Worldly Goods by Cheryl Powell

Read by Tony Bell - podcast here (third story)

He was eager. Not like the others. There was swagger in him still; a soul revelling in the memory of his own body.

‘Well, here I am.’ He grinned, eyes full of nervous brilliance, and spat out a coin. I let him saunter towards the coracle, hands in pockets, as if about to embark on a pleasure cruise. I’d seen bravado like this before, of course, but it never lasted.

Here, at the threshold, there is a blood-red sky, and the souls turn their faces, craving warmth. This soul was different, though. ‘Always look forward,’ he breezed. ‘Never back.’

Then he jumped the queue.

I could have made him wait, a sharp jab of my pole to remind him who’s in charge. But I was curious. He showed no fear. He looked right into my face - not pleasant, I can assure you - and winked. Actually winked.  

‘Good to meet you, Charon,’ he said. I’m Charlie Wright.’

I let Charlie Wright  take the front seat and stow his suitcase. ‘All my worldly goods,’ he said. I admired his optimism.

I was sharp with him, at first. ‘The mutt forbids worldly goods,’ I told him.

Charlie Wright stuck out his chin. ‘You mean Cerberus? That three-headed mongrel? Well he can fuck off.’

‘He’s aggressive.’

‘Sounds like my wife then,’ and he laughed, slapping his knee.

 That triggered a memory.  ‘Wife?’ I said.

‘Ex-wife,’ said Charlie Wright. ‘Twenty years of hell. So, I’m not about to take crap from a mutt.’

I liked the defiant ones, though their bluster had usually dissolved by the time we crossed the Sea of Fear.

*

Charlie Wright had a particular voice. It had a quick even rhythm, with sudden bright notes of outrage. I hear it still, and I smile, though it makes me sad.

‘I know nothing of wives,’ I said and turned to count the coins.

These waters carry vibrations from the living world. And memories. Souls hang back, sobbing, calling to loved ones, their voices breaking up as the frequency shifts.

But Charlie Wright took no heed of this. He had stretched out his legs, hands loose in his lap.

‘You know, Charon, I was expecting a right nasty bastard. But I reckon you’re all right, considering. And I could do with a friend.’

That word confounded me.

‘No friend here, Charlie Wright,’ I said, and looked to my duties.

The most wretched of souls were clinging to the bank, huddled, unwilling to embark, and I had to force them with my pole. ‘Get in you miserable dead!’ I roared, my voice thundering off the mountains.

Charlie Wright’s eyebrows shot up. ‘Blimey, Charon! You’re scaring them witless.’

‘I have to,’ I told him. ‘This sort of cargo will bugger about for all eternity if I let them.’

Then, Charlie Wright stood up, put his fingers in his mouth and blew a shrill whistle between his teeth.

‘Come on you lot! Gonna be a shit journey. Might as well get this over with!’

The shapes, hardly visible now in the gloom, drifted onto the boat, moaning and wailing, heading for the aft . ‘That’s it,’ said Charlie. ‘Make yourselves comfortable. And pipe down a bit, eh?’

I bent to untie the rope. Darkness was rising from the earth and we needed to be on our way.

*

Soon we entered the violet twilight of the outer basin, the water oil-thick against the hull, the silence splintered by the perpetual shriek of terrified creatures as we approached the Sea of Fear. This is where many souls give up; where they lose any sense of what they were, become shades.

But Charlie Wright sounded upbeat. ‘I say, Charon, not much to look at, is there?’

I cackled grimly at that. ‘This is the River Styx, not a sightseeing trip up the Thames, Charlie Wright.’  I’d meant to sound harsh but it amused him.

‘You’re not kidding,’ he said and there was a rustle of paper. ‘Look, I’ve got the itinerary. Next stop, Lake of Woe.’ He skipped through the description. ‘Utter darkness … hmm … unbearable sadness … oh, and a note about keeping your hands inside the boat on account of the acid.’

‘Hydrofluoric,’ I told him. ‘It can’t hurt you physically, but you will be filled with remembered pain.’

‘Ah, remembered pain,’ he sighed. ‘I have too much of that already, my friend,’ and fell silent as we travelled on.

It got darker and I wanted to hear Charlie Wright’s voice again. ‘Do you think you’ve lived a good life?’ I asked him. I don’t chat to my passengers as a rule, they never seem in the mood, but this one was different.

He hesitated and then asked. ‘Have you ever loved anyone, Charon?’

The question threw me. For there had been someone. A girl. Long ago. And it made me remember sunlit days and blue sky, before this endless ferrying of the dead.  I shook away the memory.

 ‘I know nothing of love,’ I told him.

‘Neither did I, Charon. Until somebody came along who loved me. Unexpectedly, and that changed everything. His name was Jonnie.’

His voice was fraying, as if catching on thorns, but he went on. ‘He died, you see. Three months ago. Jonnie died.’

I looked at him and wondered. ‘And yet you seem so positive.’

‘Because I know Jonnie will be waiting for me.’  There was a new intensity in his voice.

I faced him, then. ‘Don’t expect too much,’ I said. ‘Hades is … let’s say … unpredictable.’

‘Jonnie will be there,’ Charlie Wright said, and his mouth twisted a little. ‘Anyway,  I’m bringing a gift for Hades, just to be sure.’

I heard the clasps spring open on the suitcase. For a moment there was the sound of clicking and whirring, and then a light. Weak at first, then much brighter, then blinding and I thought he was unleashing the sun. A feeble oooh went up from the passengers at the rear.  

‘Wind up torches, my friend,’ said Charlie Wright. ‘State of the art. I know where we’re going is perpetual twilight but these change everything.’

His eyes glittered as he warmed to his pitch. ‘I’ve got two hundred of these little beauties and the technology to make more.’

He handed me one.  I had never seen a machine like it. Such radiance. It threw strands of brightness across the midnight sea, illuminating glaciers I’d only ever navigated in darkness and suddenly I thought of Helios, and missed him.

‘Is it sorcery?’ I asked.

‘It’s two hundred and fifty lumens of light at full power, that’s what it is – totally renewable. Hades will love them.’

Hades hadn’t been born into darkness, any more than I had.  But sunlight was forbidden to him. And now he shunned it. But this light? This magic light? He might just want it.

I set the torch down in the stern where it shone on us all.

‘It was Jonnie’s idea,’ said Charlie Wright. ‘He was always the clever one.’ 

I could hear the pride in his voice. ‘You’d have ferried him in your boat,’ he went on. ‘Big handsome fella with great teeth.’

I didn’t remember Jonnie, of course; there are too many souls and they all look the same to me, but the light was on Charlie’s face and I could see his desperation. So I said, ‘Ah … yes. I do recall ... the teeth.’

Charlie Wright slapped his knee at that.  ‘I knew it.’

Then he turned away, fidgeting with the  clasps on his suitcase, and we pushed on, the torchlight cleaving a gleaming path across the dark water.

Here, the sea descended sharply and I planted my pole to slow us through the vertical plunge. There were screams from the aft. But the turbulence soon passed.

‘You’ve got a difficult job, my friend.’ Charlie Wright’s voice had softened.

That word again.

‘Friend?’ I repeated it, and my teeth scraped my lips. Charlie laughed.

‘That’s it. Loosen up a bit. We can be friends while this journey lasts, can’t we?’

*

Soon, we entered the nitrogen fields and I could feel the weight of ice in my beard and the burning in my stomach and chest where my organs were freezing. Immortals like me feel physical pain, of course, unlike souls, and I knew I would be in agony for the rest of the voyage.

Charlie Wright was pulling out a coat, bright orange and thickly padded, not realising yet that temperature wouldn’t affect him.

‘Ain’t you got a coat, Charon?’ he said.

‘Don’t need one.’

‘You must be freezing in that tunic thing.’

‘I’m used to it.’

He stood up. ‘Well, you’re having this one, old friend. Bad enough to have this rotten job without freezing your bollocks off.’

‘It’s the way it is,’ I said and pushed the coat away.

‘Not today it isn’t. I’m dead and you’re not, don’t forget. Put it on, my friend. I insist.’

It was the only time a soul had offered me anything and I was overwhelmed. The coat was warm and I felt the thaw in my blood. The relief almost brought me to tears.

‘Thank you,’ I said, and I heard my voice waver. ‘Thank you, friend.’

Eventually we left the realm of ice and our voyage was nearly over. We were in a thicker, darker water that gave off heat and vapour. The passengers at the back had become almost translucent, pockets of denser air and vague outlines.

In time, we made landfall; coming to rest on volcanic shingle, the smoke-stack towers beyond. The mutt was barking his three heads off somewhere in the darkness, straining at his iron leash.

‘Guess this is my stop,’ Charlie grinned and held out his right hand. I looked at it, bewildered, and he took my hand and yanked it, and my own hand instinctively closed around his. I felt the strangeness of it, the shock of the life that once was, and I didn’t want him to leave.

 ‘Farewell,’ I said. ‘And good luck.’

But he was already off the boat, throwing three bones to Cerberus, and out of earshot. I watched him bounce over the deserted beach, his suitcase gripped tight in one hand, his torchlight in the other cutting bright arcs in the gloom.

There was nobody there to meet Charlie Wright, though he never slackened his pace. At one point, he turned and waved to me, and I raised my own hand and wondered if he could still see me, and I kept my hand raised until his light vanished and there was nothing but darkness. By now, the other souls had drifted off the boat and were disappearing into the gloom. 

I waited for Charlie Wright. Waited much longer than I should have, hoping my friend would return. But, in the end, there was nothing I could do but take my pole, zip up the orange padded jacket, and turn my empty boat around.

(c) Cheryl Powell. 2022


Cheryl Powell is a Worcestershire writer whose work has been published in Coffin Bell, Litro, Spelk, Storgy, Reflex Fiction, Disturbing the Beast, Makarelleand The Mechanics Institute Reviewand performed at Liars’ League, Hong Kong. 

 

 

 

Evening Standard Award nominee for A Man for All Seasons, Tony Bell has performed all over the world with award-winning all-male Shakespeare company, Propeller, playing Bottom, Feste, Autolycus and Tranio. TV includes Coronation Street, Holby City, Midsomer Murders, EastEnders & The Bill. He is also a radio and voiceover artist.