I returned home side for an evening with my aunt and her partner. Conversation and food. I left them late for the ferry crossing. Stood on the dock in the darkness, the chilled wind. A storm had awakened while I was with them and it was just settling back into calm again as I stood there watching the vessel dock. Above, sky swirling and menacing, illuminated by the cities below, itself casting away that light to the sea.

A few cars and a hog unloaded and the dock quivered under the weight of their passing. Then I walked on, the solitary passenger. This multi-story vessel would be for me only. It was a yacht by proxy of happenstance, complete with my very own crew. This chance imbued with the potential for meaning and I was determined to live it to the fullest.

Lights in the cabin disabled the view of the outside, so I walked out to the pickle forks with my jacket zipped high, my hands in my pockets. Pushed Play on the CD. Someone above turned out the headlight and we cut into the darkness, guided by that metropolitan glow reflected in the clouds and again onto the sea.

I thought I would not be able to stay there in the headwind but I endured. Misty rain tingled my face. I closed my eyes to feel the wind resisting the contours of my nose and cheeks. Except for the restless cloud cover, the night was serene. Solitude of the sea, the fabled lure of it materialized in graceful gestures of slumbering waves.

I thought that other people in the same situation might have chuckled to themselves at the curious stroke of chance. Might have then sat in the warm cabin, reading the book in their pack or typing away on their notebook computer. Maybe they would have sunk into the vinyl for a short sleep. Later, they would have commented on it to someone briefly, as an afterthought: "Strangest thing, had the ferry to myself."