Wet

by Richard M. Ankers

Only ever alone with the rain and the sea.

I watched her emerge from the nocturnal river like a perfect pearl. Naked, she was, confused and unchaperoned. A first new life form in aeons. She shimmered for all to see. A miracle. My last hope.

Her beauty outshone the eternal darkness, like the world’s most perfect black rose giving birth to a solitary milk-white petal. She glistened brighter than any star. She dazzled. I was dazzled.

I approached with trepidation, a gliding shadow, and spoke as a mistral wind. “You… Are… Everything…”

“I am nothing.”

The starkness and speed of her response stalled me.

“I have done nothing.”

This time, I was prepared. I decided a direct approach was best.

I closed about the world, about her. “For the first time in eternity, I wished to be seen.”

Her hands fell from her modesty to reveal herself completely. Her eyes appeared to lose their glaze. She smiled. My heart melted.

“I am betrothed.”

I fled.

---

No star could find me. The spotlight moon illuminated without reason or rhyme. The sun did its best to fill the void. An armada of rainbows searched for my dark gold. Only the rivers had an inkling, as they swept into the deepest sea. Those in the abyss felt the loss, but had never truly experienced my all to begin with.

None would find me, for I was hardest to find by light.

I travelled the earth, and then the starways, and then more. I was everywhere and nowhere, but I never once dared her beauty again: she would have torn my obsidian soul apart. Until…

---

“Hello.” A soothing soprano.

“I thought my time had passed.”

“It is just beginning.”

I opened one eye to the opaque twin wonders of her own. “You see me?”

“I felt you first.”

“You found me. Me! The unseen!” I sounded like a revealed small child having hidden in a cupboard from a strict parent. “You are the first.”

“I have. I am.”

“How? It is my destiny to go unnoticed. To allow others to shine.”

“My need is greater than theirs.”

“What need?”

“To fulfil yours.”

“You rebuked me?”

“I knew not who you were.”

“But you do now.”

“Everyone does, now.”

I grimaced. “That bad, eh?”

She nodded. A tendril-like strand of hair wiped a tear from her cheek. My breath caught.

“They half need you, whereas I want you fully.”

“You need the lake, the river, the sea. You are born of water and must ever there remain.”

“Sometimes, but not always. I must slip beneath the starshine surface and embrace my creator. I am lost without him. Lost without you. This world is too bright. Too loud. I need the quiet of the…

“Don’t say my name,” I interjected.

“…Night.”

The cape of nothingness slipped from my shoulders, and I stood revealed before her. She smiled anew.

“Now there is only us,” she said, as we slipped beneath the surface into the cool, dark, wet. 

The End

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Richard

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