Butterfly Dreams
Wings: To Live
© Ilah, 2000"What are you?"
I can feel my brows rising. The bluntness of the question startles me and draws forth an equally blunt response. "A man."
I watch her tilt her head, considering. It is not the answer she had anticipated. "But that's not all you are," she protests. "You're more then just 'some guy'."
"Not 'some guy'," I correct mildly. "A man. The first is a colloquialism, the second a species. I am a man." At her continued look of disbelief I nearly laugh. "I was born a man, raised as a man - I have been and always shall be a man." My smile is meant to take the sting from the words and show that I do have a sense of humor about it. "What would you have me say, cara?" I am laughing now, just a little, letting her hear the ridiculousness of the words in all their capitalized, quoted glory. "'The Vampire Caius Marius'?"
"It's who you are," she challenged. "I mean, you're not just like every guy out on the streets. You're a vampire."
"No," I say firmly. "I am a man. A vampire is a created word for a mythical beast that hunted the superstitious man's nights when the world was still a mystery to him." I pause, considering a way to explain it. "A man is not his body, or what is consumed in what manner to sustain that body. What makes a man is here." I touch my fingertips to my forehead, tapping lightly. "Our minds set us apart from the beasts. The vampire may be a part of what I am, but I am not a vampire. I am a man."
The waters on this side of the Mediterranean are warmer then those of my home, lapping against my bare ankles with an almost caressing touch. The smell of the water is still something that I recall clearly, no matter that it is now tinted with the sharp sweet tang of fuel and the cloying scent of tar upon the docks. The base of it remains and I breath it in deeply, letting the familiarity of it soothe me.Clouds have appeared to cover the sky, chasing away any mortals who might otherwise have gathered here, and helping to lower the sometimes oppressive temperature. I have the small marina mostly to myself, and my pick of the boats and vehicles that are available for rent there. I have already chosen my prize - she rocks with the waves at the end of the little pier, gleaming quite and sleek. She is nothing, really, naught but a toy boat meant to entertain tourists, but she has speed and I have been assured that she handles well and that is really all that is required.
Another wave washes across my feet. The water stretches out to the horizon in great, gleaming sheets, dotted here and there - despite the weather - with the bright shapes of intrepid sails. I have wanted, since first I saw them, to join them. To have that freedom upon these waters that were once, in my youth, so forbidding.
I smile, remembering one trip from the shores of Egypt to the safety of mater Italia on a merchant ship, during which I had been nothing but dreadfully ill with every motion of the deck beneath my feet. That affliction is a thing of the past, thank goodness, and the lure of sheer speed, of the rush of wind and wet spray upon one's face as one skips across the waves - that is the siren call that has lured me here.
I step carefully out of the water and turn to climb the small rise to the dock. I might, I suppose, have leapt the distance but I am tired and fatigue makes me unwilling to take unnecessary risks. Which makes what I am doing all the more foolish, but some risks, I reason to myself, are worth it.
One of the dock workers calls to me as I step onto the wooden planks, their rough surface slick with water beneath my feet. He tells me, in broken English, that the weather may become worse. I smile and assure him I shall bring the little boat back before then.
The walk down the pier seems somewhat unreal, a dreamscape painted in the slap of the waves against the thick wooden timbers, all of the little sounds and smells where water meets earth. And then I am there, and the tiny speedboat sways beneath me as I gingerly lower myself to it, the floor of it awash in puddles of cold water that are chill to the touch. The fibers of the rope are rough and prickly, coming loose only reluctantly as I tug on them and toss them back up to the surface of the dock.
And now it is only I, and the boat, and the water.
The rental key fits the starter, the engine vibrating to life and sputtering angrily as I ease the craft away from the pier. Quite plainly it would much rather go faster, furious at being confined to such a pace, and I am only too happy to oblige it. The sputter becomes a roar as I unleash the little engine and with an admirable response to my touch at the wheel the boat is off, across the waves.
It is exactly as I wished, and more.
The spray washes wet through my hair and across my face, cool and sometimes stinging. The wind as the world speeds by makes me narrow my eyes, even behind the lenses of sunglasses, and tugs the loose tie from my hair to send it in disarrayed whips against my face and neck. I am grinning now, a wide, careless grin such as I seldom display, a wordless cry of triumph building in my throat.
This is what it is to live. This is what it is, here, now, to be a man.
The beach is behind me, the horizon of water stretching out before, the roar of my own passing loud in my ears.
And this, as the clouds part for an instant, setting the world alight in the blindingly brilliant rainbow streaks of the midday sun upon the water, a thousand and more colors in every shade of white, is precisely what I wanted.