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Colin watched glumly as the ferry pulled away from its loading ramp, then churned around Newcastle Island, heading into the Strait of Georgia and open water from Departure Bay. Not Welcome Harbour or Come Again Cove, place names you might expect to encounter in Newfoundland or Nova Scotia—not a cheery marker on the map that welcomed travellers, so much as a pinned coordinate that waved a careless goodbye, farewell being too optimistic and complicated a send-off.

He’d stepped out onto the Queen of Cowichan’s stern viewing deck just as the ship’s engine juddered and strained, getting her up to speed. It occurred to him that she was a double-ender, so didn’t really have a stern in the proper sense of the word. She’s always going forward and backward at the same time, like a two-headed horse.

He wondered if they’d considered giving her two names: The Queen of Departure Bay, heading east; The Queen of Horseshoe Bay, heading west.

Silly notion.

Most of the passengers who’d taken to the decks—instead of queuing at the cafeteria, or hunkering down in one of the boat’s computer booths, or settling in to a comfy window seat—headed forward, not aft. They wanted to see where they were going and feel the winds of passage ruffling their hair and rippling their shirts, with no regrets for what they’d left behind in their collective wake. Colin wished he could join them but had embarked on the crossing with a deep sense of foreboding, as if he would never be returning to his Vancouver Island home.

Why? He wondered. Why do I feel that way?

Well, Hermes interrupted. Perhaps you should consider the famous aphorism of Heraclitus about not stepping into the same river twice.

Can’t you read? Colin complained.

Hermes didn’t answer.

The signs say NO DOGS OR OTHER ANIMALS, EXCEPT SERVICE DOGS, ALLOWED ON THE PASSENGER DECKS.

I’m at your service, Master! Besides, I’m not on the passenger deck, am I? Telepathy knows no boundaries. Not even welded steel can keep a true spirit influencer from communing with his audience.

Audience? Colin snorted. Who else do you ‘commune with’ aside from me?

Hermes ignored the taunt.

Heraclitus was making the point that human spirit is in a state of constant flux. Every moment reveals a new incarnation of you and a whole new river for your new-you to step into. Ergo, it won’t be you, Colin Peterson, returning at the end of your journey; and the place you call home will no longer exist.

And that’s supposed to make me feel better?

‘Anticipation! Anticipa-a-tion is making me late. Is keeping me way-a-a-a-aiting,’ Hermes yowled, a canine rendition of Carly Simon’s hippie era hit.

What’s that got to do with anything?

Nothing and everything, Hermes philosophized, shrinking, collapsing into the form of a snooze ball in the navigator’s seat of their Rialta, below decks.

To: CynthiaPetersonArtist@gmail.com
Subject: Day 2 on Rialta Road – All Aboard
From: Call-In-P-Terson@gmail.com

Hello, My Love,

I’m midway between Vancouver Island and the Lower Mainland on the Queen of Cowichan, en route to Michael and Gloria’s place. Yesterday was the first time I’d turned in for a night in the Rialta without having you beside me.

I’m learning step-by-step on the widower’s march that loneliness isn’t really the state of being alone; it’s the knowledge that the physical and psychic presence of a person who completes you in so many ways is never going to lie beside you again. That you’re going to wake up every day to another day without her, and you’ll only be making coffee for yourself, and there’s no one going to tell you to go easy on the sugar, or declare how lovely the garden is outside the livingroom window—by the way, I’ve hired Cassandra, the Morgans’ daughter from next door, to water the plants indoors and out while I’m on the road.

The confined and moveable space of the Rialta makes my adaptation to widowerhood more endurable in some ways. I found myself rattling about our house, wondering what I was doing there half the time. There are doors that don’t get opened anymore, like the one to your studio. The compact living space of the Rialta is better suited to an emotional and intellectual vagrant. There’s not a niche I can’t see. No possibilities of resident ghosts in its tiny closet, its ‘indoor outhouse’, its cupboards and drawers. Everything’s within easy reach for confirmation, if necessary.

Sorry to burden you with these depressing thoughts, love, but this trip isn’t only about the sights out the Rialta’s windows, is it? It’s also about the inner landscape, if you will. The psychological equivalent of a Sahara desert at high noon during the summer solstice.

How I do go on! It’s not all gloom and doom with me. I’ve got Hermes for company, and he’s a steady source of distractions: two walks a day; feeding times at dawn and dusk; indoor ball tossing… and so on. I’m loath to admit it, but Hermes is the being I talk to most often these days. Not out loud, of course—at least, not in public—but in a fictional, telepathic mode. I know it’s only me talking to myself in the echo chamber of my mind, of course, but he does give me some very stern lectures and sound advice.

In that sense, he has become my bestest of best friends!

Must go. The ferry is approaching Horseshoe Bay, and the announcement for all drivers to please go to their vehicles has been made. An hour or so should see me parked in Michael and Gloria’s driveway. I’m looking forward to seeing them and the grandkids.

Missing you
Always

Love, Colin

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