Author’s notes: 1- I swear, I did write this. It’s not the product of a ghostwriter, a hallucination, or an LLM.
2- I also swear, I was completely sober when I wrote this. No mind altering drugs of any kind.
3- I’m not actually on a Greek mythology kick, despite what recent stories might indicate; this came out of chatting with my husband. Some of you have met him, and you know that this little tale is an entirely reasonable outgrowth of a conversation with him.
“Can I speak to the manager, please?” a voice lisped.
Zeus was readying a lightning bolt even before he looked down from his throne. Anything that talked like that deserved to be zapped.
Standing before him was a man, he thought. No beard, long curly hair, and the usual ankle-length tunic made it a little hard to tell. But he’d seen this man- demigod, whatever- before. Unfortunately.
“No, Charon,” he boomed. “You can’t talk to the manager. There is no manager. You know that. There’s only me.”
“It’s Karen, thank you,” the boatman said, with a slight lapse in dignity. “It’s every man’s- every woman’s, I mean- every woman’s right to be called by whatever name she chooses.”
“We already went over this,” Zeus said through gritted teeth. “You’re the boatman. Not the boatwoman. It just doesn’t sound right. All the poets would have to change their verses, because it has an extra syllable. And they’d have to rewrite everything to add description- you know women always have white arms and corn-gold hair in the poems,” he said, eyeing Charon’s curly black mop. “No, I really can’t allow it. And this is the third time you’ve asked. I told you last time that I wouldn’t put up with being nagged like this, and if you did it again, you’d be relieved of duty.”
His words made no impact in the armor of the boatman’s zeal. “Nonsense,” Charon insisted. “You can’t fire me just because I want to change my name; it says so in the employee handbook,” he said loftily, and pulled a large volume out of thin air. Zeus eyed it with the same enthusiasm that he’d observe a dead rat thrown at his feet.
“I don’t care,” he said abruptly, as Charon began leafing through the book. “Maybe I can’t fire you for changing your name, but I can fire you for being obnoxious and wasting my time. Also, I’m a god; I only follow the rules when I feel like it. You’re relieved of duty. Give me your keys and get out.”
Charon’s mouth dropped open. The book fell at his feet. “You can’t do this!”
Zeus was never at his best in the mornings, and being harangued by an underling didn’t help. Before Charon or any of the eavesdroppers lurking behind the columns could blink, he called down a lightning strike that shook the building.
When the smoke cleared, there was a blackened circle of floor two feet in front of Charon, and the wayward boatman’s eyebrows were gone. “Need I remind you, again, that I am a god?” Zeus said sweetly. “Keys, and get out of my sight.”
And that was how a large vending machine came to be on the banks of the Styx, dispensing inflatable life rafts for the small sum of two coins. To be sure, the slightly damp flop! of the rubber raft at the buyer’s feet as the machine spat it forth was rather stomach-turning, but since the dead don’t have stomachs, per se, no one was too upset. And the Charon 2.0 made up for this shortfall by magically inflating the raft once it had been disgorged- no need for a hand pump. The dead were very grateful for that- no one wanted to enter Hades wearied and sweaty from inflating their own life raft.
It was a perfectly satisfactory arrangement.
For a while.
*
Paul was dead, to begin with. Once he’d taken stock of this fact, and pieced together what had happened- the car had come out of nowhere- must have run the red light- he’d even been in the crosswalk at the time- he looked around, wondering what to do next.
He was in a grayish land. He approved. Paul liked gray. It was a neutral color, and didn’t show dirt. His apartment had been mostly decorated in gray, with a daring red accent wall in the living room for that pop of color that all the best designers said was so important.
This land didn’t contain anything like an apartment. Or any buildings at all. There were trees and shrubs and grass, all in shades of gray. How odd. Even the parks that were completely surrounded by buildings were green, in life.
There was nothing he could do about the gray landscape, and he didn’t want to. He wanted to go back to his life, and his work as an accountant. Numbers and spreadsheets were calm and predictable. Wilderness like this place was chaotic and there might be dangerous predators hiding in the trees.
It was so unfair. He was only forty, and just starting to get his feet under him in the industry; he should have another few decades ahead of him, refining his already considerable skills, making the numbers dance across his computer screens, moving from job to job, increasing his salary each time, until he’d reached the top of his profession.
But he was dead, and he didn’t know what to do next. He looked around, and, not seeing any signposts or instructions, picked a direction at random and started walking.
He walked for a while, until he came to a river. There was a sign posted on a tree by the path: Welcome to the Styx. No swimming allowed. Please cross by boat.
Paul nodded. That seemed sensible enough. He’d read his mythology, a long time ago, he knew there was supposed to be a boat, manned by Charon, waiting to take him across the river for the two pennies that- he reached into his pocket, feeling for his wallet, and found, not a wallet, but two silver coins. Well, that was convenient. He was starting to enjoy being dead, he decided. Now that he’d decided there were no bears or mountain lions hiding in the trees, that is. It was so orderly and sensible.
But there was no boat, and no boatman.
There was a vending machine, emblazoned with a design in red and black that looked like the artist had gone on a bender and hadn’t bothered to sober up before he fed his painting into the computer for editing. On the other hand, it had a cartoonish picture of a life raft on the side, and bore the proud designation of ‘Charon 2.0.’
Paul looked at it for a moment, and shrugged. Even Greek myths had to move with the times, he guessed, and this absurdly painted steel box had nothing on the vending machines he’d seen on his trip to Tokyo last year.
He inserted the two coins into the slot and pushed the button.
The machine rumbled and spat a rubber object at his feet. Paul bent to pick it up, but it inflated rapidly and bopped him on the nose. He stumbled back, surprised, tripped over his feet, and sat down in a puff of dust.
In life, he’d hated dust. In death, he didn’t even notice. His attention was completely taken up by the monstrosity sitting on the ground in front of him.
It wasn’t a life raft. In fact, the only resemblance it bore to the cartoon on the vending machine was that it was rather bulbous, and clearly airtight.
It was a duck. Like a child’s pool toy.
And it was pink.
Bright pink.
Paul stared at it in horror.
*
He didn’t know how much time passed; the dead weren’t very concerned with things like clocks. All he knew was, an endless stream of people passed by. They gave their coins to the vending machine, it spat out a piece of rubber that magically ballooned into a rubber life raft and they were on their way. If they weren’t fast enough, Paul asked them to trade.
But alas, sitting slumped beside a vending machine, looking like a homeless vagrant, his only companion a large pink rubber duck- it wasn’t a great first impression, and everyone avoided his eyes and hurried past.
*
Sometime later, Paul was dozing, using the duck as a pillow, when the approaching thud of boots on dirt brought him awake.
“Well, son, what’re ya doing, sitting on your duff? Waiting for somebody?” a big, drawling voice boomed out of nowhere.
Paul looked up. And up. Standing in front of him was a giant old man with Texas written all over him. Paul had never been to Texas, but he had seen enough pictures of cowboys to know what he was looking at. Jeans, cowboy boots, a battered old hat pulled down over a weather-beaten face. Bright eyes looked down at him, and the smile was friendly enough.
“The vending machine didn’t work for me,” he tried to explain, but how was he supposed to explain the monstrosity sitting beside him? He gestured helplessly at it. “I gave it my two coins, like it says, and it gave me this. And no one wants to trade. I can’t cross the Styx in a kids’ pool toy!” he wailed.
The cowboy tilted his head this way and that, and said curiously, “Can’t see why not. It floats, don’t it?”
“It doesn’t look right!”
“Hell, boy, who cares?”
“I do!”
The cowboy shrugged. “To each his own. For myself, I’d rather get across. Looks pretty boring, sitting here all by yourself.”
It was boring, and Paul wasn’t about to pass up what looked like a chance. “I’ll sell it to you. Two coins is my price.”
That got a laugh, a big, full-bellied guffaw that launched a nearby flock of startled crows from their perches. “Sure, I’ll buy it off you. Why not? Give my buddies a chuckle, to see me paddle up in a pink duck.”
“Won’t they make fun of you?”
Another laugh. “Of course they will! They wouldn’t be Moose and Skippo and Willy if they didn’t get a few jokes out of it. You shoulda heard us ribbing Willy when his old lady sent him a pair of purple boxers when we were in the field- damned things ran in the wash and turned all his socks lavender. We laughed about that for ages- when Charley wasn’t shooting at us. And won’t my daughter be jealous when she gets here and finds out I crossed in a pink duck. Always did love pink, my Rosie-girl,” he said fondly.
Paul wasn’t particularly interested in an old soldier’s reminisces, and he listened with half an ear and made noncommittal noises of agreement until his companion finally wound down and finished with a jovially, “Well, can’t sit here jawing all day,” and took two coins out of his jeans pocket. “Two coins for one pink duck. Not a bad deal. What’s your name, son?”
“Paul.”
“Paul. Well, I’m Jake,” he said, and held out his hand. Paul shook it politely. “Nice to meet you, Paul. See you on the other side.”
“Yes, sir.”
“No rush. My Evelyn’s waiting for me, and we’re going to spend some time getting to know each other again,” he said, with a broad wink and a grin.
Paul blinked. “Safe travels,” he said, wondering how he was supposed to get out of this conversation.
But he didn’t have to; Jake was already turning away, gathering up the absurd pink duck in his brawny arms and hauling it to the riverbank.
Paul watched him launch the craft with the smoothness borne of long practice, and paddle out of sight, before turning his attention to the two coins resting on his palm. One seemed to wink at him, but of course that was a trick of the light, and he ignored it.
He rushed to the machine, his heart pounding with unaccustomed excitement, inserted the coins, and pushed the button. Finally, he’d be able to cross the river with some dignity!
The machine rumbled and spat out…
… a pink rubber duck.
Sprinkled with glitter.
Paul stared at it for a long moment, unable to believe his eyes.
Not this again.
The End.
*
I’ll leave it up to you to decide how long it took Paul to get over himself and paddle across the Styx in a pink duck. Or maybe he did another trade, and ended up with an even weirder flotation device.
And the usual friendly reminder- if you like what I’m doing and want to see more stories, and have some spare change hiding between the couch cushions, consider upgrading to a paid subscription.
*
The glitter was a nice touch.