Charon and Demeter

By Dennis J. Gordica

If you are like most people, the biggest questions you crave answers for are: where our world is going, and what happens after we die. In this sometimes serious, sometimes philosophical, sometimes insanely hilarious tale, your inquiring mind will get a totally off-the-wall reboot. From the growing intrusion of mega-corporations to guardian angels, to looking for God to forbidden pleasures in paradise, to the ultimate party from hell, its all here, waiting to grab you by the spiritual lapels and drag you in.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Mar 9, 2016
• ISBN: 9781504958509

Dennis J. Gordica

The author lives and works on the planet Earth, and has annoyed the general public three other times with Charon and Demeter, Fools Are Always Nice, and Small Words in Short Sentences (with pictures).

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© 2016 Dennis Gordica. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 03/08/2016

ISBN: 978-1-5049-5849-3 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-5049-5850-9 (e)

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models,

and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

History has made a mistake.

---Jacques-Yves Cousteau

Ellen

had been standing in line for over an hour before it was her turn. She and the others stood in line daily for the items that their families required. Necessities such as bread and milk gave the men and women of this region of the city the chance to gather in an almost social form daily.

Today, Ellen had been discussing the executions of the week before with an eloquent young homosexual, who, as he spoke, kept thrusting a shock of sandy blonde hair off his forehead in a fashion that would have driven a character from a Genet play to distraction. The gesture didn't bother Ellen as much as it amused her and reminded her of something that she used to do when she had been younger.

Every now and then the two would stop their conversation long enough to shuffle forward in a trancelike state, making sure that they got the maximum forward movement, and then resume the conversation where they had left off.

I mean, the weather was so dreary that day, Josh purred. Almost like today: gray, spitting rain, and a little bit chilly. He hugged himself Now then, I ask you, dear: is that any kind of a day to hold an execution?

Smiling at a distant thought, Ellen attempted her oldest argument on the said topic on this new person.

I really don't think that it matters what kind of a day it was for such an event.

Well, I do, Josh simpered. I traded good food vouchers to watch those guys hang. I didn't want to have to shiver in the rain.

I'll bet that you would have to watch a sporting event, she quietly stated.

But dear, said Josh, looking surprised. "This was a sporting event. Where else can you see what you pay for? Live? Now then, if I were like everyone else, I'd just have sat at home and suckled the glass tit. Not me, though. I have no intention of living my life in a vicarious style."

He broke off his conversation, and, staring at the ground before him, took his three steps and stopped. Looking up, he continued.

Look at you, honey. Every day you stand here, talking to me, or someone like yourself For what? A loaf of bread? Some lettuce? A few bottles of overpriced formaldehyde beer? Then what do you do? You go home and cook dinner for your husband and kids. Why don't you just get out and live a little bit?

I don't think that my going to a stadium with ten thousand other people to watch a public execution is my idea of living, Josh. I hated hockey and football games before, and now I see no reason to change my feelings for executions. This isn't China or a part of the world where we should be told that this could happen to us for infringing upon the laws of the land, whatever they might be changed into today.

But the people...the slice of life...the thrill of being so alive with so many others around you, to feel all of that emotion...why, my dear, it's almost like being at the Olympics, Josh sputtered.

Twenty years ago, I might have let my husband take me to a game because we were young, and I wanted to be interested in the things that he was interested in, but not now, Josh, she answered sedately.

Josh ran his eyes over her still-petite figure and wolf-whistled softly.

Pshaw to this husband of yours. I'll bet you used to knock 'em dead with that figure. Like, my God, your ass is still so tight I'd be willing to bet more money that it squeaks, Ellen.

Flattered, Ellen ran her hands down over her figure, over her hips, smoothing out her print dress. She wasn't that bad, she thought.

Before these titties hung down like sausages, she cupped her breasts in her hands, seductively offering them to him, and before you took it in the face, you may have been one of those who would have lined up to nurse. Ellen smiled at his shocked expression upon hearing her speak so. Her smile grew into a giggle that made the years on her face strip away. For a moment, all of the hard years disappeared, and the young pretty woman she once was (and still was, in many ways) appeared on the surface, unguarded for anyone who was interested to see.

And one of the gods who had come to care about her smiled with all of his heart, causing a warm draft to bathe Ellen and Josh in comfort for a moment.

Looking around for the source of the breeze, Josh was momentarily distracted from the fumbling he was doing inside his heavy woolen sweater. He returned his attention to his chest-stroking activity and presently withdrew a yellow generic packet of cigarettes. He shook the pack in a gesture well-honed with the passing of time, doing it so that three cigarettes were evenly sticking out of the open end of the pack. Before Ellen could react, though, he had taken one and popped it into his mouth.

Smoke? he asked over the object he clenched in his teeth.

I haven't smoked in a very long time, she said in a very distant voice. Oh, was all that Josh answered.

Ellen watched the pupils of his gray eyes dilate as the safety match flared close to his face, reflecting the flame in his eyes. The light breeze shifted back to cold and fluffed her longish sandy-gray hair as it did so. She turned slightly to avoid the chill.

Josh waved his thumb rapidly as he muttered curses under his breath. He had gotten the sulphur ash stuck to it as he had struck the match. It formed a brownish circle that burned intensely for a moment, then stopped, but left a small neat hole burnt into his flesh.

The line had started some two city blocks back for Ellen. It snaked its way out along the front of a Safeway store, turned at the corner, and followed the cinderblock wall for its length to where it vanished around another corner. She and Josh had taken their places in line about halfway down the wall beyond that last corner.

Ellen scanned the faces in the line behind her, recognizing many, but actually knowing few on a first-name basis. She knew that the same group gathered here each and every day of the week, in a line that would last all day, to the very moment when the real superstore would close its doors to the public customers, constantly replenishing and depleting itself as buyers came and went. Every man, woman, and child in the line knew that when they were no longer allowed into the store, the ruling class entered to take what they needed from the stores not open for public consumption.

I wonder for just how long people have been standing in lineups? she mused aloud.

Oh, forever, honey, Josh answered around his thumb. It has a lot to do with the herding instinct inherent in all of mankind.

A police van rolled slowly along the street next to the line. Two sets of cold, brutal eyes watched the passing faces. Ellen figured that it was just her imagination that the eyes lingered on her face for a moment longer than the others.

That's how they find them. Josh interrupted her thoughts.

Who? she croaked as her attention returned to him.

Why, those who are going to be executed, he stated.

I don't believe that, Ellen retorted sharply. It may not be the judicial system we had, but it isn't that simple or corrupt.

Oh, I didn't mean at random, he defended. It's just that where else can you get everyone to stand still for so long?

The line moved forward and shuffled to a stop, letting Ellen see that she would be one of the next group to be admitted to the store.

It had started to rain lightly. The spring weather always produced a somewhat warm rain, but the climate they lived in made it cold. Each spattering drop lowered the spirits of the waiting until they were thoroughly soaked and miserable. Wet and shifting their weight from one foot to another, they had been reduced from humanity to something like a line of cattle awaiting slaughter.

Ellen unfolded her small black umbrella and held it gallantly over her and Josh's heads. It at least kept their hair dry, but allowed the rest of them to wash. She also had to share her breathing space with Josh's exhaled smoke.

I was hoping to be inside the store before it started, Josh indicated through a cloud of blue gray smoke. Oh well. No matter any longer. He shrugged his collar up.

This won't last, Ellen stated. At least it isn't tropical.

You've been? His spirits appeared to perk up.

A long, long time ago, she smiled wistfully, then added, 'When the earth was still green."

That wasn't all that long ago, Josh reminded her with a smile.

And today, I no longer feel young enough to discuss the recent turn of historic events, Ellen said sadly.

Why do you come every day? Josh asked suddenly.

It's my job. My husband and my boys work for our vouchers, and it is my job to feed them and make our home as comfortable for them as I can.

Sounds kind of like a throwback to the pioneer days of this continent, that the history books talk about. One might as well read science fiction for all the feelings that one will get to relate to now, though. He fitted another cigarette into the corner of his mouth.

Your kids must be grown-up enough to be out on their own if they work.

And where would they go? She flared with sudden impatience. We all agreed that it would be easier if we just stayed together. After all, four sets of vouchers make for more than one or two could ever do. I agree, Josh answered, a bit downcast.

How about you, Josh? she asked, knowing that it was a line of questioning that could hurt the boy's feelings. Do you live alone? Have you anyone to be with?

I'm alone, he said quietly. My parents were on the coast in Vancouver when... He didn't finish.

I'm sorry, Ellen said, meaning it and hating herself a little for asking the questions she had. She reached out and touched his cheek, not sure if it were only the rain sliding down it.

It's okay. Now, anyway. He tried to smile at her gesture, but failed. My lover spends every other night, so I'm not all that alone.

Somewhere down the line, an infant began to cry. It broke into a choking cough. Hearing this made Ellen's heart heavy.

Josh, she began, do you ever listen to old music? I was listening to an old Louis Armstrong song the other night. He was singing What a Wonderful World and I cried when it was over. I acted like a teenager and played it over and over again, crying every time, until I had no more tears to shed. And then it seemed that it was easy to smile again after having let so many tears fall, or maybe because a smile was the only thing left in me then. It seemed to help me a lot then, to do that.

Who's he? Josh asked innocently.

Just someone who did believe in a beautiful world, I guess. Upon hearing this, one of the more cruel gods brought forth the muse of Edith Piaf to sing Non, Je Ne Regrette Rien for him, and then laughed harshly in eternity.

The line shuffled forward, and Ellen found herself separated from Josh by the arm of the guard at the sliding metal door in the front of the great supermarket.

Take care of yourself, she saw him mouth before the door slid shut and she was inside.

The guard was dressed in a uniform that any metropolitan police force would issue, except that when he gestured to Ellen to produce her vouchers, she could clearly see that he was much more heavily armed than would appear necessary in a grocery store. A small, lethal-looking automatic machine pistol dangled in an underarm holster. She shuddered involuntarily as she displayed her food vouchers, remembering the stacked bodies after the last food riot.

With a grunt and a wave, he dismissed her in robotic fashion. Ellen had come to expect a less than human response from the police. They weren't monsters, but were only following the orders they were given.

Slowly, she had grown used to this new generation of supermarkets. They were no longer set up like the old-fashioned ones, but now more closely resembled warehouses. The words special and bargain did not exist in the vocabulary of this new breed of shopping center.

Each voucher was clearly stamped as to which store it was redeemable in. This helped to regulate who went where and who did what. No point in fighting the system. She had seen what those small pistols were capable of doing to the human anatomy.

Withdrawing her shopping list from inside her light jacket pocket, she moved away from the door and toward the first stacks of cases. Ellen tucked her dripping umbrella under her arm as she noted the contents of the first case she approached. Glumly she read the names of contents that didn't vary for the first several stacks, and decided that her family had had enough processed pork to do them for several lifetimes.

As shopping lists go, hers was rather ordinary, containing the usual dairy products and produce, she was really hoping to find something extra-special for her family, almost anything that went beyond their everyday staple diet.

Since the change in all of their lives, Their diet had consisted of canned goods and whatever fresh produce she could get her hands on before all of the others trying for the same foodstuffs. Some days she dreamed of being able to have an egg for breakfast. Ellen would imagine the texture on her palate as she ate it scrambled, with milk and cheese. Then she would envision the rubbery chewiness of having the egg boiled. Most of all, though, she wanted to have it fried in real butter, and just as the yolk was firming up, she'd toss a tablespoon of water onto the griddle next to the egg and cover it with a pot lid. Then she could serve it up and dunk her buttery crust of bread into the deep yellow yolk and let it soak up before putting the dribbly delicacy to her tongue. An imagined waft of bacon scent titillated her olfactory and made her stomach rumble.

The growling sound hurt her pride deeply when she realized that she had been standing in front of a stack of cases of deep-browned beans while daydreaming. Remembering how this store used to have music playing in it brought her back to her present sense of unreality. Briefly, she paid attention to the various ethnic jabberings that comprised what was left of the society around her before she stooped to collect a basket, and moved on her way down the aisle.

It seemed, to her anyway, that being Caucasian was now to be a minority, where it had not always been so before in this part of the world now that there was so little room left to share, anyway.

Harmony of voices existed in the store today. An argument over a bunch of dried-out hothouse radishes had erupted between an elderly Sikh and a Vietnamese woman---he jabbering in his melodious, if somewhat loud, singsong tongue, and she barking in short, guttural revokes.

Ellen walked down the no longer air-conditioned aisle to yet another tall stack of crates, these containing tinned fruit and costing vouchers she could never dream of spending on such an extravagance. As she eyed the tinned fruit hungrily, she became aware of a presence behind her. It