6 Sarr – casm ?!
Jack didn't know what to say. Whenever he usually was at a loss of words, he just invented something, some cry or gave some orders. But he just didn't know what to do to comfort this boy.
Ralph wiped away his tears. He wanted to stay like this, wanted it very much, because it felt warm and save, like this. Nearly an embrace. It didn't matter that it was Jack. Anybody was okay, as long as there was touch, and warmth and the feeling of a living body next to him. The fire was only cinders by now and cracked from time to time.
"Does that mean... that you believe this is real? This all, I mean.." Jack asked and felt dumb for he hadn't understood Ralph's words.
"Yes," Ralph answered very softly.
"Oh."
"That's good... I think." Jack said. He shifted a bit. The body contact with Ralph wasn't bad.. but it made him feel strange.
Ralph felt the other boy's discomfort and moved away, into a sitting position.
They looked at each other, suddenly feeling silly.
"Well...".
That night, neither of the boys slept. They just lay in the dark and talked. Sometimes it was only Ralph who talked, and for somebody who had seemingly spent 4 years as a madman, he had surprisingly much to say.
But the also talked with each other, asking and telling.
"You told me, some of the kids died." This was Ralph, of course.
"Huh."
"How?"
"Well... some of the littluns.. just vanished. I think it was their food. They must have got ill."
"I remember they only ate fruits."
"Huh. Maybe it was that."
"And other than those?"
"We had a storm, quite a while ago. Bill was hit by a falling tree and died some days later."
"Did you... bury them?"
"We buried Bill. There was quite some discussion as how to do it. Then I just made them bury him."
Ralph chuckled.
"You made them. Always the Chief, huh?"
Jack snorted.
"And where?"
"Somewhere at the far end of the island, where nobody ever goes."
Ralph fell silent for a short time. Then he said something, that had been gnawing at his mind for a really long time.
"We never... you never buried Simon, did you?"
Jack closed his eyes.
"No... back then.."
"Yes, back then."
"We should have, shouldn't we?"
"You.. we were in a frenzy."
"You weren't. I was."
"I was stupid in my own ways."
Jack said nothing, but he had his own thoughts on this.
To humour them Ralph asked:
"Are you still putting up those silly heads?"
"Heads?"
"These pig-heads. For the beast."
"There was no beast."
"I knew that. So, are you?"
"No..." They laughed.
"I liked Simon." Ralph said into the silence.
Jack remained shamefully silent.
"I liked him very much."
"He was... was nice," Jack forced out.
"Nice to everybody. I thought about him very long. About the things he said. About the beast inside us. It sounded silly, then. But now, after all... I had a long time to think about stuff like that. Are we evil?"
"You mean, am I evil," Jack said bitterly.
"In that night... I was in the dance too."
"You were?"
For a long time there was a heavy silence over them. When Ralph nearly thought Jack had fallen asleep, the red-haired boy said:
"We'll never be saved."
"Saved?" Ralph frowned.
"After you snapped, nobody made the signal-fires any more."
"Oh."
"Huh."
"So we'll live here until we die.." Ralph whispered.
"I think so."
"That's good."
"What?" Jack gasped.
"That's good, because no one of us could ever go back. Imagine it. Imagine meeting your parents again. We are dead for them, dead since four years. And in away... we are. The children we were are gone. And.. be true.. would you want to leave?"
"Not really," Jack admitted.
"See."
"We've got everything we need."
"You think so?"
"Of course! Nobody hungers here."
"Jack!" Ralph laughed. "With you it's always meat, meat, meat. There is more to live than food."
Jack made and insulted grunt.
"That isn't true! There's the hunt, and play, and..."
"You are such a child."
"I warn you..."
"We don't have medicine. We won't have a knife, if we loose ours. We don't have girls."
"Girls?"
"Yes. You remember girls? The ones with the long hair and skirts?"
"But for what would we need them?"
"Well... for what would one need girls?"
Jack blushed in the dark.
"Do you never think of them? I have never been kissed," Ralph said.
"Have you?" he asked.
"No."
"See? We'll die as virgins!"
Jack gasped at the indirect mention of such things. Deep, deep in this mind there was still an English choir boy.
"We'll never have children. We'll just be forgotten, once we die," Ralph continued.
"I wonder if kisses feel really that good," Jack said, intrigued by the idea.
"No idea. As I said.."
"It's a shame.. everyone always made a big deal out of kissing. We must be really missing something."
Ralph turned his head to look at the shadow that was Jack. They lay there, peacefully, like boys in a tent at a holiday camp might have, conversing about girls. Jacks eyes gleamed in the dark.
"Well... if it is really that important to you, you can kiss me," he sighed.
"What!" Jack cried out and bolted into a sitting position.
"Are you crazy?"
"I used to be."
"But isn't this forbidden? Two boys.."
"Forbidden? But who would forbid it, here? Have you already forgotten, Jack? You make the rules here."
"But is it something bad!"
"Oh really. We have eaten with our fingers. We have gone to bed without brushing our teeth. We have killed. Do you think it still matters?"
Ralph sat on his knees and looked at Jack.
"Aren't you curious?"
Jack frowned at him.
"You seem to want this very much," he observed.
"Maybe," Ralph said.
Jack bit on his lip. Of course he was curious! And of course Ralph was right with what he had said : He made the rules.
He crawled to were Ralph said. In the faint moonlight his fair hair glistened in a pale shine.
Ralph himself wondered why he had said those things. Did he want this? He had provoked it. And now Jack was close, and he would do it. He would kiss him. He tried to push away the memories of that night, memories he knew Jack hadn't.
And then their lips met, very softly, and very awkward, too.
Honestly, it wasn't great. But still... Ralph felt no fear. Fear of this was what he had feared. And that was probably also the reason why he had said those things : to assure himself that this was nothing, that it was normal and okay.
They parted soon, both feeling increasingly stupid.
"Well..." Jack said and licked his lips.
"It wasn't that great... maybe we're not missing much..," he went on.
Ralph made a mock gasp.
"But Jack! Are you insulting my kissing?"
Jack went fiercely red.
"No..."
"Stupid. That was meant to be sarcasm."
"Sarr – casm?" Jack asked dumbly.
Ralph grinned. Then he slowly began chuckling. At first Jack felt offended, but then he laughed too. And soon they were both cringing with silent laughter like the teenagers they were.
