than before. He glared down at Flower, his small head
tucked between two engorged shoulders.
“Come on!” pleaded Flower. It was cold in the shadow of the man, the
bright morning sun trapped behind that large back. “I just want to get home! I’ve never had to pay a toll before!”
“It’s new,” grumbled the guard. “Pay up.”
Flower sighed, blowing air
through his nostrils as if he were a dragon.
“I haven’t got enough; I’ve only got a few coins on me.”
“Not my problem.”
“Urgh, can’t I just owe you?”
The big man shook his head,
frowning.
Flower looked down at his feet. He considered making a run for it, trying to
dart around the guard and sprinting across the bridge, but he knew he stood no
chance. He was only small, and the big
burly guard would catch him and grind him to a pulp in seconds. He didn’t fancy being pulped; he already felt
drained enough this morning and his innards would make a weak jam.
He turned to walk away, but…
“How much you got?” gruffed the
guard.
Hope. Flower smiled at the man; he reached into his
pocket and held his coins out on his palm.
“Four coins,” he said. “Is that
okay to pass? Will you take it?”
The big guard laughed. “It’s not for me dummy.” His arms unfurled, and a thumb swung to his
left. “Head down the steps to the river;
the ferryman will take you across for a couple of coins.”
“The ferryman?” Flower had never heard of any ferry crossing
the river before, though there’d never been a man stopping people crossing the
bridge before either.
“The ferryman,” repeated the
guard, his grimace returning, joined by a condescending tone in his voice. “Down the steps. Two coins.”
He refolded his arms and become the imposing stoic statue once more. “Fuck off.”
Flower didn’t say thanks; he
shook his head and sighed, then headed out of the large man’s shadow and toward
the steps.
The stairway was bereft of the dazzling
morning sunlight, yet it still retained some heat; it was humid, sticky. He tried not to slip on the stones as he
descended into the misty gloom below the bridge. Flower lost sight of the pavement above.
It had been quiet up there, it was
early, and he’d only seen the guard and two other people; down here, it was
quieter. Too quiet. The mist thickened with each step. He could hear the lapping of the shore, slow
and steady, like a whisper. He could
hear his boots crunch against the gravel.
He could hear his chest wheeze through the damp air. There was nothing else to hear. No birds singing. No crickets chirping. Nothing.
It was as if the misty waters had sucked away all the usual noises of
the riverbank.
A shadow emerged from the grey
clouds. It was tall, taller than the
guard, but thinner. Much thinner. It wore black robes, tattered, hooded. Flower could see no face beneath the
cowl. The wooden boat washed up against
the shore with nary a sound.
“Are you the ferryman?” He gulped.
There was no reply.
“Ferrywoman? Ferryperson?” Flower took a step toward the river, then
pointed up. “The guard told me there’d
be a ferryman… that you’d take me across the river for a couple of coins.”
The hooded figure looked up, then
back at Flower. It nodded a slow and
deliberate nod.
“Uh… okay,” said Flower. He hesitated closer, glanced around, then
stepped onto the ferryman’s boat. It
wobbled in the water.
A bony and open hand extended out
to him, and Flower hurriedly placed two coins on its palm. The skin was cold and dry, the antithesis of the
muggy air. The hand withdrew back within
the black robes, and the tall figure nodded it’s slow and deliberate nod once
more.
Flower sat down. “Er… th… th… thank you,” he stuttered. He wasn’t sure whether he was happy to
finally be heading home or scared shitless by whatever was happening down here
under the bridge.
Flower smiled at the ferryman,
who leant onto the long pole it carried and pushed off into the river.
“It’s… uh… a lovely morning,
isn’t it?” The thick mist had consumed
the air, and he could no longer see the shore behind him, or the blue skies
above. It was grey and swampy. He wondered if the glorious morning continued
without them.
The ferryman said nothing. The skiff continued gliding through the
water.
“Do you get many people down
here?” babbled Flower. His nerves shook
the words from his mouth in a jabber of syllables. “I expect so; the river is lovely in the
summer.”
The silence continued. So did the boat. The only sound was the swish of the disturbed
river as they moved.
“It’s warm, isn’t it?” he
said. Flower flapped his hands in his
face, an unsuccessful action to cool his sweating body. The humidity was starting to get to him; the
misty clouds closing in, sticking to his skin, moisture refusing to leave him. “Aren’t you warm in that cloak? It looks like it’s made of a thick wool.”
Again, he was met with no reply
from the gangly ferryman. The wooden
boat answered instead, creaking as it rocked along the waters, moving ever
forward for what seemed forever. He
wondered if he’d made a mistake; would they ever reach the other shore? He’d jumped into a boat with a stranger.
“Uh…” The silence felt even more palpable now; it
was as thick as the muggy mist, and almost as slick. Flower’s words would just slip right off,
ignored by the taciturn ferryman. He wanted
to say something, but his voice would be futile.
He was lost on the river, deep in
the mist, with a tall and cloaked figure.
And then the skiff hit the shore,
wooden hull scraping against the stones, screeching and rasping. They came to a halt. Flower was saved.
He stood. “Th… thanks again.”
The slender, towering ferryman reached
out an icy hand and touched his shoulder, freezing Flower to the spot. The cloaked man leant close, and, in a
gravelly voice that stank of the grave, whispered two chilling words into his
ear, words so cold that they curdled Flower’s blood. He didn’t know what to say, how to respond,
but he watched as the ferryman straightened, lifted his bony finger up and back
towards the bridge, and pointed through the thick mist to where the burly guard
had blocked his passage.
The ferryman laughed, a rattling
hiss emanating from within the folds of the black cowl, and turned back to
Flower.
He saw the reality within the hood.
Flower ran, jumping from the
boat, racing up the steps from the river.
He ran and ran, didn’t stop until he was safely within his home.
He knew that tomorrow, the ferryman
would be gone, and that he’d never need to pay a toll to cross the bridge ever again.
The
End.
