The Resident

M. Terrill - Fiction

          There was once a boy who ran away. His mother looked everywhere for him, but he had gone so far from home that she was never able to find him. His sister looked even longer, and even harder, but she, too, was unable to discover his whereabouts. The boy missed his family but what was done was done, and he knew he could never go back. 
          The boy traveled far and wide. He encountered many strange and wonderful things in lands that were more spectacular than he could have ever imagined. 
          He dove deep into the sea where he swam with fish as bright as jewels, and giant jellyfish that could swallow his whole body so that he was hidden inside a living bubble. He rode on the backs of whales and wriggled through the coral homes of sea snakes. He explored the wreck of an enormous ship and sank deep into an underwater cave, far from the reach of the sun. His hands and feet became webbed and he nibbled on fronds of seaweed as they floated lazily by on the tide. He befriended a family of dolphins who looked after him and taught him how to hunt for fish. The boy was very happy, but he knew that something was missing, and after a long time he said goodbye to his dolphin family and he left the ocean behind.
          When he emerged from the water, the boy found himself in a wide, vast desert. He slithered through the sand dunes on his belly, learning how to carve the letter S with his body from the snakes that prowled the sand seas. He flew astride a hummingbird and sipped nectar from the flowers of a cactus. He buried himself under the sand and waited for night to come, when he would shake the grains from his hair and pounce and play with the desert fox cubs that frolicked under the silvery moon. Eventually the fox family adopted him and taught him how to snap up desert hares in his jaws and howl in celebration of his catch. Sometimes he would sit on his hind legs and look out across the desert painted in a milky white under the full moon, with thousands of stars as bright as diamonds sparkling overhead. And the boy was happy again. But after many moons had passed and he had caught more desert hares than he could count, the boy became lonely. He bid goodbye to his friends and set off on his own until the desert shrank out of sight behind him.
          Sometime later the boy came to a dense, shadowy jungle. He swung from vines through the green canopy and dined on figs picked fresh from the tree. He fell to the jungle floor and began to decompose, only to be reborn in the vibrant shade of a yellow mushroom. He saw the world through the eyes of a scurrying ant and learned how to lift ten times the weight of his own body. One day he happened upon a group of chimpanzees and he thought that maybe they recognized him. They moved very much like he did, and they took care of each other the way the boy thought a proper family should. He made a home with the chimps and spent his days combing mites from his brothers’ hair with his fingers. He ate soft fruit and guarded the family territory with powerful screeches and thumps to his chest. But once again, when the rains had come and gone a thousand times, the boy felt an emptiness inside him that could not be filled, no matter how happy he was in the jungle. He made his farewells and hopped up onto the longest vine in the jungle. He took such a big swing that when he let go he flew through the air and was carried far away on a passing breeze. 
          At last the boy came to an island. Here he was surrounded by the endless sea, and alone in a vast landscape of rolling green hills. There were trees for him to climb and fresh water for him to drink and swim in. He decided to make the island his home. There were cliffs along the shore with caves for him to sleep in. The wind whipped around him and the boy was content to sit and watch the fluffy clouds shapeshift in the sky overhead. He learned the calls of the gulls and the other sea birds that lived nearby, and he wove wildflowers into blankets that covered him while he slept. 
          The boy loved his new home, but he had no family or friends to share in his delight. He became very lonely and he almost forgot his own name. So much time had passed since the boy had run away that he could no longer remember where he had come from in the first place. He longed for somebody else to share the island with, and one day he got his wish. A young woman surprised the boy one evening when she appeared at the mouth of the cave where he’d been sleeping. Afraid that he might be imagining her, the boy sat very still, and was disappointed when she went away, and he was left alone again. But the next day she came back, and the day after that, and the next day too. And after a time, the boy decided that she was probably real, and that he should make himself known to her before it was too late, and she disappeared for good. 
          The next time the woman emerged on the ledge outside his cave, the boy stepped outside, and introduced himself. The woman smiled and held out her hand, and the boy took it. He followed her up a hill, away from his cave, and back into the human world…