A sailor (me) sees a ship sinking, so he rows his boat to the wreckage to see if he can help. He takes one refugee, then another, then another. More start clamoring for help, each one desperate to cling on to anything that floats. The rowboat can’t take any more. But how can the sailor leave them behind? How can he choose who gets to live, how can he tell the others, “No room. You have to die”?
He can’t. So he keeps taking on refugees as his rowboat sinks lower and lower. There is no solution, none that he can accept without being haunted by […]