The Professor’s wish

She peeked through her blue stained glass window, and yawned, moving over her light pink kitchen with a dainty, quiet step to make the first batch of morning coffee. She liked to be up early as she always was an early riser. Rose was a petite woman with soft yellow curls and green eyes, a smile that always made others smile immediately after they saw it—magnetic, they couldn’t help it.

Most couldn’t help but notice, or feel, especially with her closer relationships, that even with her smile, there was always a degree of soft escape in her glance, as though she were always looking at the corner of her eye for the quickest way to leave a room or a building, a way to get out to smell the fresh air, as though she yearned for something she couldn’t quite put into words.

Her home was by the sea, a treasured piece of time that reminded Rose of the early fifties, that was small and homey and had stained glass windows, old fashioned pink wall paper inside all the rooms with slightly worn, badly needing replaced vinyl floors that was yellowed and gray from use.

Not having a home most of her life, it was a gift she cherished. It reminded her of a time she spent in a large university library, as a cheeky little mouse or bird at times, the staff and other professors used to call her, and she saw something she desperately wanted on a high shelf in a small regal office but could never reach. She remembered her vivid dream she had right before she woke up, of the dark sea at night next to the library. How she would steal the big grown-up books and run to the coves on high rocks and see the pretty glowing creatures, so in love with the dark, cold, salty air. How she loved to hear that one Professor scold her and give her lessons on sea levels and weather patterns and different amazing facts on the ocean—-she gave him that never ending headache(“not even the strongest aspirin can get rid of you—I mean this headache!” He’d joke in a stuffy way, making her cover up a lot of giggles.) of burning questions and even as he seemed so mean and stuffy, he was the only one who really cared.

As she saw the most luminous sort of glare from the early morning sun, she felt an uneasy ache in her chest.

It settled and rested until she took her first sip of coffee, and she heard a slight slam at her small high kitchen window, the one resting above her sink, and she jumped.

She decided it was either a bird or her imagination, and sipped her coffee once again with relish.

This time, there was an unmistakable noise coming from the front door.

It sounded like two knocks, and her dazed day dreaming was knocked over as she spilled a bit of coffee on her shoe.

“Damn all!” She cursed under her breath, throwing off her shoes, and running to check the peephole in the front door. She saw nothing, but decided to answer it anyway, but only with a small room of space for her eyes to check who it was.

It was then as she peeked out of the door, her eyes lurking in a suspicious and curious manner, she saw a drone carrying a small brown package.

It dropped it suddenly, scanning the area it seemed and taking a picture of proof that it was indeed delivered, and dizzily rode off.

“Those dumb drones still need a bit more processing power, huh?” She said to herself, laughing. She bent down to pick up the package, and saw with a slow, seizing grip the label and where it came from.

It was from the The British Oceanic institute, library district offices, Suite 227.

Her green eyes widened as she swung the already creaking, splintered front door wide open as well.

It had been at least fifteen years since she last saw that name, and who it was associated with. All those memories of coming in and out, taking food, taking books, learning and growing and..

She shut her eyes tightly, clutching the brown package in a bit of pained remembrance.

“Do you always want to be a loony vagabond, Rosy?” The old man in his long robes said chidingly, his gray eyes softer than his words.

“I’ll be whatever I want. I’ll be here or there, I’ll roam the planet. I’ll be an explorer,” She answered, her tiny body gleaming behind his massive desk. He shook his head and put his hands on his forehead, sighing in a deep breath. “And who are you to call me loony? Eh? You are just an crazy old loon if I ever saw one!”

He chuckled under his breath, but remained serious in his demeanor, trying to give the young girl the stern bit of talking to he promised he would give her. “Your mistress keeps looking for you.” He sighed. “You need to go back to the home.”

“That’s not my home,” she would answer, a familiar response.

“I said, the home, not your home, little cheeky thing,” He smiled, getting up to ruffle her hair.

“Not my fault their security system is flawed…” She grumbled and he laughed.

“You little trouble maker! You better shape up or you will get yourself thrown in the brig for picking locks at the wrong library…” he winked at her, “Not all the Professor’s are as nice as us…”

She crinkled her nose, but smiled halfway in a secret sort of joy at the thought, looking at the same stained glass art perched up on his on the Professor’s bookshelf.

“Gimme that. I want it. Then I’ll go,” she demanded, hands over her chest, her lips sneering in a mirror like fashion to the old man’s.

“Not until you settle down, little bird,” he frowned.

“Okay. I promise I will.”

“Then one day you shall have it,” he said, sitting down, looking at her with a smile.

She smiled back, and felt her heart pitter-patter with a paternalistic joy between them. His heart also created a similar pattern. A serious minded professional man without any family, here he was, feeling all bubbly and warm for a girl that felt like his daughter—-and it felt more real than even a blood bond to both of them over the course of that year they knew each other. She was eleven years old once she truly got to know the cranky old man who softened his heart to her(many times before threatening to call the police on her for trespassing and stealing), but it hurt worse when they got separated.

Of course, it was not meant to be. She had to leave far away from the institute. Adopted and swung from family to family, until she found her home and a family of her own, a loving partner named Yara and their son. But, she never forgot him or what he taught her.

Professor Oliver Bailey, the man who she knew as her only father.

Now, remembering these early chapters of her life, pleasant and thoughtful and sad, she closed the front door and ran to the kitchen, ripping open the package in a hurry, like a cat ripping out a mouse’s entrails.

Her breath caught in her throat, she leapt up and gasped after a moment of true deathly silence.

“Oh, you sentimental old duck,” She said, teary eyed, whispering the old nickname she fashioned for the Professor, and lifted the beautiful glass art she had admired as a child—-the one she had made him promise to give her one day.

The one where he wished she’d settled down, have a real home, be happy… be…

She saw the note taped to it and cried more happy tears:

To my cheeky bird,

Hope this finds you well. Now that you’ve settled down, hope you’re not too boring like me, but have a little headache of your own to deal with now!

Yours, tired old duck.

She kissed the paper, and saw the glass art swirled with glowing bioluminescent sea algae.

It was then her son walked in and tugged at her shirt.

“Mama? Why’re you crying?”

She picked him up and kissed his cheek.

“Oh, just had an old duck’s wish come true, is all,” she grinned. “I’ll explain it to you when you get a bit older.”

“I’m old enough now!” He argued in a cheeky speech, and she laughed.

“Go get your mommy and we’ll have story time and breakfast!” She smiled and her son nodded.

Her heart leapt as he ran off, and she was reminded of herself in her son, holding onto the glass piece of her childhood, unbridled with warmth and love.