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.

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.

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.

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.

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 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.