The Promise of the Orb

by Marshall Cobb

  Peter had forgotten all about Eli and understood that sitting in his bedroom talking to himself was not something he could easily explain. Borrowing his brother’s phone—an ancient hand-me-down from Big Ed that could only dial and text—would have been a good cover had he thought about it. He went with the first lie that came to him and called out, “I’m just practicing some lines for a play we might be doing at school.”

  Peter winced and held his breath, continuing to look at the closed door. He was almost able to hear Eli pondering his story from the other side. There was, of course, no play. Well, there was, but it had ended two weeks ago, and Peter had not even seen it, much less been in it. In terms of lies, this one was pretty lousy. It would take Eli less than five minutes to get to the truth. That is, if Eli cared enough to try and figure out what was going on.

  “You’re weird,” stated Eli through the door.

  Peter could hear Eli walking down the hall toward his own room. “Get some sleep Peter,” Eli called out, “we’ve got a lot to do tomorrow.” Eli’s door slammed shut.

  The round clock on Peter’s wall rattled from the impact of Eli’s door on the frame. Peter noted that it was now 9:30 p.m. Eli the rule follower was correct. Peter needed to get to sleep.

  Peter turned to look at Orb, who pulsed again. Peter turned on his clock radio next to his bed to provide some cover for their conversation. “Don’t worry about him, Orb,” whispered Peter, “he’s always angry.”

  Orb pulsed in response. “I am no longer in your thoughts or memories, as you asked, but it seems like we could do a lot to help Eli, and your father.”

  Peter squinted at Orb, then whispered, “Are you saying you’ve already read all of my memories?”

  “Yes. Again, I am sorry.”

  Peter pushed himself a little farther back against his headboard, continuing to stare at Orb. I knew he had read my thoughts, but I didn’t know he had read my entire mind.

  An image came to him. It was of a time before their mom was sick. Her black hair came down past her shoulders. She smelled like the yellow flowers that grew along the river bank. Her smile lit up whatever room she occupied. And Peter saw no smile nor smelled any flowers when she found him swaddling a piglet he had come across in the woods within the patchwork quilt her grandmother had made by hand.

  The dirty piglet squirmed in Peter’s arms as he tried to contain it within the quilt. For one of the few times in his life Peter saw anger in his mother’s brown eyes. She drew back to gather her breath to scream at him, then paused and began sobbing into her hands. Peter let go of the piglet, which dashed off the porch in the direction of the woods. He looked down at the torn, filthy quilt and recognized what he had done. His mother turned and shut the door behind her. Her sobbing grew in volume. He heard Eli’s voice and a mumbled reply from his mother. A few seconds later Eli, always a follower of rules and a fierce defender of their mother, threw open the back door and shoved Peter down. He rained punches on Peter’s head, screaming, “Why? Why?”

  At her request, they had buried their mother with the quilt covering her withered legs and torso. She had never spoken to him about his careless misuse of her most cherished possession. The beating Eli had delivered was nothing compared to the guilt he felt when Big Ed held him up so he could better see his mother within the casket—his eyes were unable to look at his departed mother’s thin face but were instead drawn to the permanent stains and repair stitches on her quilt.

  The incident with the quilt was hardly a secret, but it pained him to know that his deep, irreparable hurt and disappointment in himself had been processed and uploaded by Orb.

  “It’s okay… I guess.”

  Peter also thought through other embarrassing and shameful moments in his life. All paled in comparison to the quilt.

  A thought occurred to him. “I’m sorry to ask but how do I know that you aren’t still reading my mind? I can still hear your voice in my head.”

  “My word is my bond, and unless you give permission, my presence is limited to your ability to hear my thoughts.”

  Peter thought through Orb’s reply, and quickly understood that it really did come down to trust. If Orb was lying Peter would never know. It all seemed rather silly, come to think of it, that he was worried about a glowing ball reading his mind.

  “You said you could help my family.”

  “Yes, I can.”

  “How?”

  Orb pulsed strongly again. “I am but one of seven different pieces.”

  Peter continued to look confused.

  “It may be easier for you to think of these pieces as containers, or receptacles where my power is stored, separated. My power within this one receptacle is very limited, but if you can help me reunite with the others I can solve any problem your family faces.”

  Peter picked Orb up and held him—in his head it was now a him—again in his dirty hand. He smiled sadly, looking older than his thirteen years, and asked, “All of our problems started when my mom got sick. You’re not saying that you can bring her back, are you?”

  “No. That is something I cannot do.”

  Peter nodded, slowly rolling Orb across his palm. “I didn’t think so,” Peter mumbled.

  “I can, however, fix your river. I can help your family get all the money it will ever need, and I can even help you get rid of that rash on your posterior that you are so worried about.”

  Peter put Orb back down on the bed and resisted the urge to scratch his backside. “Let’s please make a deal between us, Orb. I know you already know everything about me up until a few moments ago, but please don’t bring things up until I ask you to. Some of that is really personal.”

  “I apologize again Peter. I thought you would be happy to hear about the money, and the fact that we could heal the rash.”

  Peter scratched his head, then noticed just how dirty his hand was, which is why he’d probably ended up with a rash in the first place. “I am happy, I guess, but please keep that information to yourself unless I ask you about it.”

  “Absolutely. Yes.”

  Peter got up; a little confused by everything that had happened in the past few minutes. He needed a little time to think by himself. He needed to figure out what he was doing.

  “I’m going to go take a shower, okay? When I come back we can talk more about how we can help each other.”

  Orb looked small, frail sitting all alone on the crumpled sheets. “Of course. I think though, that you are more tired than you think. When you come back why don’t you get some rest and we can talk about everything in the morning?”

  Peter was about to argue that he wasn’t that tired when he had to put his hand over his mouth to stifle a yawn. “Okay, maybe that’s a good idea.”

  As Peter closed the door behind him and walked to the bathroom, he tried to figure out how he was ever going to sleep with a magic orb sitting beside him.

  CHAPTER THREE: Missions Impossible

  The light was just beginning to creep into Peter’s window when he awoke, scratched his itchy posterior, and looked around his room. The Rubix Cube taunted him from its spot on his dresser. He had never been able to complete more than three sides and was seriously considering peeling off the stickers and placing them in the correct spots as the final solution.

  What day is it? Peter thought. I don’t have to go to school, do I? But then if I don’t have to go to school I’m just stuck working with Eli all day. Did Dad come home? Why can’t I remember what I was doing before I went to bed last night?

  Peter threw back his covers and began to get up when many of his questions were answered by the presence of a red, pulsing orb that lay in the middle of his bed. “Good morning Peter. How did you sleep?”

  Peter involuntarily flinched, then remembered that Orb was his new friend. “Good morning Orb,” he whispered. “I slept really well apparently, how did you sleep?”

  “I do not sleep, but I am glad you are rested.”

  It still felt odd to hear Orb
’s words in his own head. Then again, at this moment, just about everything felt odd. A question occurred to Peter.

  “If you don’t sleep, what did you do all night?”

  Orb pulsed, and Peter felt a chuckle in his head in response, then wondered how exactly he could feel a chuckle. He then had an image of a tiny bed where Orb rested on a pillow with a blanket pulled up to cover where his body would be—if he had a body.

  “I mentioned last night that I am just one of seven different pieces—receptacles. Now that you have saved me, my mission is to reunite with the others.”

  Peter nodded, trying to remember if they had talked about seven receptacles. He then wondered how you could put something into a sealed orb. “Can you talk to them like you talk to me?”

  “That is an excellent question, young Peter. My answer is that for many, many years all I could hear of them were distant, fuzzy echoes. I am pleased to say, however, that as of last night I am now in communication with five of my others who have spent several centuries reuniting.”

  Orb seemed to blush with pride, but this was all coming too fast to Peter, who had still more questions.

  Peter leaned down, conscious of the fact that his brother might be awake and just outside the door, and whispered, “How long did you say that you have all been split apart? And why can you now talk to them?”

  “We have been separated for three thousand three hundred twelve of your Earth years and—”

  Peter cut him off by saying, “Wait, you’ve been stuck in the river for over three thousand years?”

  “Yes, and—”

  “What do you mean ‘your earth’ years? Where are you from?”

  “I’m from a galaxy that is not known to your race.”

  Peter finally slowed down for a second to think about that answer. He lay back against one of his pillows and looked up at his ceiling, which was ironically covered with the stick-on stars that glowed in the dark. “How do you know that we don’t know about it?”

  There was an uncomfortable pause before Orb replied, “I used what you call the Internet to get caught up on your society’s knowledge base.”

  Peter sat up again and pointed a finger sternly at Orb. “That’s what you were doing all night? Surfing the Internet?”

  “It only took twenty-three seconds. Much of it involved pictures of humans not wearing clothing, which seems to be an unhealthy fixation of your species.”

  Already knowing where this was going, Peter offered, “You learned or memorized all the data available on the Internet, including all the naked pictures, in twenty-three seconds? And, wait, let me guess, you already knew our WIFI password because you hacked my mind when we first met?”

  “Yes.”

  Peter stood up and began to pace in his small room. This was not how he thought meeting a new species for the first time would go. He wasn’t sure that he’d ever actually thought about it, but this was unusual—even for unusual. Peter rubbed his forehead, trying to clear his thoughts and restart this conversation.

  “You said you had talked to the others. Where are they?”

  “They are located approximately two-hundred-thirty-eight-point-two-four miles away.”

  Peter stopped pacing. “That’s a long ways away. And that seems pretty precise, not approximate.”

  “Apologies. Roughly half a mile of that distance represents a path beneath the surface—some of which is not accessible to humans and I therefore did not know how to correctly state it.”

  Peter blinked. He opened his mouth to ask yet another question, then closed it. He began pacing again and decided to look at the floor as a way to try and make sense of everything he had heard.

  “Peter? Are you okay?”

  Peter continued to pace, feeling a little better now that he was only concerned about stepping on all the debris scattered across his room.

  “Peter? Please, I do need your help. Before I can help your family I must be reunited with the others.”

  “Right. I just need to take you over two-hundred miles away to some cave where humans can’t go.”

  “Sarcasm is a form of aggression, Peter.”

  Peter stopped. That was something his mother had often told Eli. Was Orb deliberately quoting his dead mother to him?

  He didn’t have a chance to ask that question as the door to his room shuddered from a blow. “How’s that play going in there, Peter? Do I have to tell Dad that you’re on drugs?”

  Peter flinched and looked at the door. He’d forgotten all about whispering. He thought frantically for something to say that would make any sense, but was interrupted by Orb, who filled his head with the shouted request, “Peter, I need your help!!”

  ***

  Several hours later, sweat dripping from his forehead onto the dirt below him, Peter pulled listlessly at weeds that grew better than the plants within their garden. Eli was doing the same thing just a few rows of corn over, but he might as well have been a mile away as he had headphones on and was listening to angry rock music at a volume that prevented any attempt at conversation.

  Peter pulled at a particularly large weed and, when the top of it broke off in his hand, landed squarely on his back. He grimaced, threw the now root-free weed toward its still buried roots, then climbed to his feet. He used his dirty hands to knock the dirt off of his already dirty behind, then pushed them against the small of his back. He stretched as far as he could, wincing from the sunlight in his eyes.

  He felt a little guilty about leaving Orb behind in his room, but he did not want to risk Eli discovering his new friend. His guilt had increased when he had to scream—inside his head—for Orb to leave him alone. Peter had given Orb permission to enter his mind in such a way that Peter could reply to Orb’s questions without speaking, but he was not prepared for the deluge of questions. He had to get Orb out.

  He understood that Orb was excited. He also understood that Orb wanted to find his other missing pieces and become truly whole once again. Peter could not imagine waiting over three-thousand years for anything. Peter’s mom had always said that he had been born without patience.

  But, then again, Orb did not seem to understand all the problems Peter was dealing with. Orb also did not comprehend that thirteen-year-old Peter had no way of going four-hundred-plus miles roundtrip. He would have better luck putting Orb in a box and mailing him, but then again what would he use as the address? And who would open the box and carry Orb to his friends?

  “Hey! I hope you’re enjoying your vacation—get back to work!”

  Peter winced at Eli’s outburst, but did bend back down to start weeding once again. He did not even bother looking over at Eli, who had likely never even looked up. Eli could sense whenever Peter was goofing off (and the odds were good on this front, as Peter was almost always goofing off).

  As Peter used his strong fingers to pull at a particularly tough weed—a vine that started innocently enough but soon entangled and choked all the plants it touched—he thought again about Orb. Orb? Are you there?

  There was no reply, but the weed came free and Peter fell back and again landed heavily on his rashy posterior. He rolled back to his feet, threw the weed to the ground and slapped the dirt off his pants.

  Peter bent back down, continuing the mindless work. I guess it’s good that Orb isn’t answering. That means he’s keeping his promise and staying out of my head.

  CHAPTER FOUR: Negotiations & Rescues

  Late that same afternoon, Peter stood by the back door of their house and used the heel of his left boot to slowly free his right foot from its boot. His foot came free with an audible pop and a small shower of dirt. He used the filthy sock on his right foot to pin the heel of his left boot to the ground and tried to squeeze out of it. It was no good.

  He rubbed his hand against his sunburnt neck, then put both his crusty hands against the back door for more leverage and again tried to pull free. He grunted and groaned and finally the left boot came loose. He kicked both boots out of the path of th
e doorway, ignored the hand prints he made on the faded yellow paint of the door, and stomped into the kitchen. His disgusting socks were halfway off his feet, but he still slid around on the old linoleum tiles.

  He was alone in the house. Eli had taken his bicycle and backpack to ride to another farm down the road to trade some of their sweet corn for milk, cheese and butter. Whenever they could, they traded what they grew or made for other products they needed.

  Peter could almost hear Big Ed repeating his favorite expression, “There’s no need to pay a big corporation or the tax man for what we can grow or barter for ourselves.”

  As Peter walked to his closed bedroom door, he wondered what his dad would think about the newest member of their farm. Something they had not grown. Something he could never envision trading. Something that knew all the secrets the world thought were locked away.

  He pushed open his door and walked to his bed. He was pulling back the heap of blankets and pillows he had piled up to conceal the red light of Orb, when a large squirrel darted out from beneath his bed and hopped up to his windowsill.

  Peter could clearly see the squirrel breathing heavily as it tried to hold on to Orb using a combination of its mouth and two front paws. Orb’s red light pulsed, casting an eerie red light to the otherwise yellowed front teeth of the squirrel, which was pushing its way through the homemade window screen Big Ed had constructed years ago.

  All the windows in the house were of the old school, wood variety. They were thick, and strong, but the repeated swelling caused by rain and heat, combined with the many coats of paint that had been applied over the years, left most of them, like the one in Peter’s room, stuck somewhere between open and shut. Not having the time, money or inclination to sand down and repaint every window, Big Ed had stapled chunks of screen over any openings. The squirrel was now wiggling its way through the screen and about to leap to the ground.

  “Orb!” Peter screamed out inside his head as he lunged for the window.