The Ferryman

by Justin Cronin

She had heard something once, long in the past, about love and letting go. She did not recall the words, only the idea: 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.

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 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.