“Lieutenant. Lieutenant?”
And then there’s the sound, the sound I followed out onto these tracks: it’s huge, the sound I can’t bear to hear or disregard; huge, like the night of the shipwreck and the little girl on the beach; huge, and close. And I have this funny memory, of all things to remember; I have this memory of Melody Lake sobbing in a mortuary. What a thing to think. What a thing. And I say to myself, A memory, is it only the dream of the wandering blind? And then it’s there, huge above me, the sound, coming from a light so sharp and white that at first I think it’s the sun until I realize the sun’s on the horizon; and then I think it’s the train until I realize the tracks are absolutely still but for the fading pandemonium of our bodies, and then I’m thinking it’s her eyes like the old man of the moors saw them the night of the lighthouse until I realize the light’s in her hand, loud and white and sharp, in her hand as though to sear her fingers with it, as though to extinguish it: and then almost faster than I can see it, it comes to me
“There’s someone out there.”
and it sings to me. It sings