Transit from SoHo
It is winter in the United States. In the Recoleta district of Buenos Aires, the linden trees are in bloom. In Argentina, it is the height of summer.
Seasonality is a relative concept, and the crossing into the world of the dead is no exception. Losing someone close always brings a certain chill. At No-Hassle Transit Funeral Home, however, it is very much the high season.
I should mention right away: we are open year-round. The nature of our work means that people tend to come to us unexpectedly.
No-Hassle Transit is ready to welcome any one of you at practically any hour of the day or night.
I have a twin brother. The ancient Greeks know him as Phales, or Priapus, the god of fertility and procreation. But here, while attending school in Downtown Manhattan, he picked up the rather playful nickname “Up.” Just two letters, but they say quite a lot about the particular nature of his congenital anomaly.
My Phales—or rather, Up—is not only an outstanding obstetrician, but also an essential part of our family business.
“The Wheel of Samsara is an import-export business with no end in sight. A gold mine, if ever there was one,” Up likes to say, leafing through the latest funeral records and savoring his whiskey. “No matter how many you send to the other side, I’ll bring them all back. You hear me, Charon? Every last one. It’s good business.”
Phales is an extremely responsible god and man. He does not make idle promises.
“You chose a frightening profession. Digging through human misery day and night. I—and I alone—will remain the only bright spot in your otherwise hopeless existence…”
A quote from my ex.
There is, of course, no shortage of darkness in my life, if not for one circumstance. Apart from the monotony of Transit, I possess a rare supernatural ability.
I can sail without oars.
Once I cast the oars aside, I was freed from time and distance. Long ago, I became something of a current myself—an intriguing one, and occasionally a dangerous one.
I also hate drawing attention to myself.
This borderline and little-understood status makes me almost invisible. Almost detached. Almost silent. A ferryman of human stories and, naturally, of dreams that will never come true.
You know the expression: “Please, not this. Anyone but him.”
You mortals are accustomed to fearing the inevitable and turning your noses up at it. That is your nature.
Though I have been called Charon for ages and will continue to be called Charon for ages to come, many people find it more convenient to assume that I am not him.
The usual stereotypes are to blame, of course—my appearance, my age, my taste in clothes.
This may run contrary to your imagination, but I am not a grim, silent old man beneath a weather-beaten hood.
And I have one earnest request: please ignore the ridiculous rumors spread by my ex. Particularly the one claiming that I do not ferry attractive women of childbearing age to the other shore, but merely take them out for a ride in my boat.
Enough about me.
It is time to talk about you, my ever-resilient mortals. More precisely, about that part of you which, as usual, finds itself bored within the confines of the flesh.
I, Charon, permanent escort to the world of the dead, know everything there is to know about this remarkably elusive substance.
Heraclitus of Ephesus and his doctrine of irreversibility were mistaken.
“Everything flows… everything changes,” I believe he said.
Statements like that make me smile.
A few thousand years of experience will do that to you.
That everything eventually flows away was obvious enough. But give me one example of when—or better yet, who—has actually changed.
People?
Their ways?
Heraclitus, like most philosophers, is a reincarnation of someone who died tragically after being struck by lightning.
A beautiful death, followed by a worthy continuation.
Lately, however, I have noticed that hard-drinking electricians have begun finding their way into the ranks of thinkers.
Every one of you assumes that when you are reborn, it will necessarily be somewhere in the future.
Let me be perfectly frank: that is not quite how it works.
The soul of the deceased can just as easily be sent into the past if the law of retribution requires it.
Take the respectable gentleman from Park Avenue we buried on Thursday.
Mahogany coffin. Gold-plated monograms. The premium package even included a memorial reception with an exceptionally mournful view of the Hudson.
I spoke to Poseidon, and he made the necessary adjustments to the weather.
A fine drizzle streaked the panoramic windows. Nature itself seemed to be shedding tears behind the smiling face in its luxurious matte frame.
The drizzle, by the way, is one of our company’s signature bonuses. It gives the faces of the bereaved just the right touch of hopelessness and gloom.
You would have thought he was simply a well-groomed man of average height. A man of our time. A respected financier.
You would never guess where Karma sent him immediately after his arrival on the opposite shore.
I barely had time to throw back my hood—barely had time to blink—before Karma transported the aforementioned gentleman to Weimar Germany in 1929.
Despite widespread unemployment, our late Park Avenue resident was promptly found a job as a dishwasher in Partenkircher’s foul-smelling diner.
His particular aversion to sauerkraut and fried Nuremberg sausages had apparently attracted the attention of the higher powers.
The sins he confessed to me were fairly typical of the overfed servants of Plutus.
Karma, however, had considerably more ambitious plans for him.
Plans connected to certain transgressions of an exclusively sexual nature.
It all began with our deceased gentleman’s younger brother and his involvement in alpine skiing.
In 2013, a tragic fall on a slope in Aspen left the brother permanently blind.
Our hero then displayed an appalling lack of respect for the disabled. He decided to commit adultery with his half-brother’s wife—and saw no reason to close the bedroom door.
“Leaving the door wide open heightens the passion,” the rosy-cheeked deceased explained to me, clinging to the stern of the boat.
Had the gentleman consulted a sex therapist in time, this particular karmic outcome might have been avoided.
He did not.
And here we are.
At the end of his shift at the diner, the man puts on a dog-fur coat, having first removed all his underwear.
He wanders the snowy streets of Partenkirchen, consumed by a secret desire.
Whenever he spots a lone skier, passion takes hold of him. He creeps up almost within touching distance and, with a delighted cry—
“Here I am!”
—throws open his coat.
Karma never sleeps.
It delivers its impartial verdict almost instantly.
An exhibitionist dishwasher in a quiet German town.
You must admit, not the worst possible outcome, considering that the recession in Weimar Germany had reached its historic peak by then.
