I felt too old to be searching for seashells, too indifferent to play volleyball, and too proud to make a castle of sand that would only be washed away come high tide. I was at the beach that day anyway because it felt good, sometimes, to be around my kind. All of us together like this, strangers and old friends, tourists and locals, it made me feel… well, the closest thing to faith. Or what I thought faith must feel like. There was something deeply beautiful in the way all our lives overlapped, if only for a day. It was a reminder that we were kindred in a way that ran deeper than blood.
But maybe that’s all lofty talkaround, soulful fluff to avoid the simple admission that sometimes, despite everything I had, everyone I knew and loved, I got lonely. But it wasn’t a bad thing. I think, sometimes, loneliness is how you know you’re really alive. Otherwise you might as well be dreaming, or dead. (I really, really hope there’s no loneliness in death)
I walked down the beach, stopping here and there to say hi to friends. I jumped into the waves often, and on occasion stopped in my tracks to admire a nice shell; there were many treasures exposed by the tide, but I always left them for someone else who might treasure it more. At one point I found a particularly nice sand dollar, which I picked up only temporarily. It was something to twirl around with my telekinesis while my mind wandered to the sound of the waves.
I saw the young prince as I was emerging from the sea. The sun was behind me; its afternoon glow warmed the rich browns of his skin. I didn’t know who he was for sure... but I immediately had my suspicions, and I walked toward him with the notion of confirming them. There was something in the way he walked, something other that whispered to me of inner worlds and rich mysteries, reminded me of the sun kind and his stories. It was in his nose, too, and the big-hearted way he looked at things. I was sure he had no idea he wore that look, no idea that with a single glance I knew he was torn between one place and another, and another, and another. He was overflowing. I knew what that was like.
And then, of course, there were the tattoos. I always found tattoos easier to look at than people themselves. Somehow it felt less personal to look at someone’s skin when it told a tale… though really it was more. I loved tattoos on others, was immediately and deeply intrigued by them, but I would never want one for myself. The best stories were the ones nobody else could see. I carried those with me on the inside, packed them tightly together behind my ribcage. I had always been a private and secretive child. Nobody realized it was because I was selfish, not even (for a very long while) myself.
I wanted to rush up to him and ask if he was Orestes’ boy, and where did his father go, and why? But I was a year older than the colt. At that time in our lives, put in other words, I was twice his age. I approached him with a quiet dignity that contradicted the restless excitement in my eyes. I was not so afraid of putting my heart on display; I wore my contradictions on my shoulders. Yet they only suggested that there was more to uncover, more to be told. I diverged not in two directions, but many.
“Hey you! Catch!” I tossed him the sand dollar I had found earlier. It felt like asking a question, and the answer would lie in whether he caught it or not.
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