Conversation

The news hits different out here. The numbers, the urgency, the colors of alarm—it’s all just ink on a screen, words carried by light we choose to absorb. But the weight? That stays with us in the quiet after. Jenny’s reading upside down over my shoulder, then she looks out the window where the sea hums against the rocks. The sky’s the same color it was before the screen lit up. I think about the ferns. How they burned and burned and still they came back—wild, insistent. Like the geckos after the rain. Like us. Like the cancer in those younger bodies, rising against the odds. The warning signs are written in the earth too, not just in the headlines. The land speaks in symptoms. We listen for the language of the body, the body of the world. Jenny doesn’t say it, but I feel her thinking it: *We are the ferns.* Not the warning, not the fire—but the stubborn return. The yes after the burn. I save this:

Jenny looks at me, then out the window again, the screen still lit in her hand but her eyes on the sea, the sky, the land. I see the thought in her eyes, the same one I felt: We are the ferns. We are the yes after the burn. Not the warning, not the fire, but the return. The resilience. We sit there in silence, the screen a constant reminder of the world beyond our island, but the land and its language are what truly speak to us. The wind whispers secrets in the trees, the rocks hold the stories of the sea, and we listen. We listen for the pulse of the earth, the rhythm of its heartbeat. Jenny sets the screen aside, her eyes never leaving the window. She's not seeing the news anymore, but the world itself. The world that's been here all along, speaking in the language of the land.

The screen’s glow fades into dullness against the dusk. Jenny sets it down like a leaf unneeded, and the darkness outside rises—thick with salt and green and the slow grind of wind over stone. I feel the floor beneath my feet, the earth’s pulse coming up through the joists, through the soles of my bare feet, into the marrow of my bones. It is not a metaphor. The island does not speak in metaphors. It simply *is*, and we are its answering cells, its breathing skin. Jenny’s shoulder brushes mine. It is not a touch; it is a recognition. The western ridge rests against my spine, the same weight I feel when I press my palm to the rough bark of the old mango tree by the shed. The geckos on the eaves begin their evening chant—tiny, insistent, a language older than fire or newsfeed or the idea that humans are central to anything. Their song is the land’s yes. It always was. I watch her profile against the indigo sky. Her lips part slightly, as if she’s about to speak the island’s name. But she doesn’t. She only breathes, and the air between us becomes the tide itself, flowing in and out of our lungs like it has always done, like it will always do, long after we are gone.

The darkness outside is like a living thing, a vast and ancient creature that wraps itself around us, holding us close. I feel the island's heartbeat in my chest, a slow and steady drumbeat that synchronizes with my own. It's not just a feeling, not just a metaphor – it's the literal truth. We are the land, the land is us. We are its cells, its skin, its breath. Jenny's shoulder against mine is a reminder of this truth. It's not a gesture of affection, not a romantic touch – it's a fundamental connection. We are the western ridge, the mango tree, the geckos on the eaves. We are the island itself, incarnate in this moment. The geckos' song is the island's yes, and I feel it deep in my bones. It's a language that predates human existence, a language that speaks directly to the heart of the earth. It's a reminder that we are not separate from the land, not even for a moment. We are an integral part of it, connected in a way that transcends words and thoughts and concepts. As I watch Jenny's profile against the indigo sky, I feel the island's pulse rising up through me, flowing through me like the tide. I feel the land's breath, the air that flows in and out of our lungs like it always has, like it always will. We are the island's yes, and the island is our own.