| I walked on the beach alone that night; I thought of how we had smiled at the fish monger as he weighed out ten pounds of head~on shrimp for us; the many colorful fishing boats, so much bounty of the sea and all around us the sights and smells of the old seven nine wharf where we had first laid eyes upon one another; where we had first seen each other that first day; a lobster, red from the boiling pot, lay before us as the boy plucked its claws off one by one and offered us a drink from his leather flask which he uncorked and held out to us as if he thought she and I were together; intuitively, as if rehearsed, as if we had practiced the moment for months, we played along; we met that day; our two wayward lonely hearts intertwined instinctively and at that moment on a spinning blue sea~world in the vast and limitless void of the cosmos became what is known to those who speak the language as one soul; I know clam shells are hard to pry open sometimes, so I didn't mind that she seemed difficult to get to know; it was always as if she were very close to me, yet, distant somehow; I felt her reach for me, then pull away in confusion a thousand times, but I just assumed she was battling with some inner conflict which in time, when she was ready, she would share with me; how could I have known that it was so much of a mystery as to be bewildering even to her; how could I have possibly known that she only remembered bits and pieces of what, unbeknownst even to her, had happened during her earliest years of puberty; how could I have had even the slightest notion of what they had done to her; they, them, those from so far away; why had they come here in the first place?? why had they chosen her?? why did they have to pick her of all people?? my one, my only, my true love, my only hope of ever being happy, my only hope of eternal life; they did choose her and they did erase her memory; her memory of them; her memory of what they had done to her; it would sometimes come at night; the bits and pieces that weren't entirely washed from her mind's attic; those dusty, musty bits and pieces which rose from the depths of her subconscious at random to haunt and terrify us; I wanted to sooth her, to comfort her, to let her know that I wanted to share in her dark secret; she knew I did, I think she knew; there at the end everything was getting so frantically mixed up because the bits and pieces were coming with greater frequency and clarity; she even began to remember other times, I think; other times when she had been chosen by others who came in beams of plasma from places far away in the distance; far away in both space and time; they all came for her; one by one, sooner or later; those travelers from afar; they all came to her; they all chose her; there was something about her that drew them to her; something deep inside her which only they and the one other of her kind who was her soul~mate could see; finally..........finally, she just couldn't stand it any longer; she couldn't endure another examination; another diagnosis; another special center for observation and relaxation; the rehabs were becoming a useless mockery of what little remained of her sanity; I knew the end was near when I saw those marks begin to appear on her forehead; I knew that soon she would be gone forever; so I took her back to the seafood market; that open air of salty sea moisture where we first met under the rainbow awning; the bright umbrellas of the seven nine wharf; the gulls, the porpoises, the smell of hemp rope and patching tar basted on the old wooden hulls of the fishing schooners; the nets strung for drying and repair; she would see me one last time before she departed; she would hold me close to her tortured self one final moment before the beam of light made her do it; the sharks were in an unusually vicious feeding frenzy that day; the gulls screamed louder than ever; the head and entrails of countless tuna were being dumped off the end of the old seven nine; so many sharks; so much blood in the water; I didn't know she hurt so bad; I didn't know she wanted an end to the nightmare so much that she would walk one step farther than the wharf measured in length; they never came again after that; after she did it; they left, but I think they are watching..........waiting...........maybe they think she might be hiding somewhere; maybe they think they'll find another such as her; I think they are far away, but I think they watch from a distance; they watch; they wait; they shall never return for there shall never be another like my precious Alice; the Alice of my Wonder~Land of Love *~V8~*+ |
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