Merridew jolted from sleep and smashed his crown into the overhead bunk. The redhead winced behind a clenched jaw and fell back down, holding his head until his ears stopped ringing: he paused to listen and caught sight of small naked feet scuffling along to a piercing, elongated wailing. It flooded his ears. He propped himself up on his elbow, holding his head, pushing it away from the above bunk and scowling at the feet before him. What the bloody...
"Nearing land! All passengers must meet at the main deck!"
A pause of confusion. The hiatus of thought progress. Blinking eyes and scanning others' for knowledge. They petered out of the room, meeting mutual confusion spilling through other doors into the corridor. Merridew quickly caught on and joined the commotion, sweeping into the crowd of his peers he formerly knew well and followed their stream toward the far end of the hall, where they had first stumbled into the day of rescue. All the boys hurried in some ecstasy to know, blindly colliding into Jack, their attention too fixed elsewhere. It was all just curiosity...
Kids flooded the too-narrow metallic stairwell, muscling through like they were strangers again. Once they reached the top, chaos reached the iron door. A few young and anxious boys, needy and desperate, flung open the obstruction, a blast of cold, raspy air crashed into their faces like a needless punishment. They faltered and tripped until everyone lined out one-by-one in a fortuitously uniform manner. Charting through composed, they found the main platform, and gradually, the air of awareness diminished.
Jack Merridew followed through the end of the dynamic crowd. Something caught his eye, however; between all the dirtied boys, a boy stood underneath too long black hair. Roger. A bent child, a bully; Jack's closest hunter. His skin was dark from over exposure and didn't seem too interested in where he was going.
Glancing off, Merridew met the anonymous shoulder of another. He peeked up dirtied and bruised skin until he met a shock of familiar fair hair. His eyes gaped in quieted vain as he noticed the boy weaken in the crowd of children who had once artificially goaled to destroy him. The boy lurched and lacked behind, struggling, as if he didn't want to be impeded. His steps were rushed as if he knew everyone was staring him down: his head craned stiflingly upward, peeking out over the heads that he easily towered, desperately seeking a passage between the bodies. All this in front of Merridew who watched carefully behind a stone face.
The observer thought the observed as ridiculous: he was tempted to grab the boy by his arm and bark that in his face, but decided against it – not when adults were around. He wasn't on the island any more.
Merridew, giving in to temptation, rampantly stepped toward the boy, reaching out until he couldn't. Another body intervened and with a painfully skipping heart, he peeked up and saw a boy much shorter from the rest. Only a boy…
Silence.
Merridew broke from his trance.
A man – the same man from the first day with the hairy upper lip – stood erect, high above everyone's heads, looking sternly out at the hushed distance, although intimately as if the land in sight was his wife. He waited until all eyes were on him. The thick crowd of boys, drained of etiquette, had no more understandings to such regulations.
In a loud and authoritative voice, the commandant rang out in a small burst of speech, searching for attention. Immediately everyone snapped their widened eyes at him, as if they just noticed his presence. Fear obscured their pre-pubescent faces as they swayed about on their feet, not wanting to touch the boy next to him.
The commandant began strongly
"Now that I have your attention, I would like to begin this gathering to inform you that land has been sighted: our land as we all know, love, and respect; as the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland."
Every boy perked at the auspice.
"We've contacted with our base and they connected with your families that were available. Again, we thank you for your time spent on our surveys back in the beginning: 'Twas of great help with much benefit to you all."
The deck flooded in sudden cheers of crazed screams and yells, arms flinging toward the greying sky overhead. Even Merridew smiled a little with a nose pointed at the metal floor.
"As you might have predicted, they will be all waiting for your arrival upon shore. That will be all. Carry on."
Before the officer aborted the deck, the boys already began to scatter round the ship like a ton of released balloons. They were happy, excited, and best of all, lusty for the shore. The faces they yearned to see were their parents. The boy's around were tiresome to look at. Merridew wasn't tired of any of it. He wasn't even excited. The thought of seeing his parents for the first time in a long time would be hell right on the shore. He would get off the boat and acknowledge his family knowing of what he had done on the island. They'd be disappointed. Merridew would be disappointed. He wanted to play a little bit longer, even if nobody wanted to talk to him, like someone waiting for an answer on the end of a dead phone call.
...
Jack Merridew stood at the peak of the main deck, lightly grasping the handrail of the ship. The clouds began to collect and sop. The patter of rain felt soft against his skin, yet Merridew gave it no mind: civilization was looming. Forlornly, he expected a great frown from his father and mother, imagining them waiting for him at the shore, readying a contempt speech for him. Merridew frowned rancorously at the image as his long, strawberry-red hair whipped in the heavily lapping breeze and the gradual dip in the ship that rose up high, then crashing back down onto the hard surface of the water. The roar flooded his ears and he finally felt distracted for the first time.
The blinding sun sheltered behind grey clouds ready to cry harder; peeking sometimes over the storm and drowning certain spots with light. Merridew blinked his attention back to the shore, then to the handrail he gripped coldly. His eyes screwed narrow in slight disgust, knowing what these hands went through. Twitching, Merridew departed his bothered gaze across the metal pole to the right where the sky far off into the distance gloomed and swirled beside another boy of similar youth. It must be that hunter named Maurice. Or perhaps... The boy's hair was not brown: it was several shades lighter, like ribbons from the sun. His tall, broad figure was facing out at sea, opposite of Merridew. His outline lacked muscle or fat, smoothing and glistening with rain, his body tense like a frightened puppy. Jack's blue stare couldn't rip away. He pilfered through immediate names to label this child. He stopped. Everything went blank; slipped out his ears: he couldn't recognize that boy. The fair hair and almost skeletal figure was of familiarity: Merridew knew this child. The name pinched the tip of his parched tongue. This puzzle was so stupid! He knew this child!
Bombarded by vexing thoughts, eyes finally caught his. They reflected ice underneath heavy tanned brows. Their piercing glare shook Merridew out of his stupor and their eyes connected painfully until the opposite horizon seduced him. His yellow teeth bit into his lips and he searched for any diversion. The rain pelted harder. The wind blew harsher. The clouds had consumed the sun. The waves raced for the nearing of the shore...
...
Footsteps clambered everywhere. Bodies clumped where they needed to be. Ropes assembled in respective places. Shouts filled the air. Giddy screams from children reverberated like sirens. The shore closed in. Everything slowed down… Then came to a complete stop and creaked in its pool and bells began to fire along the piercing shrieks and curdling yells. Secure ropes tied the ship down, leaving it to bob as water licked at the coral coat of the belly. Everyone began parading out the naval ship. Their childish bare feet stomped and rattled the gangplank until the concrete of stable land got a taste of it too. They were finally home.
Merridew was the last to step off the ship, as a blur of shadow bumped his shoulder, reaching the last footfall. Glancing up, it was Roger putting space between them, walking off steadily, not bothering to look back and apologise. Jack shared the feeling and kept walking as if it never happened.
Suddenly, mature bodies filled his vision: clustered into separate groups, each hugging a dirty child as if they just found them after the longest time. Every face filled with tears of joy and unkempt smiles stretched from ear to ear. None appeared familiar to Merridew. He couldn't help the fear plaguing his mind. His turn was next to see a parent. His eyes never began to search; they wandered instead until they met with that same head of fair hair that fell down to his strong shoulders and flitted harshly in the wind. The boy's back met Merridew yet again but surrounded by an enormous woman whose face obscured by fat tears coated in black blotchy stuff. Her dirty blonde hair was untamed in the blustery winds, sending almost every individual strand into a shock.
An awkward elderly couple surrounded the woman and child. Jack judged them old enough to be the fair boy's grandparents. They held finely crafted walking staffs that dug into the concrete or sat in uncomfortable metal wheelchairs that creaked noisily whenever they moved. They were waiting patiently for the woman's episode to finally end, like a blocked up queue. Tears welled up in their eyes with faces as hard and unreadable as stone. Their dignities too important, even if a child they hadn't seen in months stood before them, being snapped in half by what was probably his mother.
All other families mimicked the action, weeping and crowding round a small boy who was in desperate need of a bathe. Every family had three or four members including the kid. It was far too repetitive and boring: Jack's eyes nonchalantly drew back onto the fair boy's family as if they were a magnet. Once he returned, however, the woman was crushing the boy's hand instead of his spine while she took a handkerchief to blot her red and bloated eyes. The fair boy, asphyxiated by multiple embraces, tangled below sopping, wrinkled faces that curled up into a morose frown that almost mocked a grotesque smile. It was kind of sick to look at. Merridew instead examined the top of the boy's head floating above a million arms. Was he mourning or standing there; taking the embraces as they flew by him, unemotional and callous? Merridew wondered whether the other boy enjoyed seeing his family again. He couldn't detect the grimy arms of the boy. Did he not know how to hug, or did he forget?
The rain began to pound harder into the ground and Merridew's family had yet to arrive. Mostly everyone vacated except for Roger and the fair boy and maybe a few other littluns. Despite the rain, no one who hadn't left wanted to leave. Perhaps there was an unspoken connection remaining; they didn't want to leave their classmate and hunter just yet? Processing the thought, Jack didn't feel as lonely when water drenched his half naked body. He stood without shoes and bluing fingers and toes. His body did not tremble or jitter: he felt too numb. The rain couldn't touch him. He was alone with sober eyes that absorbed that boy. Merridew knew that boy. His name was right in front of Jack's eyes. But there was nothing: just a void of brown and grey. The redhead blinked slowly, inebriated, and noticed that his person of interest had left without warning. Out of some anxious and yet foolish attempt, Merridew let his eyes scan the area. Where did that boy go?
Merridew let an air of relief cut through his throat and past his dry and parted lips as his thankful stare met once again the boy with fair hair. He stood a safe distance away, he thought, and watched the child stand by a dark vehicle drenched in rain. Everyone rushed in, escaping the storm. Everyone except that boy as a hurried hand gloved in pearl white steadily pushed him into the car, joining the rest. The boy took a pause, a moment of consideration, and studiously turned in Jack's direction with fluttering, anxious eyes. The child's lids swept up from the ground, eyes to the hood of the car, then finally, slowly meeting blue that stared numbly in return. It wasn't until those eyes disappeared when Merridew realised what just happened. His heart swelled with disgust and reverence. His name was right off the top of his tongue!
Finally, though, a car pulled up through the lot and stopped with a jolt almost too close to the ginger's feet. The clamour of pointed shoes surrounded and turned everything dark. His murky skin dirtied the carefully designed fabrics which were warm as they swallowed him whole. Voices drowned him at every angle, but not a word sounded English. All blabber except two familiar words:
"Jack Merridew!"
A voice as feminine and pretty as his mother's, and a voice as stern yet soft as his father's...
Jack Merridew found himself thrown into a car whose dusty scent immediately filled his nostrils, while the leather ran smooth and frosty in the back seats where bodies sandwiched either side of him. The entire car enveloped in noise of giddy speech and the wrinkling of clothes. Everybody's attention fixed here, there and everywhere: on the rain, getting the keys into the ignition, and Jack. They smiled at the lad and crushed his spine, like that fair boy. And they said against his skin, cries of blubbering awe for his return. Jack couldn't compute. A smile couldn't reach his lips and cry with his mother - or whoever this person was. He couldn't wrap his arms round her in return. He forgot how to hug. He forgot how to show affection. He forgot how to smile. He forgot who these people were.