Ritwik Sen
Part 1
The Hooghly looked different at night, heavier somehow, as if the current carried with it the weight of centuries, of sailors who had come with strange tongues and strange flags, of traders whose goods had been swallowed in monsoon storms, of nameless villagers who had slipped into its depth and never returned. Anirban leaned over the rusted railings at Bagbazar ghat and lit a cigarette, trying to convince himself that he wasn’t wasting his time. He had been chasing the story for three months—rumours of a ferry that crossed the river at midnight even though the official ferry service had been suspended years ago. The city had changed, steel bridges arched over the water, cars honked into the hours when once only jackals had cried, but this story had refused to die. Old women spoke of it in hushed tones, young men laughed it away, and yet, every year, someone disappeared from the riverfront, swallowed without warning. He had gathered scraps: a rickshaw-puller swearing he had seen a lantern-lit ferry gliding with no sound of engine, a fisherman who said he heard oars slicing through water on nights when no boat should have been there, a constable who had resigned after finding wet footprints on the ghat steps with no sign of a boat. Anirban was not a believer; he was a journalist, trained to chase facts, to peel superstition away from reality. And yet, standing alone with the water glimmering black under a swollen moon, he felt an unease settle around him, a reminder that stories were often older than facts, and more stubborn. The cigarette finished quicker than he thought, its last ember glowing against the dark like a lighthouse failing to guide anyone home. He was about to leave, irritated with himself, when he heard it—the slow, steady creak of wood against water. At first he thought it was his imagination, the city’s sounds playing tricks, but then it came clearer, a rhythm, the unmistakable dip and pull of oars. His pulse quickened. He stepped closer to the edge, eyes straining. And there it was. A shape emerged from the mist that hung low over the river, long and narrow, its silhouette a memory of ferries he had seen as a child, before the bridges took over. At its stern stood a man, lean, hunched, his hands moving with practised ease, pulling at the oars though the ferry seemed to glide faster than his strokes could manage. No lantern, no light, only the silver wash of the moon glinting off the water, painting his face into shadow. The ferry touched the steps without a sound. The man raised his head. Anirban saw his eyes then—pale, like the clouded glass of a forgotten window. He expected the boatman to speak, to call out, but there was only silence, deep enough that even the river seemed to hold its breath. Anirban swallowed. His instinct screamed to run, to turn and flee back to the safety of neon-lit streets, but the part of him that was a reporter, hungry for what others could not see, held him still. He raised his voice, low at first, then firmer: “You… do you take passengers?” The boatman’s lips moved, barely, and Anirban heard the faintest whisper, not carried by air but by something colder, something that touched his bones. “If you wish to cross.” The words lingered in his ears like the echo of a dream. The ferry rocked gently, inviting. Anirban felt his throat dry. To cross—where? How? But he found his feet stepping forward before he had made the decision, as though his body had been waiting for this moment longer than his mind could admit. The wooden planks were damp under his shoes. The air smelled of riverweed and something else, older, almost metallic, like rust or blood. He turned back once, the ghat behind him deserted, the city’s lamps distant, blurred by mist. He stepped in. The boatman did not smile, did not even look at him again. With a silent push, the ferry drifted away, the ghat receding into shadow until only the river remained, stretching endless on both sides. Anirban sat, his notebook heavy in his pocket, his heart heavier in his chest. He wanted to ask where they were going, but the question stuck in his throat. The boatman’s eyes never left the water. The oars moved, and with every stroke, the ferry slid deeper into the mist. That was when Anirban noticed it—the river was no longer making a sound. No splash, no ripple, as though the Hooghly itself had turned into a sheet of glass, a mirror reflecting nothing. He reached down, touched the water. It was cold. Too cold. He drew his hand back, breath trembling. He looked up, and in the mist ahead he thought he saw shapes—dark, shifting, standing close together, waiting. The boatman’s whisper came again, thinner this time, like the thread of a spider. “Once you board, the river decides.” Anirban’s chest tightened. The ferry sailed on, and the shore had already vanished.
Part 2
The mist thickened as though it had been waiting for the ferry, folding over the boat in heavy sheets that dimmed even the moonlight. Anirban gripped the edge of the bench where he sat, his knuckles whitening, as the figures ahead seemed to waver closer, then fade. His rational mind kept insisting this was only fog, tricks of light and exhaustion, yet his body knew otherwise—every hair on his arm was alert, every nerve pulled tight like a bowstring. The boatman rowed without pause, his strokes mechanical, soundless, his face fixed toward the shapes. “Who are they?” Anirban whispered before he could stop himself. The boatman did not answer. The oars dipped, rose, dipped, their rhythm hypnotic, binding Anirban’s thoughts in a loop. He forced himself to look away, back at the water. That was a mistake. Reflected in the black glass surface was not his own face but dozens of others, pale, waterlogged, their mouths open in silent screams. He lurched back, his heart slamming, and when he dared glance again the water was smooth, only the silver line of moonlight stretching into forever. His breath came ragged. He thought of his editor’s voice that morning, scoffing: “You’ve been chasing ghosts, Ani. If you don’t bring me something solid, you’ll be chasing your rent instead.” Solid. Was this solid enough? He fumbled for his phone, switched on the camera, tried to take a picture. The screen showed nothing but static, as though the mist itself was devouring the lens. He cursed, shoved the phone back in his pocket, and reached for the notebook. Maybe words would hold what images couldn’t. He scribbled furiously, describing the silence, the boatman’s clouded eyes, the faces in the water. His hand shook, the letters jagged, but the act grounded him, reminded him he was still a witness, not a participant. Then the ferry slowed. He looked up. The shapes in the mist were clearer now, no longer shadows but people—at least they looked like people. Men, women, even children, all standing along an invisible shore that jutted out of the fog. Their clothes were wrong, some modern, some from decades ago, and their faces were pale, blurred at the edges like old photographs left in the sun. None of them moved, none of them blinked. They simply waited, eyes fixed on the ferry. A chill crawled through Anirban’s spine. The boatman spoke, louder this time though his lips barely parted. “Passengers.” The word floated in the air, heavy, final. Anirban’s instinct screamed to deny it, to protest he had only boarded to observe, to report, not to join. But before he could speak, one of the figures stepped forward—a young woman in a faded red sari, her hair dripping wet, as though she had just risen from the riverbed. She stepped onto the ferry soundlessly. Another followed, then another, until a dozen stood around him, their forms filling the boat without making it tilt. The air grew colder. Anirban clutched his notebook against his chest, every muscle frozen. None of them looked at him, not directly, though he felt their gaze pass over him like knives through smoke. They stared instead at the boatman, whose eyes never shifted. “Where… where are you taking them?” Anirban stammered. The boatman turned his head, and for the first time Anirban saw his mouth curl into something like a smile, but thinner, crueler. “Across.” That was all. The ferry pushed away from the phantom shore, gliding deeper into mist, now burdened with its silent passengers. Anirban pressed himself against the wooden bench, fighting the urge to leap into the river though some deeper instinct told him that water would not accept him back. He forced himself to breathe, to think. He needed to know the rules of this passage, if there were rules. Why had the ferry allowed him aboard? Why was he not like them? He pulled out his pen, wrote in a frantic scrawl: They don’t speak. They don’t breathe. Are they waiting to be delivered? Or judged? His fingers stiffened with cold. One of the passengers turned then, the woman in the red sari, her eyes hollow as wells. She looked directly at him, and her lips moved, soundless. He leaned forward, desperate. She repeated it. A word. No, a name. His name. Anirban dropped the pen. His chest hollowed out, breath gone. She should not know his name. She could not. He snapped his head toward the boatman, but the man rowed on, unbothered, as though all of this were routine. The notebook slid from his grip, landing on the deck with a muffled thud. Before he could snatch it back, another passenger bent down. A man, his hair slick, his face bluish. He picked up the notebook, flipped through it, his eyes scanning words as if he could still read. Then he looked at Anirban and smiled, water dripping from his lips. “Words won’t save you,” he whispered, the voice a hiss that slithered inside Anirban’s skull. The others remained silent, but he felt their presence close in, their eyes pressing against his skin. He curled into himself, trembling, clutching at the one thought that anchored him—he was still alive. For now. The ferry sailed on, carrying him and the dead together, into a fog that seemed to have no end.
Part 3
Anirban tried to count time, but the mist warped it, stretched and snapped it like threads in a loom. He could not tell if minutes or hours had passed. The only markers were the boatman’s strokes, steady as a heartbeat, and the presence of the passengers, their silence pressing like a weight against his ribs. He stared at them, hoping to catch some logic in their forms. A man in a white kurta that looked like it belonged to the fifties, a boy in a torn school uniform with a badge from a school that shut down decades ago, a woman with gold bangles dulled and blackened, an old man whose face seemed to fade whenever Anirban blinked. They were fragments of different eras, stitched together by death, and the realization chilled him deeper than the mist. The woman in the red sari still stood near him, her hair dripping steadily though no water pooled on the deck. He tried not to meet her eyes, but every so often he felt her gaze, sharp and unrelenting. He wanted to speak, to demand answers from the boatman, but fear coiled his tongue. Instead he clung to his role—observe, record, survive. He reached for his phone again, tried the voice recorder this time. The screen lit up, blank at first, then lines began to move, jagged, as though picking up sound he couldn’t hear. His pulse quickened. Maybe this was proof. He held it up, whispered into it: “This is Anirban Mukherjee, recording from a ferry on the Hooghly at… at midnight. I don’t know what’s real anymore, but I swear there are passengers here who should not be. If I don’t return—” A hand shot out and grabbed his wrist. He gasped, the phone slipping and clattering onto the deck. It was the boy, the one in the school uniform. His fingers were ice, his nails blue. The boy leaned close, his lips parting. “Don’t,” he rasped, the voice barely human. “Don’t take us with you.” Then he released him, stepping back into silence, his form flickering like a shadow in wind. Anirban’s chest heaved. He scrambled for the phone, found it cracked, the screen spiderwebbed. The recording was gone, replaced by static that hissed like the river’s breath. His last lifeline severed. He pressed his palms together, trying to steady them. He had to anchor himself, had to remember who he was. His mind pulled fragments—his apartment in Shyambazar, the cheap fan rattling overhead, the smell of ink from the press where he’d once interned, his mother’s call every Sunday asking if he was eating enough. He clung to those details like nails in the earth. Then the ferry jolted. Not a violent shake, but enough to snap everyone’s heads up. The mist parted slightly, revealing something vast in the distance. At first Anirban thought it was land, but as they drew nearer, he saw it was not. It was a structure, rising from the river itself, black stone walls slick with algae, towers that seemed too tall, leaning into the sky. No lamps, no windows, only openings like mouths. A fortress. Anirban’s breath caught. The passengers stirred for the first time, their heads lifting, their eyes brightening with a hunger he could not name. The boatman’s strokes grew slower, more deliberate, guiding the ferry toward a set of steps that descended straight into the river. Anirban forced himself to speak. “What is that place?” His voice cracked, but it was sound. The boatman did not turn, did not blink. “The other shore.” That was all. The ferry nudged against the stone steps, its wooden hull groaning. One by one the passengers began to move, flowing off the boat like water pouring into cracks. Their footsteps made no sound on the stone. The woman in red was last. She paused, looked back at Anirban, her lips curving into something that could have been pity or triumph. Then she stepped off, vanishing into the fortress mouth. Anirban was left alone with the boatman. The silence was worse now, absolute. His lungs felt squeezed. “I’m not one of them,” he said, forcing the words out, his throat raw. “I’m alive. I don’t belong there.” For the first time, the boatman set his oars down. He turned slowly, his pale eyes locking onto Anirban. “The river decides.” The words struck like iron. Anirban staggered to his feet. “Then let me off—here, now. I can walk back, I can—” He stopped. The fortress had already vanished into mist, as though it had never been. Behind him, no shore was visible either. Only endless water, endless fog. The boatman picked up the oars again. “Not yet,” he whispered. “Your journey is not finished.” Anirban’s knees buckled. He sank back onto the bench, his breath coming in short, shallow bursts. He realized then what terrified him most. Not that the ferry carried the dead. Not that the fortress waited in the mist. But that the river had not yet decided what he was.
Part 4
The river lay silent, a sheet of black glass stretching into a horizon that no longer existed. Anirban clutched the bench as though it might anchor him, though in truth it floated on nothing but fear. His head spun with the boatman’s words—the river decides. Was he still alive? He tried to remember the moment he had stepped onto the ferry. Had he truly chosen, or had something chosen for him? His memories blurred, the ghat dissolving into mist when he tried to picture it. The boatman rowed without effort, his pale eyes fixed on a point Anirban could not see. Anirban forced himself to speak, voice hoarse. “Why me? I didn’t drown, I didn’t… I’m not dead.” The boatman’s lips curved in a faint motion, not quite a smile. “Not yet.” The words hung like chains. Anirban’s heart thudded against his ribs. “Then why bring me here? What is this ferry? What is that fortress?” His questions spilled, frantic. The boatman did not answer. The oars rose and fell, each stroke pushing them deeper into fog that thickened like walls. Anirban felt anger flare, desperate and hot. He stood, swaying with the ferry’s slight shift. “You can’t just keep me here. I’m not one of them. I have a life, do you hear me? A job, a family, a—” His voice cracked. For a moment he thought the boatman would ignore him. Then, softly, the ferryman spoke: “Do you?” The question was quiet, but it hit harder than any shout. Anirban opened his mouth, then faltered. His life—what was it, truly? A cramped apartment, an editor who barely remembered his name, endless nights chasing stories that led nowhere. He thought of his mother’s Sunday calls, the only steady rhythm in his week, and felt a sudden ache. “Yes,” he whispered, as if convincing himself. “Yes, I do.” The ferry rocked. He froze, eyes darting to the water. Ripples formed though no wind stirred, concentric circles spreading from nowhere. Shapes appeared beneath the surface—arms, legs, faces—rising and fading, as though the river itself had begun to breathe. He stumbled back, clutching the bench. “What is that?” The boatman’s voice was even. “The river listening.” The ripples swelled, lapping against the ferry’s sides with a sound that was not water but whispers, thousands of voices tangled together. They rose, fell, merged, until Anirban could make out fragments. His name. His secrets. Words he had never spoken aloud. His stomach turned to ice. The river was peeling him open, stripping his mind bare. He clamped his hands over his ears, but the whispers burrowed deeper, inside his skull. He saw flashes behind his eyes—himself at fifteen, stealing money from his father’s drawer; himself at twenty, breaking a promise to a girl he once loved; himself last month, lying to his editor about a source. The river showed him, judged him, every act a stone added to his chest. “Stop it,” he gasped, falling to his knees. “Please, stop.” The whispers grew louder, a tide threatening to drown him. Then, abruptly, silence. The water smoothed, the faces dissolved. Anirban shivered, drenched in sweat though the air was cold. He looked up. The boatman had not moved, his pale eyes steady. “The river weighs all,” he murmured. “It remembers what men forget.” Anirban’s throat burned. “And what does it decide?” The boatman dipped the oars again. “That depends.” The answer was no answer at all. Anirban curled on the bench, his body trembling. He felt hollowed, as though the river had scooped something out of him and left only echoes. He wanted to believe he could still return, but the memory of the fortress loomed behind his eyes. He closed them, fighting sleep. But when he opened them again, something had changed. There was another passenger. A man sat opposite him, where moments ago there had been no one. His clothes were modern—shirt, jeans, a press badge hanging from his neck. The badge bore a name Anirban knew too well. His own. He froze. The man looked exactly like him, but older, the lines of exhaustion deeper, the eyes duller. The double leaned forward, voice identical yet heavier. “You’re not going back,” it said. “You never were.” Anirban’s breath hitched. “You’re not real.” The double’s smile was weary. “Neither are you, not anymore.” The ferry rocked again, the mist folding tighter. The boatman rowed on, silent, as Anirban stared at himself across the bench, unable to tell which of them the river had chosen.
Part 5
Anirban stared at the figure across from him, his own face reflected back but older, wearier, the shadows beneath its eyes deeper than his own. Every rational fibre in him wanted to believe it was another trick of the mist, a hallucination, but the way the double breathed, the faint lift of its chest, the glimmer of recognition in its eyes, made it real in a way no ghost should be. His throat tightened. “What are you?” he whispered. The double tilted its head, a gesture Anirban himself had done countless times while probing an interviewee. “I’m what you’ll become,” it said softly. “Or what you already are. The river doesn’t lie.” Anirban shook his head, heart pounding. “No. I’m alive. I can go back.” The double’s smile was thin, almost pitying. “Alive is only a word. Do you feel alive? Chasing stories no one reads, waiting for rent you can’t pay, drinking at night to silence the questions? You were drifting long before the river found you.” Anirban pressed his palms to his ears. “Shut up.” But the words burrowed in. He thought of the deadlines missed, the broken relationships, the hollow victories. The ferry rocked gently, as if agreeing. The boatman kept rowing, unbothered, pale eyes fixed ahead. The double leaned closer. “There’s no difference between us. When the river decides, it doesn’t choose based on breath or heartbeat. It chooses based on weight. And you, Anirban, are already heavy.” Anirban’s chest ached, his breath shallow. “Then why show me this?” he asked, his voice breaking. “Why give me this journey if I was doomed from the start?” The double’s eyes softened. “Because the river is merciful. It lets you see yourself before it takes you. Few mortals get that chance.” A silence followed, thick as fog. Then the double reached out. Its fingers brushed Anirban’s hand—ice cold, yet unmistakably his own touch. Panic surged. Anirban jerked back, stumbling to his feet. “No. I won’t accept this. I won’t let you take me.” The boat lurched violently, as though the river itself had responded. Waves rose where none had been before, crashing against the wooden hull. Anirban staggered, clutching the bench. The mist churned, shadows twisting within it. He heard voices again, a thousand at once, whispering his name, calling, accusing. His double stood calm amid the chaos, watching him with steady eyes. “You can’t fight it,” it said. “The river always wins.” Anirban’s breath came ragged, but something flared in him, raw and desperate. He thought of his mother’s voice, the only tether he still had to the world he knew. He thought of the unfinished stories on his desk, words unwritten, truths untold. He thought of life—not perfect, not heroic, but his. “No,” he hissed. “I won’t drown here. Not yet.” He lunged forward, grabbed the oar from the boatman’s hands. For the first time the ferryman reacted, his pale eyes flashing with something like surprise. Anirban shoved the oar into the water and pulled hard, the wood groaning, the ferry shuddering under his strength. The mist split for an instant, revealing a glimmer of lights—yellow, flickering, like streetlamps on the other side of the ghat. Hope surged in his chest. He rowed again, teeth gritted, muscles burning. The double’s voice rose, sharp now, urgent. “You can’t escape! You’re already chosen!” But Anirban ignored it, pouring everything into the oar. The river resisted, dragging at him like a thousand hands, but the lights grew clearer, brighter, the sound of the city faintly reaching his ears—the honk of a taxi, the bark of a stray dog, life calling him back. The mist screamed, the voices merging into a howl, but Anirban roared louder, a sound torn from his very core, and thrust the oar one last time. The ferry lurched forward, bursting through the fog. Cold air struck his face. The river was alive again, rippling, splashing against the hull. He looked up and saw it—the ghat, solid and real, the lamps burning, the city breathing. The double was gone. The boatman sat motionless, his pale eyes unreadable. Slowly, he spoke, voice thin as the breeze. “Few cross back.” Anirban collapsed onto the bench, chest heaving, every muscle trembling. He stared at the approaching ghat, disbelief flooding him. He had done it. He had returned. The ferry touched the steps without a sound. He staggered off, his shoes slipping on the damp stone. When he turned back, the ferry was already gliding into the mist, the boatman’s figure fading until nothing remained. Anirban stood there, soaked in sweat, clutching his notebook like a relic. The city sounds wrapped around him, jarring, beautiful. He had crossed and returned, but he knew the river had not finished with him. Its judgment lingered, heavy as the tide.
Part 6
The city should have felt like salvation, but as Anirban walked away from the ghat, his legs unsteady, he realized it did not. The lights of Shyambazar looked harsher, the traffic louder, every detail sharper than it used to be, as if the river had scraped away a layer of skin and left his nerves exposed. He tried to steady his breath, clutching his notebook to his chest, but even the familiar rickshaw bells rang strange, metallic. He wanted to run home, bury himself under sheets, convince himself that what had happened was only a dream. But he knew better. The river’s silence still echoed in his ears, the whisper of his double still clung to his bones.
His phone buzzed suddenly, startling him. He fumbled it out, cracked screen still half-working. A single notification blinked: Voice Memo Saved. His heart thudded. He had thought the recording was lost in the static. Hands trembling, he tapped play. At first, only hiss. Then, faintly, his own voice: “…This is Anirban Mukherjee, recording from a ferry on the Hooghly at midnight. I don’t know what’s real anymore, but I swear there are passengers here who should not be. If I don’t return—” The voice cut off. For a few seconds, silence. Then came another voice. Not his. A whisper, layered, many voices in one. You returned, but not for long. The memo ended.
Anirban froze on the pavement, traffic streaming past him, people brushing by, oblivious. He replayed it, again and again, but the words never changed. The river had followed him back. He hurried home, every sound behind him like footsteps. His apartment, when he finally reached it, felt smaller than before, the shadows deeper. He locked the door, drew the curtains, but even then he couldn’t shake the feeling of being watched. He poured himself a drink, gulped it, then another. It did nothing. His mind returned to the fortress in the mist, to the pale eyes of the boatman, to his own double. He opened the notebook, its pages smudged from damp, and tried to write, to make sense of what had happened. Words spilled in frantic scrawl, but they felt hollow, unable to hold the weight of what he had seen. He tore the page, tried again. Same result.
Around three in the morning, his eyes burning, he heard it. A sound that should not exist within city walls. The creak of wood against water. Slow, steady, unmistakable. He froze, pen slipping from his fingers. The sound grew louder, closer, as if the ferry itself had docked outside his window. He forced himself to look. His apartment overlooked a narrow lane, far from the river, but through the glass he saw mist curling, white and dense, swallowing the street. And in it—a shadow of a ferry gliding past, impossible, silent except for the dip of phantom oars. His heart hammered. He pressed back against the wall, shutting his eyes tight. When he opened them, the mist was gone, the lane empty. But the echo of the oars remained inside him, pulsing like a second heartbeat.
Sleep came in fragments, broken by dreams of the red-sari woman calling his name. By dawn he sat at his desk, staring at his notebook, knowing he could never tell this story the way it was. No editor would believe him. Yet he couldn’t ignore it either. The river had chosen him, marked him. He needed to know why.
That day, he began to dig. Old archives, news clippings, police records. Stories of disappearances from the ghats going back decades. Fishermen lost, students vanished, lovers stepping out for a midnight walk and never returning. All linked to whispers of the midnight ferry. The most disturbing were the reports that described passengers who returned—only to vanish again within months. Some had been found drowned, some had simply walked into the Hooghly as if answering a call.
Anirban’s skin prickled as he read. Returned, but not for long. The words from the recording, now etched into every file he unearthed. He scribbled notes furiously, piecing together a pattern. The ferry did not just take the dead—it tested the living, weighed them. Those who crossed back carried the river’s mark until it reclaimed them. He had escaped once, but the river would not forget.
That evening, as he left the archives, he felt it again. The faint dampness in the air though no rain had fallen. The smell of riverweed on a dry street. And when he turned a corner, a boy in a torn school uniform stood there, watching him. His uniform was the same as the boy on the ferry, water dripping from the hem. The boy’s lips moved soundlessly. Then he vanished into mist that wasn’t there.
Anirban staggered back, breath ragged. He realized then that he hadn’t left the ferry at all. The journey had followed him, its current flowing beneath the city’s surface, waiting. The Hooghly might have let him step ashore, but its tide was inside him now, and sooner or later, it would pull him under again.
Part 7
The city blurred into a fever dream. Days slipped by but Anirban could no longer trust them; time stuttered, skipped, rewound. He walked through markets where voices droned as though underwater, sat in cafés where steam from teacups curled into shapes that looked too much like faces from the ferry. His colleagues noticed his silence but said nothing—he was always the strange one, chasing stories no one else dared touch. He stopped answering calls, even his mother’s, ashamed to let her hear the tremor in his voice. At night the creak of phantom oars followed him, sometimes from the alley, sometimes from the ceiling above, sometimes from inside his chest.
Sleep became impossible. Each time his eyes shut he found himself back on the ferry, the boatman’s pale eyes fixed on him, the fortress looming. The passengers crowded closer each night, their blurred faces sharpening, until he began to recognize them. His old neighbour who drowned when Anirban was a child. A classmate who had jumped into the river during college ragging. A woman whose picture had once flashed across newspapers as a missing person. The ferry was filling with the forgotten, and all of them looked at him with silent accusation—as if his return had stolen their place.
One evening, desperate for grounding, he wandered to the riverbank in daylight. The Hooghly glittered gold under the sun, bustling with ferries and launches, laughter rising from the ghats. Children splashed in the shallows, lovers leaned against railings, priests floated lamps for blessings. It should have been ordinary. Yet Anirban saw it differently. The water shimmered like a skin stretched tight, and beneath it something vast and patient waited. He leaned over the railing, staring down, and thought he saw faces moving just below the surface, lips forming words only he could hear. Not for long.
He jerked back, heart hammering. No one else had noticed. The world carried on, blind. He stumbled away, muttering to himself. If the river wanted him, he needed to understand its rules. Why some were taken immediately, why others returned only to vanish again. He thought of the boy in the school uniform, the woman in the red sari, his own double. They were fragments of an answer he hadn’t yet pieced together.
That night he opened his notebook, the pages cramped with scrawls, and tried to connect the dots. A pattern emerged. Each returnee had been someone who carried secrets, guilt, or failures too heavy for them to bear. The ferry did not merely carry bodies—it ferried the weight of unfinished lives. Those returned were not spared; they were given time to settle debts, to confront truths. When they failed, the river reclaimed them. Anirban’s stomach twisted as he wrote the words. By crossing back, he had not escaped. He had been sentenced.
His apartment grew colder as he wrote, though it was the height of summer. He wrapped himself in a blanket, yet still shivered. He tried to drown the thoughts in whiskey, but the glass tasted of river water. He threw it across the room, watched it shatter, and in the fragments he swore he saw the boatman’s eyes.
A knock startled him. He froze. It was past midnight. No one visited him at this hour. The knock came again, slow, deliberate. His breath caught. He approached the door cautiously, every instinct screaming. When he opened it, the corridor was empty. But on the floor lay his notebook. He had left it on the desk moments ago. Its pages were damp, ink bleeding. He bent to pick it up, and a voice whispered directly into his ear though no one was there: Your words won’t save you.
He slammed the door, bolted it, pressed his back against the wood. His notebook dripped onto the floor. He wanted to scream but no sound came. His phone buzzed on the table. He grabbed it, desperate for human contact. A new voicemail waited from an unknown number. Hands shaking, he pressed play. The hiss of the river filled the line, then the boatman’s whisper: “The river decides.”
Anirban dropped the phone as if burned. His body trembled uncontrollably. He sank to the floor, clutching his knees, rocking like a child. He knew then the truth—he had not returned to the city at all. The ferry had never released him. He was still on it, only dressed in the illusion of streets and apartments, while the river carried him toward judgment. Every sound, every face, every reflection was proof. The Hooghly had wrapped itself around his world, turning life into a mask stretched thin.
When dawn came, he found himself standing by his window, staring at the mist curling along the lane. The world beyond blurred, unreal. He whispered to his reflection in the glass, voice cracked: “How long before the river calls me again?”
The reflection did not answer. But its lips curved, faint and cruel, into a smile he did not make.
Part 8
The days that followed unraveled like loose threads. Anirban moved through them half-present, half-trapped in the ferry’s fog. He wrote compulsively, filling notebook after notebook with fragments of what he saw, what he remembered, what he feared was still waiting. His editor called, furious about missed deadlines, but he no longer cared. Words on paper felt like his only defence, though a voice in his head—low, sibilant—kept repeating what the waterlogged man had hissed: Words won’t save you. Still he wrote, until his fingers cramped and his eyes bled red from exhaustion.
One evening, he found himself at the river again, though he didn’t remember walking there. The ghat was crowded with devotees lighting diyas, their flames trembling against the current. He stood apart, watching the little lights drift away. For a moment they comforted him, tiny stars against the black tide. Then he noticed one lamp moving against the current, floating upstream, its flame steady despite the wind. His heart clenched. He followed its path with his eyes—and saw the ferry gliding in the distance, pale in the dusk, its oars dipping soundlessly. No one else reacted. To them the river was empty. Anirban stumbled back, nearly tripping over the steps. When he looked again, the ferry was gone. Only the lamp remained, spinning in slow circles until it sank.
That night he dreamt of the red-sari woman again. This time she spoke clearly. “Your place is waiting,” she said, her wet hair brushing his cheek like vines. He woke with her voice still echoing, his bedsheets damp as though pulled from the river. He staggered to the bathroom, splashed water on his face, and froze. The mirror showed not just him, but another shape behind him—the boy in the school uniform, smiling faintly, water dripping from his chin. Anirban spun, but the room was empty. When he looked back, the mirror was cracked down the middle.
He couldn’t take it anymore. He needed answers, something human, something tangible. He sought out an old historian he had once interviewed, Professor Satyabrata Chatterjee, who specialized in Bengal’s river myths. The professor’s apartment smelled of dust and old paper, his walls lined with books yellowed at the edges. When Anirban hesitated, stammering about ferries and mist, the professor surprised him by nodding slowly. “Ah,” he said. “So it found you.”
Anirban stared, his throat dry. “You know about it?”
The professor’s eyes were weary. “The midnight ferry has been in whispers for centuries. Some say it is a remnant of Charon’s boat, drifted east. Others believe it is the river itself, personified, demanding balance. It appears when the Hooghly is restless—when the dead outnumber the living in memory. Those who board are never the same again.”
Anirban gripped the arm of his chair. “But I came back. I stepped off at the ghat. I’m here.”
The professor studied him with a long, heavy gaze. “Did you? Or are you only dreaming you did? The ferry carries passengers across many shores—some of them are illusions, places that resemble the world you know, but are only shadows. How can you be sure this Kolkata is not one such shore?”
Anirban’s stomach dropped. The professor leaned closer. “Tell me, since you returned, have you eaten? Have you tasted food?”
Anirban tried to remember. Cups of tea left cold, plates of rice untouched, whiskey burning but not filling him. His skin prickled.
The professor sighed. “It means what I feared. The ferry hasn’t released you. You are between shores, Anirban. The river is deciding still.”
The room tilted. Anirban clutched his notebook as if it were a lifeline. “Then what can I do? How do I prove I belong here?”
The professor shook his head. “Belonging is not yours to prove. It is the river’s to judge.” His voice softened, almost pitying. “The only way anyone has ever resisted is by confronting what weighs them. If you carry too much regret, too much guilt, the river drags you under. If you shed it, maybe, just maybe, you float.”
Anirban staggered out into the evening, the professor’s words rattling inside him. Shed the weight. Confront what chained him. He walked the streets aimlessly, memories flooding—his father’s disappointed face, his failed love, the compromises he had made for survival. Each memory was an anchor. Each one pulled him closer to the mist.
When night fell, the oar-sounds returned. This time he did not run. He stood at his window, staring at the street filling with white fog. The ferry waited below, its outline sharp, the boatman’s pale eyes fixed on him. His double stood beside the ferryman, smiling with weary inevitability. The air in his room grew damp, his notebooks fluttering in a wind that smelled of riverweed.
Anirban’s breath shook. He understood now. The river was calling not for his body but for his soul, weighing every secret, every lie, every wasted hour. And the balance was tipping.
Part 9
The mist entered before he could shut the window. It curled along the floor, cold and damp, swallowing the edges of the furniture until his apartment looked less like a room and more like the deck of a boat. The smell of wet wood filled his nostrils. Anirban’s chest tightened. He clutched his notebook, the pages fluttering, though deep inside he knew words could no longer anchor him. The ferry was here. The ferry had always been here.
He backed into the corner, breath shallow, as the shapes materialized. The boy in the school uniform stepped out of the fog, water dripping from his cuffs. The red-sari woman followed, her hair plastered to her cheeks, eyes dark hollows. Then came others—faces Anirban had seen in dreams, faces from the river’s depths, blurred and pale. They crowded the room until there was no air left, only silence heavier than stone.
And then the boatman appeared. His pale eyes fixed on Anirban, his hands still gripping invisible oars. “It is time,” he whispered, his voice sliding across the walls like a tide.
“No,” Anirban croaked, pressing back harder against the plaster. “You can’t take me. I’m not ready.”
The boatman tilted his head slightly, a gesture that was neither cruel nor kind. “The river does not wait for readiness. It waits only for weight. Yours is heavy.”
The red-sari woman stepped forward. Her lips moved, and Anirban heard his name hissed into his bones. He shut his eyes, but the sound only grew louder. His double emerged next, pale and weary, identical down to the ink stains on his fingers. It stared at him with tired resignation. “Why fight?” it asked. “You’ve been sinking all along.”
Anirban shook his head violently. “I’m alive. I still have work to do. I still have…” His voice broke. Did he? His editor had stopped calling. His mother’s number glowed unanswered on his phone. His stories were half-written, abandoned. All he had was this terror and a notebook filled with frantic scribbles.
The boy approached and held out a hand slick with water. “Come,” he said softly. “The river waits.”
Something in Anirban snapped. He flung the notebook at them, pages scattering through the mist like broken wings. “No!” he screamed. “I won’t give in. I won’t drown in your silence. If the river wants me, it will have to drag me itself.”
The ferry seemed to tilt beneath him, though he was still in his apartment. The floor shifted, became planks of damp wood. His bed dissolved, his desk melted into shadows. He was on the deck again, the fortress looming ahead through the mist. The passengers surrounded him, closer this time, their blurred outlines pressing against his skin.
He spun, looking for escape, but there was none. Only the boatman, steady as stone, oars dipping though no water splashed. The fortress gates yawned open, dark and endless. A roar filled Anirban’s ears, not water, not wind, but voices—his own multiplied a thousandfold, crying, begging, accusing. He dropped to his knees, clutching his head.
The double crouched beside him, voice low. “This is the judgment. You knew it the moment you stepped aboard. The question was never if, but when.”
Tears stung Anirban’s eyes. “Then why let me return? Why give me hope?”
The double’s smile was thin. “Because hope is the heaviest weight of all.”
The boat struck the fortress steps. The passengers surged forward, flowing off the deck into the darkness. The boy vanished, the red-sari woman melted into shadow, the others followed. Soon only Anirban remained. The boatman turned to him, pale eyes unwavering. “Your place is ready.”
Anirban shook with fury, despair, defiance all tangled. “No. If the river decides, then let it decide now.” He staggered to his feet, glaring at the fortress, at the endless black. “But I won’t walk willingly.”
The boatman’s lips twitched, the faintest curve. “Then the river will choose for you.”
The mist rose in waves, engulfing Anirban, filling his mouth, his lungs. He gasped, choked, clawed at the air, but it was water now, cold and thick. He felt himself dragged downward, pulled through invisible currents. The fortress blurred, the ferry vanished, only darkness remained.
And yet, in that final plunge, he thought he saw something—lights, faint and flickering, like the streetlamps of Shyambazar, like the ghat waiting on the other side. He reached for them, arms flailing, heart thundering. Was it salvation, or another shore, another illusion? He could not tell. The river roared, and the choice was no longer his.
Part 10
The plunge seemed endless. Anirban twisted in darkness that pressed like liquid stone, his lungs screaming, his eyes burning. He tried to kick, to rise, but there was no surface, only black water in every direction. Faces swam around him, pale and swollen, brushing his skin with cold fingers. Their mouths opened and closed, whispering his name until it shattered into a thousand syllables. He fought them, thrashing, but the river was everywhere, inside his ears, inside his blood.
And then, suddenly, silence. He was no longer drowning. He was standing. His feet touched stone slick with moss. He staggered upright, gasping, and looked around. He stood at the steps of the fortress he had seen from the ferry, the towers rising above him into a sky without stars. The gates gaped wide, shadows spilling out like smoke. Behind him, the river stretched infinite, featureless. The ferry was gone.
He knew he should not go inside. Every instinct screamed against it. Yet his legs moved, dragging him forward. The gates swallowed him whole. Inside was not a hall or chamber, but a vast expanse, a cavern filled with water that glowed faintly from within. Hundreds, thousands of figures stood on its surface—passengers from the ferry, men and women from across decades, all staring at him in silence. Their eyes were mirrors, reflecting his own face back a thousand times.
At the center, upon a dais of black stone, sat the boatman. His oars rested across his knees, his pale eyes colder than ever. He spoke, and the sound was not a voice but a current that filled the space. “Anirban Mukherjee. The river has weighed you.”
Anirban’s chest clenched. His knees threatened to buckle. “And?” he forced out, his voice a cracked whisper. “What does it decide?”
The boatman rose slowly. The crowd of passengers parted, leaving a path. “That you carry the weight of regret, the burden of wasted years, the hunger of truths left untold. Too heavy to return unchanged.”
Anirban’s throat burned. “Then why let me cross back at all?”
The boatman’s pale eyes fixed on him, unblinking. “Because the river is not cruel. It gives mortals a chance to lighten their load. Few succeed.”
A terrible realization sank into him. His return to the ghat had not been escape—it had been probation. His chance to change, to live differently, to prove himself lighter. And he had failed. He had hidden, drowned himself in fear, written words that meant nothing.
His notebook flashed before his mind, the pages soaked, his frantic scribbles meaningless. Tears stung his eyes. “I can still change,” he whispered hoarsely. “Give me another chance. I swear I can.”
The boatman studied him for a long moment. Then his lips parted. “The river has given you all the chances it will. Now it claims what is already its.”
The crowd of passengers stepped forward as one, their faces blank, their hands reaching. The boy in the school uniform, the red-sari woman, the waterlogged man—they all pressed closer, their touch cold, pulling him toward the glowing water. He struggled, screamed, but their grip was unbreakable.
As they dragged him, he caught sight of something in the reflection of the water—a flicker of himself, alive, sitting at his desk in Shyambazar, pen in hand. For a moment he thought it was hope, that he was still writing, still alive. But then he realized the reflection was not moving. It was a memory. The last shadow of the man he had been.
He thrashed harder, desperate, until his voice tore. “I’m alive! I don’t belong here!”
The boatman’s whisper echoed through the cavern, final and absolute. “Alive or dead—it makes no difference. The river decides.”
The passengers pulled him under. Cold fire seared his chest, his lungs imploded, his mind filled with voices. The fortress, the faces, the boatman—all dissolved into blackness.
When Anirban opened his eyes, he was standing once more at Bagbazar ghat. Morning light spilled across the water. The city hummed awake—vendors shouting, bells ringing, ferries moving across the river as if nothing had happened. His notebook lay in his hand, dry, its pages clean. He blinked, trembling. Had it all been a dream?
But then he saw it. A ferry gliding across the Hooghly, lanterns lit though it was morning, its oars moving without sound. Passengers stood on the deck, blurred, waiting. Among them he saw himself—his double, older, wearier, staring straight at him with pale eyes.
Anirban’s knees weakened. He clutched the railing, heart pounding. The ferry drifted into mist and vanished.
He turned and stumbled away from the ghat, desperate to outrun what he now knew. The river had not freed him. It had only shown him what awaited. One day, when the tide was right, when the oars creaked again in the silence, he would board once more. And this time, there would be no return.
END
