Death by Misadventure

If you'd been on the water that day, you would have heard it before you saw it: laughter dancing across the dark and still waters of the harbor. The fog was thick but bright—a white wall of mist that seemed to magnify the sun above. And inside it, the laughter—strained, faded, but joyous.

If you'd been on the water that day, you would have seen him appear—a man as knotted and worn as the wooden boat he rowed. The curtain of fog lifted slightly around him as he passed through. Each stroke of the oar sent his small craft lurching deeper and deeper into the unknown boundaries of the harbor, each stroke in rhythm with his laughter.

If you'd been on the water that day, you would have smelled the paradoxical welcoming rot of low tide—an odor both foul and assuring for those who spent their days around the harbor. The tide would rise twice a day, and the tide would fall twice a day. That cadence and the accompanying smell reminded the dock workers, the fisherman, and the sailors that the world was still spinning. 

And there, deep now inside the fog, the old man stopped rowing, letting his craft drift slowly to the exact spot he intended. The old man stopped laughing. He peered over the gunwale into the water, gently tilting his rowboat to one side, and, looking down, his reflection made him smile.  

He reached below his seat and grasped with knobby fingers a metal ring holding three old, rusted, and distinct skeleton keys. His hands shook as he raised them, and the jangle of them bouncing off one another sent a clang piercing through the fog. He peered over the side once more, sure now that he'd found the exact spot. And without celebration or fanfare, he dropped the keys into the water and watched them sink until they could no longer be seen.

His laughter returned. Placing his oars back in the oarlocks, he began to row.

If you'd been on the water that day, you would have caught the last sight of the man, smiling and laughing before disappearing forever inside the harbor fog.