Sandy Vrooman
Dorsal Winner
From The Misbegotten Wizards Almanac, by Ambrosius Braun, 1832 Fall Edition: Faerie, n. (also Fairy) A vain but beautiful creature known to have a profound lack of respect for all boundaries.
This story is unusual in that it happened only yesterday although it evokes memories of long ago and far away. One would think that a senior citizen would have immunity to the effects of a flirtatious faerie, but this is California after all.
My old sweetie heard her callings in his dreams, but didn't tell me. I didn't worry enough about keeping this, the ultimate love of my life. I had finally found my soul mate. He would stay with me forever. The abundance of exchanged love was the greatest thing that ever happened to me. I had lived all my life waiting for this feast made of the communion of body, spirit, and soul, but I hadn't counted on magic to take him away.
When she finally showed up, she was half his age. She was a thin figure, almost transparent, but with an inner luminescence. I didn't take her for a faerie at first meeting. What I know about fairies doesn't prepare me to see them in jeans. I expected silver bells and moonbeams.
His first thought was to take this creature as a fosterling. She played the dutiful daughter, wove her web very carefully claiming to want my friendship as well as his, but I could see that when we were together she began to separate and encapsulate him, not unlike a spider. Too late I realized that her spell upon him was greater than my love.
She made one mistake. She thought we were both completely mortal. So when he met her on the astral plane in her dreams, she was very frightened, and battled to sever the cord they had both fashioned to bind themselves to each other. He held fast, but finally she cut the cord with a silver axe.
He was devastated by her act. Wounded almost past caring and living. Took off to the woods to nurse his wounds with a bottle of spirits. He went through the usual beastly changes fey folk do when beset by problems, bear, snake, charging tiger, and finally a demon combining all the aspects of the horridly injured soul.
They are gone. I am alone. She has gone on to new prey, he to wander the earth looking for what he has lost. The shield she put around him makes him blind to my love. I feel at this late date I best be satisfied with memory and dream. Lean fare to be sure.
First published: November, 2003
comments: knobs@iceflow.com
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