I keep a white stone on my wall. When everyone falls asleep, when the house goes quiet, I turn off all the lights and watch its secret blue glow.
Ivko found it one summer, back when the first tourists were discovering our island — over thirty years ago. He came to us with a split lip and a massive bruise under his eye and showed us the stone. He said that at night, when everyone was asleep, it glowed with a strange blue light. That he could hear tiny voices calling to him, messages and signals. This is not a stone from this world. We hovered around him, but the stone looked like any other. We waited impatiently for night so we could see the mystic glow ourselves.
The next day Ivko didn’t come to the beach. We went to his house, but all we heard was shouting and things breaking. We called out to him, and his mother, all in tears, said he wasn’t allowed outside. We spent the day on the beach, hoping to find a wondrous stone like that on our own.
He came to us only the following day. He’d had to jump through the kitchen window because they wouldn’t let him out. He said the stone was a spaceship from a distant world, that it had taken them a long time to understand his language but they could now talk to him. That they had crashed from space into the sea and now needed certain things to fly again. We divided the tasks. Someone was to bring oil, someone baking soda; I was to bring rakija, and Ivko said to get a thermometer because it contained mercury. Altogether it would be mixed in some way that would refuel their ship so it could fly again and return to the depths from which it came. I ran home, and there was Ivko’s mother. Beaten black and blue, her arm tied to her chest. She said the police would come for Ivko’s old man. I hurried as fast as I could so no one would see me, ran into the kitchen and poured rakija into a glass, then tried to sneak out — but his father spotted me and asked what I was carrying. I said water, and he said come here so I can see that water. I ran. I ran and the rakija sloshed everywhere, all over me, but I knew even a little would be enough, and if I failed to deliver it, everything would be lost.
We met in front of the church — everyone except Ivko. They said his father had caught him stealing the thermometer and beaten the living daylights out of him. We ran like mad to Ivko’s house, and the police and half the village were already there. We saw Ivko being carried out on a stretcher. They wouldn’t let us near him. And then, in the middle of the commotion, Ivko’s father appeared on the terrace, screaming that he’d kill himself. He wept and cursed at the top of his lungs, climbed onto the railing — everyone rushed to grab him and for a moment left Ivko alone. I pushed my way to him and said: Ivko, where’s the stone? Ivko’s face was covered in blood; he didn’t answer, but I saw the white stone in his hand. I took it and told him: I’ll save them, don’t worry. They took him away and he never came back. His father was driven off to prison; his mother’s heart soon broke from grief.
Since then I keep the stone on my wall. When everyone falls asleep, when the house goes quiet, I turn off all the lights and watch its secret blue glow. I wait for the voices, for them to give me instructions on how to help them and save them. How to save us all.
