Charon Sings His Song

The sound of his boat crunching against something brought Gwendylyn to his senses. The boats never crashed into each other, for some odd reason. Thus, they must have arrived. He stood, and found his suspicions to be confirmed. His ship, as well as the other boats, had run aground against a rocky shore. He looked into the distance, but all faded into darkness. He noticed that all the trees were dead. Or rather…

Gwendylyn looked closer and realized, just like the sea and sky, the trees were inverted. They were not dead; he was just looking at their roots.

It seemed only the earth itself, the midway point between sea and sky, was left uninverted. His ears twitched as a new sound came to them. Methodic, gravelly sounds: footsteps. He saw the pebbles in the distance shifting, quickly followed by a pair of boot-clad feet. Someone was approaching the shores of the Dead.

The man's indeterminately coloured hair was long and ragged, a beard extending near to his feet. Half of his face was covered by a strange silken smooth black and white mask with a round painted eye and an enormous Cheshire cat-like grin. In contrast, his actual face was haggard and cratered with wrinkles, with an eye much like a slit from which some strange creature emerged to ensnare his victims. The gleam of his eye pierced forth like a javelin into the gloom. Overall, it seemed more as if his true face was the mask. He was dressed, most oddly, in what looked like an old and tattered zoot suit, complete with hat.

He was holding what looked like a very old teddy bear dressed quite similarly to its owner. Except this bear was ticking.

The odd man took no notice of Gwendylyn, gazing at the ticking teddy bear. The ticking got increasing louder, until it had grown from a whisper to a resounding snap that sliced the air, piercing it for a brief instant and threatening to pop Gwendylyn's ear drums.

And then it erupted with sound, an enormous song that transcended human hearing, yet the force of the melody was enough to drive Gwendylyn to his knees. It resounded through the air for what seemed like forever, drawing itself out; the requiem seemed to have a will of its own. It filled every corner of the world, of existence, it seemed, and then it coiled into a single bolt of sound and flew away, but the sound of its takeoff remained.

Gwendylyn raised his head gingerly, peering around. He counted the time. 1…2…3…4…5…6…

As if on cue, the wounds on the dead all began to heal themselves, flesh knitting together, skin rewinding itself, organs returning to their places. Light and warmth spread throughout them in a visceral wave, the sudden increase in temperature striking Gwendylyn as if he were in a microwave. Slowly, the dead began to rise, blinking owlishly, grunting, stumbling, bemused after their long sleep. Gwendylyn made no attempt to join the masses. He stared directly at the odd man with the teddy bear and zoot suit. The sound was filled with the murmurs of the confused. Several of the gathered realized where they must be and gave moans and yells, of anger, disbelief, wonder, joy, despair, exaltation, and other such emotions, depending on how prepared they had been to die. Babies began crying, and everywhere people began to call out names, searching for those they had shared life with.

The man in the zoot suit hefted the teddy bear and held it aloft. A red light began to gleam in one of the bears cracked, glass eyes. Its mouth opened and it barked out a single word.

"SHHHHAAAADDUP!!!!"

Everyone, even the mewling babies, immediately zipped their lips together and looked toward the teddy bear with frozen expressions. The bear glared around disdainfully, as if they were the intruders…which they were, in a way.

Gwendylyn froze too, but his surprise had a different source. The others were alarmed by the situation, by the talking bear that had commanded their silence. Gwendylyn was alarmed more at the voice of the bear itself. In that single word, Gwendylyn had recognized where he had heard that cadence before.

The laughing skeleton had had the exact same voice.

The bear continued, seemingly oblivious to the consternation it had caused. Or perhaps it just didn't care.

"My name is Charon. I am the ferryman for the dead. You will all give me your full attention while I speak, and you will give me your full respect at all times. Why? Because I am in charge of your afterlives. None of you will reach your rightful destinations without me. I could leave you all stranded on these shores until the End of the Universe and beyond. But that's not my job.

"All you old crusties or little kiddies looking for family pets and the like, don't even think about it. Animals are ferried separately from humans. All of you have come here alone: don't try looking for your loved ones. It's a waste of time and energy."

Charon gazed around with such utter contempt that the hate coiled within Gwendylyn's Hollow went into overdrive, and for a moment Gwendylyn forgot himself. Who was this scruffy upstart ball of stuffing, and where did he get the nerve to command Gwendylyn? The hate suddenly morphed into a blinding hate. Its searing energy coursed through Gwendylyn. He felt….alive!

Gwendylyn sought to control this explosive outburst of power. He dived into his Hollow and sought to identify the source of the hate. He felt around the edges of the hate, discerning its form and shape. To his surprise, the hate seemed to be surrounding another object…the object was…flat….rectangular. Gwendylyn dug deeper into himself, only to have the hate hiss at him, snapping at him like a snake. Gwendylyn took an involuntarily step back, cowed by this expression of power. But very quickly, he felt a new rage, a rage of his own, not the natural hate of his Hollow. His rage took a form of its own, some enormous, many legged, carapaced behemoth with claws like scythes. His Rage tore into the Hollow and ripped it from its hold, like barnacles from a ship's hull, revealing…

Gwendylyn came back to his sentences, cold and sweating. No time seemed to have passed, and nothing seemed to have changed. Nobody noticed him, fixated as they were upon Charon. Gwendylyn clenched his fists, seeking to control his quaking muscles. He was struck by the realization that one of his hands was wrapped around something. Something flat…rectangular. He looked down, and saw he was holding an odd, rather dingy letter. He read the words inscribed upon it in blood-red ink.

Gwendylyn Torto

5143 Altamare Dr.

"To be delivered to the recipient post mortem, with all haste"

Gwendylyn turned the envelope over and over, but could find no return address. There was a wax seal on the envelope, a strange symbol resembling some sort of abstract picture involving the sun, a lobster, and an almond. He looked up. Charon was speaking again.

"Now, to get onto the ferry, you'll have to pay the toll."

Charon looked around expectantly, apparently thinking the crowd would be struck by confusion, perhaps even panic. He was not disappointed.

"Come on, haven't you read the Greek legend? I'm Charon. I ferry dead. You pay me an obolus.

"…Oh come on, you mean to tell me none of you brought a single obolus?"

Most of the gathered didn't even know what an obolus was.

"Well, you're lucky we have an exchange rate here in death. Come on, two bucks and you're guaranteed a trip into the afterlife.

Some of the gathered scrounged up some pocket money, but most looked around, baffled. Most religions said nothing about paying money to get into Paradise. And of course, the hardcore Atheist scientists were completely in over their heads.

"Ayayay…" Charon shook his stuffing filled head in mock sympathy.

"You dead people get lazier every century. What's wrong with you people? And I suppose none of you

bought any death insurance, either? No? Well, that's too bad, isn't it? Looks like none of you are getting into heaven, then.

The crowd froze, unsure what to make of this obvious flaw in their premortem preparations.

Obviously, paying a truculent and pushy teddy bear had not been on their lists next to "finish my will, play one last football game, and pee on the Whitehouse lawn."

"Well, lucky for you, I get paid by taxes these days, so you can keep your stupid human monies."

The whole crowd, which had been tensed and drawn, relaxed. Exclamations of relief swirled around. Charon raised his head and cleared his throat. He opened his mouth wide, revealing small, stitched up fangs with threads starting to come unraveled.

"Everybody aboard the Ark! I don't take kindly to lazy newlydeads. Shift yourselves, or you get left behind!"