you wanted to live forever, but didn't you realize? you had to die to be truly immortalized
I don’t recognize you.
This fact seems of little consequence. I do not answer immediately; perhaps because the stranger’s voice interrupts the wind’s refrain and I had been cat close as I come to peace.
“And I don’t recognize you,” I state, at last. The silence that stretched might have been perceived as impolite, but I did not mean it as such. I only wanted—what? To remain a prisoner of my own thoughts a moment longer?
(I cannot escape the memory—the memory of drowning, the water that rushes in the lungs, the way I could taste my own blood. The pulse of the current, a heartbeat I was within and without).
“I suppose that’s the prerequisite of being strangers,” I add, more sarcastically. The edge of my humor is not harsh, however. “I’m Vercingtorix.”
I have long since stopped giving false aliases. It seems unnecessary. Out at sea, Damascus tucks his quadruple wings and dives. It appears as though he might lunge into the sea; but at the last moment he careens away, snatching from the water a dolphin.
I feel it die, when Damascus swallows it in one deft toss of his head and continues circling. Perhaps he realizes I am not alone, because that circle becomes linear as he steers towards shore.
