Beau
Waterfront Lollygagging
1803, England
Here I sit, on a country dock somewhere. I have no care as to where I am or how I got here or when I will leave. Just merrily I sit, a rare emotion these days, on the edge of the dock with my swinging feet above the water by short length.
Diana told me we will be in England until I feel better. "You will not be returning to France for quite some time. I forbid it," she informed me with no room for wiggling. This I have not a problem with. I think it quite intelligent.
I have not told her what happened in France. I suppose through the grapevine, she knows. Though, she is not one to listen to gossip or to give it any portion of her time. So perhaps she does not know. However, even without knowing, she still senses something awful happened in France. Maybe something to do with the Revolution. Maybe. She knows I have been hurt, that I am not myself. Perhaps this is more obvious, for I am clearly not acting the way she knows me to.
Usually I am a happy lad, bouncing this way and that. I can not scare up any true happiness these days, therefore there is no fuel for the bouncing. There is no fuel for the joy.
I tell myself not to think about anything at all. Just relax, stare at the water. Even with a flat rock poised in my hand for skipping, I can not bring myself to wipe clean my mind as a slate. The water is smooth like glass, no wind this day. However, my brain can not be as such. Always there is some ripple, some thought. His image floats into my brain like a far away spirit on the water, staring at me all the time.
Putting the rock down on the adjoining pile, I smooth the front of my long light green dress. Violette wanted me to wear this one today. She said it brings out my green eyes, makes my hair appear more black. She even tied my hair in a Grecian braid, which makes it look like a long fishtail. I had sighed deeply when she tied it with her quick fingers, but she did not ask what was troubling me. She practices strict tact, just like Diana.
This braid, though not the same type, reminds me very much of my former lover. The one in France. How deft his hands were at tying braids. He loved my hair, was always playing with it. He thought it was impossibly long. How mermaid-like, he thought, the curls going this way and that, tighter here and looser there.
It makes me want to cut it all off, these memories.
Instead, I pick up a rock and with a wide arch I throw it as hard as I can. Like an angry child, it does not do what I wanted. It drops into the water, with a sickening sound of finality. Gone is my merriment now. This passion, anger, is enveloping me with such suddenness I am confused. My heart is gasping for air, such is the startling rush.
I am on my feet and I do not know how I got there. The rocks are in my hands and I find myself throwing them like I am not even myself. My demon hands throw them so hard I can not even see them when they hit the water, so far are they, but my demon ears hear them.
PLOP, PLOP, PLOP
Each one does not ricochet, and how could they? But I want them to. However, there is no way they could with the way I am throwing them. But what do I expect? No things ever go the way I want them to. All because of me. Who I am. How I am throwing myself in life.
He loved me so much. There was no end to his love. He still loved me. Still loves me. But me. Its all because of me that we have to be apart. Its me.
I am on my knees now, all the rocks gone, down and down into the bay. I start to grab at my hair, pulling it. I do not want it anymore. He loved my hair. I do not want to be reminded of him anymore. But I can not pull out my own hair. Laid on the dock, I stare up at the sky. It appears there will be clouds soon, perchance a rain.
Off in the distance, I hear the light pluckings of a harp. It is Diana, practicing her harp. A pleasant reminder of home. These sounds, so familiar, try to calm my aching heart. It is almost as if she knows my distress at this moment. And she very well may, for she knows many things.
Listening for a while, I decide to head off to home. There is nothing for me here. There is not really anything for me anywhere, but in my aching I will settle for her home as my home.
I will be far away from the one whom I promised was my home always. But I will settle for home as it is offered by the kind and familiar. That is all I can cling to, all I can claim.