Page 5 - Ferry Tales

Weedle

“Here’s where all of you go wrong,” I tell him. “You might get it
that the cost-benefit ratio is the same in total for the reality and
fictitiousness of some sort of afterlife, but you don’t account for the
inequality of outcomes for choosing, as you put it, virtue over vice.
This table shows the punishment cost of Hell equal and opposite to
that of the reward benefit of Heaven, and both of greater absolute
value than the punishment cost of being virtuous or the reward
benefit of being a sinner in real ‘organic’ life. If you made those two
sets of numbers the same, the result would not change: the wager is
not worth making.”
I figure I’m doing the Archfiend a favor by knocking the props out
from under them before they even see what’s written above the gates
over there. I’m sure my efforts are appreciated, but the Father of Lies
would never tell me that—nor would I believe Him if He did!
All of Weedle’s outrage hissed out of him. We were almost here
when he speaks up again.
“What will happen to me, Charon?”
“Not my job to know,” I say. “I heard that in the old days, you’d
be forever chased through a thicket of brambles by Harpies.”
“No! Not that! It’s not fair!” Weedle got excited again, and that’s
how I delivered him. I hope you gave him a suitable sendoff through
the Surly Gates and down the chute. Now I’ve got to get back to
Purgatory: I can see my next client stumbling toward the
embankment.

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