The Color Blue

Chapter Nine - Louder than all of them are the robins

“Hey, London, can I ask you a question?” Robin asked me.

It was New Year’s Day. Robin and I had decided to spend our last day together relaxing and lounging around. Robin had arrived at my house early that afternoon in his pajamas and he brought music and books with him. We were lying on a pile of blankets and pillows on my bedroom floor listening to Dexy’s Midnight Runner’s album “Too-Rye-Ay”.

“Sure,” I said.

“Do you dream?”

I snorted. “Of course I dream. Everyone dreams, Robin.”

“What’s it like?”

“Well,” I said, trying to think of a good way to explain it, “Dreams are merely memories. You never dream about something that you’ve never seen before. You dream about places you’ve been and people you’ve seen. I dream about things I’ve heard and things I’ve felt. I dream about robins and springtime a lot.” I went on to describe it, “I feel the warmth of the sun as I stand in an open place that smells like grass and daisies. The cool breeze swarms around me and my hair whips against my face. I can hear the bees and different insects buzzing around me, but louder than all of them are the robins. They sing from all around me, it’s the most beautiful sound.” I sighed, “But my nightmares, they’re unpredictable. They’re horrifying. There’s absolute silence. I’m just standing there, in a strange place, and I can’t tell what is going on around me. Then, out of nowhere, someone touches me; someone unfamiliar and strange. I feel them breathing on me, like they’re speaking into my ear, but I can’t hear them. I try to scream but nothing happens. Something pushes me to the ground and sits on my chest. I can barely breathe, I feel like it’s the end of the line for me. But then, I wake up.”

Robin pulled me in closer to him. I laid my head on his chest and neither of us said anything. My head rose and fell as his chest did. His heart seemed to keep rhythm with the music that was playing softly. Across the hall, we could hear Spencer playing his guitar. He used a glass slider to make a sound that sounded like a bird chirping.

“Are you scared?” I finally spoke up.

“Of going back? Not really.”

“Why not?”

“When I first joined the army, I was scared. I was terrified, really. I had no one back home to keep me motivated. I was so scared that I was going to die and that no one would care. All I had back home was my grandpa, and I wasn’t sure if he even cared about me anymore. We had a huge falling out shortly before I joined the army.

Eventually, I wrote to him and I made things right. He wrote back and our relationship grew stronger than ever. I was more enthusiastic, I became a better person, and a better soldier. When he died, I became scared again because I knew that he wasn’t going to be there anymore.”

“But now you have me,” I said cheerfully.

“Exactly.”

“You promise to write to me every day?”

“Cross my heart and hope to die,” he recited.

“Don’t say that.”

“Say what?”

“Cross my heart and hope to die. You’re saying that if you break your promise, you’ll die. I’d rather have you alive, even if you forget to write me.”

Robin chuckled, “You take everything so literally.”

“I do not! And what if I did? What’s so wrong with that?”

He chuckled again, “Nothing, absolutely nothing.”

We spent the rest of the evening that way; chatting and listening. Eventually, Robin went home. I gave him a tight hug before he walked out of our front door.