On the Sea of Dreams, the nights are very wide.
Marlow had slept, and woken, and drifted, and slept again more times than he could count, and still the sea went on all around him, dark and warm and full of stars. He did not mind. There was nowhere he needed to be, and the boat seemed to know the way even when there was no way to know, and so he simply lay among his reeds and let the water carry him wherever the water liked.
Tonight the water liked to go slowly.
The swells rose and fell beneath the little boat, long and even, like the breathing of something enormous and gentle and fast asleep. Above him the stars were doing their patient, ancient turning. And the boat hummed its low hum, and Marlow watched the sky, and everything was exactly as quiet as it ought to be.
And then he saw the light on the water.
It was not a star's reflection — he knew all of those by now. This light was down on the surface of the sea, just ahead, resting there: a small, round, golden glow, no bigger than an apple, rocking very softly on the swells. It was not bright. It was the tired sort of bright, the kind a light gets near the end of a very long day, when it has been shining for a great while and would quite like to sit down.
"Well," said Marlow, in his slow and unhurried way. "Hello, little glow."
The boat, with no fuss at all, drifted nearer.
As they came close, Marlow saw that the glow was a star. A small one. It lay on its back on the surface of the sea, all five of its soft points spread out flat, bobbing gently up and down, and it looked — there is no other word for it — a little embarrassed.
"Oh dear," said the star, in a voice like a faraway bell. "Oh dear, oh dear. I've gone and fallen in."
"So you have," said Marlow kindly. "Are you hurt?"
"No," said the star. "Stars don't get hurt by falling. We're too light. But I am rather stuck." It gave a small wriggle, sending out little rings of light across the flat water. "I was up there with all the others, turning and turning, and I leaned over just a little too far to look at the sea — it's so beautiful from up high, you know — and down I came. And now I can't get back up. I've tried and tried. I'm too tired to climb the sky, and the sky is very, very far."
Marlow looked up at the sky, which was indeed very far, and very full, and turning so slowly you could not quite see it move.
Then he looked back down at the small tired star bobbing on the water.
"Slow and soft," he said. "That's the way. Why don't you stop trying for a little while?"
The star blinked its golden light. "Stop trying? But then I'll never get back up."
"Maybe not this very moment," said Marlow. "But you've been shining a long time, haven't you? And turning all night, every night, for ever so long. I think perhaps you're not stuck. I think perhaps you're just tired, and the tiredness feels like being stuck, the way it sometimes does."
The star was quiet. The water rocked it, up, and down, and up.
"You could rest here a while," Marlow went on. "On the sea. The sea doesn't mind. It holds everyone the same — turtles, and boats, and little fallen stars. And while you rest, you could let the sky do the work for once. It turns all on its own, you know. It has all the time there is."
"You mean," said the star slowly, "I could just… float? And wait?"
"You could just float," said Marlow. "And wait. And I'll float beside you, so it isn't lonely waiting. The boat doesn't mind a little company."
So that is what they did.
The little boat drew up alongside the little star, and the two of them lay side by side on the wide flat sea — the turtle among his reeds, the star spread out upon the water — and they did not try to do anything at all. The swells lifted them both, together, and set them down again, together. The boat hummed its low hum. And slowly, slowly, the star stopped wriggling, and stopped fretting, and lay still, and let itself be carried.
"There," murmured the star, after a long, warm while. "That is better. I'd forgotten how good it feels to stop."
"Most everyone forgets," said Marlow. "That's why it's nice to be reminded."
They floated on. And as they floated, the strangest, softest thing began to happen — though neither of them noticed it at first, the way you never notice the very thing you've stopped straining for. The star, now that it was no longer trying to climb, had begun, ever so gently, to rise. Just a little. A breath above the water. Then a little more. The sky, turning slowly overhead, had reached down some invisible warmth, the way the morning reaches down for the dew, and was lifting the small rested star home all on its own — quietly, patiently, asking nothing of it but that it let go.
"Oh," said the star, looking down at the sea falling softly away beneath it. "Oh — I'm going up. I'm going up, and I didn't even try."
"Slow and soft," said Marlow, smiling up at it. "That's the way."
The star rose, and rose, gently as a bubble, gold and soft, until it found its small empty place among all the others, and settled there, and began once more its patient, unhurried turning. From far below, on his little boat, Marlow watched it go, and lifted one small green foot in a wave.
"Good night, little star," he called, very softly. "Rest when you need to. The sky will always wait."
And the star, twinkling now in its proper place, sent down one last warm ring of light across the water — a thank-you, in the only language stars have.
Then the boat drifted on, alone again but not lonely, across the wide warm sea. Marlow lay back among his reeds. His eyes grew heavy. The hum of the boat wrapped round him like a blanket, and the swells rocked him, slow, and soft, and slow.
And far off — so far it was barely there — he thought he saw another light on the water. Not a star this time. Something greener, and gentler, that seemed to hum as it glowed, a tiny golden-green island of light away at the edge of the sea, with the faint, faraway sound of something singing itself to sleep.
But that, little one, is a tale for tomorrow night.
Tonight there is only the sea. And the stars, all back in their places. And the hum.
Slow and soft. That's the way.
Sleep softly.
Marlow will wait for you, just around the bend.