The silver chain was half buried in the autumn leaves piled against the juniper in the decorative stone next to her house. She pulled her sweater closed and stepped off the open porch toward it. The neighborhood was quiet tonight.

He saw to that, damn him.

In spite of herself, she picked it up. As much as she hated him, it wasn't the necklace's fault, even though she threw it there herself, out the door, that very day. How could a simple silver heart with an extra thin chain cause so much pain? It was such a little thing. At least, until she figured out what it meant.

"Two years." Claire blinked back tears. "Damn you, Bill."

In an instant, his face was in her memory. Green eyes that twinkled, laugh lines, and strong chin. Brown hair just starting to gray. God, how could I have been so stupid?

She shuddered. The room reeked of antiseptic and horror. A jagged scar ran across his face. Metal plates were bolted onto his skin, covering most of his head. One eye was gone, replaced with a huge, expressionless sensor. His face contorted into a scream when he saw her, but no sound came out.

She ran from the hospital room, and never went back.

Why did he have to love me?

"Because it will make you look even more beautiful when you wear it around your neck."

Her mouth flopped. "B-Beautiful? Me? You think I'm beautiful."

Bill's eyes were pleading. "I think the whole room lights up when you smile."

Her eyes darted around the apartment, trying to catch her breath. "I'm not beautiful."

"You are when you smile."

Dear God, what am I going to say? He has a good face, but his gut is huge. How do I tell him I'm out of his league?

She frowned. "You know I'm seeing someone, right?"

Bill shook his head. "You only go for the same type of guy you did way back in high school: lookers with tight abs and bad boy attitudes. Except they all treat you badly, and dump you. Every time. Me, I'm a different kind of guy."

She sighed. "I just don't feel that way about you. I'm sorry."

The silence was uncomfortable. Claire tried to give him the necklace back.

"No," he replied. "That's for you. If I didn't want you to have it, I wouldn't have given it to you."

He walked toward the exit, but stopped in the doorway. "I love you, and I did since the first day we met."

She sounded annoyed. "You love me? Oh, please. What do you know about love?"

She expected him to get angry, but Bill's eyes were serene, confident.

"I know love," he said. "I will never leave you."

"What?! Get out of here!" Loves me! Why do all men always think they're sexy, when they are clearly not? I mean, look at him!

All I wanted was a good friend. Maybe if I am mean to him, he'll get the message.

He walked into the night, and she threw the necklace out the door after him. "There, you just left me! Stay in loser town and don't come back!"

The next day, her boyfriend dumped her for someone younger.

Three weeks later, she got the hand-written note that brought her to the Conversion Hospital: I found a way I can always be there for you, one where you can't ignore my dedication. —Bill

She didn't hear the 'thumps' as it approached, absorbed in her own world. It startled her.

"Citizen, you are displaying distress. Do you require medical assistance?" It stood alongside her, a massive shiny frame that vaguely resembled a man, nearly ten feet tall. Only one side of the face still looked human. The rest was a networked machine, systemized into a grid of officers covering the city. Inside that titanium shell, he had hidden weapons, communications gear, and CPUs more powerful than a supercomputer from just a few years ago. He could fight with the power of a small army if needed.

And somewhere, deep inside, he still had a beating heart.

"Did it hurt?"

"Your question does not compute."

"Why are you everywhere I go?"

His head cocked, ever so slightly. "Unit deployment is determined by central processing."

"I know better than that."

"Citizen, do you require assistance?"

"At the mall, you're there. At the movies. When I come home at night, you're on the corner." She held up the silver chain. "Bill, it's me. You gave me this necklace. Remember? You're following me."

He was silent, studying her face and the necklace.

"Clairrrrrre," he said thickly. "Your name is Claire." His face twitched, rebooting some subroutine. "I must return to my duties. Good evening, Citizen."

Why couldn't I have figured out that I loved him too, before it was too late? Why did I have to be so selfish, so vain?

The cyborg marched back to his post on her street corner, protecting the neighborhood, watching over her with an unresting eye, day and night, whether she liked it or not.

Under her breath she asked, "Did he mean it when he said he'd never leave me?"

She bit her lip, afraid of the answer.

The first time I took real notice of Saryl was on the advanced personal combat training field at the academy. The instructor had paired us off. She a destroyer pilot from distant Maldrovia, me a standard issue humanoid junior captain from a standard, but fast-cruising, pirate hunter.

Maldrovians, even females, are exceptionally strong, with powerful legs and muscled arms. She was about the same height as I was but seemed bigger. Her tangled, purple-hued hair was tied behind her solid chiseled face and she looked like a formidable foe. Looking her over, I could not see the short, narrow, pointed tail that Maldrovian women supposedly hid in specially made pockets in the back of their clothes.

"Go!" the instructor yelled, and before I could even set my feet, Saryl had dropped to her knees, slid forward between mine, and with one powerful maneuver lifted me up and slammed me flat of my back on the hard ground of the training field. The last thing I remembered, before nearly losing consciousness, was the loud sound of laughter and a strange hissing coming from the conqueror who stood above.

I shook my head clear and looked up to see Saryl bending over me. Oddly, I remembered another rumor about Maldrovian women: that their tongues, long and slender, had barbs on the end that when shot into the mouth released a chemical so powerful it could render its target comatose or dead – or in the case of their own species highly aroused.

"You are alright?" she asked in a heavy off-planet accent that was nonetheless pleasant, even appealing.

"I'm fine," I said, refusing her offer to help me stand. "Nice move."

"You were perhaps not ready," she said, with no hint of irony that I could detect.

"Yeah," I said, rubbing the back of my neck – that was going to be sore – "perhaps not."

She seemed to find that amusing and hissed her Maldrovian approval. I couldn't stop myself from trying to see the end of her tongue when she opened her mouth but she was onto me and turned aside slightly. For a female of her size and strength, it was a delicate, even graceful move. I looked into her deep black eyes and she made a different sound, not a hiss. I was hooked.

From that day on I did everything in my power to get paired off with Saryl. When she needed someone to hold a climbing rope during the obstacle course, I raced to do it. When we ran the marathon, I stayed by her side as long as I could then followed several dozen yards behind. At the strength tests I was her second, always ready – though unnecessarily so – to make sure she got the free weights back on the rack safely. On the firing range, I managed to be on one side of her or the other, always.

By the time we graduated from combat training, we were the talk of the academy even though we had never even gone out on a date. At the ceremony I stood beside her and when her name was called I felt her hand brush against my arm as she proudly strode across the platform to receive her certificate. That night, at the graduation party – held in a local club catering to military personnel – I worked up the courage to ask for a kiss.

"We will be going to far ends of the system," she reminded me of the assignments we had been given a few days before graduation. "I will be with my people on Maldrovia, you will be going who knows where. There is little advantage for either of us."

"A simple moment of affection," I suggested, "of friendship."

She considered that for a moment, looked around the room briefly, then turned back to me.

"One would not hurt," she said.

I leaned forward to kiss her, but she put a strong hand against my chest. I stepped back, assuming she had changed her mind but then she pulled me to her and gave me a kiss I will never forget. Her lips were firm and strong, just like the rest of her, and to my great shock and excitement I felt her tongue slide into my mouth. I felt the barb on the end. I felt the barb attach itself to the back of my tongue and then she released its chemical.

For a moment, I thought she had released too much and I was going to die. My head spun, my legs wobbled, my heart pounded. I gasped for air not realizing that she had finished kissing me and was standing back watching my reaction. If I could have seen better at that moment, I might have noticed a smile flash across her beautiful lips.

By the time I recovered from Saryl's kiss she was gone – out of the bar and back to the academy to be with her own people. I fell into a booth at the back of the bar and sat stunned for better than a half hour. I understood then that the rumors, probably all of them, about Maldrovians were true. At least the one about the tongue barb was. I had found that out.

It's been two years since we graduated from the academy training program and I've never seen Saryl since. But I know where she is and I know that she has yet to take a partner. My work takes me to all parts of the system and one day we will be hunting a pirate and that chase will take us to Maldrovia. I know it will and when it does I will be better prepared for Saryl than I was before. She could have paralyzed me graduation night or even killed me, but she didn't. And that's my hope, why I long for her and look to the skies for her. Waiting for that second chance. A second chance with Saryl.

This will be my confession to the Elders before I am to be terminated for interfering with the life forms on a planet. I was only to observe. We Are The Watchers and recorders of history. I was placed in my position and specific location due in part, that a writer, worse, a poet in this world is not one that may cause too much damage as a Watcher, as opposed to one of us placed here as a scientist.

We are forbidden to establish any meaningful relationships with these beings. These beings, humans they call themselves, are a strange race. Once you get to know them you either despise them for their cruelty or love them for everything else. I fell in love with one of them specifically. Had I run and hid I can only speculate. That is not to be. I made that choice in part because I love my job. I was discovered through my writing. I am not sorry.

MY CONFESSION:

I am the poet laureate for a small university in the Midwest. It is my job and my love to write poems for official and semi-official occasions and events pertaining to the University and University life, or death as it happens. My position allows me to live if not a wealthy life financially, a rich one in terms of work. And, I do love my work.

However, once as in many of our lives there was a turning point that made a difference. Some take that path of lesser travel and discover new things. Others trod the well worn road to everyday existence. It's a living. Yet there are other turning points that offer as much potential, and one is discovering true love. Love comes and love goes. But sometimes one lets The Love go only to discover it was gold and riches beyond any fame and comfort. And that love is naught recoverable.

To that experience and as a poet I write this poem. I write it to myself as a memory of something dear and gone. Her smile and her laugh, etched and the feeling, burned, no seared is a better word.

My story-poem below may come across as light, but it is naught. For it is the memory of one dear night, and 25 years later, still burns as bright.

HER

Once upon an evening early
While I pondered wondered really
Would I score and be so lucky
With my lady lawyer Missy?

Dinner came and dinner went
Off for a drive we two spent.
When down a darkened street I rode,
into my arms, she headfirst dove.

A 2 seat Mazda were we in
A comfort factor it was grim.
Arms and legs/ car-tore-shin
Car was rockin, and not a grin.

Cramps in legs and arms galore
Another venue suggested fore
So to her vehicle we did find,
love most passionate, we did climb.

All too soon it was time to go
A meeting somewhere I was to show.
Another round for her and me.
Another time another place.
We parted in slow loves' haste.

The antidote for this pain laid.
Not the Rx, but her bed made.
Greeted at her door amore
Top hat, heels, not much more.
With a "how do you do
I'm all for you"
We spent the night in deep amore.

That's my story
Past, it's true
I only wish it could happen to you
Just don't let it slip-a-way
A life time loss, now I pay.

I write this as a lament to myself and a warning to others. Think with all you have before you let love go. Sometimes the fear, the initial pain and strife, severing the current existence, may cause you to hesitate. Trust me, it's is worth the pain of a new life. Take the leap.

This I know.

Love transcends, endures, searches without prejudice, is un-measurable by the best in physics, is un-restrained by fears, hopes, attitudes and family. What can we say about love? Anything fits it, but nothing can really define it, and yet we often bask under its watchful eye!

Millions of stars sparkle every night on Everton like Earth. And on the shore of the Sea of Acroplean, Captain Kevin VonGeorge waits impatiently for Earth's Outer-Galactic rescue ship, Trident III.

"You can't leave. Kevin, think about our time on this beach together. Wasn't it lovely? Didn't I nurse you back to health and take care of you?" Cindy said.

Cindy's attention attached itself to Kevin with a force that only a sun's nova could topple. He looked away. His eyes searched the shore as is mind raced for a thought, but his needed words didn't come. Only joy at the thought of rescue, but some sorrow also shaded his happiness at the thought of leaving Cindy. A thought that would have been impossible to believe a year ago.

"It's my duty to return. It's my duty to my people——like your brother's duty to protect the dams and weirs that hold back the seas in the Northern Hemisphere of Everton." Kevin said.

"Duty ! Duty! Duty! I hate that word more each day! Duty! It's always——I have duty to do!" Cindy said.

She moved down towards the sea but stopped just short of the waves.

Kkunoittngij, Cindy's father, approached with a device that had been modified to send a homing signal to Trident III.

"This will bring in you rescue vessel," Kkunoittngij said.

"My daughter is foolish… very liberal in her thinking and attitudes; you seem aware of her immaturity and that shows wisdom," Kkunoittngij added.

Kkunoittngij spoke through a universal-translator. He didn't know English. Cindy learned English in about a month. She had a propensity for languages, but with Kevin's language she also had a deep and un-yielding desire to know it! And she learned it very quickly!

"Thank you Kevin for you technology in water vaporization and your Hydrogen generator," Kkunoittngij said.

"I thank you for everything you did for me. I would have died if left unattended. Your society is in the front ranks of kindness and friendliness. Those on Earth will not forget this!!

Kkunoittngij made a bow then moved away.

Kevin lowered his head and frowns washed over his forehead. He kicked some sand around, brushed his hair back with his hand, then looked up at the sky. He looked out over the sea of Acroplean, looked but didn't see, listened to the sounds of waves slapping one another, but didn't hear them, and felt the warm breeze rush to meet him.

"I—thought there might be…" Cindy lowered her eyes. Kevin jerked up his head, stepped back and didn't take his eyes of Cindy. He stared not knowing what to utter, but knowing that he must say something, anything that would bridge a true understanding between them. Yet, that bridge was always impossible to build. He didn't want to break Cindy's ….he didn't want to hurt her….

Cindy's eyes turned upon him. All six eyes still watered—actually some type of oil permeated out— and Kevin knew that all of his attempts at making her see the reality of her love had failed.

She shot out a tentacle that reached around Kevin's neck and started to play with his hair. Another tentacle embraced him, gently; lovely while she emitted sweet aromas that surpassed the best that any flower on Earth could produce. Her entire body started to display colors, changing their hues and mixing together in a Kaleidoscope of soft blues and reds and orange-yellows and pinkish-greens that undulated in tempo, it seemed to her heart's beatings. In reality, she had three hearts but they worked in unison.

Two of her eyes looked upward, then she shrieked. Kevin's eyes followed and Trident III became visible growing larger as it descended aiming towards a section of shore that had been marked off for landing.

"NO! NO! NO!" Cindy screamed in Evertonian but Kevin understood those sounds. Then in English she said, "You never cared about me! Why Kevin—-why don't you love me? All your talk about diversity on your planet with the …." Before Kevin could answer, Cindy's color changed into a solid dark-green. She slithered down towards the shore, entered the sea then disappeared beneath the waves.

Kkunoittngij moved back to Kevin soon after Cindy left.

"I take it my daughter's hearts are broken? A saying common to your planet's pre-matting trials?" Kkunoittngij said, searchingly.

"I tried sir, I really tried but she just doesn't understand how it would be impossible for us to…." Kevin could say no more.

"She will go down into the depths of the sea to be with her many sisters now. That is how young female Evertonians handle sorrow or grief or lost love. She has over six hundred sisters and they will comfort her. It is our way and—my daughter will be okay.

"It was my fault assigning her to nurse you. I should have assigned an older medical tech, but Cindy I thought wouldn't mind taking care of an alien. She always brought home stray Kuotins and Vegiles that were dropped off along our highways when she was younger, so a strange and alien being like you would not scare her, I thought. I should have realized that Cindy might respond in another way, but how can a dad get to really know his children that well. I have over a thousand of them!" Kkunoittngij said.

Kevin raised up an eyebrow, glanced around and tucked in the side of his mouth a little. He lowered is head somewhat then looked straight at Kkunoittngij and said: "And I would have never thought it possible either."

Kevin un-pinned this captain bars and gave them to Kkunoittngij. "Please see that Cindy gets these."

Kkuoittngij bowed

I hear the Wedding March as I stand in the church foyer preparing to marry her. I have loved once in my lifetime with great depth of soul more stronger than the love I feel for Susan my soon to be bride and yet, she is the woman I have chosen to share the rest of my life.

Susan is a person who has no outstanding traits save one, she wants me. I had wondered if I would ever have someone in the real world who wanted me for their lifelong companion. Susan did, much to my amazement and that was enough for me to make a commitment to her for the rest of my life.

I did not want to grow old alone in this natural world, so I am to do what I have dreaded for most of my life, forsake my one true love for this physical woman, who wanted to share my time and space.

But my truest love is the woman from my dreams, a woman who I had shared a hundred lifetimes with in the twenty years we've been together. Miranda came into my life when I was around six years old, while I was watching a Saturday children's program early one morning. She was a girl about 16 years of age in a fairy costume and for the first time, I was in love. Later that day, I imagined her tenderly caressing me and telling me I was her boy. In my imagination, I was her age and we were dating. There was no one else in the world when she was in my mind. I was faithful to her, so that I would not dream of anyone else but her. Somehow, I think she knew.

We had many children throughout our lives, at different times and various scenarios, but we always wound up alone together, just the two of us. We were children at play at times and other times we dated as teens. I would conquer corporations, created and built businesses and she, always the dutiful mate, stood beside me, proud of me for the man I was. We never had a quarrel or a trial that I could not solve in less than 20 minutes and we never doubted our love for one other.

Oh, I love her! It would be safe to say, my love for her was more real than any romance in the natural world, maybe stronger. I knew her very soul and she knew me. No matter what scenes we played in my thoughts and imagination, we were devoted to one another.

The wedding music is now invading my thoughts and I only have moments to do, what literally tears my heart asunder to think of…I must let her go. I could take the easy way out and not think of her again, but I am unsure in the netherworld of one's dreams if she would be waiting for me endlessly. So, I take a deep breath with tears welling up in my eyes and I call her name.

She appeared to me once again, entering as always into my conscience reality, now seeing my tormented fears.

"What is wrong, Byron? Is something troubling you?" she said to me as she reached for my hand to comfort me. I pulled my arm back, not wanting to connect with her this time as I always have. I had never pulled away from her before and she began to appear frightened, a reaction I had always labored to protect her from and now, I could not.

The Wedding March played for the third time, which was the cue for the best man and brides maid to walk down the aisle. Seconds later, it would be my turn.

"Miranda, I met someone else and I…" I said fighting back the tears, "I…I don't want to be alone" and that was all I could say. She understood for she always understood, but she was devastated as if her beating heart was wrenched from her chest.

"Do you love me…more than her?" she asked already knowing the answer before I spoke.

"I am one with you Miranda, I…don't know how…" was all I could say as my cue to walk down the aisle was played on the pipe organ in the church auditorium. "I love you with all my heart! I'm dying inside!" I shouted to her as I turned and opened the door to the foyer and began walking toward the front of the church, tears streaming down my face. The congregation and witnesses must have thought I was touched by the moment, but I had torn my own heart out as if I had murdered my own soul mate. I did not know how I was going to get through the ceremony or how I would live with myself after betraying my only one true love.

The wedding was a blur; I don't know how I got through it. I kissed the bride, my now wife in the real world and yet, in my soul, I felt as an adulterer.

I had never told anyone about Miranda and I knew Susan would not understand.

Thirty minutes later we were getting into my car, now decorated as newlyweds cars are often adorned and preparing to go back to my place to pack for our honeymoon.

I cannot say that I love Susan. I would rather say that I was contented and maybe that was enough, I don't know.

As I began to pull out of the church parking lot, Susan grabbed my hand and so I let her. I felt numb and very sad. I glanced into the rear view mirror for a moment and I believed I saw Miranda in the crowd waving to us mouthing the words "I love you, have a good life, I'll miss you."

I cried.

"We are as we speak above the harbor of Havana, gentlemen." The barrel-chested, red-bearded captain reached out over the rail with a sweeping gesture, his voice booming in a Southern drawl. The captain and his two visitors were standing at the very front of the aerostat on a kind of observation deck, the lower of two observation decks in fact. It was like a balcony, open to the night air and very wide. One of the visitors, Juan Fernando Royo, in an act of good faith took a step closer to the edge, but leaning forward slightly could see only wisps of clouds and darkness in the light of the waning moon. His companion, a rough freedom fighter named Pablo, chose to stay back. He instead eyed the three armed crewmen in light blue uniforms standing at attention against the wall behind them in the shadow of the airship's huge metallic envelope.

"Please gentlemen, y'all are my guests, and therefore perfectly safe. Don't you want to see what your money has paid for? It shall be truly magnificent."

"I beg your pardon, Captain Onger, but the height is dizzying," Juan Fernando said, clutching the rail and inching up alongside the captain. "We mean no disrespect. Your ship is truly amazing."

"Yes, the Aurora is a work of art. Never has her like sailed the skies. Now if you look there," the captain said, pointing down through the darkness, "you'll see our target." Juan Fernando strained to see, but the lack of moonlight, the clouds, and the shadow from the airship made it impossible for him to discern anything.

"What is it I am looking for captain?" he asked after an awkward moment.

"Yes, it is a bit dark, but I will rectify that momentarily." The captain chuckled to himself. "Trust me when I tell you that we are right now flying above the USS Maine."

"The American ship? Captain, there must be some confusion. We sought your aid in our noble struggle to drive the Spanish oppressors from the shores of Cuba. The Americans are potentially a threat, but not paramount. A demonstration of strength against the Spanish is what we wanted. We did not pay…" The captain cut him off.

"You want liberation Mister Royo, you'll have to pay for that with your own blood. I have no intention of fighting a war for you, sir, but I can start one. And that may help you more than you'd think."

Juan Fernando reached for the captain's arm in protest. His companion Pablo tensed, his hand reaching for the hilt of a knife at his belt. The three crewmen brought their guns to bear simultaneously like automatons.

The captain motioned and one of the crewmen went to the nearest wall and lifted a voice pipe to his mouth. Juan Fernando heard a shrill whistle followed by the muffled sound of the crewman's voice.

"Gentlemen," the captain said, "the devil is not your enemy, but he only barters on his own terms."

Juan Fernando heard the sound of machinery from deep within the aerostat. He felt static prickle his scalp, and then there was the crack of a lightning strike and below, the explosion of the Maine lit the night. He looked to the captain to try to fathom his reasoning, but Captain Onger had turned his attention to the upper balcony.

"So you were on the upper balcony this evening my dear?" he asked.

Her smile was curt. Constance Onger sat in her parlor aboard the Aurora, a book in hand. Her husband, the captain, took a seat on the chair opposite her, and crossed his legs. The room was not overly large, but it was decorated extravagantly. The walls had dark wood wainscoting, a Gothic floral-patterned wall paper in maroon, and a frieze depicting scenes from the Old Testament. Lavish paintings and mirrors hung from the walls. A large globe in the center of the ceiling provided an electric light.

"I asked you to stay in our quarters tonight. What ever prompted you to disobey my wishes?" he asked.

"What have you wrought Mordecai?" Her face was stern; her stare penetrating.

Captain Onger thought about how beautiful she was, how her dark hair danced in curls about her neck, how regal she was, born into grace. He would cross the deepest ocean, master the skies, break any man for her if she desired it, but still he returned her stare with a sneer. He was not in the mood to justify his actions, even though she was the only one in the wide world granted this dispensation, the right to question his supreme authority.

"Have I not provided for you, Constance, all the best? Given you the life you were born to, but had forsaken? Have I not protected you and done everything for you? Why do you question me so?" he asked.

Tears started to well up in her eyes, but she maintained her dignity. "Do not use me as an excuse for your actions any longer. I heard your conversation with those men. Tell me you did not murder men in their sleep. Do you fashion yourself the angel of death now? You will bring the wrath of God down upon us Mordecai."

Her condescension made his face as red as his beard. He grabbed her arm violently. "They thought to buy my might to crush their enemies. I granted their boon, but I work for no one but myself… and you." The captain added the last part too late. Her face contorted with disgust.

"You have changed. I have watched it happen. I have denied it until now, but no longer. You have become a monster."

He scoffed. "I have become myself."

She rose from her chair, shaking, but strong. "Captain Onger, I am leaving you."

"You'll have nothing. Here I've given you the world."

She looked at him through a veil of tears. "No captain, I gave you my world, but it wasn't enough."

"Hey Justin! Miss Indigo's waiting for the groom. She says you've been a bad boy."

"You hired a stripper-dominatrix?"

"Yep."

"How's your Corona?"

"Dos Equis is better."

"Thought you liked it. It's always in your fridge."

"It's Anita's only choice," I replied.

He waved his hand about. "I know there are bigger bugs down South, but these fireflies take the prize."

"I used to live here. My dad was one of those white shirt, narrow tie Yankees sent down here help set up the plant. His co-workers told him what places not to go into without 'em. My dad made himself welcome because he was from Maine. Got into an argument with some guy in a bar about the best way to skin a deer. Endeared him as a backwoodsman."

"How do you skin deer?"

"Couldn't tell ya. You know the woods by the Wal-Mart, by the sign for the Wiccan Church. That's where we used to hunt when I was a kid, when I lived here."

"Hunt much?"

"I was in the woods a lot." I smiled a bit at the memory. The firefly flew about me again.

"So you grew up here and met Anita in New England. Long lost love story?"

"I think I had a class with Anita once when we were kids. I really didn't meet her until we were both working at Corporate.

"I'll be there in a bit."

"You don't have cold feet…" He laughed.

"Not exactly." After the bachelor party tzar left, I shouted,"Balefire! You can manifest; I know that firefly is you."

The tiny light grew into the form of a beautiful winged woman, Balefire of the Pixie. She lifted her hands to her shoulders and slowly closed her fists. Her so-very-darned-lovely, gossamer wings faded to nothingness. Balefire wore an asymmetrical brown skirt of tanned hide. It hung lower on her right hip and very much shorter on her left. An azure, low cut, V-neck tunic hung about her torso. Her short, blonde hair scrapped the nape of her long neck. The scabbard of a huge broadsword hung from her hip. She rested her hand sedulously upon the pommel.

"Why is Anita's sobriquet 'white chocolate' on your cell phone?" I blushed.

"I know why you are here."

"Do you?"

"I loved you when I was nine. But at sixteen, it was different. I couldn't be a child forever."

"It wasn't you; it was me. Is that what you are saying?" Balefire snarled. Fangs flashed brightly in her teeth, jutting beyond her lower lips.

"Come with me to the Otherworld," Balefire said. "Anita is comely, but you do recall the happiness you lived with me when you are with her. You remember your life before. I see it in your aura; Come with me, Human child."

I wore a doublet, hose and a beret-cap. But everyone who looked my way, saw a three piece Italian tailored suit, lavender shirt and a stripped tie. My poniard looked to be a cell phone at my belt to any casual observer. The hospital receptionist gave me Anita's room number. I thanked her, and turned toward the elevator. Balefire stood inside the tiny moving cubicle. A mylar balloon and a big box of chocolate truffles were in her arms. Balefire smirked.

"You forgot to get her a present." I took the gifts. I had a small teddy bear already.

"Are you prepared?" Balefire asked.

"Anita needs me now," I answered. "I've much to make up to her."

"She had a bun in the oven. I am sure it would be different if it had been your yeast."

A Van Dyke beard graced my face unlike the last time we met.

"You!" My former finance's eyes sparked with a fire hotter than Gehenna. "No one knew what had happened. No one knew! You abandoned your job. Your Father didn't know where you were. I just don't understand: you just disappeared two years ago. We found your car in the parking lot, your clothes in the hotel room." She slammed her fists down upon her bed sheets. "You forsook me! You — "

A small crib was set by her bed. A baby rested within. I reached down to adjust the child's pink blankie. Her daughter was as bright as Lughnassadh.

"Can you explain?" she asked, her voice sharp as a scalpel, cold as Samhain, coarse as a banshee.

Explain Balefire! my inamorata. "No. It's too complicated. All can say is I'm here now."

She turned her head away. "How long this time?"

A short human lifetime, thought I, the pixie consort. "As long as you need. As long as she needs."

"You do know you're not the father. There's no baby daddy, just a sperm donor. He fled; looks like my pattern" I shook my head. "I wasn't careful," Anita confessed.

"I'm not criticizing. You have a beautiful daughter." Could she have been mine? Or rather, what would mine – ours – have been like? I've seen things, experienced wild things: The cold rings of Saturn, floating above the red spot. An orange sky with two daytime moons, a rocky, dwarf silver mine. But all these failed behind the sight before me. Her tiny fingers, her barely slit mouth, and her tightly shut eyes. Black pupils, I knew. Her cheeks puffed out with baby fat. "I've been places," I said.

Anita frowned. Did she just imagine me homeless or spending the required ninety days only at a series of Salvation Army shelters.

"May I hold her?" Carefully I lifted the baby, cradling her in my arm and elbow, supporting her still knitting skull with the palm of my hand. Come with me. Oh Human child, I thought. Someday I'll show the wonders I've seen. But today, dear one, one who could have, should have been my human child, live well in this world. Live well! I will see to that – with all the power of the sidhe supporting me.

"Is this it?" she asked, peering closely at the words engraved on the weathered stone. Far off in the distance, cars sped by on the busy road, darting past to unknown destinations.

I knelt, laying the flowers on the grave, a small ritual I had performed hundreds of times. The faint perfume lingered in my nostrils as I stood back up, pausing to scan the deserted cemetery. Deserted but for myself, and her, and the memories that tied me to this spot.

"You must have really loved her." She reached up to brush her dark hair from her face. I searched her eyes for a hint of her thoughts, but all I found there was tender concern.

We had met only a few months ago, in a downtown tavern near the university she attended. Despite our age difference, I found her an intriguing and intellectual conversationalist, and within a short time we were seeing each other every night. One thing led to another, as it invariably does, from dinner to long walks along the waterfront to the narrow bed in her tiny apartment. I did not hesitate for a moment when she stood bathed in the moonlight that streamed through her bedroom window and slowly let her clothes drop to the floor, her eyes alight with mischief and her impish smile inviting me to pull her down onto the soft pillows and luxuriate in her embrace.

Days led to weeks led to months led to…here.

It was just this morning when she said that she wanted to spend the rest of our lives together. I didn't mean to hurt her when I said I wasn't sure that was possible. There were just things she didn't understand about me. About my past. But I didn't know how to explain those things in a way that would make any sense to her, so I brought here. To Mary's graveside.

"Yes, I did really love her. More, perhaps, than anyone who came after. More than you, dear as you have become to me." I paused briefly to collect my thoughts. "And that is why I wanted you to come here and see this. This is what it means to lose love. To have all that fills your heart with joy reduced to a few words carved on a stone. There's no forever for us, Sarah. There's just a few short years, and then…this."

"This doesn't change anything. I love you, and I want to spend my life with you. I keep telling you that; why won't you listen?"

"I am listening. If I wasn't listening, we wouldn't be standing here. But this does change things. It changes everything. I…"

"For someone who has gone out of his way to remind me how much older he is than me, you sure aren't any smarter." She stretched up onto her tiptoes to kiss me gently on the lips. There was no anger in her voice, no reprimand. Just that patient, gentle love that led me to believe that maybe, just maybe, I could risk my heart again.

She placed a hand on my cheek, caressing it softly. "I know it's not forever. I know the odds that our time together will be short, and that it will end here, mourning for the loss of love gone too soon. But I want this. I love you. No matter what that takes, no matter how long we have."

I stared into her dark brown eyes, finding no resistance, no hesitation. I knew this would end in sorrow, but perhaps she was right. Our past is merely a collection of days, and it is how we spend each day as we are given it that shapes our future. I kissed her deeply, feeling the warmth of her body pressed up against me.

I looked down at the gravesite and whispered "Thank you" to my long-lost love, and then I took her hand and said, "Let's go home."

It has been six hundred years since I placed the stone on Mary's grave. In fifty or sixty years, I will return to add yet another stone alongside it, and another measure of dark regret to my soul. But for tonight, for just this moment, there is only the light of her love.