Its motion, however, is steady. It has balance, perhaps even poise.

Departing the dock at Anacortes, it moves gracefully. The ferry is untroubled by tides or logs or the flight of small V-grouped birds that glide scant inches above the surface of the water. All about is water, broken up by the turgid masses of large islands that loom nearby. They seem so close at times that one wonders why communication between them is not carried out with tin cans and string.

It is sunset. The sky is not so brilliant as the image that phrase conjures in your mind; it has more blue than orange. Snow-capped peaks on some of the islands stand starkly across the declining light. They are made awesome and fearsome at once by virtue of a singularity among a lifetime of experience: strata of clouds bisect the peaks, not daring to rise so high as the summit. The peaks reach above the crown of clouds. From the ferry, this can be seen; the clouds are not so numerous as to disguise this failure of ambition within their midst.

As the water churns and the ferry plows, the light recedes towards the horizon. There is little traffic save the ferry. Occasionally a small plane will drift lazily by, at times a speedboat rips through the vicinity. But the islands are at peace. They are not bedecked in houses and apartment complexes and condominiums and resorts and parking garages and all the other detritus of humanity that scars the landscape of the city left behind. They are simply islands, primeval, coated in a lush swath of forest. Occasional lights or decks give lie to their seeming inhumanity; yes, people live and work there. But their numbers are few, and they perhaps understand who is master here. The islands walk.

Darker, and darker still. Time passes. Music plays on headphones, a voiceless soundtrack to a film never made, adding drama to the experience and casting each impression anew in the wake of melody. A composer's work two decades old rings loud through ears, colors the view, suggests subtexts, warns of inexistent danger. Point and counterpoint, notes rising and falling, written by someone who never set eyes on this vista but whose music now makes it his. It is a soundtrack to life.

The journey becomes grim. The music is a recipe for melancholy. The environment is vast, inhuman. Brief relief is promised, then denied: the ferry arrives at its first stop, a lonely dock where a sturdy island woman in an orange florescent vest awaits, one thick leg propped onto a moor, utterly failing to provide reassurance. It is as if one can almost glimpse the thick artery of vegetation that connects her to the island, as if she is no more than bait set out to draw two-legged prey. Vast trunks of dead wood have been arrayed to receive the ferry, to cushion its arrival. Flashing lights set atop massive bulwarks freestanding in the water are fed life via solar panel--the wired energy of society does not venture across the waves to power them, but instead surrenders its role in favor of the sun's innate strength and primitive rays, incongruously captured by technology.

The ferry slows, crawls, then at once collides with the massive ramparts of wood, braced to floating pylons that give only as much as they must, bumpers made of forests lain whole and set to sail without a rudder. The ferry stops. The vegetable-woman lowers the ramp, which clangs onto the front deck. A voice issues from loudspeakers; it is the ferry's voice. Keys turn in sockets, ignition systems flare, cars roar, begin their slow promenade out of the inner sanctum.

Relief, it seems. All is well. Vehicles are disgorged into the night. The sun has not set. There is time. Time to drive, time to flee, time to live. Time to make it home before the lions of unreason are set loose to devour the philosophers. Drive, drive, drive. The sun is not long for this soil. Bastions of home and hearth await, calling home their lords and ladies.

Relief fades. This wave has, seemingly, escaped intact. But there are those who remain. The ferry has not given up its prize of souls. We who ride it are there still, grateful for the victory of those who depart--then, as the last of the cars drives away, we glimpse the horror of the scene: the vehicles have no drivers. It is only the machines that have escaped. We, their supposed masters, are left behind. The vegetable-woman in the florescent-orange vest ratchets up the ramp, waves a jaunty goodbye, seeds and rich loam spill from her mouth, green magma drips from her breasts, her legs run white with verdant pus. This is not your home.

The ferry backpedals. We cling to the railing. Inside there are automatons, those who look to be human but feign humanity. They sit on the padded vinyl benches, drum their fingers on the hard formica tables, sip from plastic coffee, chew on mottled croissants. They are not real. We are the real folk, those of us out here on the deck, shivering in the wind. The smiles of those within beckon us, lie to us, tell us to come inside and all will be well. We huddle out of doors, perched against the precipice, looking down and seeing a sight that affirms our role: in the waters below, vast logs the size of cars are seized upon by the ferry, driven under her leaden prow. We await a crunch, a burble, a noise of any sort to note the capsizing and destruction of these wooden pinions. Nothing occurs. They are simply gone, chewed up in the belly of the beast.

Darker now, and darker still. We plow on through the islands. Our collective mind projects a paradigm onto the scene: we are aboard the Nostromo, plunging into the heart of darkness. The islands loom large, dark, and lush. Where are the houses? They have been eaten.

Night falls. Our stop cannot be far away. We re-check the posted times--surely we are almost there? Our watches have stopped. Our headphones fall silent. Our lights go out.

We stand in darkness on the prow, my scattered fellow humans and I. The island at last roars out of the deep. The ferry is black with night. The propellers have ceased, yet we press on. We are driven by demons. They scurry about the bulk of the ship, beneath the water, phosphorescent in the dark. Their fingers are legion. They are caressing the ferry, massaging her, spurring her on with tendrils of pleasure. As we near the shore, the dock waits patiently. The same vegetable-woman smiles and waves. Her eyes issue maggots. The demons in the water bring the ferry to the point of climax. Her engines groan, moan, cry out with pleasure. The demons tickle her, finger her, straddle her and infuse their nocturne glow into her private spaces. We grip the rails with white knuckles. Our flesh falls from our bones. We are white and gleaming in the moonlight. Our jaws clatter to the deck. Tendons fray. The ferry cries out, the demons surge, the dock shatters into a thousand splintered trunks and sinks, devoured, into the sea. The ferry climaxes, surges, ferociously mounts the shore. Our whitened bones tumble overboard. We are lost in her orgasm, there in the terrible friction where shore and surf meet and consume each other with a primal hunger millennia older than our pitiful skeletons.

The ferry rises one final time, then collapses, driven far up the shore. We are no more. The ferry and the shore are as one. We are as nothing. Our spirits spiral away, staring blankly down at the consummation of our journey below. Pitiful, we wave goodbye.