This is my terrible Christmas gift to you.

Dear Trevor,

The boat came and went today. I’m still here. I can’t get on it.

Gordon was sitting with me on my porch, running his fingers through his longish, gray hair, when we heard the sound of the train. He jerked rigid, then grabbed my leg. “You hear it, too, don’t you? That means she’s coming. That means I have a choice to make. It is time to act. Time for the experimentum crucis.”

“Eh?”

“The crucial experiment. Literally, the experiment of the cross.”

I followed Gordon to the train depot, where we could already see the old train screeching to a halt. A minute later, the door opened and the newcomers started stepping off, about a dozen in total. Like always there were three basic types. Some climbed off the train and wandered directly into the woods, as if the trip was an orchestrated camping trip. These ones never said much. A young blonde woman—probably 25—walked by me on her way toward the trees. She looked like she’d just stepped out of a college lecture, with her brow still furrowed from a debate.

“Where are you going?” I asked her. She turned toward me, startled a bit by the sound, but when she saw me, she shook her head. I mean she shook it as if she were clearing out cobwebs. She frowned even more and walked past me toward the trees. When she reached the nearest one—a rough-barked Douglas fir, she put her hand on it and stopped there, as if catching her breath. She stroked the bark, looked back my way for the briefest of seconds, then stepped past the Doug fir into the shadows.

The second type were the wanderers. The people like me. They look completely baffled by the experience. A woman with unkempt hair and bright red lipstick almost asked me a question, but all she could manage was, “Do you?” She turned a bit frantically away and  followed the rest of the wandering crowd. As she walked, she kept trying to smooth down her hair.

As always, there were a few Crazies who led the way. The wanderers always follow them right down to the dock. I always follow them, too.

There were three Crazies this time—a fat Hispanic man in a freshly pressed white shirt, a thin-faced old woman with straight, steel-grey hair that fell to her shoulders, and a young man with rectangular glasses and a huge smile. This young man—I’d put him at about 25, too—led the way today. He shouted a laugh when he stepped off the train and practically ran for the dock. Gordon huffed along behind him with the others. I followed, farther back. It’s funny how people follow someone who is sure of himself, even if they have no idea where he is going. That young man would have made an incredible salesman. He sold his destination.

When we reached the dock, the boat had not yet arrived.

Gordon had a small, ratty suitcase with him. “Going somewhere?” I asked him. He smiled grimly without looking my direction. He was staring with everyone else, out into the fog. “What’s in the bag?” I asked.

“Very little,” he said to the fog. “Mostly just scribbles. A few pencil stubs.” He paused. “Am I the only one with luggage?”

I didn’t answer, because the boat arrived.

I know I complain about how little my five senses work in this half land, but when that boat came in, I wished I could have cut them off completely. The sight of all that blood, the smell of all that blood—I wanted to run back to my little cabin and climb under the covers.

The woman captain looked through her beaten, puffy eyes as she eased that wreck of a boat alongside the dock. The young man with rectangular glasses grabbed a line from the dock and tossed it expertly around a cleat on the boat’s deck. With a few quick spins of his wrist, the boat was tied off. He jumped from the dock to the deck without hesitation.

“Here I go,” whispered Gordon. He moved with the crazies toward the boat. When it was his turn, the young man smiled at Gordon’s little suitcase and said, “Can’t bring that, Uncle. Toss it away and climb aboard.”

“Ahh, it’s just a few tiny things.”

“A few tiny things that can’t come with you. Hurry and toss it. I want to get going!”

I rushed up to Gordon’s side. “Going where?” I asked. I think I sounded a bit desperate.

“You know!” the young man shouted. “Everyone knows! Every tongue declares our destination! Now climb aboard or cast off.”

Gordon moved to step on. The young man blocked his way, nodding at Gordon’s bag. When Gordon hesitated, the young man yanked the line from the cleat and threw it back onto the dock. The woman captain looked at me. I could not hold her gaze. It was so terrible. She was so beaten, so bruised, so swollen everywhere.

I turned and ran—yes, I ran—into the Laughing Gull. Sung-Hee had coffee waiting. She was ready for the confused crowd. I grabbed a napkin and, using the coffee, painted this portrait of the captain’s battered, feminine face.

This is my terrible Christmas gift to you.

Dad