The Ferryman Wants a Raise
An exhausted ferryman of the dead goes on strike.
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How it begins
The dead were queuing badly.
Nell understood the difficulty. Most had not expected to need patience after death, and none had brought a book.
At the river, a man in a patched coat sat on an overturned boat.
A sign hung around his neck.
NO MORE CROSSINGS UNTIL ACCOUNTS ARE SETTLED.
"Charon?" Nell asked.
"Depends who's collecting."
"I'm an accountant."
He stood immediately.
"Finally."
Nell had been summoned from her office between a disputed invoice and a disappointing sandwich. The messenger had said urgent public-service matter. She had assumed drainage.
In a sense, she had been close.
Charon handed her a ledger.
It was warm.
She decided not to ask why.
The first entry predated currency.
Oar repairs.
Boat tar.
Weather allowance.
Compensation for people shouting at the ferryman about matters outside his control.
The total occupied three pages.
"Who employs you?"
He pointed upward.
"The gods?"
"Excellent at branding. Less strong on payroll."
Behind them, a woman in an unfamiliar century's clothing began distributing places in the queue. Even death, Nell observed, could not prevent certain people from becoming organizers.
"Passengers pay a coin," she said.
"Some do."
"And the others?"
Charon looked toward the far bank.
Nell followed his gaze.
A group waited in the mist, too far away to hear and too close to be forgotten.
She closed the ledger.
"We have two problems."
"I asked for a raise."
"And you're entitled to discuss one. But passage can't depend on whether someone's family could afford a funeral."
He rubbed his face.
For the first time he looked less like a myth than a tired man who had been left alone with an impossible job.
"Then who pays?"
Nell opened the ledger again.
At the top of a clean page she wrote a word the gods apparently found more frightening than death.
Budget.
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Outline and characters
- Nell arrives at a stalled underworld crossing.
- Charon presents centuries of unpaid maintenance costs.
- The gods insist tradition replaces compensation.
- A backlog of souls exposes unequal access to burial coins.
- Nell separates the ferryman's wages from passengers' ability to pay.
- Charon admits resentment has made him unfair to some travelers.
- The gods propose replacing him with an unsafe automated boat.
- Nell demonstrates the true costs in a public divine hearing.
- A common fund guarantees passage and fair working conditions.
- Charon takes his first holiday while Nell trains willing relief crews.
Characters
- Nell Archer, 45. A mortal accountant summoned to audit the underworld
- Charon, 4000. A ferryman refusing another unpaid crossing
Series possibilities
- Nell audits the divine department responsible for assigning eternal punishments.
