thisisnot.us

Sunshine burst forth into the children’s room of the stone lighthouse as a dark young woman drew the thick, black curtains from the only present window.  A gang of six sleeping children stirred restlessly in their bed, disturbed by the influx of bright light after the soothing calm of the dark.

“Time to get up,” said the dark woman.  Her voice with thick and strange, like mysterious shapes seen in cigarette smoke in a still, dark room.

The children began to rise, some quickly and full of energy, others slowly and deliberately.  All but one, a dark little boy, no older than eight, with sickly pale skin.  The matron quietly sat down on the bed next to him and placed the back of her hand delicately on his forehead.

“You are still with the fever.  But do not worry, you shall recover soon.  How could it be otherwise?”  She smiled down upon the boy, ever so slightly.  The boy coughed.

“Will you finish telling me the story today,” pleaded the boy.  “I have to know what happens to uncle Kaine and the Prophet!”

“Ah … yes … where were we?  Do you remember?”

“They were in the desert city, trying to fix uncle Kaine’s car so that they could go back to the ship and make enough money to leave.”

“Yes.  And while they were repairing the car, a police man arrived and began to ask them questions.  That police man radioed back to his comrades for help, because everyone knows that police men are truly cowards.  It would happen that Jeffrey … uncle Kaine … they didn’t like the way he drove his car, also he didn’t have their permission to drive it.  And when he drove it anyway, they tried to make him give them money.  A sort of a toll, like robbers on a bridge.  And then he didn’t pay, so they locked him up like an animal in a cage.”

“Didn’t they fight back!?” asked the little boy in wonder.  He had heard many tales of uncle Kaine sailing with Captain Jack Wolfe, and they were the most fearsome pirates of their day.  They were the first real pirates of their day, and all that would come after did so only after they.

“No.  They were not great men yet, only young men, like you will be some day.  Young and in a world that did not understand them just as much as it did not like them.  In a world that was afraid, though they did not know it.”

She paused and remembered that she was going down to the beach for the children’s lessons at noon, after her husband would be done with his mornings lessons, and that she must make lunches for them.

“I am sorry, but we will have to continue the story another time.  But do not worry, for uncle Kaine is alive and well today, and so what bad could have happened to him that he did not overcome?” she said softly as she fixed his blankets, “I will be back with your breakfast, and a wet rag for your forehead.”

She smiled softly and ran her fingers through his precious hair before gracefully rising and going about her business.