Fantastic Metropolis

“I’m not sure how long I’ll stay.” She was afraid he’d take her elbow, point her the right way down the path. But he didn’t. Crinkled brown banana leaves, fallen from palms, crunched beneath their feet as they walked.

“They all built the hotel together. My parents were going to get started on their own house but they died before it ever happened. I built my own eventually. I like the peace and quiet, not so many people always.”

She nodded, had the urge to take his hand, as if they’d known one another for a long time, or perhaps used to be friends years before, were just today re-united. The way he was shy and comfortable both, almost as though they were related.

Walking on the sandy path through the woods she could already hear the ring of hammers. She asked him the names of plants along the way. One enormous, gnarled, almost impossibly spreading tree turned out to be a banyan. She sat down for a moment in its shade. A large black bird screamed at them from the upper branches.

“Cormorant?” she asked because of her painting, although it didn’t really look like a sea-bird.

“It’s a raven,” Stiv said.

Ravens in the tropics?

“Did you know they can imitate human speech, like mynas and parrots? Tool sounds, too. They hang around the shipyard, and then you’ll hear them flying overhead, making the sounds of ringing hammers. It can be quite disconcerting.”

Susan laughed. “I guess. So was that a raven we heard, or a real hammer?”

“Real one, I think. Although sometimes it’s hard to tell.”

They walked and he sang. She saw masts, knew the shipyard was just around the next corner, over the next rise.

“In Marina you’ll build a boat,
In Marina wild roses bloom
In Marina you’ll build a boat
And sail for home…”

“What’s the song?”

“Old song. Everyone around here sings it.”

“Where’s home, then?”

“It’s about the other home, Home Across The Sea. No one’s ever gone back, they just come. Or they used to. Still it’s our heritage. No one talks about this stuff, or do they, where you live?”

“Not actually,” Susan said. Nor did they ever discuss a kind of dreaming that fit like a glove, like she was born to it. In-between being terrified, she’d never felt so at home.

“How did people come here then?” Maybe they came as she’d just come, dreaming, and she’d never get back now, like them.

“I was born here. And my parents’ generation. But the generation before, they all drowned on Earth. Woke up here, but still remembered. At least that’s what they say. But a lot of people my age don’t believe a word of it. And some have never even heard those stories. Like you.”

She felt slightly relieved. There’d be a way back yet, unless you could drown dreaming, or painting. Sometimes it sure felt like that. Like when the turtles laughed, or the ceiling rained, or the telephone echoed, oceanically. They sat down on the edge of one of many wharves, listened to the clink of rigging.

“D’you go out?” Susan gestured at the ocean.

“Sometimes. I’m not afraid of the water exactly, but it’s not my favourite thing, either.”

Of course.

He hummed the song again. “In Marina you’ll find a boat, in Marina the roses bloom…”