THE FERRYMAN laments the day his ship might never emerge again.
Hours before, the tin ship, rusted with age, was packed with strangers who exchanged sweat without malice. Paper bills and coins climbed a staircase made of open palms, their scent clinging to the crevices of everyone’s hands.
Dressed in decals that bear the sign of divine providence, the ship took weary feet scalded by the morning to soak on the shore at their journey’s end.
Although in different shapes, the same apparition of faces manifests every day — in the form of tired students or pudgy middle-aged men whose shirts are a button away from bursting.
Now, with the sun faded away, a pair of piercing headlights incises the dark streets of the city. There are no other souls apart from the tin ship, making the air feel sterile as a consequence. The hearse is at its calmest before it is laid to rest.
The ferryman watches his last passenger of the night grow smaller in his rearview mirror. He wonders if this is the last face he’ll see before his ramshackle beaut is beached forever.
Large puddles formed by the rain rippled as the ship sailed through them. Remnants of the many bodies it once carried disappeared into the haze.
When the ship docks at its coffin made of thin iron sheets pillared in diesel-drenched gravel, it exhales a final cloud of black smoke.
The vessel rests beside fellow battleworn ships, their colorful decals threatening to peel off, hoping to bask in the morning once again. F
