If You Love Something
Arthur sat on the grainy beach, driftwood and pockmarked seashells all about him. It had been almost an entire year since he had been rescued from his drifting boat by a passing fishing boat. He had moved to the sparsely populated islands of southern Florida under the presumption that he would be studying the geographical evolutions of angelfish. That idea alone was horrifically boring, but there was something alluring about living on a small island, away from the crowds and daily rush that he had once been so accustomed to.
And then there were the nightmares – or, rather what were once nightmares. He wasn't sure he could call them that anymore. Now they were simply memories of a time he thought he would be able to forget with the passing of the days. But even now, as he threw himself into his pointless work with fervor, he would catch himself thinking – reminiscing – about moist hands and inhuman love bites and soft caresses that were, at their most basic, filled with adoration and possessiveness that left his heart aching at its absence.
He was ashamed to admit it, but no one before or since Alfred had ever loved him in the ways the merman had. No one had ever wanted him by their side as much as Alfred did, no one had loved and cared for him so thoroughly and completely, and even if the means didn't match the ends, Arthur knew, somewhere in the aching, healing void of his heart, that the merman hadn't meant to rip Arthur's life asunder; that he had only acted according to his nature; possessive, craving affection, childish. And Arthur wished that it hadn't taken him this long to understand that. That it had taken him this long, free from the ocean's magic, that his feelings had been his alone – just not his words.
But most of all he was ashamed that after all this time, the long days and cold nights spent alone in his bed, he only just now realized that he did, in fact, love Alfred. Perhaps it was not the most pure feeling, as it ached and burned at his chest when he realized that never again would he see that ocean-sprayed face, that he would never again run his fingers along the rubbery blue skin that glistened like gems in the sunlight. And each day that realization weighed down on him, drowning him until he managed to pull himself up for air.
Some evenings he stared out into the ocean, hoping to see that wet blond hair and those dazzling blue eyes; he hoped for the conversations about the world and the ocean and about love or politics. He wasn't sure why, but no one ever seemed to ask the questions Alfred did – didn't seem to enjoy him as much as Alfred had, and Arthur was sure, now, that he was enchanted – albeit in a much different way.
A simple green glassed bottle lay heavily in his hands as he sat in the surf, trying to remember the best of his days and forget the worst. Everything he felt; the anger, the frustration and helplessness that he had suffered while on that island – he wrote it all down; there was the fear and the pain, the struggle, but there was also the overwhelming love, the mystery and magic, and even on some days he had contented himself with his fate. All of it was bore on yellowed, waterproof pages, rolled up meticulously and tucked neatly inside the bottle.
He didn't know what he wanted, didn't know how to get it or what to do, so instead he decided to let it go.
Arthur watched the corked bottle sweep away in the crosscurrents, leaving the island without fanfare. Hopefully as it drifted further and further away, it would bring the researcher a type of peace that he hadn't felt in years.
At the top of the very first page, in cramped handwriting, it read:
To Alfred