No Legs

28Jun10

Summer is the best. The air was dry as was the earth beneath our feet to the point of being dusty as we walked across the crowded picnic area. The crowd was an Indy 500 loving crowd and my company was a tall handsome man I used to date and somehow managed to remain close friends with. My only one of such. And I held onto his arm as he walked me through the crowd lending a much needed sense of security especially since not too long after our arrival I spotted someone in the crowd I knew. From my past. The last person I expected to see and from the looks of it the feeling was mutual.

I leaned into the arm of my host and he led me past the disconcerting scene but this was not enough for me. I wandered off and found myself walking alone down an unfamiliar street. Now it was night and the low slung buildings were set against a somewhat ominous haze of a humid summer night and undercurrent of malice. The street began to slope downward and I glaced at the ground where much to my surprise was a figure of a woman. Her face was turned toward me and her eyes were large and dark. She reminded me of a fortune teller or an eccentric Santa Fe artist type, but her closeness to the ground implied an impediment of some sort. Like that guy with no legs who begs on subway trains, pulling himself along on a platform with wheels. That’s exactly what she appeared to be doing and much as I tried to resist doing so, I glaced over where her legs would be and there, in disbelief I observed a fish’s tail curved around and away from her body. She saw me looking and when I caught her eye back, there was a smirk there which suggested a challenge ‘that’s right I have a tail’. “You’re a mermaid”, I uttered the obvious in my customary way and she appeared delighted to be recognized for who she is. This was the extent of our exchange and she continued her climb up the hill. How strange that a creature of the sea should choose to come to earth and climb hills, I thought.

This is when I began to fret about getting back to the site of the party from which I had gone so astray, and upon finding my way there, I walked into the house to find a cozy picnic table with a few folks standing around. This was fine by me as I was still not ready to confront the ex who I presumed to be out there as before. But as we know there is no avoiding the inevitable and I soon found myself the recipient of the same quizzical look I gave the woman upon observing her tail. This is when I realized that I too am a mythical creature, in his eyes, out of reach and incomprehensible. Attractive only in the un-attainability. The differences found so fascinating upon meeting, are the same that strike fear upon closer inspection. For who wouldn’t enjoy running into a unicorn in the woods, but then what.

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