Half-and-half was the coffee type best suited for the journey. Caffeine-powered energy circulated throughout the nervous muscle system. The surface rippled as the decrepit wooden paddle stroked the ravine’s still water, sweat accumulated on the brow of the white-haired boatman; agitated by the ambiguous sting in his eye–yet paddled onward. The road ahead: the only passage available to getting to the boatman’s “home,” was prolonging. The ravine tested tolerance.
He raised his chrome thermos to his large and violently pink lips. As the hazel coffee grazed his chapped lips, the man took notice of the mist surrounding his vessel. The boatman–although tolerable–was agitated with the mind settings of yesterdays and the previous, despite the relaxing waft of the ravine current. Paddling, stronger, faster, towards the mist: which once soared at the heavens; the boatman reminisces of skeletons from the past. Resilience to forget–the punishment for a guilty conscience.
More impulsive, his strokes began to turn. Steady ripples now turned to light splashes; the rowboat now tilted and turned with a faster, more complex rhythm. Veins tightened within his arms, wrists, and shoulders: frail, like any elder senior–patiently waiting for the final rest.
Shortly, pain crept into the consciousness of the boatman and he aborted his frantic paddling. Resuming a sense of tranquility, the boatman released the paddle–midway below water–from his firm grip; allowing the utility to float on–far from him. He let go, permitted peace to gather, and allowed the current to guide.
“There ain’t no use,” he screamed to the mist, “I can’t run away.”
Nearby stalks of plants–peeking supra the water’s surface–bent to the strong, sudden draft of wind, which has manipulated the vessel; it steered the boatman deeper into the vague obscurity of the mist. The boatman refrains from tears; congenitally, crying in any situation was a niche for weakness. He kept his eyes resistant to–his own–perception of this eldritch phenomenon. Yet, no senile man in his late 80’s could resist what the boatman saw next.
Deeper and deeper, the wind emphatically guided the boatman into the mist. The surface tension began breaking and reassembling with the speed of trek of the vessel. And suddenly–a stop. The contemporary stillness and tranquility temporarily revisited the boatman again. He takes advantage of the calm; as still as the stars assigned to the sky–and takes a last profound and long breathe of chilled mist. His caffeine-stimulated muscle attempt relaxation–unknowing to the boatman his body was going a mile a minute–but, at the inhale, a gentle “thud” is heard from below the raft. The boatman peaks towards the edge of the rowboat–and his cardiac, ventricle, and muscle system reach the speed threshold. His body: a light bulb burnt out after it’s final switch-on, a manual motor grinding it’s gears, the putting out of a candle–fell into the still and peaceful waters; he floated next to the corpse of a women: in the early stages of decay–larva already picking out at her large and, what was once, violent pink lips.
With only the last final tremors of the boatman; they both rested, calmy and tranquil, atop the ravine–allowing the mysteries of the mist to engulf them.
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