Chapter Twelve — The Entity of the Road

On the last evening of the cruise I went out to the deck.

Tomorrow morning we will reach the port.

The suitcases were already packed, the flights booked, and in the room awaited the small things that always remain for the last moment.

But I did not want to go back inside yet.

I stood by the railing and looked back.

Behind the ship stretched a long trail of white foam. It gradually widened, scattered among the waves, and disappeared in the distance.

I thought of the whole way we had traveled.

Of the ports where we stopped, of the days when we saw no land, of the mornings when I went out for walks without knowing where I would arrive.

And of all the thoughts that rose in me along the way.

Only now, as the cruise was about to end, did I notice something common to all of them.

Most of the conversations I imagined in this book were born when I was not in one place.

On a ship's deck, on a plane, in an unfamiliar street, in a hotel room.

And even when I returned home, the thoughts went on accompanying me on my walk in the neighborhood.

Perhaps movement allows me to step away for a moment from the things that occupy me day to day.

And perhaps precisely when I am far from the familiar, I manage to see myself more clearly.

⸻

I tried to imagine the Road itself as an entity.

But this time no figure appeared.

Nor did I hear a voice in my imagination.

The road was simply everything I had passed through.

The streets, the sidewalks, the ship's corridors, the airports, the places where I stopped and continued.

"You were here all along," I said to it in my thoughts.

The foam trail went on dissolving behind me.

"I spoke with Time, with Memory, with Fear, and with all the other entities I imagined. But I almost never thought of you."

Perhaps because we are used to thinking of the road as a means of reaching another place.

We plan a journey in order to reach a destination, go out for a walk in order to reach its end, begin something new in the hope of achieving a result.

But a large part of our lives takes place precisely between the point of departure and the place we wanted to reach.

And sometimes the most important things happen on the way, without our planning them.

⸻

"How does one know one is choosing the right road?" I asked.

There was no answer.

I thought of the decisions I had made in my life.

Some of them were well planned.

I checked, asked, weighed options, and only then chose.

Others were made almost in a moment, out of a feeling or following circumstances I had not foreseen.

There were roads that led me exactly to the place I wanted to reach.

And there were those that ended in an entirely different place.

"Sometimes I think about what would have happened had I chosen differently," I said.

I looked at the foam trail.

The ship advanced, and the water behind it gradually closed.

It was no longer possible to see the exact course it had passed an hour earlier.

So it is in life as well.

We can remember our choices, but we cannot truly know what our lives would have looked like had we chosen otherwise.

One can imagine.

One can guess.

But one cannot live all the possibilities and check which of them would have been better.

"Perhaps that is one of the reasons it is sometimes hard for us to decide," I thought. "We want to know in advance that we will not regret."

But even a decision that seems right at a certain moment can lead to a place we did not expect.

And perhaps there is no way to guarantee that we will not err.

⸻

"And what about the roads I did not walk?" I asked.

I thought of opportunities I gave up.

Of places I wanted to reach and did not.

Of things I planned to do that were postponed again and again, until at some point they no longer suited my life.

Once, these thoughts occupied me greatly.

I felt as though every choice I did not realize was something I had lost.

But over the years I began to understand that one cannot do everything.

Every choice requires time, attention, and energy.

When we choose one thing, we give up, at least for a while, other things.

"I still regret some of the roads I did not choose," I admitted.

I did not want to pretend that every decision I made was right.

There were mistakes.

There were opportunities I missed.

And there were also roads I was forced to leave before I wanted to.

But there were also things in my life I would not be willing to exchange for any other possibility.

People I met.

Places that became part of me.

Moments I could not have planned in advance.

"Perhaps I have no need to justify the whole road I traveled," I said to myself. "It was not perfect. But it was my life."

⸻

The wind strengthened a little.

Behind me were heard the voices of passengers who had gathered on the deck.

Some photographed the cruise's last sunset, others spoke of tomorrow's flights.

"Why do so many thoughts rise in me precisely when I am in motion?" I asked the Road.

I remembered nights when I sat in a hotel room and could not fall asleep.

There too I was far from home, but the thoughts felt different.

At night they sometimes circled around the same worries.

On a walk, by contrast, I would notice something new, and the thought would change following it.

A shop window, a person who passed before me, a street I did not know.

Even a small movement of someone else could arouse a question in me.

But I did not always need to travel in order to think.

At home too, when I sat writing, I found myself arriving at places I had not been before.

Sometimes one imagined conversation took me farther than a whole day of travel.

"So perhaps the road is not only the place where I walk," I said.

Perhaps it is also the movement of thought.

The passage from one question to another.

The moment when something I was certain of suddenly becomes less clear, and I am willing to examine it anew.

⸻

I turned and looked forward.

The sea was open and dark.

The port's lights were not yet visible.

"And what will be tomorrow?" I asked.

Tomorrow I will go down from the ship.

I will pass again through the airport corridors, board a plane, and return home.

I will unpack the suitcase, arrange the things, and return to the familiar life.

The cruise will end.

But will the road too?

I thought of all the times I waited to arrive at something.

At the end of a project, at an important decision, at a move to a new home, at a period when things would be more settled.

Sometimes I imagined that after I arrived, I would finally be able to rest.

But almost always I discovered that after the arrival other things begin.

New questions.

New desires.

Sometimes also difficulties I did not foresee.

"Perhaps there is truly no moment when all the questions end," I thought.

Once, that idea would have tired me.

Today it no longer sounds as threatening to me.

I do not have to find an answer to everything in order to go on living.

There are questions one can carry with oneself for years.

There are those whose answers change.

And there are those we may never know how to answer.

⸻

I leaned on the railing again.

I thought of all the entities I had imagined along the book.

Of Time, which I was angry at because it continues even when I want it to stop.

Of Memory, which returns people and moments to me, but not always exactly as they were.

Of Fear, the tired guard with the bundle of keys, who tries to protect me and sometimes also prevents me from opening a door.

Of Words, which can remain within us long after they were said.

Of Beginning, which reminded me that even at an older age one can still try something for the first time.

Of Night, in which familiar thoughts sometimes sound different.

Of Love, which wears different forms over the course of life.

Of the Sea, to which I return again and again, even when I am not looking for anything in particular in it.

Of Curiosity, the girl who never stopped peeking beyond corners.

Of Longing, which arrived as a distant melody precisely before a shore I did not know.

And of Change, which I met in the familiar street beside my home.

Each of these conversations began with a small moment.

A sight, a feeling, a memory, or a question.

I did not plan them in advance.

I did not know where they would lead me.

But when I began to write, I understood that I wanted to continue.

⸻

"So what was I actually looking for in all these conversations?" I asked myself.

Perhaps I wanted to understand better the things that accompany us through life.

The time that passes.

The people we love.

The things we remember and those we lose.

The fears, the desires, the beginnings and the endings.

But the more I wrote, the more I discovered that not every question has one answer.

Sometimes the conversation itself was the important thing.

The possibility of stopping, thinking, asking again.

Even when I did not reach a clear conclusion, something in the way I looked at things changed.

Not always a great change.

Sometimes only a small thought that was not there before.

⸻

The darkness deepened.

The foam trail behind the ship was almost no longer visible.

I thought of whoever will one day read this book.

Perhaps some of my questions will be familiar to him.

Perhaps he will answer them entirely differently.

And perhaps precisely a question to which I did not devote much thought will arouse in him something I did not intend.

After all, each of us arrives at the words out of his own life.

With the memories, fears, loves, and roads he has traveled.

I did not want to write a book that explains to others how to live.

I wanted to share with them the way in which I try to understand.

⸻

Before I went back inside, I looked once more at the sea.

Tomorrow the ship will reach the port.

People will go down from it and scatter to their ways.

Some will return to familiar homes, others will continue to new places.

I too will return home.

Perhaps in a few days I will go out again for a walk in my street.

Perhaps I will stop beside the tree that is no more, or pass before the closed bakery.

And perhaps a new question will rise in me.

I do not know which.

⸻

I went down from the deck.

In the corridor, suitcases already stood beside the doors.

I passed them and continued to my room.

I placed my hand on the door handle, and before entering I thought again of the foam trail the ship had left behind it.

It disappeared from sight almost at once.

But the ship was already in another place thanks to the road it had traveled.

I smiled to myself and went into the room.

Tomorrow I will arrive home.

And I am sure it will not be long before something small, perhaps even something I will not notice at first, arouses another thought in me.

Another question.

Another conversation I will conduct in my imagination.

Because even when the journey ends, the thoughts continue on their way.

Continue to Chapter Thirteen: The Entity of Distance

© 2026 Nurit Rozenblat. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or distributed without the author's prior written permission.