KISMET ─ vento aureo.

INTERLUDE VI *. ⊹

★ ⁺ — LAPPING OF WAVES

★˚⋆ THE PERPETUAL LAPPING OF WAVES was the music of Bruno Bucciarati's childhood. A peaceful, somber sound—silent until you noticed it, and then deafening when you did. It lulled him to sleep and woke him up in the morning. Before he learned to speak, Bruno was mimicking the sound of waves. It was to be expected, growing up on the waterlogged planet that was Thetis, which was over three-quarters ocean.

Bruno adored his parents. His mother was a schoolteacher, and his father was a fisherman. Holding their hands, Bruno would toddle uncertain steps on the beach, shrieking with joy when waves lapped against his feet. His footprints would disappear in the seafoam like magic.

Bruno spent long hours of the day out at sea with his father. On a rickety skiff that was a remnant of the Old World. The air would be so salty that when Bruno smacked his lips, he could taste it. The wind would tousle his hair, and when his mother came to read him bedtime stories, her little boy smelled more like the sea than a child.

To Bruno, it seemed like there was no shortage of things his father knew. He knew about tides and currents and waves. Longitude and latitude, knots, lines, sails, bows, sterns. Every kind of fish father and son managed to haul up, Papa knew the name of, along with clams and coral and seaweed. The oceans of Thetis were vast and unknowable, but Bruno felt confident that his father must be close.

Bruno's childhood was secluded. Nothing but the sky and sand and sea. Bruno could go days without seeing another person besides his parents. It seemed like everything on his plate came from the sea. It was an Old World way of living. It didn't bother Bruno, but it did bother Mama.

A few weeks before Bruno turned seven, he crept up to his parents' bedroom to sit and listen to their argument through the door frame. It was late, and he should have been asleep, but the house was wrung too tight to sleep. His parents had been arguing more often lately, arguments they insisted were about nothing.

This didn't seem like nothing.

"Nobody lives like this anymore," Mama hissed. "What child his age has never seen a hologram?"

"Lives like this are what everyone misses. Being connected to the land. Having fun. Exploring. He's enjoying himself."

"He has no friends his own age. He should be in school by now."

"No one said he couldn't go to school."

Mama sighed. Bruno could almost imagine he felt it through the door.

"This isn't what I wanted. This isn't what I expected when you said we could raise a child out here."

Papa was quiet for a long time. "He's happy. Isn't that all you can hope for?"

"He's happy because he doesn't know any better. This is no way for any child to grow up."

"You're blowing this out of proportion."

"I just wish you could see how—nevermind. I'm tired. I just want to go to sleep."

The light under Bruno's parents' door went out. He waited there for a few minutes, then padded back to his room. The moon shone a rectangle of light onto his bed, and he climbed into it gingerly, suddenly feeling vulnerable.

He listened to the far-off waves, as familiar now to him as his own heartbeat. He looked at his room in the moonlight, the shells on his windowsill, the jars of rocks and pebbles, little drawings of fish. He thought about what his mother had said.