Oh The Joys Of Death

• Thomas Walker, Grade 9
• Short Story
• 2022

The temperature dropped as he descended the many flights of stairs, traveling far below the warmly lit train station. Approaching the river Styx, the ferryman Charon came rowing out of the mist that covered the crimson river. The soul came closer to the bank. Charon offered his cold hand towards him, placing a coin in it, the soul climbed into the boat. Moans of souls, cries of agony from titans in Tartarus and the distance howls from Cerberus the three headed dog which belonged to Hades could be heard in the distance. The soul remained calm even though he was about to be handed over to the icy grip of death. Through the mist, blood, bones, and dead bodies, came the coast of an island in the middle of the river, and as the boat came closer, a black castle came into view. Charon tried to offer his sorrow and lament, but it was understandable hard to do so, as Charon himself had said “it is hard to cry more than ten thousand times.” Charon had done his job as the soul's psychopomp. Now it was time to face the lord and ruler of this place. Despite it being a place where the dead dwell, the waiting room in the castle was pleasant. Who would have guessed that it takes a lot of time to manage the dead, who also would have guessed that there is a lot of paperwork involved in the job, both things that do not come to mind when you think about corpses, but every job has its quirks. About 15 minutes had passed (though being dead does warp your sense of time) when the soul was finally able to walk through the fancy red velvet into the main hall. You would think that a king would have a grander place to spend his day, but no, he was simply sitting at a desk at the other end of the hall. As the soul approached him, Hades looked up.
“Oh, I’ve seen you before. Weren’t you that guy who like helped the gods take down the giants?” Guess it was nice to have a warm welcome, after explaining his situation, Hades took him into his private office. Despite Zeus’s demand to have Heracles taken to Olympus and be made an immortal, Heracles admitted that he had somethings on his bucket list before he could rest easy, one of those things is of course, kicking the bucket. Hades hearing that immediately decided that he would give Heracles the whole experience, torture included. Heracles was wise to have that experience, as even when you die you can have fun along the way, though I guess it depends what your definition of fun is.