honea byrne

  He prayed to God to grant him the patience. Then he laughed when thinking that’s why he was placed in the job as a prison counselor. The hissing of the fan taught him to listen more intently to his patients. He put a nicer chair in his office: a thirty-year-old small leather black office seat-That’s what the patients called “The best chair in the jail.” As he uncurled his fingers he realized in an instant that the almost skeletal hand uncurled of the Ferryman. He placed the coin in the Ferryman’s hand. Then the Ferryman motioned his robed arm for him to get on the ferry. “Thomas Moon,” the patient read from the name tag. Thomas looked at the patient’s folder. Usually he would have read his patient’s folder, and be better prepared. His name was “Ricky White,” he chuckled at the irony. Said to him “Ricky White, you’re more than just a number. You’re more than a statistic to me.”   He already knew from the patient’s voice that this would be an interesting session. He ...

 edited for DOWN AND OUT DETOUR 2: (C) 2026 There’s a river that passes through hell. To get across that river one must pay the ferryman (Charon). One of the items, energies set free was from an AA coin. When one leaves the Earth he/she must pay the Charon a coin. In other worlds (God’s Time is different from manmade time). The energies of the chip went to a father’s wake. He remembered a few years ago, hearing his father talk to his stepmom, “I just don’t understand why he came to Thanksgiving high out of his mind again. I’ve done everything I could do to help him.” At a Thanksgiving, a few years later I would learn that he had cancer. My stepmom, my father, my niece and nephew were in the kitchen. There were platters, bowls, and plates with the regulars on the marble center table, potatoes, gravy, turkey, cranberries, and dressing. The interior designer came in, seemingly from nowhere. Wearing blue jeans and a black shirt to get his pay. He asked my stepmom, while my father...