The Final Night Upon The Island
Manny’s answer made Lucas grin, and he waved in absentminded farewell to their fireside company before they both followed after Cleo. If there’d ever been a time to offer each other support, now was it. Now was always it, but this was definitely one of the more emphatic
nows, when words didn’t come easy but feeling alone came too easy. Didn’t want that for anyone, but he didn’t know how to help anyone else. Still, his concern was short-lived as they waded through soft sand and away from the other flickering fires, his eyes lighting up as he crouched to gather a few shells and smirked to himself at the reflective pieces he’d found.
“Ha, missing more than one, right? Yeah, I like that, okay…” He stood up fast, hurrying to catch up with his taller friend and rolling the smooth pieces between his fingers until they caught sight of Cleo, paused by a picnic table and trying to pull herself back together. Far enough away no one else could bother her, but easy enough to find if anyone went looking like they were. He grinned, waving.
“Sorry, okay, sorry… Cleo. Hey! Cleo!” Warning given maybe a little too close to the shout he was warning Manny about, Lucas kept waving until Cleo looked their way, then he hauled him forward until they were close enough to talk quieter, alternating between frowning concern and twitching lips excitement, not sure if he’d thought of a good idea or a bad one or how she was managing.
Cleo sat at the table, the darkness folding over her like a thick shroud. The distant glow of a campfire illuminating her with its thin light, barely touching her face. Her foot bounced up and down rapidly against the sand, and she stared at her hands - what little she could make out of them and the outline of her fingers. She moved them individually, precise movements that formed small colours between her palms. Vague and quickly disappearing shimmers that fizzled and fell away into the dark night and away from her.
She gnawed at her lip, feeling Rory's visceral anger still haunt and linger like a phantom. Gil's grief still flowing under her skin. The weight of Blackjack pressed into her consciousness, a black river pulling her under, where all their fears and emotions floated like souls drifting along the Styx, ferrying to nowhere.
"I'm sorry,” she spoke out as Lucas and Manny approached. Her shoulders curled inwards.
"It all came over me, out from my tongue.” Cleo twitched and shuddered, placing her failing hands against the side of her head.
"I'll be okay... It just... Just needs to leave,” she muttered, blinking through the sharp throb of pain pulsing behind her eyes.
"Too much,” she said, a strained chuckle escaping her lips.
”It’s fine… Yeah, you both are fine. I get it, It’s all been too much. This week’s been too much, this night’s been too much. There ain’t been no place on this island without a sob, not a second without a sniffle. And Blackjack, God knows what they’ve been through. So loud, so full of anger.” For naught but a moment he shuddered at their voices, the soft and unsteady chants likened to shouts upon the darkened nightly expanse as the words crossed the bounds of his ears. Splintered fragments of despondent whispers uttered with tones laced with malice slipped sparse lapses in his concentration. Words that marked a betrayal of the good days. An exsanguination of the crimson blood of love of the carcass of memories passed upon the land in which such times were forged.
“Hi. Carrying all that stuff’s heavy, huh? That’s okay. We’re opening doors, all right? You said you’re going—and I’m going with you—but they didn’t say now or never, did they? Just now or not our problem. . . . Can we find more homes to miss before we go?”As he reached the source of his excitement, finally blurting out the question after a moment’s deep breath hesitation, Lucas held out his hand, showing off the new sea glass he’d found that had given him the notion. They were all missing people, and if they had to leave, why not find a few of them, at the very least, before taking the Foundation up on their offer of a place to stay?
Immanuel’s eyes lingered on the likes of sea glass grouped together within Lucas’ hand. A group. A mass of stones so tightly knit upon the bounds of his skin. Each stone, a testament to life, formed under the pressure of the ocean and tossed beneath its waves. Crashed, cracked, and parts torn asunder against rocks and stones laden throughout its undeterminable path. But their paths led them to one place, smoothed upon the sand and standing upon the beach. His hand brushed against the sea glass tied on his own wrist. The intricacies and memories embedded within the accessory were but one of the final remembrances of his own group. Their own group. Breaking away from the sight of the stones within his palm he looked upon Lucas’ wrist, then upon Cleo’s own. Memories. Their home. Was it coming to an end?
"Hi…” Cleo answered, forcing a small smile in their direction finally.
“I think my… My walls are a bit crumbled since..." she said as one hand moved to grip her leg to stop it from shaking underneath the table.
"It'll just be a moment,” she said, half looking in their direction, catching the glow of Lucas’ piece of seaglass.
“N-new homes?” she asked, blinking again.
“Yeah. New spaces, familiar faces… All right? And no screaming.” He hoped. Lucas’ enthusiasm dimmed quickly in the face of confusion, but he didn’t let it go, just left it out to stop skipping steps. He hadn’t explained his idea yet, had he? And he nodded slow, slipping around the table so Manny’s steadier head was closer to her as he heard her words again, second-time around less blurred by his own excitement. Walls falling down…
“Walls sit heavy and it hurts when they fall, okay? It’s bad when you don’t know what’s in them. Cracks only get bigger if you put more weight on top. But Manny has walls he knows, and you have walls you know and I have walls, too.” He paused for a moment before setting the bits of smoothed glass down on the table.
“Daisy and Violet, Steve, Amir, Gladys… All of them.” He gestured expansively.
“They have walls too, right? Their homes. And they aren’t here and… I like that now… but I want to see them again. And I… I don’t want to go home by myself.”Cleo turned to look at Lucas in the dark,
“A-Amir.” Quietly, quickly she spoke, saying nothing else, looking then to Manny.
Immanuel slid his body upon the surface of the bench as Lucas moved away from his side. For there were but few moments his ears didn’t perceive it all, he listened as Cleo’s words fell from her mouth. An utterance that with the ears he possessed he could tell was low, defeated in her tone. They’ve all bore loads, loads which were laid upon their shoulders and were saddled upon their backs. People who carry a crushing weight that splintered their bones and strained the muscles that held it, a load that couldn’t be described. How could one describe all the sounds the world creates? How could one describe seeing the past like the present in but every object they touch? How could one describe feeling the brunt force of the emotions of others? As the weight grows the cracks form. A wall is only made bear to so much.
”That… It would be nice. We could use a break, we deserve a break. From all the angst, the sadness. I miss them all. Glady’s little crafts, Whitney’s snarky attitude, Steve being Steve.”His fingers traced the cracks in the picnic table, forged beneath the weathering of nature, a natural stress. They all had cracks, ones so deep they forgot the cracks had even formed. When a wall comes down, the only thing left to do is to rebuild from the rubble. Rome wasn’t rebuilt in a day, and certainly not alone.
”I think we should do it. Go out. See our friends again. Hell, I’d say those people are like family. Y’all are like family. Before we go to the Foundation, let's make the most of it.”All the empath between them could do for the moment was nod. Their names spelled colours in her mind that formed in plumes against the shadows that circled, swam, and floated. Whitney’s snarky attitude was a burst of bright pink, the taste of raspberries lingered around it too.
“I'd like to see Whit,” Cleo said, her tone softening the sharp edges down now.
“As many as we can visit.” She released the grip from her own clothing now, placing her hands gently on the table surface.
“Chaney always has the best jokes… Ezra the best music.” From their faces, grown more thoughtful the more words he said, Lucas’ gaze shifted back to the glass and then to their hands. Cleo’s still, finding their place, settling down, and Manny’s moving steady and slow, like a shiver down his spine, tracing old, worn wood, but it was warm instead of cold and they weren’t saying no… He grinned.
”Okay! Who’s first? Darla’s BC, right?” She was probably the closest.
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