Nails, Seeds, and Other Acts of Faith.

In the middle of the desert, where clocks melt and prayers echo without throat, there is a man building a boat with no water in sight.

He doesn’t speak. He hums—low, like the earth before it rains.

The boat is made of forgotten words:

"stay,"

"forgive,"

"I miss you."

Each plank a memory too stubborn to rot.

I watch from a distance, feet buried in sand that smells like burnt honey. I ask him, finally: "Why build?"

He wipes his brow with a hand that flickers in and out of time. "Because I believe the flood will come," he says. "And I believe love knows how to swim." I’m confused. Where does the flood and love meet me? Or do they simply pass, leaving me to build only afterwards?

He points to a small, bruised seed in the dirt. Tiny. Unimpressive. You’d step on it without knowing. "That," he says, "is what I’m betting everything on."

The seed is shaped like a tear. Or a jaw clenched mid-confession.

Around us, the sky folds like origami— the sun unbuttons itself, stars blink out of order. Still, he builds.

I stood there too long in silence, ashamed of my stillness. My hands, unused to building, twitched. Then moved. I began to help him.

Every nail I hammer feels like a question. Every board, a doubt I’m trying to teach how to float.

We speak of faith not as light, but as friction. As the act of carrying fire through rooms soaked in rain.

The boat grows. So does the seed.

Some nights, the seed whispers things in its sleep. Stories of gardens I’ve never seen. Women I’ve never kissed. Versions of myself with softer hands.

I ask it: "What if we drown before the flood?"

It answers, "Better to drown believing in rain than to thirst with dry hands and no hope."

Eventually, the boat is done. Crude, beautiful. Held together by mercy and guesswork.

The sky breaks open like an eye. Rain falls. Not water— but letters. Sentences. Scriptures I never learned.

And in the storm, he hands me the seed, now grown into a tree small enough to carry, strong enough to carry me.

"This is love," he says. "Not the flood. Not the boat. But the choice to build when everything says don’t."

We climb aboard. Not to escape, but to meet what’s coming with hearts unclenched.

The boat rocks like a cradle. Or a prayer. Or the beginning of something too fragile to explain, but strong enough to carry us both.