He lay there for several more minutes, listening closely for sounds of movement in the building. But it must have been early, for he heard only the slow ticking of his bedside clock. He opened his eyes. It was seven thirty-five, on a Saturday. No one would be up. But he could not go back to sleep, so he rose and dressed with the efficiency of one who had performed a task endless times before. He put on socks, grey trousers, a grey shirt, and combed his hair over with a small black comb. He put the small buckled black boots on his feet. He made his bed, stretching the thin brown blanket into perfect corners and propping the pillow upright. He checked the time again- only seven fifty. He put a hand to the door and leaned his thin head against it; no sounds came from the still halls. Tom sat on the bed- he paced, sat some more. Every minute or so he glanced at his wardrobe, as if drawn to it, but resisting.

He had had that dream again. It seemed like no matter how hard he concentrated, it just kept coming back. Tom closed his eyes momentarily, his hands clenching the bed covers with the memory of it. It always started the same…

He was eating breakfast at the long table in the orphanage, a thick brown porridge that stuck in his throat. He looked around. Just like any other morning, none of the other orphans sat near Tom… nothing was different, except… and then the dream shifted. He looked closer at the other orphans. He didn’t know any of them. Their faces weren’t familiar. And the orphanage, it wasn’t the orphanage at all-

Finally Tom heard doors opening and shutting, feet pattering down the hallways. The orphanage was waking. A maid knocked on his door; poked her mousy head in.

“Ah, up as usual before I get ‘ere,” she remarked, glancing once at Tom sitting motionless on his bed.

He nodded. “Don’ miss breakfast, we’re leaving at nine, but I ‘spect you’ll be ready to go,” she added, a slight shadow crossing her features. Tom nodded again.

She turned to leave.

“Wait,” he called.

“Something yah need, Tom?” she asked, surprised, and he flinched slightly at the use of his given name.

“Where are we going?” he asked, his voice measured.

“Oh, a little ‘scursion to the sea today, Tom,” she answered, eyeing him curiously. This day had been planned for weeks.

He turned towards the grimy window and the maid was gone.

At breakfast Tom kept expecting something to be different- he glanced around more frequently than usual and more than once had another orphan break his gaze fearfully because he was peering too closely. He just wanted to be sure that he knew all of them.

Tom returned to his porridge. He sat alone; he had since he could remember. Nothing was different. It had just been a dream. He lifted his spoon to his mouth, but it tasted the same. He grimaced, scowling slightly down into his bowl for a moment. Life here was grey enough without lumpy bland porridge on the side. He finished quickly and rose, barely making a noise as he stepped past the other tables and glanced at Mrs. Abigail Cole, the middle-aged matron who tried to manage the full orphanage with the help of only a few maids and a whisky every so often. She had been married once, a Henry Cole, but he had run off long ago. She’d sworn she would begin using her maiden name again, Drabbly, but never had. That’s when she started on the drink.

The demure hands on Tom’s clock read half past eight. He sat on his bed again, facing the muted window, studying the tracks of dirt creasing the glass. If there were some way he could stay here instead of going to the sea again, another year, another dull trip… He listened to the silence. The sound of seconds ticking by magnified in his ears, swelling to a soft roar.

Tick, Tock. Silence. Tick, Tock. Silence. Tick, Tock. Silence. Tick- Knock.

“Tom?”

Mrs. Cole’s voice leaked through the plain wood door, slightly muted.

“Yes?” he answered, not bothering to raise his voice or turn around.

His door opened a crack; the matron inserted her face into his room.

“Tom?” she repeated.

“Yes?” he replied, turning his head to look into her eyes.

She frowned slightly, blinking once.

“Mrs. Cole?” he questioned, staring at her.

“Ah, yes, Tom. I’m here to remind you of the visitor you’ll be receiving this evening, after our trip,” she said hesitantly.

Tom scowled and turned towards the window again.

“I won’t see another doctor! I know what you’re trying to do. You want me gone!” he told her forcefully, his voice rising quickly.

“Tom, Mr. Paris can help you�”

“I won’t talk to him. Tell him not to come.” Tom ordered.

After thirty two Tick, Tock. Silences, he heard the plain wood door shut.

The salty air assaulted Tom’s senses. Brine dried oxygen, driven by an angry wind, brushed through his hair; his nose, his ears. It whushed around him. He hated it. He felt dried out; a shell.

The ragged group of orphans and maids were behind him, slowly picking their way over the cruelly jagged rocks to reach the kinder shore below. They made this sea-side excursion once a year, in the early spring, and Tom dreaded it every time. Something about the openness of the ocean bothered him. He much preferred the closeness of the cliffs that rose into the sky behind them.

He found a large, lone boulder to sit on, facing not the crashing foamy waves but the cliffs leaning down on the group. He felt almost as if he blended into the stone, wearing these disgusting grey clothes. Not that he would ask for anything different. Mrs. Cole always did her best, if in her own way, for the children. “These clothes are better than no clothes at all!” she would say.

Shouts of the other orphans met his ears. They were dashing into the water and delighting themselves with silly games. The maids were holding the littler ones, and a group was forming figures and buildings from the gravelly sand.

8 years. That’s all he had left here. Then he would be free. After the orphanage, he would find his father. They’d told him his mother had died giving birth to him. So he would find his father and ask why he had left. Probably for some grand cause. He wouldn’t have just abandoned Tom and his mother.

He looked at the cliffs, rising high above him. They stood strong against the wind that tormented Tom, like a shield. Perching on his rock, he coldly appraised the cliffs, swaying in the chill tidal breeze stiffly. He shut the noises of the wind, then the maids, then the orphans… and finally the sea from his head. He couldn’t stand the noise.

Silence.

Now, his mind wandered to the small grass struggling to take root in the patchy shore beneath his rock. It was dark green, and long tendrils sprouted from the base of the boulder in a sickly attempt to grow.

Glaring at it, with the salty wind whirling noiselessly around him, Tom wished the little plant could share the misery he felt.

He wished it to shrivel like he could not.

To curl up and away from this never ending grey existence.

Of course, it did. It always worked.

Tom grinned.

Silence.