When the ferry left the dock, I wasn’t on it. I turned to the docksman as I had a hundred times before.

“Isn’t it enough?” I said. “How many times do I have to go back?”

“Don’t know why you complain.” He hooked a thumb at the crowd behind me, waiting in line to board. “Any one of these guys would give anything for immortality. But Charon won’t take you on. You’ll have to turn back.”

I stood on the shore and looked out at the Styx, wondering what I had done in what life to deserve this.