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It was sort of like waking up from a dream, that brief time of not knowing where you were and not having any continuity of memory from moments before, the moment before identity reasserts itself.

This place didn't look familiar; a crowded pier with thousands of mostly anonymous people standing on the docks as what looked like a large cruise ship pulled up.  Several gangways dropped to the pier to let people on, and a tall and rather cadaverous figure in an otherwise perfectly white ship's pursar's uniform stepped out, his voice seeming to sweep over the crowd like a wind through a forest.  "Everybody on board!"

You blinked up at that, pausing as you get to the top of the ramp.  "Wait, are you Charon?"

The figure grinned, showing a perfect set of teeth underneath the death-pallor skin.  "That's one of the names I've been called, yes."

You sort of wave your hand along the ship.  "This isn't..."

Charon laughed again.  "Not quite what you were expecting?  Heh.  There are a lot of people out there, over a hundred people die every minute nowadays.  Had to upgrade the ferry a few times over the centuries."

A couple walk up the gangway near you and are just getting ready to pass you when the man gets a big grin on his face and takes in a deep breath.  Charon suddenly says, "And anybody who thinks it's funny to sing that Chris de Burgh song about the Ferryman will get to see how well they swim."

The man stops with his mouth still open, the woman beside him obviously hiding a laugh.  "What, you know the song?"

"That song was released almost forty years ago.  In the United States alone, over a hundred million people have died since then.  Do you really think you're the first person in over a hundred million to think that singing that song was funny?"

As the man got a poleaxed expression and got led by the chuckling woman onto the ship, Charon threw up his hands.  "Why are there so many people who think they're clever but who aren't actually clever enough to realize that there are just maybe other clever people out there as well?"

That made you chuckle as well, and after Charon cast off and the ship started moving, you followed Charon towards the bridge.  He didn't seem to mind, and there wasn't any other crew that you could see.

"There's usually one or two each trip who actually talk to me;" Charon said, "most of them see something else.  Some of them refuse to admit that I exist or treat me as a demon.  Some of them consider me an angel and are too awed to talk to me.  And a few think that I'm just the 'help' and try to order me to send them back."  He snorted.  " I may be the 'hired help', but I wasn't hired by them, so they don't get to give me orders.  Though there was one amusing case a few days back."

"Oh?"

Charon grinned, letting out a somewhat disturbing chuckle.  "Well, you know that Hades is also the god of Wealth, right?"

"Gold and gems get dug up from underground, yes."

"And his Roman name Pluto is why you call wealthy rulers plutocrats.  He's also the god of Secrets."

"Because people take secrets to their graves."

"Mm-hmm.  Glad you keep up with the old stories.  Anyhow, had a guy a few days ago that had invested big into Bitcoin.  Died of a sudden heart attack.  Never told anybody else the password to his 'wallet'.  So in taking his secrets to his grave with him, he took his wealth as well.  He was so insistent that he had to go back."  Charon chuckled again.  "An interesting connection to several of Hades' domains.  Granted, wealth getting lost because somebody locked it up where nobody could find it isn't exactly a new thing, but you've come up with some interesting ways to make it even more impossible to find."

You look out over the expanse of water in front of the ship as it moves.  "Yeah, lots of things get lost.  I suppose this is it."

Charon looks at you.  "You know what they say?"

"They say a lot of things.  Which one?"

Charon laughed.  "They say that you aren't truly dead until all the ripples you've created with your life, all the stories you've told, all the other lives you've affected, all of those have faded away as well.  You're not gone until you're forgotten."

"Terry Pratchett said something like that."

"Well, he was hardly the first, he just happened to have a really good way of putting it.  Writers are like that."

"Hmmm."

Charon grinned.  "I mean, hey, look at me.  When you get right down to it, I'm a story, and not only am I still around two and a half millenia later, but you still know some of the details about me and my boss.  A good story will last as long as there are people to remember it."

You sigh a bit.  "And I had so many stories..."

Charon nodded.  "Well, today may be your lucky day, then."

"Hmm?"

"You've been so busy chatting with me you didn't notice that we already got to the other side and turned around again.  You're getting back off on the living side of the river for now."

"Really?"

"Yes, really."  Charon led you back down to the gangway as the ship pulled up to the pier again, and you saw an entirely new faceless crowd of thousands standing there.

"Get moving.  Tell some stories.  I'll be here waiting to see you again in a few years."

"A few?"

As the crowd pushed past you onto the ship, you could just hear his voice saying, "I've been around, in one form or another, for as long as the human race has worried about death.  An entire human lifespan is only 'a few years' to me."

                              

---

It was sort of like waking up from a dream, that brief time of not knowing where you were and not having any continuity of memory from moments before, the moment before identity reasserts itself.

You were lying in bed.  Something had happened, but the details were slipping through your mental grasp faster than you could reconnect them.

One idea stuck out as you got up and moved to the next room, flicking on the computer monitor to be faced with a blank page in your editing program.

There was a story that needed to be written.