OUT OF EDEN WALK

Immigration police pulled me out of the ticket line at the Busan ferry terminal. I had overstayed my visa in South Korea by two days. This was news to me.

“Why did you do this?” asked the officer.

“I stayed three months,” I protested. “Within the limit.”

“You didn’t calculate,” she said, without looking up from my passport, “that some months have more than 30 days.”

I paid the fine. The officer said I might have trouble getting back in. Don’t do it ever again, she said.

The Camellia was an overnight ferry. It would dock at Fukuoka, Japan, early in the morning. The ship was all but empty. Nobody rides ferries anymore, apart from truck drivers and a handful of motorists attached to their cars. Inside my small quarters the walls hummed. I scanned an antique book on my laptop that said, “Everything about the old man was old with the sole exception of his eyes. His eyes resembled the colour of the sea and were joyous and unconquered.” But I felt conquered.

For the first time in more than a decade, I was truly leaving mainland Eurasia. I sensed my own anchor dragging. I felt the miles. I wouldn't do it ever again.