Cozumel

Nobody can hear a scream in the vacuum of space, or so they say. I've never met anyone who's been to space, so I never really understood if it was true, or if it mattered.

I know that I can rely on the cacophony of the water works to muffle my screams. So I spend a lot of my time here, near the waterfall, in case the scream overtakes my peaceful thoughts.

I am only 12 years old. What could I possible have to scream about? Well, it goes something like this... up until 10 years ago the whole world was entirely different. Nothing has changed in 10 years as far as I can tell, and now things are about to change a lot -- again. I can tell people are nervous, mostly the elders, and adults never really want to talk to kids.

That's why I scream.

The waterworks are changing. In addition to the cacophony of the churning wheels and the waves pounding on the shoreline, there is a new sound. A hum. Explicitly different from the hum that normally comes from the geothermal tubes, this sound has a rhythm. If I demonstrate the rhythm to adults they have mixed responses.

One explained furtively the sounds are perfectly normal, nothing to be concerned about. It was so loud out there, how could I possibly have heard a hum in the middle of a hum? That would be like a needle in a haystack. Actually I've never seen a haystack, so...

Another adult rushed off to warn the BioDome Council of Elders, mumbling something about ruin and chaos.

One adult wants to try the new rhythm for the children's band.

That's why I come here to scream.

In general the BioDome is an extremely peaceful place with gardens and aviaries and fish ponds. A person could walk through the BioDome from dawn til dusk and never see the same view twice. It is beautiful and serene and constantly changing. Everything is perfectly perfect on the surface. Hardly anyone wants to talk about noisy chaotic places like the waterworks. It is very loud, and wet, and the loud and wet waterfall is my favorite spot. Everyday there is a rainbow, or multiple rainbows if you know where to stand.

There are no rainbows in other parts of the BioDome. It's not that there couldn't be, it's just that adults don't care to see one. And don't care to show one to the children.

That's why I scream.

Outside the BioDome there are rainbows too. They are rare because the weather outside the BioDome is "unpredictable" and often violent. Still I watched the western skies in the morning, and the eastern skies in the evening, knowing that these unpredictable weather phenomenon are bright and fleeting and move with me as I walk around the gardens or the aviaries.

When I was young I belonged to a group of students called the Rainbow Roos, but one year we were told to stop playing and meeting in the gardens. We could no longer search for rainbows or sing songs about rainbows. Rainbows were a part of the world that had been destroyed by ignorance and we should think of rainbows as a sign that the world was lost.

That's why I scream.

That's why I come to the waterworks to scream.

Then I jump in the water and swim to the ledge where I wait to see if a passing storm will leave me a rainbow. Sometimes I see a double rainbow -- my special treat.

Once last week I swear I saw a white rainbow that moved with me as I walked through the aviary at dawn. The weather had brought in a fog bank that covered the BioDome and I saw what my teacher said was a fogbow. I loved it. But I didn't tell anyone else. It was our secret.

That was a special day for other reasons too. Unlike the fogbow that didn't move once I stopped walking, I thought I saw a shadow moving outside the BioDome. It was an indistinct shadow... barely moving at all.

I saw shadows again that afternoon near the waterworks, and again the next day.

That's also when I started hearing the odd humming rhythm within the hum of the geothermal plant's regular ebb and flow. I listened for two days, but couldn't find the source of the sound. It was everywhere. I tried to copy the rhythm with a stick on a wall. And then it stopped.

Today I sit on the ledge, staring past the BioDome's thick transparent walls.

Nothing.

... and then it happened. I screamed! It was a sound I'd never really heard before, a true scream, because I'd never really been surprised. Not recently anyway.

Today there is someone there. A boy, maybe. Just outside the walls.

He didn't hear me scream.

It was then that I doubted how sensible I'd been to choose such an isolated place in the BioDome. No one would hear the scream.

No one.