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2011-06-10 13:11:14 UTC

He raised himself up on his elbow, drying his cheeks with the back of his hand. The room was quiet and still. Andrew had assumed the others had all left for breakfast, but was surprised to see that every bed was full. He was the first to wake. Andrew quietly climbed down from his bunk and padded over to the window, the shell floor cold against his bare feet.
Peering up through the glass, Andrew could see the colours of sunrise shimmering hundreds of feet above him, playing across the ocean’s surface. Much of the sea around him was still encased in darkness, but a few bars of pinkish-gold light were streaming through the murky depths and past the window glass, filling the room with an early-morning light that shifted with every pulse of the current. It was beautiful, and it was with a certain amount of awe that Andrew realized that he was probably the only person from his world ever to witness dawn under the sea.
A soft, sleepy yawn broke the silence. Andrew turned to see Ajali, sitting up in his bed and rubbing his eyes. After another jaw-cracking yawn, Ajali saw Andrew at the window, and the two boys briefly locked eyes before Ajali turned his gaze out towards the sea. Andrew turned his back to Ajali, and together they watched the morning sun was bleed through the water in silence. Then, with his back still to the Savage, Andrew surprised himself by addressing Ajali.
“I didn’t mean to shoot your little sister.”
Andrew forced himself to turn around and face the dark boy, but when he did so, Ajali’s eyes were focused on the ground some five feet in front of him. He was silent. Andrew continued, “ You saw me, I was pushed from behind and fell, that’s why my gun went off,” Now that Andrew had begun to talk, he couldn’t stop. If he could explain away his actions, maybe he could explain away his guilt. “I was trying to leave your hut, really I was. I would never shoot at a kid, Savage or not. Especially your sister.”
Ajali looked up at Andrew, his eyes more sad than angry. “Why especially my sister? What did you care who she was? You didn’t know her.”
“I recognized her,” Andrew explained. “That day, before we came to your village, we came across your sister-“
“Chiku.” Ajali interrupted quietly. Andrew looked at him. “Chiku is my sister’s name.”
“Chiku” Andrew repeated. That name rang a bell in his head, and he then remembered that ‘Chiku’ was the word that the old woman had cried out in the jungle,right before she was looking down the barrel of Uncle Maxwell’s rifle.
“Well, we came across Chiku in the jungle. She was on her own, and came right up to me. She wasn’t scared or anything.”
“She didn’t know any better. She didn’t know what you and your people do to little ones like her” Ajali said bitterly.
“No, she didn’t.” Andrew said. “I wish that she had. I wish that she would been terrified, and stayed hidden. Instead, she came up to me and gave me a flower. A little purple flower.”
Andrew looked up, and saw that tears were now leaking out of Ajali’s eyes. He wasn’t trying to hide them, he didn’t wipe them away or turn his face to the wall. Andrew wasn’t unaccustomed to a boy of his age showing emotion so freely, and he was struck by the dignity of those tears. Andrew turned away from Ajali, back to the window.