The dead are not to blame for our fear; neither are we. Some things just are. The urn is heavier than I’d imagined, the night colder than I’d thought. The bones of my fingers ache as they curl around the little, metal handles. They feel like ice. Above, the calm sea of flickering light known as the sky, below, the ocean, a well of darkness like a black mirror reflecting the stars on its undulated surface—the thin line between heaven and hell.
My friend, where have you gone? The sun has burned you to ash, and the night will know you no more.
We are far from the sight of land now. The white sail flutters in the breeze, and the helmsman sits silently. A flash of light, and I see the grizzled seaman’s face, his snowy beard. The match flares between the puffs of his pipe and then is cast away, a thin cinder, invisible. It flies unseen into the salty bath. I uncork the urn.
Rising, the little boat sways at my movement, and I fear I’ll fall into that dark and waiting sea, fall in with the ashes of the man I loved. How I wish his hand was there to steady me, or that I’d fall back into his chest—all ashes now, my dreams and hopes, ashes cast into the deep.
I upturn the jar and watch the grey contents spill in a cataract upon the careless waves, the whipping wind driving him far from me. At last, I let the jar fall from my hands, my fingers creaking as they uncurl. It floats there beside the boat, and I quickly sit back down upon the empty plank and shiver.
“It’s done,” the captain says.
I nod.
“‘E ‘as a good man,” he says.
“Was,” I agree as I stare out into the darkness. There’s no horizon between the sea and sky, no light but our dim boat floating amid the stars.
When we had buried him the first time, I had wept and wept, but now no tears would come. What rest will he find, lost forever on the sea?
Tale Told 