The Ferryman

by Justin Cronin

In this lush land, free of all want and distraction, Prosperans devote themselves to the highest aspirations. Creative expression and the pursuit of personal excellence: these are the cornerstones of our civilization. We are a society of musicians and painters, poets and scholars, artisans of every type.

There’s no point in offering further reassurances. After almost a decade together, I’ve learned that some version of this conversation is a staple of life with any creative personality and nothing to take personally; by afternoon Elise’s spirits will brighten, and she’ll be happily working away on something new. The constant struggle against self-doubt is simply a part of the process and amplifies her elation when everything comes together in the end

It’s been my experience that a lot of human interaction comes down to just these sorts of exchanges, less an actual conversation than a form of parallel confession—the two parties performing their interior monologues, not really listening to each other but merely taking turns. I do not mean this cynically or as a statement of personal superiority; I’m as guilty as the next guy.

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.

“Is that how other people do it?” Many people pose this question, or some version of it. Am I doing this right? Am I like other people? Is this normal? We are herd animals, make no mistake.

It came as a pleasant shock to me, how the man I’d known as a rather dry intellectual transformed himself so completely into a craftsman—a man who actually made things that the world could put to practical use.

profession. It was entirely possible, now that I considered the matter, that I was about to be fired—or if not fired, shunted into some lesser role that would dwindle over time, a death by a thousand paper cuts. Oh, former director Bennett? Down the hall, take a left, you’ll find him in the storage closet next to the toilets.

Every society produces such men: the ones who dwell in the shadows, who live on suspicion, whose project in life is to tighten the air in every room one notch, just by breathing it. The S3 was a necessary evil, perhaps—someone had to do the dirty work—but an evil nonetheless.

It is impossible, of course, to completely know another person; we are, in the end, prisoners of our own minds.

For decades I had been sleepwalking through my life; I’d chosen basically nothing that hadn’t already been chosen for me; I’d spoken with others’ words in my mouth, like an actor reciting his lines. It was what the world taught us to do, but it was no way to live, and now, for the first time, I felt like I was waking up.

It’s impossible to feel bad on a boat, my father often said, and that was true, or true for me.

“Want to tell me what happened?” “I just got fired.” Her face fell. “Proctor, that’s terrible.” “Want to know something funny? I was actually planning to quit. Turns out that doesn’t make it any easier.”

In for a penny, in for a pound.

I thought instead to call a friend, someone from the old days. We could meet for lunch, say, and when the moment felt right, I could tell the story of the last week, seeking an opinion. But when I thought of the people I knew, I realized I didn’t really have any friends at all.

That such a vessel had been fashioned by human hand was nothing less than proof of our indomitableness as a species, the unconquerable spirit of our kind. To cross the widest of seas, to launch into nature’s starry immensity, to traverse the infinite darkness: that was our destiny, our only fate.

Austen’s novel feels alive because it is alive, just as the world that you and I profess to live in is alive. It’s made by a mind, not a machine, and that mind is what gives it the sense of deep order and purpose. You may not see it, but you can sense its presence, and that’s what makes life not merely endurable but also worth living.”

It was never going to end any way but this, right here, right now. Jess was right after all. The only question is how many bodies there will be, how high the pile, and who is going to be in it.

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.

I’d never had a son and never would, or a younger brother to teach the ways of life, as Malcolm had taught me; and the thought came to me then that who we are to one another isn’t so easy to categorize after all: that fathers can be sons, and lovers friends, and daughters mothers, and that such words as these tell only half the story, maybe not even half.

She hugged me then, wrapping me in a fierce, fast embrace—the kind that’s over before you know it but remember all your life.

Thea has yet to tell anyone her news, though it’s also true that she’s content to bide her time: to be alone with her secret as long as she can, like the answer to a question she’s not sure anyone has posed.