"Boy," barked the Captain, "do you smell it?"
"Aye, sir."
"Tell me then, from which way does the wind blow?"
"'Tis as an easterly wind, sir."
"Indeed it is. An easterly wind. Yet we're dancing with serpents in the heart of the Atlantic, with thousands of miles of sea to bow and stern. What might I smell if not the salty delicacies of Atlantis?"
The young lad of sixteen said nothing.
"Boy!" said the Captain, "You've hardly said a word since I let you onto this ship. You can pay your way with gold and get along with me just fine, but the crew gets jittery with strangers who don't wag their tongues often enough or spill the lard on a secret or two."
"I'm not a boy, sir."
"Of course you are. Men don't stand and sulk on a ship. And then there's that long face of yours. If I must, I'll take a blade to your cheeks and carve out a smile if you don't soon part with the somber mood. Now tell me, boy, what is the smell?"
The lad, obviously not a sailor himself, stood alongside the Captain on the quarterdeck of a splendid Brigantine. He gazed out across the vast ocean and said nothing.
"Look at me for a moment, would you?" The Captain smiled a gold-toothed grin and continued. "What do you see? I am no leftenant in the Royal Navy, though I could out sail every ship and sailor in it. I captured this vessel in the waters south of Dominica from the weak wrists of the King's laughable seafarers, who, incidentally are feeding the fish as we speak. Now I'm a terror to the lubbers who sail my seas. I am the mightiest of men, feared by the brave, envied by cowards, god to the womenfolk, and I'm shiny with the color of George's gold. I won't be ignored by a piece of shark bait such as yourself. So tell me of this bedeviled aroma, or make up a story."
The boy inhaled deeply, as though caught in a memory of a day long before the ocean became his world, but he remained quiet.
"I have a guess then," the Captain said, puffing out his chest and turning to his crew. "'Without much to go on, and based on her obvious lust for one of my stature, I believe the smell belongs to the sweet cunt of Sophia, Duchess of George's prick, calling me once again to her bed." All the sailors behind him laughed their merry laughs.
"Such talk is treasonous, sir," the lad said.
"Ah, he speaks! But he wastes his breath. My whole life is treason, boy. Don't you see? It's how I make a living. Of course, it's hardly treason if I swear no allegiance to a crown. What do you take me for? Some filthy privateer?"
"I wasn't judging you, sir, and I offer no fealty to Britain. Perhaps I should have used the word blasphemy."
"Blasphemy against whom?"
"Against me."
The Captain's face wrinkled. "Are you a god then, boy? You don't have the appearance of a god. At least none worth worshipping."
"No, sir. I am not a god."
"Then do explain. I'm fascinated. After all, we've got nowhere to bloody go, and you didn't have enough gold to sail without working off some of the cost, so why not earn your fare with a story or two? We all love childish tales."
The lad straightened his back to address the Captain. "'The aroma you so casually impugn," he said with his own sense of majesty, "is the enchantment of my love, blown down from the Highlands, haunting me every league we traverse, guiding me where I need to go. When you joke, when you tease, you tarnish her memory, to which I take offense."
"Ah!" the Captain barked, glancing across the vessel to share his amusement with the crew. "Did you hear that, mates? The boy takes offense. So, boy, if I muse that your Scottish lass once descended from the highlands to kiss and stroke my cock, what would we have then? Mutiny? A duel? Shall I begin with a pun and unsheathe my sword?"
The lad said nothing, obviously disappointed. He gazed seaward with a melancholy stare, determined to accomplish something but unwilling to hint at what the something might be.
"And that sound I hear," said the Captain. "The sound that has followed us from port half way across the world… Is that her, too?"
"Yes, sir. That is her voice singing on the wind…"
"Very well," said the Captain, watching the boy with a sideways glance, half expecting this strange lad to become a sea serpent and drown them all, or to perhaps peel back has face like a mask to reveal King George himself complete with an army of soldiers leaping out of his skull. "I won't apologize to a bloody moron," the Captain continued, "but, as absurd as your tale may be, you seem sincere, and I'll hold my tongue if it's important. But I want a story. So tell me of your lass, or I'll hang you by your tongue from the mizzen."
The lad's chin lifted. His eyes peered to the east, to the invisible shorelines of a distant island. "Her name is Emma Elizabeth," he said, still gazing north.
"I'm an old impatient bastard," the Captain droned. "Make it quick."
"She is the daughter of a merchant who sided with the Spaniards in the Battle of Glen Shiel. Do you remember it?"
"Of course."
"The Spaniards lost to the British, and Emma's father fled to the Highlands where he learned to navigate the commercial waters of this so-called United Kingdom. Are you following?"
"I caution you not to insult me, boy."
The lad smiled. His voice suddenly took on a less somber tone, and his posture became more authoritative. The Captain knew he had stumbled upon a topic of importance to the boy, who continued. "His fortune grew quickly, and in the Gàidhealtachd, on the Isle of Skye, amid the rolling greens and the bluest seas, he commissioned the building of a castle. It was to be a grand castle, outfitted with spires and arches and lofty parapets, perched on a hilltop where it could be seen for miles.
"Unfortunately for him, aristocracies frown on overindulgent displays of new wealth, especially by those who had sided with an enemy, and soon, after word had spread that construction had begun on the castle, his business went dry. The governors of every port voided his contracts. His ships were too long at sea, forbidden to enter friendly harbors. His supply chain faltered, his cargo withered, and his buyers vanished. He became bitter and rebellious. He spent less and less time cultivating opportunities and more time tucked away in his castle, which in many places lacked completed walls or roofs.
"Emma was thirteen years old then. Her mother had died five years earlier giving birth to the couple's fourth stillborn child. Emma was left by herself to chart a path through a confusing world, alone in the shadows of the souring temperament of a despondent man who died a year later."
The Captain grunted. "You speak too worldly for your age, boy."
"I read a lot. But I know only what she told me, and I use the words she used. Of course, I can only speak them, because my song is not as wonderful as hers. She is a goddess of language, of arts, of nature, a goddess of the land and the seas and all the gulls that soar above the shore."
"Impressive feats for someone her age," the Captain laughed. "Or perhaps, and much more likely, the hyperbole of youthful lust. But how did you come to know this lady of mystery hiding in a roofless castle?"
"My father is a printer in Glasgow, commissioned by the crown to gather local sentiment and draft it into dispatches. He publishes pamphlets and dailies and delivers them to various outposts throughout the kingdom, where they're read by magistrates and governors before soldiers carry the news to London. I've been reading those dispatches for years, fresh off the press, occasionally getting a hand slapped across my rear for discovering a misspelled word. When my father tired of such unsolicited editorial work, he let me travel with the couriers. What joy it was to walk the world, to meet fellow journeyman, to spend a night in a quiet tavern reading a book by the common room fire. Eventually, I became a courier myself, but I still spend as much time as possible at home, teasing my father about misspellings." A nostalgic smile crept across the lad's face, but it quickly disappeared. "Last summer I had several months of dispatches to deliver near Fort William, in the Western Highlands. It's beautiful there. Have you seen it?"
"Is it on the water?"
"No."
"Then I haven't seen it, you fishbrained fool."
"The hills are green and lush. On most mornings, a fog dips into the valleys. As you walk, you disappear into white worlds of emptiness until the grade turns uphill, and you emerge again on the opposite shore of an ocean of mist. You can feel the sunlight, taste the dew in the air, hear birds singing the glories of flight. Or, if you're lucky, you can hear a woman singing, and you marvel at her voice as it tickles your ears. You wonder if perhaps you're near the mighty archways of Heaven, and if all the angels of eternity have silenced themselves in the presence of this voice, intimidated by the song of the afterworld's greatest Siren. She is calling to you, singing to you, begging for you to find her and satisfy her, and yet she is no Siren at all but a Muse, a Muse of the highest order, a Muse who will devote herself to your cause and never cease to inspire. That voice, that Siren, that Muse, that beauty is what I heard on my way to Fort William."
"You have the tongue of a poet, boy."
"Thank you."
"I hate poets. They waste my time and make me think too much. Get on with the bloody story and cut out the garbage."
"Visitors, as Emma called them, though she meant thieves and brigands, often rifled through her father's castle after he died. They would use it as shelter. They would search for hidden coins in the basements and tunnels. Too often, they would stay for days or weeks, loitering in the ruins of her life. She lived there alone, and she had no desire to be discovered. Instead, she walked the forests and the hills until they departed. Sometimes she walked for weeks. As I said, the castle stood on the Isle of Skye, some seventy miles from Fort William. She knew the lands in that area better than any courier I've met.
"She was out on such an adventure, singing to the butterflies and dandelions, when I appeared out of the fog near Fort William. I never saw her. To be honest, I thought her voice was a trick of my mind. Sometimes, out of pure boredom, I invent beautiful girls with whom to mingle."
"Well, we're all guilty of that," the Captain laughed. "Look there, I'm doing it now. And what a lovely wench she is."
"We met on my return from Fort William. She was seventeen years old. She had lived alone for three years, speaking only to shadows and ghosts. When I reached a bend in the path, she emerged from behind a stand of bushes. She would later tell me in song that I looked considerably younger than I was, especially from a distance, and if she had known I was closer to twenty than ten, she would never have shown herself.
"When I saw her, I said Hello, but she didn't answer. I stood still as a signpost, staring at this beautiful girl in the middle of nowhere. Again I said Hello. This time she smiled, but she didn't speak."
The Captain's bushy eyebrows lifted. "Didn't speak? I thought she was a whore of language or some such nonsense."
"Not a whore!" the boy said. "A Goddess. A Goddess of language. But she had spent too many years alone, too much time forgotten by her father and secluded after his death. The art of conversation had slipped from her experience and no longer inhabited her world. But she could sing. And the awkwardness of our silence ended when she did so. Her song began as a whisper. It was a song of greeting, a song of courage. I could barely hear the words, but the melody conveyed calm and confidence. She approached and held her hand to me. I took it.
"I told her who I was, and she sang to me her name. I told her why I was there, and she sang to me memories of her family. I marveled at her voice and told her so. She smiled and sang louder. As we walked, she sang of the trees and the flowers. She sang of the deer and the groundhogs, of the antelope and bullfrogs. She spun the world into vibrancy and introduced me to flora and fauna I'd never noticed in my travels. We raced across fields and under trees. We stared at clouds, and she sang of brilliant castles in the heavens where sunlight beamed from within and shadows found no shelter. On unfamiliar shorelines, we gazed across the icy water. She sang of colorful worlds beneath the waves, of faeries and seafolk and bubbly realms of curiosity where evil was forbidden. We slept under the constellations, each with its own song, and she sang of the stars and the worlds they inhabited, worlds that were always bright, always beautiful, and always hopeful. My journey to Fort William complete, I let the day of my return home slip further into the distance. I would walk wherever Emma led me, and I did so for weeks, and they were the best weeks of my life."
"You're young yet," the Captain laughed.
"No," said the boy. "I was young then. Eight months can sometimes prove an eternity."
"I imagine it's been eight months since you began this story. Get on with it."
"We never really talked, but we communicated. I with words, she with song. At some point, I asked where she lived. Surely she couldn't wander aimlessly all the time. She never dropped her eyes or let hopefulness slip from her face, but she grew stern and solemn, and she took my hand to lead me. She began to sing the long history of her family, reciting tragedy after heartbreak after tragedy often without emotion. The song would last days.
"Near Glenelg, on the banks of the Sound of Sleat, we came upon a small boat she frequently used to cross the channel, and we rowed the short distance to Kyle Rhea. From there we headed north, climbing higher until we found a footpath in the trees that led to a hilltop. In the distance, high upon a peak, stood her father's glorious castle, resplendent and majestic despite collapsed walls and unfinished towers. We gazed at it for hours, during which I could barely hear her breathe. I grew impatient, but she was watching for people. Soldiers. The King's men, or brigands, though both behaved in a similar fashion. She was not afraid, but nor was she was stupid.
"We traveled quickly and quietly after that. I saw no signs of people. She kept us in the shadows, navigating through the trees on footpaths and animal tracks. I saw nothing more of the castle until we passed through a thicket and suddenly it stood before us tall and mighty. From up close, it was enormous and as fully realized as any other castle, even after I had seen the missing parapets and crumbled towers from a distance. We ignored the main gate and entered through a heavy oak door at the base of the southeast wall.
"We snaked through endless tunnels. Whenever she heard creaks from a darkened hall or the skittering of invisible creatures below, she stopped and waited until the sound failed to repeat itself.
"I have seen many castles, but being inside one felt strange and creepy. Or maybe the creepiness was native to this particular castle. Entire sections of roof were missing. The stone floor beneath the canopy had been worn and weathered by rain that dripped between the cracks. I imagine many years from now there will be pools of water beneath those gaps, as if the architect had designed grand arboretums with baths no deeper than your ankles. Nevertheless, I enjoyed every moment of exploration, and I ignored the creepiness, because Emma was there with me, and this was her home.
"She showed me her father's private rooms. He had built a grand library, but any books that might have lined its shelves had been stolen or used for kindling on cold nights. He had a study, with a writing desk covered in dried, spilled ink. His rooms all lacked character and personality. Maybe because he never finished building the castle, or maybe because by the time his health abandoned him, his character was long dead.
"I imagine the rest of the castle was the same as any other. Sculleries and stairwells, a portcullis – rusted shut and covered in vines! But there is one room I remember more than all others, one room at the pinnacle of the unfinished tower that haunts me with its splendor, though that splendor was short-lived. Because the tower had not been finished, the room's only ceiling was the starlit sky of night or the overcast canopy of morning. On sunny days, the room's infinite peak birthed a landscape of brilliant blues and glorious whites. And the aromas... Beyond description. The room swam in nature's most harmonious scents, a cornucopia of smell, unblemished by the murky damp odors infesting the castle's interior. This is where she spent most of her time, sheltered in a castle but free to breath the open air. This the essence of Emma Elizabeth, that marvelous aroma wafting in the wind, the smell you so casually impugn."
"Yes, well," stammered the Captain, "It has no business wafting or stinking or doing much of anything on my ocean."
"But this is how I will find her…" said the boy. "I will follow her song and her scent until it leads me to her."
"That's absurd, boy."
"We spent endless weeks in and around that castle. I learned everything there was to learn about her family. She learned the same of mine. We shared dreams. We shared food. We shared baths. Over the course of months, our existences became intertwined, and neither of us went long beyond the sight of the other. At some point we kissed, and from there we bonded more intimately."
"You bonded intimately? What bloody talk is that? You plucked her! Say it. You cocked her just as I will cock the King's wife should I have the chance. Learn how to tell a bloody story before I kill you and take a nap."
The lad ignored him. "Up in that tower, bathed in the natural aroma of beauty, naked together beneath the Heavens. The songs she sang for me that night..."
"Ha!"the Captain shouted. "Now those we know well, don't we boys?" The crew cheered.
"In any case, by then it was half a year since I should have returned home. I hadn't intended to let so much time pass, but there were no jobs or duties in that castle beyond finding food, nothing to regulate your time or mark a calendar. I worried my father might think me dead, so I decided to send him a letter. I wasn't about to leave. I would have asked Emma to return home with me, but she was clearly not ready. The next morning I would venture out in search of a courier who might pass by the castle. The trick would be finding a courier instead of a band of soldiers.
"I remember Emma's face that next morning. Sunlight streamed into the bedroom from a gap in the wall where stone had fallen away. She was asleep, and in that warm light she glowed like an angel. So beautiful, so peaceful. I like to think she was dreaming of me, but I doubt it. More likely, she dreamt of a faraway land where her family lived together, safe from the rain and the cold and the ruffians of the world, free from loneliness and death, free from pain. Waking her from that dream was out of the question, so I whispered goodbye and kissed her cheek. I'll never forget her face that morning, because I haven't seen it since."
The Captain turned. "Haven't seen her since? What happened?"
The boy smiled. It was a dark, bittersweet smile. "Are you entertained now, Captain?"
The crew gasped. Beneath thick brows, the Captain's eyes narrowed. "Is this a game then, boy?"
"You asked me to tell a story or make one up. Can you guess which path I chose?"
Many years of battling at sea had taught the Captain to recognize emotion in the faces of his enemies: the lackadaisical stares of practiced brigands tired of routine, the wide-eyed terror of virgin raiders, the begrudging frown of the mercenary who expected an unfairly large share of the bounty -- not that an enemy had ever successfully looted the Captain's ships. Armed with his experience, the Captain could guess at the boy's sudden turn. The squinting, the smirking...
"You are either a madman," said the Captain, "or a brilliant fool to taunt me on my own ship. But finish your story before I guess. Rarely does fact live up to the craft of the storyteller. But do not embellish for my sake. Tell me the truth, or tell me a tale, but make me believe. Then perhaps I will let you live."
The boy's demeanor calmed somewhat. He turned his gaze back to the sea. "I love her."
"Bloody hell, we get that!"
"I spent the day scouting the roads, searching for a courier without luck. At sunset, once I had conceded and begun my return to the castle, I saw a figure to the west. The setting sun sat balanced on the horizon like a fiery ball on a bronze shield, and the figure stood silhouetted against it. I could see neither face nor features nor clothing nor insignia. I knew it was a man by his posture and the shape of his shadow.
"I called out, 'Hello!', but he failed to answer. As I approached him, the shadows became more transparent, more revealing, and when they vacated completely I saw his uniform, the red and blue of the royal army. Panic set it, but I felt no need to flee. Without question I could outrun the man, or lose him in the trees and bushes before he fired his musket.
"'Hello,' I shouted again. He offered a welcoming smile and waved his hand to draw me near. His musket hung on a strap across his back, and his decision to leave it there should have been a warning. Who wouldn't protect himself in that situation without other means of protection? He waved me over again, and I saw movement behind him in the brush, followed by more movement to his left and right. At least four men hid just off the road, and I knew they had their aim because I saw the glint of metal beneath their faces.
"Maybe I shouldn't have hesitated. Maybe I should have been willing to face their questioning and prevent everything that followed. Instead, I spun to flee, and I felt a blunt thud that sent me to my knees. It wasn't musketfire. No. Two other soldiers had come up behind me and cracked my skull with the butt of a pistol. I stared at their boots until the world went black."
The lad turned from the sea, his eyes narrowing. "Tell me, Captain. Have you ever dreamt of Hell, knowing without doubt you were awake?"
"Perhaps."
"My eyes were closed, but I didn't sleep. Paved stone pushed against my back. My legs were bound together, and I felt iron rings clamped around each wrist. When I yanked on them, I heard the clank of iron, and the rings dug into my skin when the chain pulled taught. I almost opened my eyes to fight, but then I heard the screams. Where was I? Who was screaming? And why did I know her voice? Why did I feel her fear? Why, at that moment, did I stop fearing men or demons or gods alike? What Hell had I fallen to? What Hell would I need to escape? And from what Hell must I save her?
"Every moment on that floor, every pull against my chains, every agonizing scream from the darkness, forced me to realize a simple truth: I could do nothing. I was as helpless to save Emma or free myself as I had been to resist her song. So I opened my eyes.
"Castle walls surrounded me. I knew the dark stone, the water stained streaks, the hollow sound of the empty spaces. I began to feel the old murky dampness that somehow eluded me with my eyes shut. They had returned me to the castle. In a way, they had returned me to Emma. But always I heard the screams. Not far away yet impossibly distant. Her voice grew ragged. Too often, she would moan painfully in a horrid rhythmic manner, and I would hear the slap of flesh on flesh, the growling grunt of whatever beast had thrust himself upon her. I would have called to her, but they had gagged me with a foul piece of cloth.
"I'll never know how long I was there, listening to her suffer. She would grow quiet after long bouts of screaming. I heard doors opening and closing, footsteps going in and out of various rooms. They slapped her frequently. Punched her, too, I assume, when her screams grew too loud. I didn't know how many men came and went, but I had seen at least 6 on the road. I didn't want to think what that might mean for Emma.
"A lifetime later, the door to my prison opened. The man who entered wiped his hands with a rag, cleaning himself off, smiling a dastardly smile beneath a forehead wet with perspiration. He laughed at me, told me she was as beautiful and spirited as I had written."
The lad looked up at the Captain. "It had all been my fault, you see?"
The Captain nodded. "Your letter."
"To my father. They found it in my pocket, read it, and went off to find my singing goddess in the castle. But she would not sing for them. And so they made her scream."
The lad lowered his head. The Captain had no sharp words of rebuke. In the rolling waves of a quiet ocean, the crew on the Captain's brigantine listened silently, perhaps imagining their wives back home, or the daughters they hadn't seen for years. The boy stood above a shelf lined with sacks of musket shot, and he ran his fingers carefully over one of those bags as though caressing the beaten face of the woman he loved. The Captain hoped the lass's skin had been a bit less coarse.
"Anyway," the boy said, looking back to the sea, listening to the faint song on the wind, "the soldier kicked me in the gut and vanished. That's when she began to sing. Softly. Sweetly. She sang to me of the sky above her tower, the roofless ceiling of her dreams, of how it lifted her up to the clouds and let her mind drift above the oceans to avoid acknowledging her earthly torture.
"The song drove me mad. Still alone in that damp chamber, hands and feet bound in chains, I starved, I thirsted. The hours passed with hazy ordeals of delusion as I dreamt of rescues and heroics and touching Emma's cheek, or hair, or breast. She sang through her agony, telling me they had taken her away, breaking my soul into a thousand shards of shattered pain, as fierce as the sun above her tower on a cloudless day, burning and blinding like a hot iron through the heart. I saw her above me, naked and bleeding near the ceiling's stone. Every time she drifted close, I reached for her until the chains fountained blood from the veins in my wrist. I felt the pain lessen until our fingers almost touched. But always she would vanish, and I would hear her screams, and her song would tell of travels south slung over a saddle, and I would wail and cry and curse at the ghosts in my prison tomb. My passions ignited. My hate flared. My anger burned hot enough to warm the room and drive out the dampness. The only way to alleviate the waking nightmares was to slam my head against the stone beneath me, hoping a close proximity to death could replace the bleak nature of fury.
"When the door opened, I was too deluded to understand my fortune. I was too enraged to behave rationally. In my mind, the world consisted of three types of people: the stolen, the imprisoned, and the demons howling between them. The man who freed me from the chains, according to my new worldview, fell into the last category, and as I sat up I eyed him like the demon he must have been. I rubbed my wrists and ankles where the chains had cut me. I smiled up at him. He handed me bread, and I fed myself. He gave me his canteen, and I drank. With a wet rag, he wiped the dirt from my face. I heard none of the words he spoke, or if I did, they were the garbled taunts of a devil, and so I paid them no heed.
"When my rescuer sat beside me and took a sip from his canteen, the same canteen with which he had relieved my parched throat, I lunged at him. My weak arm held enough strength to drive my fist into his ear. The canteen fell sloshing to the stone. He had been too surprised to react. I was quickly atop him, screaming in my own demonic dialect. My fingers twisted through his hair. It was dirty, greasy, and, once I smashed his head into the stone a few dozen times, bloody. I fell into his blood, and it pooled around the two of us. I rolled over in it, found his canteen, and drank more. Then I slept, for the devil knows how long, bathing in the fluid of the man who had saved my life.
"When I woke with enough energy to stand, I did so. To this day, I cannot tell you who my rescuer was, and at the time I didn't care. He wore traveling clothes, with a simple bag and walking stick. Perhaps he was a courier, like myself, or maybe a wanderer seeking shelter in the castle. The only indicator of consequence I noticed was the blue cloth poking out of his bag with Saint Andrew's Cross stitched across it. A fellow Scot. If I were to express remorse now, it would be genuine, but I cared so little then that I didn't linger to discover more about the man I murdered.
"I followed Emma's song on the wind. It was always faint, difficult to decipher, but it never ceased. When the wind gusted, I heard her pain. When the breeze crested a hilltop, warm with the heat of the sun, I knew she slept, though the song came as the whispered breaths of a woman dreaming. Through glens and valleys, over rivers and under trees, I listened to her song and tasted her scent in the air.
"The band of soldiers moved quickly, but I pursued them with wild determination. Day and night, with only enough rest to maintain energy and heighten my rage, I crossed the lands of my country not with the new sight of a man in love, but with the blind passion of a scorned soul primed for vengeance. I slept in the grasses, bypassed the towns. Once or twice I begged for food. Or stole it. Most often I went hungry. I'm certain the men stayed in Fort William for a time, but when I reached its borders, I knew from Emma's song they had moved south. From there I passed Helensburgh, skirted countless Lochs, climbed a thousand hills, and in my fantasies killed half a dozen English troops half a dozen times. I followed them west of Glasgow, but I entertained no thoughts of visiting home. My father likely thinks me dead, so it would have been a service to him to pay a visit, but the thought never penetrated the armor of my rage.
"By the second week, I was closing in on Kilmarnock, and from there I turned to the sea. Her song grew loudest near the sea, and I traced it through the ports at Troon and Prestwick, all the way to Ayr. You know Ayr, Captain."
"Some of the finest shoemakers in the world," the Captain laughed.
"The heavy drink and whores of a port town. The dilapidated wood buildings, damp and mildewed. The rotting stench of slaughtered fish."
"Bloody hell. Why must you paint with such vile colors the very things I most cherish?"
"In Ayr, I found everything I imagined. Everything but Emma. Her song echoed through the narrow streets and rang out with the church bells. From one tavern to the next, I inquired about a band of King's men who might have passed through, but no one had seen them. I asked merchants in the square. Most admitted they knew nothing and appeared in every way sincere. Others grew quiet and nervous and peered at the shadows before belching a curt, deep-throated, 'No.'
"After many days of searching, I grew disenchanted. I began to wonder if, in my delusion, I had invented her song, if it was illusory, imagined, and if the natural smell of her beauty, powerful enough at times to overpower the reek of the fishmongers, was nothing but the ordinary scent of Scotland that I had, in a moment of passion, bequeathed to the very object of my most lustful desires. Or worse, I imagined she sang to someone other than me.
"I had no money. The little I carried with me on my travels had been stolen by the soldiers. Now, I slept in the alleys. I cried under the docks when the fishermen went to sea. No one had heard nor seen the men I sought. Nor had they glimpsed the woman I described. I wondered if perhaps my descriptions were flawed. Had I drawn too nasty a sketch of the soldiers? Had I painted Emma in colors brighter than those to be witnessed on the face of a ravaged soul?
"Soon my rage weakened. My fury dissipated, as it must with the passing of time. I felt demoralized. Saddened. What god would let us suffer to such an extent? What devil could birth men so rotten as those soldiers and so hopeless as me? After one particularly terrible night during which I slept in the muddy, bloody, smelly drainage of the previous day's slaughtered catch, I decided to give up. To go home.
"Then I heard her song anew. Already on the sea, it would seem, growing distant, she sang of ships and waves and currents dragging her toward the serpents of the deep. She sang frantically, in a higher pitch, inventing melodies of fear and torment.
"I raced to find a ship that would carry me westward, but I had no coin, and I had never seen gold, let alone held it, and could therefore not offer it in return for passage. I tried for days. I begged sailors to sneak me aboard. I pulled at the breeches of captains, forced them to drag me, pleading for help until they kicked my head enough times to shake me loose. Every tavern on the wharf, filled with sailors and merchants gambling and drinking and laughing, delivered me back to the streets bereft a ship and with no greater hope of reaching Emma. When I found myself seeking out whores from whom to borrow money, I knew I had sunk to the very bottom. When they laughed at me and kicked me in the groin, I discovered that bottoms are relative things."
The lad let his chin fall. His fingers once again traced the rack lined with sacks of musket shot. The Captain asked, "How many days passed before you found me?"
"Five."
"And where did you get the gold? A wealthy whore?"
"I stole it."
"How romantic! He robs a whore to save a woman. Irony is the gift of a good storyteller, boy. You show promise."
"I didn't steal it from a whore. And I cannot save Emma."
"Why not?"
"Can't you hear her song? She sings from the depths. Leagues must separate her lips from the air. Her words are muffled by an ocean of death. I heard them rape her. I heard them abuse her. I heard her die. Now I hear the melodic epitaph, the faint acknowledgement of loss, and I smell her on the sea. But I will not give up. I will not leave her to die alone. When the song ends, when the aroma flees the air and her taste leaves my lips, I will have found her."
The Captain shook his head as if shaking sand from his beard. "Bloody nonsense, boy. The rolling ship has you drunken mad. You can't hear any of that in a song on the wind, but I applaud your story. It has kept me entertained. I had intended to simply take your gold and kill you, but I suppose I might let you live after having played the bard so well."
"Don't you want to know where I got the gold?"
"Didn't I say as much? Not that I care."
The boy looked up at the Captain. "I stole it off a drunk pirate in Ayr with his cheek plastered to a table, and then I used it to bargain my way aboard his ship." He pulled a sack of coins from his pocket and flung it to the Captain, who immediately recognized it as his own.
"Bloody liar," the Captain said, impressed but furious. "So you have nothing?"
The lad smiled his sad smile and turned back to the sea. The Captain was thinking it might be nice to bash that face with a bag of musketshot when suddenly the boy's face came alive.
Before the Captain could run him through with a cutlass, a call came from the lookouts. Knowing the safety of his ship came before personal vengeance, the Captain somewhat hesitantly raced to the bow. "What's the problem?"
"There, Captain," shouted one sailor, whose finger followed a spiraling fountain of steam as it slid from bow to starboard not two fathoms from the ship.
"What is it, Captain?" another sailor asked.
"I haven't a clue," he answered. And then he heard the silence. A shattering quiet as the seas flattened and the song that had chased them from shore faltered. Around the twirling spiral of steamy saltwater, the ocean stilled, the air failed to blow and the sails to billow. Also of note, the smell of grasses had disappeared, leaving behind the familiar odors of salt and gull droppings. The Captain knew what it all meant, but he was too slow to act.
A splash astern spun his head around.
"Man overboard!," a sailor shouted. Three men and the Captain all leaned over the starboard railing, searching for signs of the storytelling lad, but they saw only the trailing bubbles of a sinking soul. Several sacks of musket shot had gone over the rail with the boy. The Captain doubted they went over accidentally.
Men scrambled to spot life on the surface or below it, but nothing moved near the spiral of steamy warmth. At least five sailors acted as though they would jump in to attempt a rescue, but the odd steaming cyclone scared them enough to dampen their sense of responsibility.
"What is it, Captain?" someone shouted, followed by a chorus of questions. "Did it suck him in? Will it suck us all in? Why aren't the sails blowing?" But the Captain could say nothing nor do anything. The boy's tale began to replay itself in his head, and it would never stop.
Before long, the steam subsided. The wind blew, the sails bellowed, the men gave up their search, and the ship regained its course. The Captain would, over time, convince his men the boy was an illusion, a sea monster of sorts, the result of too much drink and too many days at sea. The boy's legend would grow, and his tale would spread with every new telling on every visited shore.
The Captain's own mind, however, would never shed the memory. Often he would catch himself listening to the wind, hoping to hear the fleeting lamentations of a Scottish lass, if only to convince himself the song he once heard was something other than what a dead boy had claimed.
Eventually, he would grow mad from the constant wonder. He'd put a pistol to his ear and shoot his brains into the ocean. Had he lived a thousand years, the winds of Scotland would never again have sung to him.
I might have loved a southerner, but you can never be sure.
I might have loved her years ago, the day we met at a bookstore on Bourbon Street. She teased with a glance and mocked with a smirk. She was bronzed and beautiful, long-legged, well-postured with a chin raised to demean and disillusion a line of ill-prepped suitors. Together, in a stuffy aisle, lost amid the mazes of that musty book heaven, we reached for separate copies of the same novel. I smiled at the coincidence. She simply raised a brow.
Later we sipped tea on a patio in the humid salty air. I perspired in the sun. She, in a white dress that danced to the music of a non-existent breeze, did not. I spoke with the hesitant thoughtfulness of a man reaching beyond his means. She spoke with an indiscriminate twang in her meter. Around us, I noticed lively interest, the ogling eyes of dangerous folk, scheming men plotting to steal from me a woman who would belong to no one. When I made her laugh, we all felt the shockwave, the invisible pulse of energy that radiated from her smile. Then came the inevitable backdraft, the pull that sucked every scheming heart into a fiery furnace of longing.
Yet despite the waves of lust lapping the sandy beaches of her beauty, despite the wealthy connoisseurs of finery and the sleekly dressed dealers of power who mingled in the shadows of our periphery, she agreed to meet me another day, at another bookstore, and to spend but a few more minutes of her time with a man who had nothing tangible to offer. I might have loved her then, but you can never be sure.
I might have loved her the next time we met, when the formalities of new exploration failed to hinder the goal of discovery. I charmed as best I could, though I had little practice in the presence of perfection. She, in turn, laughed at my ineloquence, and we goofed around as children might, smiling in the aisles, poking arms with electric fingers, bumping shoulders to flirt with familiarity. She read to me from several books, one of philosophy, one of poetry, and the last a tale of erotic pleasure, which she read with wet lips and a sly grin, her eyes dipping suggestively below my beltline, before she returned the book to the shelf, kissed my cheek, and slipped me her phone number as she disappeared out the door. She made me think in endless sentences and daydream of daydreaming.
We would share several similiar encounters. Always playful, always fun. We dined on various cuisines, but none so savory as the sultry anticipation of licking the other's skin. We attended a booksigning and a play. We watched boat races from the sand, and rode the same horse on a dizzying carousel. We discussed history and literature, politics and science, religion and commerce. Ideas filled our conversation with interest, and attraction filled our dreams with lust. I might have loved her then, but you can never be sure.
I might have loved her the first time I stood alone on a pier, groomed to my best manner of presentation, checking my watch, ignoring the stargazers in the crowd who fondled and groped each other as though the rising tide might drown every chance they ever had at love. The minutes raced by with hours on their heels, and the race ended as it had begun, with me alone amid countless drunken lovers, minus the romance of my own expectations. How easily hope is conquered by fear, or confidence destroyed by jealousy.
Despite the occasional hiccup, we drank our lives to inebriation. Hours together became nights, and nights became days, and friendship mixed with lust, until every moment we shared brimmed with orgiastic fervor. Our conversational style mimicked our lovemaking. Passionate and heated one moment, combative, loud, and breathless, but then calm and thoughtful the next, as intellectual curiosity found us exploring topics of mutual disinterest made exciting by the other's mere presence. We chilled wine in a cooler on the beach as we swam, and chugged beer while dressed in formal attire on a balcony overlooking the Gulf. We skirted the borderline of decency, teased the tassels of good behavior, but walked arm and arm with the elegance of royalty. I might have loved her then, but you can never be sure.
I might have loved her the last time I read her name. Again, alone, dwarfed by an airport window that overlooked planes whose only purpose seemed to be the endless shuttling of lovers back and forth, to and from each other, every day of every year. I expected to see her racing through the terminal, bag in hand, declaring her refusal to let me go and her willingness to join the adventure. At the very least, I thought she'd come to say goodbye. I boarded my flight with my head low, and lowered it further after mindlessly bashing it against an overhead compartment. A voice I barely registered warned me to prepare for departure, but how could I prepare for the pain it would bring? Just then I felt the anxious vibration of a jumping phone, and excitement breathed back into my blood. I pulled the phone from my pocket and saw her name, together with a simple seven letter word that summed up everything and nothing, a farewell to indicate my leaving was nothing more than a footnote on her calendar and nothing worse than good.
And now ours is a tale of soulmates separated, of lovers uncertain. At least, that's how I choose to label it. The chapters of our tale will be filled by the passions of those we encounter, those we enjoy, those who manage to drown our desires beneath oceans of apparent happiness. But the currents of our lives will always let us drift out to the seas of possibility, and I imagine one day we'll drift together again. When happenstance introduces perfect souls, Fate adjusts accordingly. I might have loved a southerner, but you can never be sure.
I certainly love her now.
Imagine if heartbreak was a liquid. Imagine love like poison dripping from our skin, pooling at our feet. We mistake it for something grand. We splash in it, we play, we dance until our pleasures fill the cracks in our loneliness, until the pressure builds, until the waters erupt and soar like geysers. Our fluids mix, our loves mingle, our angers dilute and our passions flow, but when the walls around our fantasies collapse, the ocean drains, and the sands of desolation rise up to meet us.
Only then do we see the poison for what it is. Like tide pools along a jagged shoreline on a moonless night, our heartbreak gathers. In every direction, wherever you step, there is pain. Wherever you feel, there is loss. Wherever you look, there is only the trapped remains of a glorious flood that might have taken us anywhere, but which now confines us within our own porous memories of intimacy.
I know you can imagine that heartbreak, for you are the Muse. You are the ocean and the sands together. You are the thrill of excitement and the wet, cold waters of agony. You inspire and paralyze, motivate and destroy. You are everything and nothing, completely understood and yet forever a mystery. You breathe the liquid of torment. You bathe me in it. You lick it from my skin to tease and pleasure before spitting it back in my face.
But I have quenched my thirst for heartbreak. Now I thirst for something more.
I want the floodwaters to rise again, to rid themselves of poison and pain. I want to drink the liquid you breathe, to cleanse it and purify it. I want everything you are. I want everything you can become. I want to know, to learn, to feel, to teach, to experience. I want to bathe in your elixir and lick it off your skin. I want our passions to mingle, our loves to pool. I want the oceans of us to overflow the levies, to burst the dams, to shine beneath the sun and sparkle in the moonlight.
We can be one and yet share the power of millions. More than you or I. We can inspire ourselves to new realms of expression, to new lands of discovery. We are each an artist and muse, meant to surge above the banks of Heaven and extinguish the fires of Hell. We shall drown the world in our ecstasy, flood it with our creations, and conquer it together.
But first we must start again. Compared to what we can become, what we are is nothing. What we are is unexplored potential, stagnant, like those tide pools in the darkness, waiting for the splash to free us from confinement.
The muse must become something more than simple inspiration, something more than a simple dream, because there is nothing simple between you and I. Down that old path there is but musewater and heartbreak. I want more.
I want you.
The city sleeps. The streets are empty. Why must that be?
Beneath your head, I imagine, sits a pillow atop a bed, and that bed, I imagine, rests on a foundation not too far from a road. That road can take you anywhere. It can lead you to these empty streets.
And these streets need you. The city needs you. It is a universe of potential dreaming to be awake. You can brighten its skies, open its eyes, give voice to the whispers of haunted nights. You can resurrect ancient loves, write melodies for ears that have too long listened to silence. You are the challenge to every idea, the inspiration for romance, the desire that necessitates innovation. You are beauty and intelligence. You are elegance and foundation. You are a peculiarity, a mystery, a singularity of infinite complexity, the type of sophisticated character around whom literature is written, histories are told, languages are invented. You are the force around whom cities grow and societies flourish.
Yours is the soul of a simple lover, but your shadow carries the energies and passions and fears of an entire civilization. You are the pulse, the beating heart, from intimate cafe to skyscraping tower. You are the reason the city exists, the reason it will awaken, the purpose behind every architectural decision ever made.
You are the city. And the city is you. Without one, the other is nothing.
The city, in turn, would offer up every one of its luxuries, every one of its comforts, every one of its dreams, to have you walk its streets. But cities suffer an ignoble dilemma. They cannot easily chase what they desire. They must always recruit from a distance. Imagine if a city were to venture about, flying around as cities might be apt to do when they grow restless, and imagine that city landing square on your small island, causing pain and devastation to a population that loves you. It's not easy to move cities without inflicting pain. So cities stand still, paralyzed, not unwilling to act but uncertain how to do so.
If the mainland builds a bridge to span the distance between city and island, if that road can lead you here, would you take it? Would you consider? Would you step onto the road and whisper your desires in the breeze? Would you tip toe toward the future, hesitant but curious, excited by anxious? You're not the type to tip toe...
Without you, the city will never awaken. The sleeping voices will never sing in the morning light. Histories will fade. Loves will falter. Desolation will prevail.
The city sleeps. Its hearts are broken.
Where is the road? Why aren't you on it? Because you never know... Maybe this city can fly.
When the river crests and the floodwaters birth the wet nasty muck of a shattered life, what thoughts keep you afloat? What angels keep you dreaming? What spirits propel your arms through the current and kick your legs against a dying will? Do not shout to me of a saving grace, of a god's plan, of a savior's compassion. Do not whisper to me the absurd promises of mythological fads or paint rosy pictures of impossibility. Tell me the truth. Tell me the pain. Tell me the ache of longing for empty tomorrows, the human suffering of isolation. What earthly realities raise you from the depths when death is but a new opportunity?
Tell me of a day when fires burn bright, when the kindling of dreams sets alight the path of destiny. Tell me of the lost, of the missed, of the past, and then tell me of a future reclaimed, reinvigorated, bestowed upon us not by the whims of the Imagined but by our own determination. Tell me of your nightmares. The ghosts. The ghouls. The disappointment of loved ones. Tell me of darkness. Tell me of fear. Tell me of a thirst for revenge, reprisals, and reprimands. Tell me of vengeance unleashed on a fairy tale, where lovely maidens sleep forever because all the princes die in battle.
Speak to me of redemption, but bathe it in the cold hues of reality. Cast off the pretense of ancient nonsense. Ridicule the rhetoric of propagandists. Dance at the death of ideologies and spit upon the tombstones. Speak to me of salvation. Speak to me of hope. Speak to me of promise for our children, for ourselves, and for all who care more for each other than for a canon of make believe.
Dream of me tonight. Dream of me forever. Dream of us all, and dream us into happiness. Then tell me all your dreams, but keep them grounded, keep them real, keep them human, and in doing so make them magical.