The Ferryman

by Justin Cronin

Here is the golden morning, we say; here is the beautiful sea. Here is my beautiful home, my adoring wife, my morning cup of coffee, and my refreshing daybreak swim. 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.

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?

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.

Elise, I thought, is that you? Are these drops of rain the tears you cannot shed, is the wind the storm of bottled grief within you?

Thus I beam this tale into the cosmos: this message in a bottle, tossed into the heavens’ waves.