the legend

My submission to
the end of this world project

While day dawns in Australia, kids in the Mediterranean are for a couple of hours or so already to bed. Hellene living in a small island in the Aegean Sea is about falling asleep, after a long hard day, when her daughter is up and before her bed.
‘Oh, why are you up, sweetheart? What’s wrong? Any bad dream?’
Little Irene climbs her mommy’s bed and whispers in her ear like saying a childish secret:
‘It’s about time, mommy; it’s about time.’
Hellene hugs her baby girl lulling her favorite lullaby; she had composed lyrics and rhythms to sing about her father’s and Hellene’s loving mate coming back home soon from the seas.
‘No, mummy, it’s about time; see the light.’
Hellene looks out of the window, it seems like dawn breaks. This surprises her. For a moment she thinks she is still so tired, she didn’t realize she has slept all night long. She gets up and walks out to the balcony. No, this is not the thing now. It’s almost midnight and a light rises up from the darkened sea. A line of light grows thicker every passing minute over the horizon; it doesn’t lighten the sky or the sea, though. Besides, it’s spread to the north. It slowly grows thicker and thicker.
Irene gives her little hand to her mother. There is a weird silence all around. Nor wind’s breath neither sea’s tremor.
‘It’s about time, mommy, isn’t it?’
‘Time for what, honey?’
‘For the new, the fresh, the sea light.’
‘What do you mean, baby? What do you know about it?’
‘I don’t know, mommy; it’s just the sea light.’
The sea light is now colored and gradually turns into a rainbow. A line of rainbow separates the star spangled sky and the blue black sea. ‘So strange,’ Hellene whispers. Her whisper sprawls around. It seems to wake up the air and the sea; it upheaves a slight wind and wave.
The sea light is now shaped and gradually grows narrow and tall and turns into a tower in the middle of the sea. An island. A new and fresh island. ‘The luminous island, the legend, the sea light. Oh, my God.’
Suddenly, Hellene knows what she has to do; or she thinks so. She puts on a jean and a shirt and her sneaks while she asks her daughter to be dressed in too. She gets some more clothes and other things she thinks she might need into a bag, helps her little girl to put on her small sneaks, and they take the car.
‘Don’t worry, mommy. Everything is going to be all right,’ says Irene giving Hellene a cd.
‘What’s this, baby?’
‘It’s for we have to tell people, mommy. Turn it up, please.’
‘I’ll blow the horn, honey, as soon as we drive through the village.’
‘But then, they’ll just be thrown out into a panic.’
Hellene knows her little girl is absolutely right. She tries to think how her daughter knows about all this; who could have talked to her. None. Hellene’s grandmother was the last one talking about the luminous island, years ago. Hellene was a little girl, almost in the age Irene is now, when her grandmother was no more. Then one day, a couple of days after the funeral or so, she asked her father about the sea light she had once listened to his mother talking for. Her loving daddy had suddenly become sharp and his answer was beyond any doubt or more word. ‘You little girl listen to your dad very carefully. You forget these words from now and for ever. You have to promise.’
She kept her promise, she forgot; besides, she has never again heard about the legend. How little Irene knows? Is she gifted?
‘Like daddy.’
‘Excuse me. What? What did you say, babe? Did you listen to my thought?’
‘Always.’
Their home is about five miles higher from the village up on a hill into their olive tree farm. They have to drive lower though and through the village not only for waking and warning other people but for driving then forward the mountain on the other side of the island. The higher the safer, thinks Hellene opening car windows and ceiling and turns up the music. Irene pauses the cd player for a second, just to say: ‘We‘re going to the harbor, mommy.’
‘We‘re going to the harbor,’ says Hellene to herself. ‘I guess, I have to trust you; you‘re my guide now, baby.’
Some people have already been out; some of them are just taking their cars. They listen to the music from Hellene’s car; it sounds stranger to their ears. It’s a flute whistling and ever now and again a harp plays a phrase; it’s Jimmy’s flute asking for love and Hellene’s harp responding forever love. It’s their music dialogue before making love at the night of Irene’s conception.
The car is on the road towards harbor when Hellene looking behind sees other cars’ lights to drive up the mountain. She doubts for her decision; she hovers about going back and tell them.
‘They’re not to join us all,’ Irene replies.
Right, not all. Other cars’ lights have already been seen on the road to the harbor. People reaching coast take their little boats and sail them to the open sea, to the north, towards the sea light. Sea grows rough.
Hellene recalls the legend. There would be five fresh islands around the global seas at the same time. Two of them in night’s longitudes so that they could be seen by their light before they’re out of water causing around islands to be sunk. Is there any chance for her friends upon their home island’s mountain to stay out of water, to stay alive, to be rescued somehow?
‘I don’t know, mommy. I cannot see behind. I can tell you though, we’ll meet daddy.’
Sea grows rougher and rougher. The wind is roaring. It seems however there is no danger for boats sailing towards the luminous island. Peoples’ voices are heard from so far away. The island must be shaking by now.

I hope you did enjoy it; now, if you wish, you could vote for me