The Ferryman

by Amy Neftzger

  “I could see that,” Karen leaned against one of the cabinets. “What’s your name?”

  “Will. As in Will Shakespeare, but without the Shakespeare,” he replied. The smile on his face widened.

  “It’s very nice to meet you, Will. My name is Karen.”

  Will bowed with a comical flourish, and Karen laughed. He had a lot of energy.

  “Do you see all ghosts? Or just some?” he asked when she had stopped giggling.

  “I — I don’t know,” Karen replied as she thought about it. “I see other ghosts, but I don’t know if I see all of them. How about you? Have you seen other ghosts?”

  “Sure. But I prefer the living. The dead are boring. Most of them just stick around where they died, like they’ve nowhere better to go.”

  “So you didn’t die here?” Karen asked.

  “Hell, no. I came here for fun.”

  “To read the transcripts.”

  “Yes. I didn’t have the time for this stuff when I was alive, but now I’ve got all the time I need.”

  “Is this what you do every day?”

  “Of course not!”

  “How do you usually spend your time?”

  “You’re awfully nosy,” he said as he turned his face slightly away from her.

  “I’m sorry,” Karen said. She looked him over and saw that he was unlike any of the other ghosts she’d had to deal with up until this point, and she wondered if Fate was handing her a challenge. She had to be, Karen decided. Whether or not this assignment had been given out of vengeance, Karen was not going to let Fate win. She felt her palms become clammy, but she inhaled deeply and tried to appear confident. “It’s not every day that I meet a ghost like you. You’re confident. You knew just what to do when you died.” Karen smiled as warmly as she was able. “I can’t help being interested.”

  The man stood up straighter and took a step forward, his hand outstretched.

  “It’s been a long time since anyone saw me or spoke with me. What was your name again?”

  “I’m Karen.” They shook hands briefly.

  “So, Karen, how is it that you can see me when I’m invisible to everyone else?”

  She looked away from him and studied the dark wood panels on the wall above the filing cabinets. She couldn’t exactly tell him the truth. Or could she?

  “Fate gave me this ability,” she blurted.

  “I don’t believe in fate.” He waved the notion away with a flick of his hand.

  “You don’t?”

  “No.”

  “Do you believe in Fortune?”

  “Sure. Fortune is easy to believe in. The evidence is everywhere.”

  “But there’s no evidence of Fate?”

  “You tell me. Everyone says that when you die you get punished or rewarded for your sins, but I haven’t gotten either. Am I the only person who’s never sinned? Or could it be that fate doesn’t exist and we all get to choose where we go when we die?”

  “It could be more complicated,” Karen insisted.

  “It’s as complicated as we make it. I’m an easy going guy, always have been.”

  “I see that,” Karen nodded. “You don’t seem to have the issues that a lot of ghosts have.”

  “They complicate their own existence. Probably did it in life and will continue to do it in death.”

  “What about karma?” Karen asked. “Do you believe in that?”

  “Karma?” he asked as he turned his head sideways. “Is that a sauce? Or a fashionable drink?”

  “No,” Karen replied. She watched him for a moment. Was he joking? When she realized that he really didn’t know, she continued. “It’s the idea that what you put out into the world is what will come back to you.”

  “No, that’s not right. If you put something out into the world someone else is going to take it. That’s how people are, and stuff doesn’t just come crawling home all on its own.”

  “I see.” Karen tapped her fingers on the edge of one of the cabinets as she thought. Her headache was nearly gone already and she wanted to get out of the building. The room was cramped, and there was nowhere else to talk indoors. “Perhaps we should take a walk in the sunshine? The weather is beautiful.”

  “The weather doesn’t matter when you’re dead. I don’t get wet anymore,” he said. “It’s a lot more fun, actually, because I can go running through an electrical storm and not have to worry about getting killed or catching a cold.”

  “That must be an incredible feeling.”

  “I’m not sure that there’s feeling involved, but it is fun.”

  “Would you mind going outside with me?” she asked. “I’d just like the company and this place is a little dark.” He took a moment to look her over one more time and shrugged.

  “I’ve got the time,” he said with a laugh as they slipped out the door and headed for the exit.

  “What are you doing here, anyway?”

  “I came here with a friend, but she’s already left.”

  “Sounds rude.”

  “Yes, she is,” Karen said with a vigorous nod of her head. “I’m thinking I don’t need to spend time with a friend like that.”

  “Life is short,” Will announced. “Even when you live a long life, it’s never long enough. You shouldn’t waste time on people who don’t make you happy.”

  “You have a very nice perspective, Will. I like it.”

  As they exited the building, the sun glared over the treetops, and Karen felt its heat on her face. She squinted as she searched through her purse for her sunglasses.

  “So where should we go today?” Will slapped his hands together and rubbed his palms vigorously.

  “Where’s your favorite place to be?” Karen asked hoping for a clue on how to finish this job and move him into the next life. “What sort of places do you like?”

  “The women’s locker room at the health club.”

  “What?!”

  “You asked,” he said unapologetically. “I can go wherever I want now that I’m dead, and I can hang around that locker room seeing the sights all day long. There are some huge advantages to being a ghost.”

  “I wouldn’t have thought of that.” Karen took a step backwards. The thought of a peeping ghost made her uncomfortable.

  “You’re not a man,” he said as he shook his head. “I also sneak into the clubs and watch the women dance. I don’t have to pay at the door anymore.” He smiled as he did an imitation of a stripper swinging her hips in a circle and striking a pose. He let out a brief laugh and then continued walking. “I actually prefer the locker room. The women there act much more natural and there’s something beautiful about a naked woman who feels comfortable but isn’t showing off.”

  “I suppose.” Karen folded her arms in front of her chest as she wondered how many ghosts had seen her undressed. At least she could see them now, but there was a long time when she couldn’t, and she wasn’t sure if she could see all of them. The thought was unsettling.

  She eyed Will. He seemed nice enough, and while she didn’t like the idea of him staring at unsuspecting naked women, he still appeared harmless to her. He was a ghost, after all. It’s not as if he could touch or do anything to the women. The ethical lines of voyeurism were blurred in this situation.

  “There are huge advantages to being invisible. I’ve also been inside the mayor’s office during some very interesting conversations,” he said as he pushed his chest out and displayed a cheeky smile. “And I go to the movies and talk back at the screen without anyone complaining. I’ve also gone into the houses of people I don’t know just to see how they live, and I’ve taken free rides on roller coasters,” he continued. They started walking down Main Street at a slow pace and then turned onto a less crowded side road. Small shops and restaurants lined the street, so Karen followed Will’s lead and wandered along staring into the display windows as they passed each shop. “Remember when the local weatherman was caught with a prostitute?”

  “About two years
ago?” Karen asked. When Will nodded with a knowing smile she continued, “I remember them showing his picture on the news when he was arrested. It was quite a scandal. He had to leave town and no one knows where he is now.”

  “As soon as I heard about it I went down to the jail and waited for his wife to bail him out. Then I followed them home and watched them fight for two days. She’s married to the sportscaster now, by the way. She had been dating him on the sly, but the weatherman had no idea. He was too busy with his lady friends. Watching all that unfold was the real entertainment.”

  “Wow,” Karen said as she raised her eyebrows. “You seem to have your finger on the pulse of everything important around here.”

  “I’m doing what I want whenever I want. Sometimes I want to learn.”

  “You seem to have a pretty good life.”

  “I had an average life. But I’m having an incredible death.”

  Karen wondered how Will had died, but she knew enough to wait until he was ready to talk about it. If he didn’t bring it up or allude to it, then it was too early in the conversation to address the issue. Instead, she paused in front of a doll shop to look over the window scene. The glass-eyed girls staring back left her feeling uneasy for some reason, but she couldn’t look away. It reminded her of herself, locked into a situation over which she had no control. The glass walls of Fate kept her imprisoned in her contract while she wished for freedom and Fortune.

  Karen studied the display as Will mentioned a few other bits of gossip that she didn’t care much about. There was one doll in a bright yellow plaid dress that caught her eye. The pattern and color were like nothing a real person would wear. No one would choose that outfit. Someone else was in control and having fun at the doll’s expense.

  “Are you happier now that you’re dead?” she asked as she looked away from the window and started walking again.

  “I don’t think about it. I just enjoy what I have.”

  “So you don’t feel uneasy about anything? You don’t have regrets?”

  “I have no reason for those things. What’s to regret, anyway? Anyone I knew is long gone.”

  Karen sighed and pretended to look at a dress in another shop window. The situation with Will didn’t seem much like a case at all, and she wasn’t sure what Fate had expected from her, except perhaps failure.

  “Did you ever have a job that you hated?” Karen asked as she continued to stare at the mannequin in the pale blue dress.

  “Sure. Lots of them. But when you’re dead your time is your own.”

  “I’m not dead,” Karen replied. “I don’t control my time as easily, and I have responsibilities that I didn’t choose.” She hesitated. “I know that you don’t believe in Fate because she doesn’t seem to have power over you. Maybe Fate only controls our destiny in life, and we’re finally free of her in death.”

  “Nonsense!” Will replied. “You always have a choice. Fate doesn’t control anything.”

  “She doesn’t control Fortune, but she seems to have her hand on everything else.”

  As soon as Karen said his name she felt herself wishing he was present with her. He would know what to do, even if she wasn’t supposed to accept his help. Fate expected too much. She was far more demanding than she needed to be. Fortune was easy — when he was around, anyway. It was odd, Karen thought, that she had wished for him and yet he wasn’t there. It was the first time she could recall him being unreliable and for some reason it made him a little less attractive in her eyes.

  “Fate isn’t real,” Will insisted. “It’s a made up concept that people use for an excuse not to take responsibility for things.”

  “I have to disagree.”

  “You’re entitled to disagree,” Will said with a forceful nod of his head, “but you’re also entitled to be wrong.”

  “I’ve seen Fate.”

  “You saw what you thought was Fate.”

  Karen stopped to consider this. She knew that Will didn’t mean it in exactly the same way, but his remark fueled her thought process. What if Fate was an impostor? What if she couldn’t control everything? It was possible. After all, there was nothing Karen had read in all her research that said Fate was required to speak the truth.

  “Look...” Karen had been about to argue with him, but her voice trailed off as she considered the possibility that Fate could be lying. What if there wasn’t even a contract at all?

  “At what?” he asked playfully as he put his hands in his pockets and shrugged.

  “Don’t you ever wonder if there’s anything else out there?” Karen asked.

  “Yes,” Will replied as he leaned towards her with his eyes opened wide, “but then I go out there and find it. Or something else.” He stretched out his hand and waved his arm at the buildings around them. “There’s too much in this world to see and so many things happening at once. I love the world, and I never want to leave here. I want to see and experience it all, and there’s no reason to quit — especially not now!”

  “You make a very good point.” Karen felt her instincts telling her that she was the one who needed to move on this time. “It was very nice meeting you, but I think I need to go,” she finally said as she reached out her hand to shake his in a parting gesture.

  “What? We never got a chance to do anything. Where are you going?” He absentmindedly took her hand and shook it as he searched her face for an answer.

  “To the graveyard.”

  “You have a thing for ghosts?” He smiled broadly as he gestured towards himself.

  “Not really.”

  “I wouldn’t spend my time in the graveyard. Nothing changes there. It’s boring.”

  “Maybe for the dead,” she said as she turned to leave, “but for the living ... some of the most life-changing events can take place there.”

  Episode 8

  Mastering Fate

  Karen stood over the grave of someone who had once been wealthy and influential, but who had been forgotten over time. It was late afternoon and the sun alternated between blinding brightness near the horizon and momentarily disappearing behind trees and crypts with each turn of her head. There were a few clouds, but there were no signs of a storm, and the atmosphere in the graveyard was serene. Karen felt calm as she studied the names on the graves.

  The tall crypt in front of her stood above all the others in the area, but the elements had filed most the name off the face of the limestone. All Karen could read was the name “Bertrand.”

  She reached into her pocket and jiggled the two coins she carried as a reminder of her bondage to Fate, as well as a symbol of hope for release from her contract. She enjoyed the friction of the coins’ rough edges rubbing against one another. The grooves on the edges of the coins were like minuscule gears, and all gears wear out over time.

  As Karen stared at the etched words on the grave, she thought about how time had erased the meaning of the buried person’s existence along with those words. What had the epitaph said? Someone had thought it was important enough to have it put into stone. But sometimes, she thought, we don’t realize the importance of words until they’re gone. She continued playing with the coins in her pocket again and thought that if she kept rubbing them together that eventually those grooves would be gone, also.

  “Fortune loved you once, too. But I wonder where you are now,” she mused aloud to the person buried in the stately crypt. “I wonder how much of a lasting impact his affection had on you.”

  “I assure you that he enjoyed every moment of our time together.”

  Karen turned around as she felt a sense of elation in her heart at the sound of his voice. There Fortune stood with the sun glinting over his shoulder, as if he were carrying the burden of it. He was dressed in a dark gray suit with an athletic cut, along with a bright white shirt and blue paisley tie that brought out the vividness of his eyes. He seemed more radiant than she had remembered.

  “Fortune!” Karen gasped as a smile erupted on her face. She immediately blushed
at her inability to control her reaction to seeing him again and then pretended to look through her purse for something. She awkwardly pushed the contents back and forth as she attempted to collect her wits. The bag felt heavier the longer her mock search continued.

  “You don’t need anything in there,” he admonished playfully as he stepped forward and closed the purse. The bag fell from her grasp and swung back and forth over Karen’s shoulder like a hanged body.

  She didn’t want to look at him, but she knew that she had to do it. She would never be free if she couldn’t. She just wished it would be easier.

  As her purse took one final tiny swing and settled into position, she did her best to recall the ugly side of Fortune. She visualized the image of him in black leather seeking someone upon which to take out his anger, and she looked up.

  “What are you doing here?” he asked as he closed the small distance between them.

  “I find graveyards very peaceful,” she said as she took a step backwards and ran into the edge of the tomb she had just been admiring. She felt the rough stone scratching against her lower back as she slipped to the side of the grave.

  “I don’t really like graveyards,” he confided as he took another step forward. “There’s nothing for me to do here.”

  Karen took a few more steps and motioned towards the dirt walkway. It made a circuitous path through the rows of graves lining the hillside.

  “Do you mind if we talk?” she asked.

  “Of course, I don’t mind. I’m here for you.”

  She wished she could believe him, but she wasn’t sure his help was for her benefit.

  “Do you know anything about karma?” she asked when they had taken a few steps down the pathway. She studied his face as she waited for a reaction. She thought his expression would tell her more than his words, but he appeared impassive, and Karen let out a small sigh. It was easier to rob a grave than get an answer about life.

  “What do you want with Karma?” His tone was polite. He stepped carefully along the dirt path, avoiding muddy areas that could soil his shoes.