Ferryman | Unalone

AC: Lauren Davenport. Another one I need to reformat. and probably come up with something interesting so that you're not reading like 5 pages of text. Links to [Morpheus][Morpheus]

Welcome to the in between of the Pre-Afterlife.

You will need passage across the river to enter into your personal and meticulously tailored Afterlife.

Please take your place at the back of the line;

Yes, there is an end.
Yes, we are aware it is a very long line.
Yes, you have to walk there yourself.
And no, we have no golf carts to get you there faster.

Please wait your turn, and shuffle forward with the line when necessary.
Should you suddenly have a craving for baked goods we will readily remind you that you are in

fact dead...
Should you wish to lodge a complaint with the manager you may or may not be laughed at and

most certainly will be ignored.
And should you choose to cut the line for any reason, we defer to mob rule. When it is your turn, please have your obol ready.

If you find you do not have an obol to pay the ferryman, please move to the fields on either your left or right where you may spend the next hundred years wandering around doing fuck all until we decide to take pity on you and the others around you.

Yes, one hundred years is the minimum.
Yes, ‘fuck all’ actually means we don’t give a shit
Yes, in cases of dispute mob rules do apply
And no, you may not apply for a shorter sentence

On becoming aware of any violation of the Pre-Afterlife terms and conditions, you shall be subject to an unpleasant eternity in the torturous poisonous flaming bowels of Tartarus.

Enjoy your relatively short stay with us!

CHARON

CHARON is dropping coins, one at a time into an overflowing pot.

Time isn’t the river. The river is memory. Collective memory— history. But aren’t time and memory one and the same? You can measure time. But memory is always flowing, always being born, always fading, always in motion, just like a river when observed from its shore. Never stops.

There are times when memory must be traversed. And how might one go about doing that, you might ask? Why by time, of course. Or boat! Though, if you think about it—really think about it—that would mean that while you’ve been living your finite number of years inside your decaying body you yourself have been in a boat of your own making without even knowing it. You’re used to boats. That’s a comforting thought, isn’t it? Nod and say yes because when it’s your turn we don’t have time for Potamophobia, Aquaphobia, or any other kind of phobias when I’ve got so much work to do I can’t see the end of it. Okay? Wonderful. You’ll do swimmingly.

CHARON dumps an entire pouch of coins into the pile.

You’re not an accountant, are you? It’s just I’ve been looking for one since Archimedes of Syracuse, but you can’t exactly pitch any benefits to a job with no overtime. Smoke breaks after every hundred souls though! Unless there’s a pandemic...

CHARON lights up, and smokes. He studies you.

How good is your memory? Do you remember the person who was in front of you? Hard not to remember someone who’s been shuffling along in front of you for years, isn’t it? How tall was she? What was she wearing in her hair? Did she have shoes? Let me help you with that: Mid-height, clay beads painted green and blue, and no. No shoes. She never had shoes. I asked her for payment, just like I asked all those who came before you and like I will to all who come after. She told me she was a magician, and that instead of an obol, she could offer me an illusion.

I’m going to assume you took the time to read the terms and conditions. I wasn’t feeling particularly generous, so I stooped to her level and asked, ‘What kind of illusions do you do, little magician?’ She objected to being called little, but said she could offer me a glimpse of Elysium, if I so wished. I asked her ‘Now, why would someone like me wish to glimpse Elysium?’ She could have asked, ‘Who wouldn’t?’ And I might have had a smart response. She could have asked me what I might have preferred instead, if she was a talented magician. But instead, she told me, ‘Because it’s where someone is waiting for everyone.’

Smartass too. When you get to every ninety-nine souls sometimes you can just taste the break. So, I thought why not?

CHARON finishes smoking.

She told me to close my eyes. I did. She put her hands over my eyes, small and still soft with youth. They smelled and felt clean enough, but something felt off about that. She said, ‘When you open your eyes, don’t blink.’ Then, she told me to open them. I did, and with them, my mouth falls open. And instead of death and putrefaction I take in... flowers! Grass! Life! The pollen scratches the back of my throat, trying to find some new fertile place to take root and spring forth. But instead of my tonsils, it winds its way into my lungs—opens me up—and falls down into the dark deep pit of me... where a heart used to be, I think? I feel the echo of the beat against the cavern walls of all I am—all I do and have done and will. Or could. The describably beautiful thing is... it’s night. Stars. Moon. Galaxy clouds—lungs of an endless universe of light to chase away the dark unknown expanse. The crickets sing and glow, in addition to the fireflies. Beating—breathing—shining and glistening brilliant existence to light a path back home. Back to me. In case you get lost. Isn’t that something? Isn’t that something? Isn’t that—a memory. I remember. Isn’t that something, I said. Once.

You can only keep your eyes open for so long, even someone like me. With a blink, it’s gone. The endless line of dead stretches beyond the horizon. Again. And the little girl, my magician, is gone.

Payment, please...

A moment of loss.
Then, CHARON holds his hand out:

Make a choice:

Pay Charon the required fee.
Pay Charon the required fee, plus gratuity.
Listening to Charon’s ramblings have been payment enough.

OUTCOME ONE: Pay Charon the required fee.

CHARON smiles at you. Then leans in, uncomfortably close.

CHARON Exact change? Where’s the fucking tip?

You’ve been sentenced to wait one hundred years in the fields doing fuck all. Unless someone bashes your head in for your madness first.
A word of the wise: remember to tip your servers, asshole.

OUTCOME TWO: Pay Charon the required fee, plus gratuity.

CHARON

CHARON considers the payment, and tosses it in the overflowing pot.

Hands and feet inside the boat at all times.

Charon takes your payment and ferries you across the river.
The gates to the Underworld are shut.
And the gates to Elysium are open.
Before you leave the shore, Charon offers you an obol from his pocket.

CHARON If you see my little magician, tell her it was a most excellent illusion. And that her father is very proud of her. And also... that

he will continue to work for eternity to earn her payment for passage. The payment he didn’t have in life... If you see her.

You take the obol.
Charon ferries himself back across to the other side, disappearing into the fog. Out of the river, the hand of a little girl appears, waiting and open.
You place the obol in her hand.
Her fingers curl around it and the hand disappears back into the depths. Elysium calls to you.
You forget about Charon and The Magician.

7 OUTCOME THREE: Listening to Charon’s ramblings have been payment enough.

CHARON makes a noise of consideration and looks you up and down, before beginning to laugh. His laughter rises to a full-on cackle.

Essential workers deserve hazard pay for having to deal with you and Charon’s no different.

While actual patience is appreciated, not paying workers for the shit they have to put up with earns you an eternity in Tartarus.

Have fun burning over and over again in eternal flames, shitwad!