The River and Two Options

I woke up drowning, or very close to it.

I had no sense of direction, no idea how long I had been here, or where here even was. I felt my lungs burning.

I was a dead man waiting to catch up with his death.

And then something thin with a sharp barb that snagged my collar and scratched my neck just enough to give me a kiss of pain and draw blood was suddenly in my world.

It wasn't enough to pull me from the water, but it was enough to give me a sense of which direction was up. I swam toward it. But it was too late. My lungs started to take over, my higher thoughts caved in, as my primal thoughts took control. 

Breathe, breathe, breathe, my primal thoughts demanded.

Two hands burst through the surface of the water and yanked me upward and free of the water. I gulped night air, coughing and spitting and breathing.

"Woohoo, look'ie here, look'ie here!" A happy voice said. "Went fishin' and found myself a you, whoever you are. Would you just look at that?"

--

I looked around and saw a little fishing boat and a figure leaning over looking at me. He had a big grin on his face, wrinkles carved little canyons from his smile to his eyes.

"Come aboard, friend," he said.

He hitched me by the belt to pull me the final distance from the water to the boat. And then he grabbed the fishing hook that had caught my collar and deftly snatched it free without cutting me.

He eyed the hook and then tossed it into a tackle box he still had open.

"Name's Chester, Chester Chairon," He said, "Mighty pleased to meet you"

"I'm…" I began, I coughed, and then realized I didn't know who I was. No, that wasn't quite right, I knew who I was, just like you know a word but for one moment forget what it is. It's right there on the tip of your tongue. Who I was was right there, but, out of reach.

"That's alright, you're just fine," Chester said. "You catch your breath, I'll catch some fish."

--

Sometime later, after I caught my breath and Chester hadn't caught any fish, he turned to me, eyed me like a man at an auction studying a purchase.

"You like cake? Course you like cake, who doesn't like cake?" Chester said, scooting to one side of the boat and rummaging through an assortment of bags and boxes near his tackle box. "It's chocolate, you like chocolate? Course you like chocolate, who doesn't like chocolate cake?"

He handed me a large helping of dark chocolate cake with a thick and rich icing stuck to its top. The cake sat lopsidedly on a paper plate.

"It'll help," he said. And then noting my shivers, "I've got something for that too."

I took a bite of the cake and felt myself come to life just a little, despite the cold, despite the shivering of my body, and despite how close to death I was.

Chester offered me a wooly blanket he had tucked away in the recesses of the small boat, he had a surprising amount of things stored away in one corner or another of the boat. And then he poured me some coffee from a thermos into a little paper cup that was almost too thin to protect my cold fingers from the scalding heat. I didn't mind. It felt good, like drinking warmth.

"Yes sir," Chester said, "You'd be surprised at all the things I yank out of this old river."

"Where are we?" I asked, looking around. I saw that we were somewhere near the middle of a large river. I could just barely make out the bank of one side, and not much at all of the other. Above me, the moon looked big and fat, hanging like a tear ready to fall. There were surprisingly few stars.

"We're on the river," Chester said. Something in how he said it made it sound as if it needed no other explanation. And, I suppose, in its own way, it didn't.

--

I ate the cake quietly, it tasted familiar to me somehow, but I couldn't place where I had some like it before. My stomach came to life the more I ate, growling for more. I ate the whole slice and then eyed the empty plate.

"There's plenty more if you're ready for another piece?" Chester said.

I nodded my head and handed him the plate.

"What city are we close to?" I asked, realizing I couldn't remember what city I was from, where home was, or much of anything really.

"Oh, we're sort of in-between places out here, close to this, far from that," Chester said, handing me the plate back with another large slice of cake.

I studied Chester in between bites of cake. He was right about it. The more I ate, the better I felt. The more life I felt in me. And after half of the second piece, I began to notice little memories stirring at the corners of my mind.

Chester grinned at me, "Memories starting to stir ain't they?"

I didn't reply.

"Yes sir, been fishing on this river for a while. You see everything out here and after a few things repeat themselves, well, you begin to learn their patterns."

"You've fished many other people out of the river?"

"There you are!" Chester said and laughed heartily, "There you are indeed. All spice and going straight to it."

"Did you put me in the river?" I asked, suddenly feeling the chill return.

Chester eyed me for a while without saying a word, his smile tattooed to his face. Then he laughed.

"Now, why in all the world would I toss you in a river, only to fish you back out? That would be a foolish thing to do, wouldn't it?"

"I suppose," I said. I scooted the remaining piece of cake around on my plate, looking up at him only when the silence made me realize he was studying me again, waiting on more. 

"But people have done stranger," I said.

"Aye, that they have," he said, returning to his fishing rod and the river he sank his line into. 

--

We went for a while in silence. He studied the river he was fishing in and I studied the banks, looking for any sign of a house, or even the soft glow of civilization anywhere around me. But I saw neither.

"You have two options, the way I see it, and not many folks get any options mind you," he said, not looking at me.

"Options?" I said, feeling uneasy.

"Ayuh, options," he said. "Option one, I can take you to the bank on the far side of the river," he nodded his head in the direction of the bank I was just studying.

"And option two?" I asked.

"I throw you back in the river," he said.

I felt my stomach sink. There it was. The old bastard had thrown me in, and now he was planning to do it again, maybe worse this time.

"Before you get ideas," He said, sounding unconcerned by the conversation, "I did not throw you in the river to start with, that's just a part of things all their own. But if I do throw you in, you're going to sink to the bottom. I suppose in a way you will drown, but, that's also just a part of the process."

"Who the hell are you?" I asked.

"Told you my name. I'm Chester Chairon" he said, and then he slowly turned to look at me. The moon splashed half his face in bone white and for one ugly moment, he looked hooded with a skull face grinning back at me. "I've had a few names over time, they all amount to the same thing. Just like this river, might as well call it the river, it all adds to the same thing in the end."

"Are you…" I said, "…are you going to kill me?"

Chester laughed heartily, then seeing me and my complete terror, he stopped and shook his head.

"Can't kill what's already dead," he said.

The whole time we were having this ugly conversation, I had been remembering things and pushing them down nearly as fast as I had. I was so focused on Chester, I didn't notice myself coming back to me. I began to remember something tragic that had happened. Just vaguely.

"There it is, there it comes…" Chester said, looking at me with knowing eyes. "Easy does it, easy now. It always hurts when you first remember it. Deep breaths, slow counts, like a panic attack, but you'll be fine."

--

I began to remember myself, or more specifically, losing my grip on life, on my world, on everything. So much pain. And then the cold. The sudden sensation of being yanked away. And then the darkness. I remembered the long ache of darkness before it all went midnight. I had died.

"I died," I said. Rubbing my chest where I remembered most of the pain coming from.

"Ayuh, that you did," Chester said.

"You said something about options?"

Chester nodded.

"What options?"

"I told you your options," Chester said.

"What's the catch? Are you…you know?"

Chester laughed again, "No."

"Are you…" I looked up for a moment.

"Good God no!" He laughed harder.

"Then, who…what…are you?"

"Does that even matter? I'm the person that's giving you options you didn't ask for and wouldn't deserve even if you had," Chester said.

I thought about it. Then I said, "The bank, that's…"

"What comes next for you," Chester said.

"And the river?" I asked.

"A second chance, but you're right, it'll come with a cost," he said.

"I knew it," I said. Eyeing him, looking at the river with all its inky dark water, and the smudged mystery of the bank just beyond.

"Ain't nothing in this wide Universe for free," Chester said.

"So, what's the price?"

"You get your second chance, and I get two things back," he said.

"And they are?"

"One, I want you to do something decent with the rest of your life, and no bullshit either. I mean I want you to break a sweat doing something big, something ballsy. Cure cancer or save an old lady from a burning building, but do something you won't have as much trouble remembering the next time you show up here," he said.

"And two?" I asked.

"And the second thing isn't a debt you owe to me, but just an unfortunate part of the package," Chester said, rubbing the back of his neck, "You're going to see things the rest of your life. Things you can't explain, and others won't understand. The things that get stuck between here, there, and whatever comes next. Ghosts and the like you might say. And some things that might be a bit worse."

What could be worse than ghosts? But I decided it best not to ask. 

I thought about the options and was about to make my decision when I felt Chester suddenly stand, the boat giving a little flop and bounce as he did. He grabbed me without warning and then he hoisted me straight up by the belt again and before I could say anything, he tossed me deep into the water, where I began to sink as if I were made of lead. And then the river, or something beyond it, had a hold of me and was pulling me down, down, down, and beyond. 

He was right about the drowning, I drowned before I found myself coughing and back alive on the other side. Barely remembering Chester or his boat or the smudge of the bank beyond. Though I still remember it all vividly in my dreams late at night every so often.