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Drabble Challenge: Home
February 19, 2004

By Hereswith
February 19, 2004

Home was the place to which he could never go back. Not the mangroves and the palm trees, but the oaks and the beeches and the bluebells nodding in the wind. The snowflakes melting on his cheeks. His mother's voice, when she sang him to sleep.

"My Jack," she always whispered. "My sweet little bird."

But he had spread his wings. Had flown far and wide, away from English soil. His mother had died, by the time he was eight.

He had no home, now, on land or sea, but the Pearl. And most days, most nights, he was content.

By Kayden Eidyak
February 19, 2004

Will sat on the front porch, gazing into the distance. The ocean was just visible through the trees. He could hear the seagulls calling to one another. His mother laughed, the noise carrying outside from the kitchen. His father must have said something that amused her. Will smiled. It was nice to have his father home again. His mother called him for dinner. Will stood, brushing the seat of his pants. The boy looked around before going in. My home, he thought happily. His father hugged him before he sat down at the table. He would stay here for always.

By Geek Mama
February 19, 2004

~ Heart to Heart ~

His mother gone, the house was no longer what it had been: his home. His little room--it was she who had placed his bed under the window
where he could smell the sea and look at the stars. She who listened to his prayers nightly, in silence, and kissed him, heart speaking to
heart. There had been little need for words.

He had been homeless after her death. Lost, in a way, for though the ship on which he had worked his way across the Atlantic should have
felt like a kind of home, it did not. There was no soul that spoke to his, no eyes that saw him as anything more than the Cabin Boy.

And then, the horrendous, wrenching disaster that nearly cost him everything—and the waking to the vision that said far more than her
words conveyed: "I'll take care of you, Will."

From that moment, he had a home again. No matter what she was, no matter what he was. His heart was hers; his dream of home was in her eyes.

And, miracle of miracles, beyond all sense and reason, it was true. "I do," she said. And he was home indeed.

~.~

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