Laundry day, again. I wonder how many of these are there in a lifetime? I suppose it varies, depending on how often someone does laundry. I avoid it, running out of clean clothes before I wash. I don't mean to be gross, it's just that I've developed a lifelong aversion to laundry day.

What's that Quinten Tarantino movie where the girl is telling her friends why she hates going into the laundry room - and it ends up being the backstory for her gun? That sums up why I also, lately, won't go do laundry. I work at night, which means going down there is going there at night, past young men smoking and glaring weirdly and obvious drug deals in the parking lot. I'd rather not get attacked, and I worry that it could happen.

So that's why I owned a gun. I kept it a secret, because I am politically opposed to guns. Which is why I am - a hypocrite. More on that:

As you already know, I died not too long ago. They managed to defibrillate my heart in the hospital. I'd made it there and gotten blood in me and undergone surgery for my gunshot wound. A complication of the surgery put me into shock, and I was dead for about two and a half minutes. The doctors agreed it was a total miracle I came back.

It wasn't a scene from John Wick on the gangsters who haunt my apartment building. No, it was me cleaning my gun, routinely, and then one day, somehow, accidentally shooting myself. Don't make a habit of gun cleaning and do it when you're bored and drunk.

I'm genuinely sorry to everyone who was in the morning commute when that ambulance came through and started a traffic jam that made so many people a few minutes late. I'd have hated that, if I were you, and I'm sorry about that. I'd had a very bad night at work, my boss had groped me again. Can you believe he told everyone I'd tried to kill myself because I'd come on to him and he had shown me his ring? Well, I responded by drinking that morning, which is evening for someone who works all night. That's when I ended up getting shot and dead and everything.

I found myself standing in a kind of mist, and I felt quite afraid and miserable. I sensed I had died, and while it was a mere two and a half minutes of my life before I was back in the hospital, I underwent a terrifying ordeal that seemed to last much, much longer.

The evidence of it are the two coins I have, the silver drachma minted as though yesterday, kept timelessly, upon the ferryman. I'd stood there for what seemed like a long time before I saw the creature.

"When you are ready to cross, I will take you." Charon told me. I trembled in horror at the sight of it, the skeletal thing with its long white bear and hair and its ghastly crown. It held a rugged wooden pole and stood on what appeared to be a boat, inviting me in with the gesture of its bone-fingers. "Do not fear me, I am Charon, ferryman to the other side."

"Am I dead?" I asked.

"Not quite." Charon sighed. "Nothing is like it used to be. I used to get paid two drachma to carry souls across this distance of the Styx. Now, all I get are terrified and penniless customers and sometimes they even go back from here. I think you might do that."

"If I am dead, is that Heaven?" I asked.

"No. That would be Hell. You will have your soul cleansed and sent back in a new form. It might take an eternity, and it will be due suffering. All the pain you caused will be inflicted upon you until your soul is finally clean of all sin. You, I'd guess you achieved level eight, Malebolge. It's bad, it's about as bad as Hell gets. You make the cut for that circle because you were a hypocrite. You politically and openly opposed gun ownership and yet it is the gun you owned that caused your death. That's classic hypocrisy, they won't ignore it, they love classic souls." Charon told me.

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"I really don't want to go to Hell." I proclaimed. It sounded rather bad.

"Maybe I will leave you here and you'll go back. It will look like a miracle, by now. You don't know much about death, do you?" Charon chuckled at my expense.

"Not really. I try not to think about it." I said honestly. "I don't really know much about life either. Look at me, I made a classic mistake. That's as bad as it gets, right?" I confided in Charon, trembling at the thought of Hell.

"I don't either. I wish I could get a burger, or something. Put some meat on these bones." Charon told me.

"Want me to cover for you while you take a break?" I asked. Charon started shaking a little bit and said nothing for a moment, then it offered me the pole.

"I promise I'll come back. I don't want what's in-store for the guy before me." Charon leaped off the boat as I took the pole and hefted a small bag of coins. "Be right back."

Charon left and I was granted an image of him, dressed in a black burial suit and walking stiffly across a street towards a burger place. I couldn't believe it was the same one I worked at.

He got to the counter and Mike was there. "Can I take your order, Sir?" Mike wrinkled his nose at the stench of the cadaver.

"I'd like a burger." Said Charon. That's how it started. Simple enough. Things did escalate quickly, as it turned out Charon was a horrifying customer beyond all nightmares. I'll go into detail, but mind that it gets gory:

"Sir, you have to order a specific burger, like off the menu. Order one of the meal numbers, like number one: the Single Cheeseburger with fries and a drink. Or off of the side menu: The Classic Burger or Classic Cheeseburger."

"I don't want a Classic Burger. This is my only lunch break. Give me a burger, please." Charon ordered.

"Fine. It's the Classic Burger, though." Mike put in the order.

"I literally don't want the Classic Burger, just a burger, that's all!" Charon huffed. I could see the problem. In Charon's world, nothing was nastier than something that was classic. He seemed to think it was a downgrade, and refused to accept it.

"It is just a burger, we just call it a Classic Burger." Mike picked up on the frustration Charon was expressing.

"Well, in that case, I accept. It is strange you call your burger a Classic Burger. That's weird." Charon complained.

"Sorry, Sir." Mike apologized. Charon glared, feeling patronized. "May I have a name for the order?"

"Charon." Charon said.

"Okay. That'll be twenty-three ninety." Mike rang it up.

"Kinda expensive for a burger, don't you think?" Charon complained.

"Not really. It's a really good burger, and that's a pretty normal price for a burger, these days." Mike told Charon.

"Okay, here's my money." Charon offered a crumpled twenty-dollar bill, two silver drachma, a few wooden nickels, a gum wrapper and a car wash token.

Mike uncrumpled the twenty-dollar bill and then picked up the silver coins. "We can't take these."

"Why not? They are worth a fortune." Charon growled.

"Because they aren't real money." Mike smirked.

"I paid, keep the change." Charon determined.

"Whatever, buddy." Mike glared. He went in the back to make the burger.

"Order up for Karen!" Mike slightly mispronounced Charon, having thought the guy's name was Karen.

Charon looked around and then got up from his seat to get his burger. He examined it and noticed it was made poorly and that Mike had spit on the bun. "Let me talk to your manager."

"Hey, boss, Karen wants to see you!" Mike called our boss out.

"What is this sloppy mess? I get one lunch break, just one. This is what I get to eat?" Charon pointed at the heap that was formerly a burger.

"Sir, if you don't like it, go somewhere else." Out boss said in a classic way.

"Okay, but first give me back my money." Charon glared.

"Sure, I can do that. Let's be rid of you." Our boss said. I love his customer service skills, knowing what he's got coming. He took out the top twenty and a five and gave started giving them to Charon.

"Wait, he paid with those silver coins. Give him those." Mike said.

Charon took the two silver coins and said. "You know what, forget the damn burger."

My boss and Mike blinked.

Charon reached over the counter and took them each by the top of their head and peeled their skin off in one tug, leaving them standing there with no skin, dripping blood. Then they started screaming. Mike ran and hit his head and fell over, but my boss stuck his groping hand into the fryer vat by accident as he slipped on his own blood.

He writhed screaming in agony and died a bad death there on the floor.

Charon returned with their souls, looking much like they did at their moment of death. "These classic clowns have a lot of soul cleansing to do. I appreciate you helping me get a break from working in this endless grind from Hell."

"No problem." I told Charon.

"Here." Charon gave me the two silver drachma. "Keep the change."