Author's Note. Amazingly I wrote this in such a bitter sweetly, joyous mood and stayed this way all through its creation even though this is such a tearjerker. For a one with a lighter mood read my Cupid: Conspiracy of Love and Reason posted at the same time.
Cupid: And Love is Stronger than Memories
by
Elizabeth Hensley 8-)
She was beautiful. Or at least she had been at one time. Suffering had taken the bloom off the Rose. There were lines of sorrow on her pale, white face. She was blonde and blue eyed. She stood in the rain in front of Tres Equis for a very long time and her tears mixed with God's tears and neither could be told apart. Finally she swallowed the lump in her throat and gathered her courage and went in. It would be so very difficult to see him in his current mode!
It was obvious from the You Tube videos he was finally happy! A miracle! And whatever she was going to do in there she would NOT take that away from him! Why was she coming? Just what was it she was going to do in there anyway? Why had she bothered?
They were singing, with him leading of course. That hadn't changed. He had always done that back in the pub near their college. Always been the life of the party. Since he had started going ill and started insisting the gods were real and that Cupid was inside of him he had developed the ability to get complete Strangers to sing along with him and know all the words. Uncanny! That had followed him here to Queens, New York apparently.
His choice of songs for a bar was strange however. It was if he had some premonition of her coming. He had shown that power before, especially those last few months before his leaving when "Cupid" had been in control more and more and he, he who he had been had cheerfully been almost gone.
Midnight
Not a sound from the pavement
Has the Moon lost her memory?
She is smiling alone!
In the lamplight
The withered leaves collect at my feet
And the wind begins to moan!
Memories!
All alone in the moonlight!
I can smile at the old days!
I was beautiful then!
I remember the time I knew what happiness was!
Let the memories live again!
Every streetlamp
Seems to beat a fatalistic warning!
Someone mutters
And the streetlamp gutters
And soon it will be morning!
Daylight!
I must wait for the sunrise!
I must think of a new life!
And I mustn't give in!
When the dawn comes
Tonight will be a memory too
And a new day will begin!
Burnt out ends of smoky days
The stale cold smell of morning!
The streetlamp dies, another night is over
Another day is dawning!
Touch me!
It's so easy to leave me
All alone with the memory
Of my days in the Sun!
If you touch me
You'll understand what happiness is!
Look!
A new day has begun!
It had not been a violent taking over. The so called, "Mortal" for that is what he had called himself, had wanted desperately to leave his unbearably mundane life! "The god" in fact had not wanted to stay either, but only to visit his Friend off and on mostly to watch Star Trek together. But then one day he had announced in absolute wild eyed terror his family had trapped him in the Mortal realm inside his Friend and that was that! He who he had been was completely gone! From then on he was never normal again. How he managed to hold on to his position a few months longer was beyond belief and more due to his Colleagues hoping against hope his "leaving" was temporary. For "Cupid" had no interest in what he was being forced to do. Instead he tried to match every unmarried Person in the facility with every other unmarried Person. Besides being frightening and embarrassing seeing someone else "at home" in who had been their Colleague and good Friend, his social skills were horrid and he was becoming a grand nuisance!
Then he was physically gone! Nothing taken except some cash money that was his and a few changes of clothes which at least showed some sanity and foresight. But not his Driver's license or social security card, or birth certificate or any proof or identification that he had ever existed, not his wedding ring or any jewelry, not a book or a scrap of paper with anything written on it, nothing to make him be who he had been as the Mortal, not even photos of them, a few changes of clothes were all. She worried terribly! How was he going to manage without those things in this World that demanded a paper trail? But he was brilliant and resourceful and believed all the gods, even the Big One were protecting him. She had never done so before but she found herself praying to "Anybody Out there? Please help him!" Because hopefully Someone would!
His leaving was for the best. Though it had been sad. They had been making arrangements at work to commit him. Most likely he had caught wind of their plans. For though "the Mortal" part had gone mad his intelligence if anything had not gone down but soared even higher beyond his already impossibly high levels.
The cleverness of the Crazy, no doubt about it, and yet to the very end he had never been insane in the Hollywood sense. He was always so very gentle and careful to take care of his responsibilities as best he could. And he did so better in many ways than most so called "normal" People! Crazy he was not! There was no rage in him. Of that she was certain! He was full of love. But there was certainly great sadness there.
She kept up the small kernel of courage inside of her going, entered and went up to the bar, sat on a stool right in front of him and sat there waiting for him to notice her. Would there be recognition, even inadvertent? A-micro-flicker in his face that anything at all in him remembered what they'd had?
He did notice her. That incredibly sunny smile for so dark eyed a being crossed that face of his. But there was no recognition. None!
A tear trickled down her right cheek.
He saw it of course. His smile faded into a frown of sympathy, "How sad! It is such a beautiful day outside to be so miserable!"
"It is pouring down rain!" (The craziness of madness. Like what was mentioned in Harvey apparently: Crazy People hallucinated beautiful days in the middle of thunderstorms!
But maybe not. Cupid was wiser than Folks gave credit. "We need the rain so badly, Sister! Without rain there can never be any rainbows Without rain there can never be any Flowers! Without rain, no grand majestic forests, no Animals, no streams, no rivers, no waterfalls, no oceans and eventually no People!"
She nodded. He had not changed, not really.
He grinned, "So give me a little smile for the silver rain! It is liquid diamonds my family is trying to put around your neck and in your hair as a present!"
She pretended she did not know who he thought he was now. "Who is your family?"
He smiled, "Ah a Virgin to this bar! I am Cupid, Greco-Roman god of love. My family is of course the Greco-Roman gods. And while they usually do not service America. (The Native American minor deities usually do that). They have made an exception for New York because of Astoria and now me being here."
She pretended like he had just told her he was from Pittsburgh. She actually yawned. "How nice. Can I have a drink?"
"My pleasure of course. This god is at your not so humble service. What would make you happier than any other drink in the whole wide multiverse?" He talked in a sing song voice like a child offering a treat.
Would it bring back any recognition? It had been their favorite. They often had drank it together from one glass and two straws even after they had no longer needed to save money. "Root beer, light on the ice."
Cheerily he turned and whipped up the frothy treat and set it down before her with a grand flourish. "One root beer, light on the ice." He continued to smile that beautiful sunny, smile trying to cheer her up and she just about burst into tears again. It was like seeing a fantastic dinner through glass when one was starving and not being able to reach it!"
She kept staring at him.
He noticed. He frowned, puzzled. "You look at me like you know me."
Claire had sat down beside her and since she did not know his Shrink she did not realize this.
"I did once, a long time ago.'
Cupid blinked in surprise, "How long?"
"Oh. About sixteen years ago."
Claire's ears perked up at this! So did Cupid's. So did Felix's, for yes, he too just happened to overhear. So did Bar Regular, Charley Wilcox's. It was if the whole bar went into slow motion and all colors became brighter and sounds became louder!
Claire could have heard a fly on the wall breath. That was if "Trevor" had been so lax is to allow a Fly in the bar he managed so carefully!"
Claire said slowly and cautiously, "Could I ask you if his name was Trevor back then?"
She said quickly, "No. It was not."
Oh so carefully, cautiously as walking on fragile glass, carefully as trying to pick up a wounded, frightened, wild Bird that still could fly away and harm itself, "What was it?"
No one was breathing.
She shook her head, "it was Cupid. Better that it be that because he was already there and starting to take over. And they wanted it that way."
Claire sighed. "Was it 9/11?"
Confusion in her eyes. "No. Yes. Partly. And partly excruciating boredom. I'm far from dumb but I have only one third his IQ. I can't keep up! We couldn't stand each other. Only our flesh could. And he knew no one closely that was in those towers or planes. But yet there were some he did know. It is just that he IS the god of love! He loves everyone and no one should have died that day! And life was just impossible for him!"
Cupid felt something he had never felt before well up inside himself! Self hatred! "What did I do to you? Leave you to starve?"
She shook her head, "You walked away from a half a million dollar trust fund! It was MINE! After you and your crazy alter ego left my life actually improved. I am usually in better shape than this. But last week my Mother died and I started to wonder if you are right about there being other realms and Life after Life. I've know where you ended up for several years now thanks to You Tube. I had to come and thank you for giving me hope that there just might be what you call the Mortal keep, New Jerusalem and my Mother might be there now. The one thing you did give me in our relationship after you went nuts that was positive is that Hope. I do know this. If you had not found the courage to leave however crazily you did it, we both would have gone insane, not just crazy!"
Then she turned and pushed into the crowd that had gathered, and ran back out into the rainy, dark, mysterious world and they never saw her again.
And Claire had a few answers.
And lots more questions.