Read Her Scales Shine Like Music for Free Online

whatever food I had that could be converted to soup. This helped fill my belly and stretched supplies, but the dilution meant lukewarm or colder meals. My coffee reserves were nearly exhausted, so I’d sacrificed my morning ritual to conserve what I had. That dawn, I decided to make an exception, brewed a cup, and sipped it in my lakeside chair. I made an attempt to savor it, but when hope fails, everything tastes bad.
    One of the mysterious rumbles gave me the only warning.
    For a crazy moment, I thought the entire lake might be levitating. Then the object, perhaps a kilometer from me, fully emerged from the water and seemed enormous enough to contain a medium-size lake. It rose into the air with smooth dignity, dripping a Niagara or two, and I stared out at this hollow, intricately faceted crystal sphere and thought: God’s own diamond. Sunlight scintillated from every facet it struck, but enough globe remained shadowed that I could see clear liquid inside, not quite filling it, and God’s own whale drifting near the bottom.
    Incredible. It hadn’t occurred to me that something her size might be a fellow stranded traveler.
    A spaceship. What else could it be? But so insanely huge that it reduced my evening companion to the scale of a neon tetra in a twenty-gallon aquarium. It eased slightly higher and in my direction until the ship floated, unmoving, directly over my head. Was she saying goodbye? From beneath her, I witnessed an unexpected version of flippers, hundreds of massive tendrils, each wider than a jet’s wings. I squinted hard and even then could barely make out clouds of tiny, shrimplike creatures in there with her. Food? Hints of massive structures lurked deeper within the vessel.
    In open air, whatever propelled the vessel produced remarkably little racket, but its soft whine made my teeth itch.
    I wondered if she would hear me if I called out to her, but then the behemoth resumed rising, not so rapidly but steadily. Neither gravity nor wind seemed to impress it, and minutes later it became a mere dot in the sky.
    All this affected me profoundly. I kept gazing up at that dot as if in a glorious dream, wrapped in a memory of magnificence, my spirit so nourished that, for this blessed time, I didn’t think what her departure would mean for me.
    But the dot didn’t vanish into space as I expected it would. It just hung there as if glued to the atmosphere’s edge. Then I realized it was getting larger, a lot larger. Not falling, but descending as patiently as it had ascended. I’d already forgotten just how immense it was; maybe my imagination couldn’t stay that stretched.
    It eased into the lake so gently it seemed to melt, and the lake’s water level rose just a little. A minute of rumble then total silence.
    Maybe peak experiences always leave a hangover in their wake. A padded sledgehammer of exhaustion hit me, along with a dull headache. I staggered up to my shelter and did something I never do: take a daytime nap.
    The sun hadn’t yet surrendered when I awoke, but was getting discouraged. I slurped some lukewarm improvised soup, and still feeling groggy, ambled down to my favorite and only chair. I waited …
    *   *   *
    A second moon ascends, painting extra sheen on the lake’s wavelets. Should I give up and call it a night?
    One of the great bubbles rises and I hold my breath, waiting. Yes! The motion is seconded by an even larger bubble and my heart leaps. She is here! Her lights flash briefly as if in greeting as she glides to the shore.
    â€œHow do you do that?” I ask casually, hearing the joy in my own voice. “Must be useful for hunting at great depths, right? Glad you could make it, but I sure wish you could let me know why you returned. Mind if I tell myself you came back for me?”
    Her only reply is to reach out with those delicate tentacles until a handful rest so gently against my legs, a few drape across my