In Greek and Roman mythology, while the Ferryman was charged with transporting the dead to the underworld, occasionally he would transport the living to the underworld and back.
Look at that son. How’d ya be? 10 k lockdown radius and no one can get in or out! It’s like the heroin drought of 2002. There’s no green going around to buy or sell, and the meth comes from the mountains and the south coast. Ha! hard times for a dealer I tell you.
What? Nah, don’t you worry. There’s always customers for me. Get this for a laugh son. Remember last year when the country was on fire? Yeah, well, in those towns surrounded by flames, I had my hands full with people queuing up, not for water and bread and dunny paper but for the bottle-O. Lines down the street, I tell ya, people walkin’ away with trolleys filled with slabs of beer. People’ll always find a way…but…
But, listen. I gotta be straight with you.
It ain’t easy. I know your mum told you to get a trade, have a Plan B if the muso thing don’t work out for ya, but are you sure want to train with me? Yeah, nah, the government gives me a subsidy to take you on, but I want to do right by my nephew.
Yeah, the job has its perks but it’s a hard slog all the same.
What? Ok, yeah. Fair enough. Let me show you the ropes and then you can decide. Yeah, jump on the boat, no time like the present. So, see this river here? This river has different names. Some call it the River Acheron, others call it the River Styx. Don’t care what you call it, this river here is my patch. You just need to remember what it does son.
It divides the living from the dead.
Now that other river…that’s not really my patch. Sometimes a punter will pay a bit more and I’ll share it with that bird Lethe, and she’ll let me go up that river of forgetfulness….
Oi, are you listening to me? Put that bloody phone away and learn something! I don’t care if you’re taking a selfie with that centaur…what? You want to record this on your vlog? Are you sure people want to watch this?
Really?
Streuth! Back in my day, you’d give up half a day’s work to watch a play by Sophocles in the ampi-theatre but that was real art. Yeah, ok. You can keep your phone on you. But just you pay attention, some day you’ll be out on the boat yourself.
Ok, now what was I saying? Yeah, this river here. It divides the living from the dead. Now, when I first started in the business, I used to get a different kind of customer. Problem with that sort of customer was they were already bloody dead! You got your coin but that was it! See the problem with that? Well…do you? You get a customer once! Once! They never come back.
Now, sometimes you’d get the odd customer who wasn’t dead. Hero wannabes…don’t get me started on that poser Sisyphus. Yeah, them lot, they’d be on some sort of crusade, usually to impress a lass, or rescue a lass who’d gotten lost in the underworld. There was this one lass, Persephone…she was a real looker. Anyway, I sat there thinking and I says to myself, Charon mate. Think long term.
The dead only pay once, and A league gods come and go. Do we even have those types of gods these days?
…What?
Really?
What in Hades is a ‘social media influencer;?
In my day a god didn’t need a social media presence.
Anyways, I says to myself, diversify. There’s nothing in the oracles that says I can’t change the rules up. It’s a riddle. What’s the difference between the dead, a god on an ego quest and an addict?
Nah, think it through boy!
They’re all seekers, don’t ya see? They’re all desperate to leave this world, even for a short while. You and me, we provide them a service. Don’t let people judge you, boy. People act like this earth is the place to be, but the stories I hear on the boat, I tell you. I’ve heard it all.
If you don’t learn anything else today, son, just remember this.
In this job, we don’t judge. This earth is meant to be paradise, but most people spend their lives doing anything for a bit of a peace and a bit of love. The inferno’s on earth boy, not anywhere else.
That’s why I have a soft spot for the living seekers.
They’re the only ones who see this world for what it really is. And if you see the world for what it really is, it’ll break your bloody heart.
Links to previous parts of this short story
Word upon Word 