Karim sat in a dark corner at the edge of the port, his legs dangling rhythmically over the silent water. His time on the Island was coming to an end and soon the ferry would carry him back to the mainland.
“I’ve never seen the sea so calm,” he thought.
He tried again to remember why he had come to this place but became distracted by his muddy boots. They cast shadows that floated like ghosts over the rippling tide. He leaned forward and saw a strange face staring back at him through the mist that slept on the water’s surface. It beckoned to him and his heart burst as though he was falling for a moment. The sea now seemed to hold for him a different meaning than it once did. The clear azure world that had once inspired wonder and a thirst for life had given way to a world of shadows and death.
The Island has been a refuge for wealthy mainlanders for centuries. It is a place for them to sink their feet into the warm sand and feel the cool breeze sway against their skin. A place to gaze at the boundless blue sea and colossal mountains that jut out from the earth, shimmering with lights from the ancient villages. A place to stare in wonder at the moon, suspended against the blackest night sky as it projects a rippling silvery bridge that is swallowed back into the sea before dawn.
The mainlanders still came but others had begun to follow–always after dark. The mainlanders did not know, nor care to know, where the newcomers came from. Some said they materialized from nothingness. Others rumored that they crossed an unseen bridge over the horizon when the moon was at its brightest. Few observed that the exodus started when the storms became more devastating and more frequent, when the droughts and wildfires consumed vast swaths of land, when the seas became sewers, and when the armed men arrived. Either way, misery brought them here and misery consumed them.
The daily ferry was the Island’s lifeline to the outside world and the only means of transportation for passengers, vehicles, and supplies. It was also where the affluent mainlanders, destitute newcomers, and hordes of humanitarian volunteers, Karim among them, converged.
Near the ledge where Karim was sitting, colossal spotlights illuminated the night and guided the horde of exiles over the short bridge into the ship’s bow. The ground rumbled beneath him. This was a dismal place. Hundreds of distinct brown faces melted into one another, forming a single faceless mass that trudged forth somberly but deliberately like a funeral procession. A shared yearning bound them: that this journey, which had started and would end differently for each of them, would finally just come to an end.
The horn blared, signaling the ferry’s imminent departure. Karim grabbed his duffle bag and made for the ferry. The line was flowing with urgency as the passengers hurried to board before the ferry vanished into the dark horizon, taking the promise of a worthwhile life with it.
“Where do I get my room key from?” Karim asked the ticket collector.
The man replied with a heavy accent: “Follow the signs to the concierge and they will give you your room number and keys. It’s in the compartment after where they are kept.”
Karim noted the strange description and proceeded to follow the man’s instructions. He walked through the cargo hold, gawking at its unfinished facade, chipping walls, and steaming pipes. He marched up a long flight of stairs that led to the first passenger compartment. He entered the chamber and his eyes were struck by the orange-brown hues that erupted from the outdated wallpaper and carpeting. This chamber was completely barren and dilapidated. Through the flickering lights, he made out the crude camps that lined the corridor. Each colony staked its territory using piles of tattered bags, ripped suitcases, and other artifacts of a grim life.
This must be where they are kept, he thought.
As he weaved a twisted path around the pitiful travelers, a shudder came upon him like a sudden, cold rain. Guilt. It had become a frequent companion, and when it visited, Karim embraced it like an old friend. He revered it and found in the pain it brought a sort of retribution that might balance the universe and bring some justice to a wholly unjust world. Guilt, he thought, was penance for the comfort of his warm bed while his brothers and sisters rotted in dirty hallways and cold stairwells.
Why did he come to the Island? What good had come of it? These people were coming long before he arrived and would continue coming long after he departed. Their struggle was indifferent to his existence.
He would soon be back in suburban Virginia, back to his upper middle-class life, back to staring at a blank laptop screen between sterile white walls that closed in a little more each day, back to his tall red-brick row house on a quiet street lined with white cherry-blossoms and red maple trees, back to his elegant girlfriend, Amal, whose soft shapely legs he constantly fantasized about. Soon, the memory of his time here would fade and be forgotten like a childhood memory.
From this self-reflection sprang a terrible self-loathing. In himself, he began to see the privileged volunteers that he despised because, unlike him, they did not come from across the horizon and, to them, the newcomers were no more than stray dogs to be saved. They descended on the Island with extravagant clothing, raging parties, and penetrating vanity. By the end, it was their own souls that needed saving. Ah! This was a wickedness born unto him, an original sin, one that he could not wash off or repent for. Only a holy savior could offer salvation, but he was not a religious man and so no atonement was to be had for him.
Karim finally reached the end of the hall where two large double doors led into the passenger compartment that was off limits to them. He took a step inside and it was as though he had stumbled through one of those Magical Doors. A burst of light exploded before his eyes and the walls bellowed with a Hellenic blue-white. A large central staircase with a marble face and railing carved with floral festoons led up to the bedrooms. Cafes bustled with fat patrons dressed in summer linens and harsh clinking glass. He had reached the mainlander compartment.
A young woman in an elegant costume and deliberate pose greeted him. “Some Champagne, sir?” she said, drawing out the pronunciation of Champagne longer than it needed to be.
He did not want Champagne. He wanted escape from this awful spectacle. He scarcely could react before feeling a noose tighten around his throat and a boulder crush his chest. He whispered through his teeth, “No, thanks,” and hurried up the stairs to his room.
The keys fumbled in Karim’s trembling hands before he unlocked the door and entered. The room had a low ceiling and a king bed next to an antique oak desk with some writing material. The bathroom sat in the rear. He threw his bag on the floor and sank like lead into the bed to calm his nerves. He woke up to the siren sound of the ferry launching from the port.
“Why did I come here?” he thought again.
Karim always had trouble controlling his thoughts and feared into which murky alleys an unfettered mind might lead him. His mind was on a long chain that night, and it battered against the silence that consumed the room. He could endure no more. He leaped up and reached for the writing material to jot down his thoughts, hoping to banish the ghosts that had followed him from the Island with a pencil.
Keeping a journal made him feel better. He could project onto its pages those feelings which he could not share with Amal. She knew him to be a warm and affectionate person. She had explored his soul like a garden and often found herself lost in it.
But obscured behind the winding grape vines that sheltered her skin from the sun, behind the blossoming gardenias whose fragrance showered her body, behind the gentle chirping of the birdlings that made her heart radiate, raged a storm that Karim hardly could quell. His soul was wounded, and the wound was festering, gnawing at his insides, and rotting his soul. The walls that a lifetime of detachment had erected inside of him seemed to be crumbling. But the writing made him feel better.
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“Yes, that’s what I’ll do!” he said to himself and plunged like a deer through the arches back down into the dilapidated chamber where they were. He would find his atonement by joining his kin and suffering with them.
Karim made his way onto the deck where the moon hung high behind the clouds and the winds rattled. He thought the fresh air might reinvigorate him and indeed it felt to him as if jumping into the cool ocean on a hot day.
He encountered two young brothers, Ali and Moussa, who were kicking a deflated soccer ball back and forth in clothes that had seen better days and shoes that showed their toes. A stray kick sent the ball rolling towards Karim and he performed tricks by spinning the ball on his finger like his basketball coach had taught him. This pleased the brothers very much and they ran to him, trying to imitate his moves, and he taught them how to do it.
Moussa, the older of the two, mastered it on the second try, but Ali struggled with his tiny fingers. The older brother was very patient with Ali and gently guided his finger beneath the ball to teach him. Moussa always looked after Ali. His dad made him promise and Moussa took the responsibility very seriously. They laughed together, and, for a moment, the kids forgot where they were and where they had come from.
But they could not escape their past for long and started with the story of how they arrived on the ferry. They were unaccompanied minors who had made their way from their village under the care of a human smuggler. Their month-long journey saw them riding an overflowing Volkswagen bus, northbound towards freedom. They were ransomed, robbed, and threatened, but gravest of all, fought off the sex traffickers that prowled behind every corner. Moussa protected his younger brother along the way like the bravest knight.
Ali described the cramped bus with its frame rattling uncontrollably as it raced through the tranquil desert. The passenger compartment nearly came apart from the chassis over every hill that it was not designed to pass at these speeds. Only the occasional glow of cell phone screens and cigarette cherries illuminated the endless blackness. The driver did not need any lights–he made a living crossing this desert.
The passengers sat consumed in silence, scarcely holding on to their sanity as they agonized over what might be lurking in the darkness. Ali and Moussa, and everyone else on the bus, had seen the videos. They knew what atrocities awaited those who were caught. Then, blinding lights pierced the darkness through the rear window, interrupting the uneasy quiet. It was a patrol car according to the driver who recognized the headlights. Their luck was boundless tonight, the armed men only asked them to turn back.
The caravan attempted the crossing again the very next night. And there it was at long last, a welcome sign and the final stretch before freedom from the treacherous place they came from. They had finally made it.
Ali turned to Karim in whose familiar face he saw his father’s eyes. He asked him through tears that washed the dirt off his face: “Did you come from the bad place too?”
“No, uhm, I’m just a helper”, his voice crackled. These words brought with them a surge of self-contempt that made Karim’s stomach turn. The cold wind was no longer pleasant to his skin and the children’s voices turned to screeching chalk. He wished them luck on their journey, hurried back inside, and never saw them again.
Inside, he came upon a young man sitting on the floor carefully polishing a pair of Nike basketball shoes as though they were a new BMW. Karim kneeled next to him, complimented his “kicks”, and asked him if he played basketball.
“Yes, I am captain of my team back home”, the young man replied with a quiver in his voice. “I hope I play again soon.”
“I play basketball too. Maybe we can play together when we get to the mainland.”
The man with the Nikes explained that he could not play on the mainland because he had no clothes to wear. He told Karim about a cold night a few days prior when the angry winds struck relentlessly against the boat that carried him to the Island. The boat looked sturdy, but only looked so. It swayed from side to side as the terrible waves crashed against the frame, drenching the passengers and filling the hull with water. They seemed to stand still against the wind despite the full throttle of the engine. They were carrying too much weight but what ballast was there except for their bodies and the few valuables they carried?
After eight hours into what was meant to be a four-hour journey, they were still too far away from land. The engine had stalled several times, stranding them in the middle of this watery graveyard. They were cold and wet in an overloaded coffin and the sounds of children crying and women wailing were muted only by the howling wind.
They made it to within 100 meters of the shore before the boat ran out of gas and the engine shut down for the last time. The boat had been accumulating icy water for eight hours. Without the thrust of an engine, they could only pray for the waves and the wind to propel them towards the rocky shore. Though they were so close now, the dangers persisted. How many others had the cruel black sea swallowed under the same circumstances?
They had no choice but to toss all their bags and suitcases overboard. Everything. Most of them carried only their most precious belongings. Everything else had been lost or stolen somewhere along their long arduous journeys. Those who had packed their cash, passports, or jewelry in their bags were out of luck. Everything was to be tossed overboard immediately –their time was running out.
The barefooted man refused to toss the one small bag that he carried. He couldn’t. Fellow passengers lost patience and snatched his bag to lob it over. He managed to grab one thing before it sunk into the abyss– his Nikes, the same Nikes that he now clutched against his chest as he retold this chilling tale. This was the last remaining artifact of his old life and Karim started to understand the care he gave to it.
After finishing the story, the man turned to Karim and embraced him. To this person, an impossible journey had finally come to an end and he wanted to share his relief and his joy with a friend who had endured the same. The familiarity of Karim’s look, his voice, and his language would do at this moment. He found comfort in their shared struggle and in the raw human connection that it created. Then he pulled away and asked Karim: “Did most of your things survive your journey?”
The words wouldn’t escape Karim’s mouth. A terrible shame again bubbled up from his heart and he knew he would no longer find peace in this world.
He hurried onto a secluded corner of the deck away from the accusatory eyes that he imagined were pursuing him everywhere on this ferry. He saw in each of those eyes the reflection of the devil that haunted his every thought, mocking him for the injustices that he could not make right.
He found himself in a state of singular loneliness as though, to his eyes only, all the colors had dissolved from the world. Despite the howling winds and the roaring engines, he could only hear the metallic whisper of his conscience.
The final chain of his sanity crumbled and the ghosts led his mind into that darkest alley from where he knew there was no escape. He looked down into the water and saw that face once again beckoning to him. This time, Karim’s fingers gently released their grip of the railing and he plunged into the cold bitter darkness below. Here, Karim could suffer alongside his brothers and sisters forever and his guilt washed away into the sea.