Beneath this Eden’s pleasant, green-clad shell
An underworld of caverns, tunnel-joined, exists
Where Pluto overlords a dank and chilling Hell
And Charon sculls his ferry through the mists.
Down many bright-lit corridors, I rushed, by green-clothed minions, on a trolley pushed
Into a green-tiled chamber softly hushed, and, through my veins, oblivion swiftly rushed.
I dreamed of death, and in my dream I fell, swiftly headfirst, down a deep, abyssal well,
And as I plunged I saw below a view of Hell, where Satan and his demon legions dwell.
Yet at its base, there was no sign of fire, nor brimstone yet, nor doleful lamentation dire
Nor was I pushed towards a blazing pyre -, as most religious works must needs require!
I did not listen to my Life’s Misdeeds retold, nor was I amongst Satan’s hordes enrolled.
Nor did that fiend my Soul Immortal hold. Instead, I stood alone, in inky darkness cold!
But as I paused amidst that gloom so dull, I heard the soft sound of some unseen scull,
And felt the stir of dire forebodings mull my spiritual mind with thoughts unspeakable!
Some shadowed form the scene began to take, I stood beside some vast cavernous lake
O’er which a craft toward me course did make, leaving a ghostly and luminescent wake.
At length, up to that chill, tenebrous quay, the scow sculled almost soundlessly my way,
And, through the mists, I saw a figure grey. He signalled me, but not one word did say!
“’Tis Charon, boatman of the ancient dead! And this, The Styx!” I told myself, in dread.
I crossed the frigid stones on feet of lead: “To Hades, then!” spake I to his bowed head.
Then, trembling stood I in the ferry’s prow, while Charon slowly sculled the rotting scow.
I watched the Styx’ dark waters plash the bow. To Hell’s dark realm was I delivered now!
Then, in this deepest sink of grim distress, bloomed forth a vision - bright in loveliness -
An angel smiling at me in a nurse’s dress. “Wake up, my dear! The op. was a success!”
Beneath this Eden’s pleasant green-clad shell,
Deep down, beneath the world of living men,
That ferry carries souls across the Styx to Hell…
Am I destined some day, to cross it yet again?
Gerry Forster
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