A usual Saturday

He was back, again, in my bed. I'm never sure how he gets there, yet every Saturday at 9 AM in the morning, an elf with whispery blond hair and the deepest blue eyes ever appears next to me.

It started ten weeks ago. The first time, he was sleeping, with both arms wrapped around me, when I woke and noticed the extraordinarily attractive face inches from my own. I was surprised, of course I was surprised. So surprised was I that I almost fell out of the bed.

His eyes fluttered open, and my breath stopped for what seemed like a lifetime, until he smiled and my heart stopped. My heart started again, and I started to hyperventilate. This was the one thing I was not expecting to find on a Saturday. As my breathing grew faster, his eyes grew larger. He flew from my sheets and stood next to my bed, unsure of what was happening, or how he could help.

I fumbled and reached for the glass of water that was always placed on my nightstand before I go to sleep. The water placed there for my pills each morning. When I finally got the cool water and took a sip, my breathing came back down to normal and I was left with the other dilemma. What to do with an elf.

He was still standing next to my bed, looking at me with his head cocked to one side and a look of soft concern on his face. "Are you alright." My breath stopped again as his voice flowed in the air around me, a seeming whisper on the wind, echoing in my mind. For a split second, I wasn't even sure he had said a word, until he asked me again and I managed a wide-eyed nod. What else could I do?

"Who are you?" My voice was rough, like a rock dragged across sandpaper, with it's usual morning gravel. He smiled and approached, kneeling on one knee before me.

"My name is Laigolas Legolast. But, I know not where I am, or who you are." I was taken aback by his obviously foreign name. He smiled and brought a gentle hand to cup my cheek. His skin was like silk and ice, a cool reassuring gesture on my face. "Where am I?"

I shivered. He held a power over me that was hypnotic. "You're in my house, in Portersville, Michigan." He frowned and asked, "And where is that?"

"Its in the United States of America."

His face was still perplexed. "I do not know where the United States of America is. But, since I am your guest, I will pay you homage. Great Mistress of this household, my name is Laigolas Legolast Thiruilian. I honor you." Bowing in a very formal manner, he lowered his eyes to my feet in a gesture of respect. You have no idea how I was touched by that simple act.

"Well, Laigolas Legolast, I am pleased to make your acquaintance. My name is Laura. I'm from Michigan all my life, and I have never, ever met someone as handsome or as beautiful at you. I know it sounds like an oxy-moron and I'm really getting sappy, but this feeling here," I placed a slim hand over my heart. "This feeling is something I will never forget."

And that started it all.

We never really questioned why Legolas (as I liked to shorten his name and call him) ended up in my bed every Saturday morning. He simply was there. I tried once or twice to stay up Friday night and awake through the early morning hours, but drifted away at some point, and woke with Legolas and the morning light.

The first day, we had simply sat in amazement. He was the first to jump up and he explored my room with a passion. He asked what this was, and what that was and what this did. When I turned on the lights, I knew I had found someone not of my time. When I asked him about where he came from, he shrugged and said that he came from beyond the sea. I accepted this simply because he did not explain any further than that.

One morning, I had awoken to the sounds of a voice whispering the notes to a song in my ear. I woke to the grinning face of Legolas as he sat on the floor next to my bed, strumming the guitar that always had a place in the corner of the room, but never in my hands. "A Ol¢rin i y resse, Mentaner i N£meherui, T¡rien i R¢men¢ri . . . " He sang the song softly, yet woefully into my ear. I watched as a single tear rolled down his cheek as he whispered the song to me.

He could go no farther than that though, and let the instrument slip to his lap from un-feeling fingers. I reached over and cupped his cheek, bringing his gaze to mine. The tears still flowed, and he still grieved for something I couldn't understand. "Talk to me, Legolas, my elf. What's wrong? What troubles you?"

He managed a weak smile. "Sometimes, the grief is overwhelming, and I must sing to let it out."

I brought his hand to my chest, a symbol we had adopted as a sign of love and trust. I said, "It's alright to grieve. Everyone grieves."

"Not Me." he said, shaking his head. "If I grieve too much, I could die. It is the way I am made. From starlight and everything good. If I am subjected to a broken heart, I die. If I am killed in battle, I can never return. And, if I chose to die, I will die."

My heart swelled with this confession. "You are nearly immortal. I think, this is what I love about you best." I giggled after this statement, and it wasn't long until he smiled again and laughed with me.

That's how a usual Saturday would go. He'd appear next to me when the sun reached a certain spot and hit my eyes just right so I couldn't see, and we'd spend the day together. Legolas's favorite activity was to watch a movie. Any movie. I remember once we watched Gladiator and he asked me with the innocence of a five-year old if that had actually happened in the times of the Caesars. When I nodded yes, he turned back to the screen in wide-eye wonder. He was amazed by the simplest inventions. From my graphing calculator to my laptop, he loved them all. The eleventh Saturday that Legolas came, I finally took him out of my house, and into the world.

I was part of a mid-evil battle recreation group. We fought with foam swords and padded arrows. I figured that Legolas would love it. I was right.

Within ten minutes upon arriving, he showed me those archer and fighter skills that I had heard so much about, and he beat every opponent the boys in my group could muster against him. One, two, five, ten. It didn't matter to Legolas. He beat them all.

This was when I first decided that I was in love with my elf. I knew that it was a stupid thing to do since he was from another time and all, but there was another reason. I was sick. Mortally sick, and unlike him, I could never live for more than another year or two. I was biding my time until the disease that was slowly eating away at my lungs and heart would kill me. I didn't tell Legolas, yet.

He did wonder about the miracle pills, but he was too much a gentleman to ever say anything about them. Yet, I grew sicker and sicker. As our friendship grew and developed into a relationship of a certain intimate degree, it became clear to me that I was not going to be around for much longer.

We were in love, that much is true. I was seventeen; he was 2,938. I was a human from Michigan; he was an elf from Mirkwood. And we were so in love that he offered me his heart. I asked him what I could do with a heart one day out of seven. He smiled and said I could love him. I said yes and kissed him.

Most people can't say that they've kissed an elf, but I could. We fell to the bed in a passionate embrace, each frantically ripping at the other's clothing. It was joy and happiness, and an overwhelming burst of excitement all rolled into one. When we kissed, I felt like I could explode into a million giggling, moaning pieces. He was infinitely gentle, yet not in all his care could he know that I would never see him again after that night that we shared our hearts, our souls, and our bodies. We had become one, then there had become only one left.

As we lay together, entwined in much the same way as the day we had met, he said he'd bring me to his world. I would go to Middle-Earth with him. I smiled and nodded, not really giving him an answer. What could I say? I was dying.

He kissed my lips softly and rose in naked glory. The soft light from Sunday morning was drifting in through the window as he dressed slowly and stood by the glass, almost breathing in the glistening sunlight. Turning slightly, he looked down at me on the bed and with the gentlest voice imaginable and said, "When I come back next, I will take you back with me." I smiled and started to reply before I was struck with one of my all too common coughing fit, and could not answer him. He reached out to help me, but shimmered away in the morning sun like every Saturday before that.

In less than an hour, I was dead. A lung collapsed and my mother did not find me until I had crawled to the first floor of the house and lay crying on the floor. It was too late.

Legolas once told me that for every living being ever created, there is one moment. One moment out of a thousand when the whole world comes together in a blinding symphony of happiness and love. A moment which nothing else in the whole world could interrupt. I had that moment the night before I died, in which I was complete and whole.

He also told me of the place where all beings go after they die. He told me of The West and I am simply spellbound by this still because it is a very true and very real place. I am there now, waiting for the day that my love will join me in death. For only in death can we truly be together now.