The Ferryman.

The ferry man awoke from his nap. The sky was a still and lonely blue above the Mekong, the same color it was before he went to sleep. There was not a cloud in sight. The river, once a dear old friend that would chuckle and laugh in delight, shaking mightily as it did so, seemed too to forsake him. It was cold now, and it said to him, “You are of no use any longer. The villagers have forgotten about you, and you have grown old.”

The ferry man winced. He rubbed the sleep out of his eyes and perhaps a few tears. With great effort, he sat up, the wood emitting a low groan that echoed endlessly across the valley. A frog croaked in protest. The ferry man peered over the edge of the ferry and looked down into the smooth metallic water. He smiled, the deep wrinkles gathering around his eyes and across his cheeks. Slowly, he let his smile go, admitting defeat to the sardonic ripples that giggled with each shift of his weight, shattering his reflection. He leaned back onto the boat, and looked toward the valley. And he waited.

He is a ferry man. A ferry man for as long as he could remember. In fact, he thought, my mother bore me right here in the middle of this ferry boat. And there he was to stay, to learn the trade of ferrying as his father and his father’s father had, to bring strangers, lovers, and acquaintances alike for years over the river’s pulsing waves, to turn a deep and rich brown under the sun’s formidable rays, and finally, to grow old and know how deafening the silence could be, and how ubiquitous loneliness could feel.

It had been three years since the war. Six years since his wife and son passed away, blown to bits by a land mine. At least it was quick, he thought, remembering the ringing in his ears for days after. They did not feel it.

Still, he thought, he promised them. He promised them that he would take them to a home, a real home instead of a dirty old shack by the foot of the weeping willow on the edge of the river. That he would learn a new trade, and give up ferrying.

It was too late now. Ferrying was all he had. And without the comfort of his beloveds, he lost the will to do all else. In response, it seemed the world ceased to care about him as well, leaving him to wrinkle and decay with time.