The terrain surrounding this wide waterway began to morph into a brighter, cooler world. The distant banks of the river and rolling hills beyond them were sprinkled with the vegetation of olive trees and tall, elegant Cypress. While impressed with the minute details of this virtual Mediterranean world-a flock of lazy sheep grazed on the nearest bank-I was still shocked and confused as to what I had only moments before seen as some sort of secret communication between Angel and the bearded man. He had seemed so out of place, ostensibly working behind the illusions of the ride. I had little time to think about this when there exploded off to the left of the ship's bow, an eruption of water high into the air.

Emerging out of the river in a plume of spray was the nine-headed sea creature Scylla, in all her grotesque and mythological glory. The enormous beast rose quickly and approached us, squealing from each serpent head with high pitched and discordant screams. It moved its heads menacingly nearer to our ship's low railing, exposing sets of gray teeth and blinking her nine glutinous pairs of yellow eyes. The creature's muscular necks carried its fetid terror over the top of the mast and square sail, then down like a striking snake to the passengers.

Many of these terrified travelers reeled backwards in their panic, and like Angel and myself, they slid down off their benches onto the deck for protection. As our warship rolled in the current and yawed from the large waves created by Scylla's disturbance, one man toward the bow was seen by everyone to be lifted off the deck in one of the creature's gaping mouths. He was carried, arms and legs flailing, over the side of the ship and then pulled silently down into the cobalt blue water. The passengers were still screaming and some sobbing when the river eventually calmed. The serpent, along with our fellow adventurer, did not return. Amid the resulting hysteria and shouts for assistance, were also heard a few sounds of laughter on board, as some of the more brazen passengers readjusted their emotions to the fact that this was, after all, an amusement park-however horrible what they had just witnessed, appeared.

As passengers began to re-enter their comfort zone and return to their seats, Angel and I looked once again into each other's faces. I could see she was still nervous and steeped in some perplexing secret. I could sense this in her empty, lifeless touch when I tried to hold her hand, and by the fact that those wonderful gray eyes of hers now evaded mine. I looked out across the river to both banks in the distance. They had already evolved into more vertical cliffs and jagged rocks. We were undoubtedly ramping up in speed again. Ahead, I watched the two other ships moving in single file which, with ours, formed a caravan of majestic vessels, their sails billowing and drawn tight with ropes whistling in the volatile air.

Soon the once painterly sky began to darken from its azure blue into a rarefied iridescence, as if now becoming dusk. There was a thick mist ahead and I could make out a fork in the watercourse where it narrowed into two distinct passageways. Each of ships before us navigated into the left of these channels. A heavy white steam or fog was rising above the opposite passage as we approached the nexus of the two lanes. It did not appear we were going to follow the two other triremes, which by then had cleanly healed over to avoid the steaming right fork before us. Angel remained silent and began to grip the hand railing, as if anticipating some impending event which she seemed strangely aware of as we proceeded to the right. I turned to her and held her shoulders. Her body was rigid, her gaze transfixed forward.

"What is it?" I shouted. "What's going to happen to us?"

She had become frighteningly distant. I could hear a thunderous roar ahead as we began to enter this steaming fork of the River Styx.

"It's the waterfall, isn't it, Angel? The cataract you spoke of. . ."

I had to shout over the sound of casscading water directly in our path. The vaporous atmosphere of mist signaled what lay ahead. It was undoubtedly the 'death drop' she had alluded to so often in our lovemaking. The roar of the falls became intolerable. I looked back towards the calmer waters as a powerful instinct to escape consumed me. I could see in the other passengers a dull preparation for some unknown event-which I had strong foreknowledge of.

Without thinking anymore of Angel's resistance or what lay before us, my reactions went instinctively into a 'fight or flight' mode. Having been a competitive swimmer in high school, I did not fear the calmer waters behind us, but the uncertainty of the cataract's mist only a score of meters ahead compelled me to react. I grabbed Angel's shoulders more forcefully and shouted at her to leap with me over the side. She remained immoveable, looking only at her hands which tightly gripped the rail. My last attempt to pull her free was met only with silence and stolid resistance. In an instant I was standing at the railing. Angel suddenly looked at me with an expression of disbelief. Before I could make out her words, I hurled myself over the side of the ship and swam frantically in an opposite direction. The river water was surprisingly warm and smelled of a chlorinated pool.

Suddenly, as the ship sped on and disappeared in a sort of slow motion over an unseen edge, there echoed back screams from the cloud of steam. A series of lamps suddenly flashed on. Safety lights from above. The entire ride seemed to jolt to a stop as I treaded water. I could see then I was in a relatively shallow, plastic-lined tank with multi-colored cables running across the bottom. Above me was an opaque, now darkened material on which the images of our surroundings and once magnificent sky had been projected digitally. The heart-stopping roar of the cataract had somehow been deleted in what seemed now like an endless tunnel. Angel and her ship were nowhere to be seen, as I began to swim beneath the bright safety lights slowly back in the direction we had come.

Within only several minutes of swimming and treading water I could make out two of the ride's employees in a red, inflatable life boat navigating toward me, powered by a silent engine. They each wore inflatable vests, and under them the tan, nondescript utility overalls similar to those of the bearded man. One of the men was balding and Caucasian, with an athletic build; the other a younger, thin Hispanic with tattoos on the back of his hands. They helped me into the small rubber vessel which they quickly powered up and ferried back to the ride's departure point. Neither man spoke to me, nor did they communicate with each other during the contrastingly eventless voyage within the tunnel.

I was assisted out of the craft by another pair of middle-aged men wearing street clothes who awaited me at the empty dock. They were middle-aged, strongly built with short-cropped haircuts. They greeted me politely, handed me a yellow beach towel and motioned for me to follow them to an unmarked side door. Walking between them, I was closely guided through a series of rooms which, from the connection boxes and industrial sized cables obviously housed and controlled the ride's mechanical and visual effects. On the walls of these rooms were also a series of CCTV computer screens, all showing a frozen and now brightly illuminated series of plastic bottom tunnels known as The River Styx. On several of these monitors I could see the closed-circuit imaging of the people in the triremes now being assisted onto an exit dock. I recognized the man in the wheelchair from our former vessel, but did not see Angel anywhere.

I was eventually led to a large, executive office. Behind the desk of this spacious, teak-paneled suite sat, to my surprise, an adolescent boy. As he stood and approached me cordially, I could see he incongruously wore a tailored blue suit and tie. My two assistants left me standing in front of him, drying my face with the yellow towel. The smiling boy reached out his thin hand in greeting, presenting an eerie, non sequitur image of this miraculous world I had found muself in. It was a handshake I did not accept.

"We are most sorry for what happened to you here today," he said in a childlike and calm voice.

I did not reply.

"You see, sir, The River Styx is still very new. We are constantly working out the limitations of it and . . . well . . . the tolerances."

"Tolerances?" I replied, still in disbelief of what was happening to me.

"Yes. The . . . human ones . . . now, mainly."

I could not bring myself to speak.

"You see, sir, we never expected you to panic like you did. . . to abandon the ride in mid-course."

I could see he was actually quite serious.

"But I assure you," he said smiling again. "This is something we are immediately correcting for."

The boy beamed back at me. Like he had just won a high school math competition. He seemed uncharacteristically surprised, however, when I did not smile back. Then, quickly, demonstrating a precocious aptitude, he changed his tack. It was a maneuver which revealed an astonishing tint of genius-an interpersonal talent for which he was no doubt given the prestigious position he held with the organization.

Reaching into the breast pocket of his impeccable suit, he took out a rather thick envelope and held it out to me with his pale, effeminate hand.

"We here at The River Styx do not wish to harm or disturb our clients in any way," he recited, projecting his voice in a prepared manner. "If you feel our efforts here to entertain you . . . overstepped our bounds, we hope that this token of our sincerity and good faith will correct our errors in your favor . . . and to your satisfaction."

I pulled back the loose flap of the envelope and looked inside. It was a stack of one-hundred dollar bills as thick as a modest paperback novel.

Again, I made no response.

"So," the boy stated self-satisfactorily and conclusively. "Since you seem to be in good health and spirits now, I suppose we should all be getting back to our real lives and real work."

There was an uncomfortable pause on his behalf, then another failed attempt to shake my hand. With his other, he took out communication device and depressed a single button. This instantly produced two more employees from the ride to join my healthy attendants and escort me out. We all departed the adolescent's office and stepped into a large elevator. Within ten or so seconds we had reached the warm surface of the Southland.

I found myself alone as I walked out into the evening atmosphere of The River Styx entrance and parking complex. To my surprise, walking back to a side door of this administrative building, I saw Angel. She was calm and collected. Her hair was combed-as if returning from her lunch break.

"Wait!" I shouted, capturing her unexpectedly as she was about to enter the black cement structure. When I approached she was carrying what appeared to be a sheath of files. Though she was startled by my presence, her evasive demeanor and body language revealed no intention of returning to the city with me.

So . . . what was all that about, Angel?

My voice was vulnerable. It cracked into a whisper.

"I have to be getting back to work," she said coldly, refusing to look into my eyes.

"Work? You actually work for this place? And this was all just. . . some sort of job to you?"

Angel looked down at her files, appearing to be a list of names and addresses. Her next victims, I assumed. Her eyes then reluctantly focused on my hands. She remained silent, patient. Awaiting further interrogation of my heartfelt questions. She had obviously heard them all before.

"We didn't think you'd jump off the ship like that," she said strangely detached.

"Didn't any of what we shared . . . mean anything to you? This was all just some form of promotion . . . for the ride?"

She waited a moment. Pensive-trying to remain stoic. Tears slowly welled up in her amazing eyes and then she drilled me with her arresting gaze.

"Hey," she said assertively. "It's just a job, OK? Just a goddamned job!"

* * *

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