Leaving the Nest — Part Five
By Robin Pond
I hear faint tones, like discordant music, scattered notes refusing to arrange themselves into any orderly pattern. I smell a sickly sweet aroma. I can even taste it. The space around me becomes textured, already transforming into shapes, distinctions of light creeping in through my darkness.
I’m strolling on the lawn, milling around in a throng of students, heading to class, walking down a wide hallway, chatting with a group of friends, my nostrils filled with the slightly musty smell of old well-polished wood. Squiggles on the blackboard, letters from a foreign alphabet, incomprehensible at first, begin to make sense, falling into place in an ordered comprehension. I breathe deeply, inhaling myriad experiences, enhanced understanding.
My family is there—proud father, doting mother, brother and sister—in the crowd with all the others, at convocation. I’m sitting with the graduates, each one now a unique individual, with special talents, unique knowledge, skills, abilities, separate identities. My name is Mel, short for Melanie. As Mr. Wilde tells us all in his convocation address, this is the day our journey begins.
“Mel, you look so wonderful,” my mother gushes, brushing a few strands of hair back from my face.
“We’re so proud of you,” my father exclaims.
“I’m so sorry,” I tell them, “but I have to go now. The ship is waiting.”
“It’s such an important day for you.” My father hugs me, smiling bravely.
My mother’s hug lingers an uncomfortably long time. “Never forget, Mel, there are people who love you.”
Robin Pond is a Canadian writer of plays and prose fiction. His mystery novel, Last Voyage, was published in 2018 and in the last several years he has published numerous speculative short stories in various magazines and anthologies, including Ginger which was voted Best Steampunk Short Story in the 2024 Critters Annual Readers Poll. Robin’s sci fi novella, Assimilation, and full-length novel, Canaan Within, are both available through Amazon.
Copyright © 2025 Robin Pond