Acheron Writes
Chronicler of Hapless Souls
Ancient Greeks believed that the Acheron River marked the boundary between the living and the dead. Charon, the Ferryman, plied the turbulent waters of that River of Woe, transporting souls to the underworld. Some stared straight ahead during their crossing, both drawn to and dreading their final destination. Others gnashed their teeth and screamed into the wind, hoping someone, anyone, would hear their cries and note their earthly existence.
Life on the New Zealand Coast
My wife and I spend half the year in Mana, New Zealand, a small community on the North Island’s west coast. Our home sits on a bank overlooking the Acheron. Acheron Road, that is. It runs head-on into an inlet connecting the Tasman Sea with Porirua Harbor.
From our windows, we gaze down on colorful kite surfers and fishing boats cruising that waterway. Kids line up on the local highway bridge and jump into its blue waters. It’s peaceful. Idyllic. When the sun is shining.
We purchased our home, sight unseen, unaware of its location. Maybe we should have been more diligent, given that it sits in a veritable Bermuda Triangle of spirits and souls seeking their final resting place.
Mana takes its name from Mana Island, two miles offshore, a place of spiritual and historical significance to Māori, New Zealand’s indigenous population. At death, Māori believe their spirit follows Te Ara Wairua, the pathway of spirits, traveling up our coastline to reach Rarohenga, their underworld. Coastal winds mark their passage.
A few miles north lies a track meandering along a stretch of coast running from Pukerua Bay to Paekākāriki. To successfully complete this crossing, hikers traverse a narrow trail slicing across steep slopes, two swing bridges, and a thousand timber steps to reach the track’s summit seven hundred feet high. Local hikers refer to the track as the Stairway to Heaven, acknowledging the poor souls who died attempting that crossing.
Have their souls reached their heavenly reward? Or are the gusting winds, playfully trying to toss hikers off that track, a manifestation of their anger at being condemned to wander that stairway, in perpetuity?
And of course, there’s our road, Acheron. Who named it? Did they know something we don’t? Is it actually a thoroughfare directing lost souls to the underworld? On dark nights, the Tasman Sea often hurls winds at the coast. Our house shakes. The wind screams and howls. Vague shapes move on those tempestuous waters. Is it Charon, pulling on his oars, muscles bulging, as he ferries another load of hapless souls across? Is the wailing wind filled with their voices?
I’m not ready to make my final crossing. But stories fill my mind as I listen to the winds sweeping along the Acheron, as I walk the coastline following the pathway of spirits, as I hike the Stairway to Heaven and listen to the wind whistling through its swing bridges. I chronicle those whispers here, on Acheron Writes, a venue of short fiction about lost souls. Feel free to browse The Chronicles and Vault of Souls for their stories
Life on the Silicon Valley Tech Frontier
From the ethereal winds of the Tasman Sea, my wife and I return each year to our California home at the epicenter of Silicon Valley. Google’s and Facebook’s campuses lie nearby, as does Apple’s spaceship. Here, stories are told in code and silicon, but human mysteries and tragedies remain the same. And lost souls are plentiful.
I’ve told stories my whole life, albeit with different means. Now, I use prose. During an earlier life, I used mathematics.
I graduated from Texas A&M University with a Master of Science degree in Aerospace Engineering and joined Rockwell International’s Space Shuttle design team, pursuing my childhood dream. We told the story of how to build a cargo spaceship to survive the fierce environments of launch, orbit, and reentry.
Years later, I joined Weidlinger Associates to tell the stories of how nuclear power plants behave during earthquakes.
Frustrated by the limitations of available software, I wrote mathematical codes to model the laws of physics. That software told many stories. What actually happened within the buildings when aircraft struck the Twin Towers on 9/11? How fetal imaging companies could improve their instruments. How buildings should be designed to survive terrorist bombs.
Joining Weidlinger as a junior engineer, I left forty years later as Director of its Applied Science Division, overseeing 60 PhD and Master’s graduates exploring the dynamic mysteries of our world.
I spent forty years telling the stories of structures subjected to their many storms. Now, I listen to the voices in the wind and write down what they say.
Acheron Writes
“It started with a breath of wind in pitch blackness. Not wind from a point of the compass, wind from below. It smelled of dank earth, worms, clay, and minerals. Then came tendrils of black mist. Then came the stirring.”
— “The Stirring”