"The water," he said, dipping his hand into the river. "Where does it flow to?"

"It...I do not know."

"Really? You have never traveled down river to see where it goes?"

"That is not my purpose. I move but from shore to shore."

"Well, aren't you at all curious?" David asked, leaning forward and clasping his hands together in excitement. "You have poled this boat back and forth across the river, well, forever, and you have never thought about where all this water comes from or where it ends up?"

Charon was silent for a moment, then answered slowly, "Never...before now."

David smiled, then said, "Stop the boat."

"What?"

"Come on, stop pushing us along. I want to see something."

Charon hesitated, then took hold of the pole as its end rested on the bottom of the river and held on to it. Their forward motion stopped and the punt was still for a moment. Then, ever so slowly, the current began to turn the bow of the boat to starboard, eventually pointing them down river.

David looked up and smiled. "There you are. Like to see where it leads us?"

Charon looked at the rolling fog before him as if he had never seen it before. He turned and gazed to his left, where somewhere the distant shore awaited them. "It is not my purpose," he said, quietly.

"Look, my friend," David said. "Your 'purpose' is to be my guide, isn't that right?"

"Across the river, yes, that is correct," the boatman replied, still staring into the fog at a destination he could not see.

"Right. Well, eventually you can take me across the river, but right now I would like to be guided to wherever this river ends up."

"You are expected on the farther shore," Charon said, softly.