The Explorer's Apprentice

90:Three Little Birds

I own only the bit of Rose that is Marley. 

Marley Faulkner.

“Come Josephine…my flying machine and it’s up…she goes.…”

The night is silent, and a great sense of loneliness floods the air. It’s as if the only sound left in existence is Marley’s voice, and even that is so distant, so strained.

For the past several minutes, her songs have filled the night air, echoing around her and covering the silence.  She sang little nursery rhymes like Marry Had a Little Lamb and Twinkle, Twinkle little star. Then, she even started singing Bob Marley melodies like Three Little Birds. Her mother loves that song. They used to play it every Saturday morning, loud, so that his soothing voice and tropical beats would echo off their entire street.

‘This is the man you’re named after, honey! Isn’t he great?’

 ‘Of course, Mom!’ And she meant it.  

“Up…she goes…” She’s lying flat on her back, staring up at the stars. There are thousands of them.

Millions.

Her eighth grade science teacher once told her that sometimes a star’s light, or what people look up and see, can continue to shine even though the star’s been dead for centuries. People are a bit like that, too.

There’s a light on Marley’s frozen face, and even though she can no longer feel its warmth, it glows atop her gray eyes. The light glistens far to her left, beckoning-- a siren among the stillest and silentest of all nights. She turns her head, slowly, steadily, because little movements seem to be all she can manage. Marley strains her neck. Her hair, now frozen white, cracks audibly. 

“Out….hear…Anyone….”  Marley blinks.

Voices, she hears voices.

But they’re hazy, and it's hard to tell one word's start from another's end. The words ooze into her  thoughts like a lake merging into another vast, unending ocean. She sighs, turns back to the stars, closes her eyes.

Yes, Marley thinks, another ocean. Send us all another ocean. Warm and gentle and calm. She imagines a beach with a placid sun stroaking the warm, ivory sand, while bubbles of seafoam shimmeracross the shore like diamonds. Yes. She can almost see it. That would be lovely.

“Anyone…alive…there…” there are the words again--louder, more urgent. The sound is muffled and strained as if someone is speaking to her from underwater, aching to get their words to Marley before it's too late.  It’s as if her ears are blocked. Too late for what?

“Can anyone hear me….”

The light shines on Marley’s face for a second time. She opens her eyes.

“Is anyone alive out there? Can anyone hear me?”

It’s like ten hundred lights flicking on at the same time in the midst of her brain. It’s like nine hundred children screaming her name at the top of their lungs to wake her up from a daze. It’s like a first kiss.

It’s a boat.

If it didn’t hurt so much to smile, she would. She’d jump up and scream for joy if she could. She’d reach up to the moon, to the stars, and kiss them all—every last one. Someone came back. Someone actually came back for them. Little tears well up in the corner of her cold eyes.