The Ferryman

by Justin Cronin

that loss was love’s accounting, its unit of measure, as a foot was made of inches, a yard was made of feet.

The mind works wondrously; it is capable of astonishing feats. It is the only machine in nature capable of thinking one thing while knowing its opposite.

We look no deeper into things because we do not desire this; neither are we meant to. That is the design of the world, to trick us into believing it is one thing, when it’s entirely another.

Time itself has weight. It bears upon the mind—every joy, every regret, every minute of every day adding to the total—until the system by which we sort and file the data (I like chocolate; it’s Wednesday; my ward is named Proctor; my wife, Cynthia, tied an anchor to her ankle and threw herself into the sea) collapses in a cascade of confusion.

We are herd animals, make no mistake.

Which only goes to show that people are more complicated than they let on, and that even tragedy (sometimes only tragedy) can open the door to who we really are.

Why do certain arbitrary images stay with us, branded upon the walls of memory, while others sink forever into time’s abyss?

There are seconds that aren’t seconds, not at all. They open around us like the bellows of a great cosmic accordion; within lies an infinite expanse, or so it feels. It is within this space that revelations come, and mine is this: there’s only one thing I can do to help my father now, something I have never done before. I kiss him on the forehead. “I love you,” I tell him.

lifted my eyes to find Elise looking at me with tender concern. This good, kind woman. Why couldn’t I fully embrace the fact of her? Did this happen to all married couples—that we became, over time, a union not of choice but of habit?

To be blind, though, was not to be sightless. That was something he learned. His vision merely changed direction: not outward, toward physical reality, but inward, toward the mind. New thoughts were born within him, and with these thoughts came a new way of existing. The world was something he felt, unencumbered by the tyranny of sight.

“People need hope, Proctor. They need something to believe.”

There is power in a name. It is through names that we bring all things into this world, and when they leave, it is names we carry with us, so they are never truly gone.

will give you childhood, so that you might know innocence. Age, so you will know the prize of youth. Children, so that you will care for the future. Toil, so that you will know the value of a day. The body’s failings, so that you will know its worth. Death, so that you will cherish the bittersweet beauty of life. We are, each of us, born a sparkling soul, clothed only in our newness; it is life that makes us what we are. You have been one thing; now you will learn to be another.