Ferryboat (Barlow)
by Anna Marie Barlow

THE STORY: On the deck of a ferryboat moving across the Mississippi between New Orleans and Algiers, two homeless young strangers meet by chance.

She is Amite, a girl in her teens; and he is Biff, a young man in his twenties.

She is bound for New York, he for Texas, but both are really heading into the unknown, with only their expectations and longings to steel them against the uncertainties of what lies ahead.

Their conversation begins casually and then, as old memories and new hopes are revealed, they find a magical closeness, at least for a fleeting moment.

But then the whistle blows for the ferry slip, the spell is broken, and suddenly they are strangers again—perhaps to remain so forever.