Living Ghost ...Finale

My love for you will outlast this beach, this ocean, this planet.
― Scarlet Blackwell

I've benefited from using my research on aging to prolong my life and gift me with eternal youth.

But unlike Tithonus in the Greek myth, I have eternal life but have still ended up in despair begging for death to overcome me.

It's hard being continually on the run, changing identities and ending. relationships I really meant to keep—all to avoid having to explain why I never seem to age.

Hence, my reason for being here in Florida on the Gulf side, trying to assume a new persona while feeling rootless and disconnected and totally depressed.

My Anna Maria Island cottage works wonders for my mood though, as do the white sandy beaches and sea oats and the vast expanse of sky.

I feel reborn here and want to lose myself in long walks in the sand and the ebb and flow of tides.

But then I see her. She’s a loner like me, sitting on a sand dune at dusk with a glass of wine and staring out to sea.

The wind off the Gulf combs her long hair. She closes her eyes and lets it wantonly flutter and play with her blouse, and wrap its arms about her, claiming her for itself.

I go back to my cottage and dream of her, while lying in the dark, watching the lone wolf Moon slowly circle the chamber alone.

And then it happens quite by accident. She lives two cottages down and that same wind that took liberties with her the day before, steals her laundry left out to dry and drops it off in my yard.

I’m coming out of the shed where the surfboards, umbrellas and water toys are stored and she’s bending over gathering up silky unmentionables and shaking off sand.

“Do the laws of trespass still apply in Florida?” I smile.

She straightens up, pushing back wind-teased tresses while squinting at me in the noonday sun.

“Trespass laws are trumped by panty thefts,” she grins.

“Then, I guess the wind is my friend. I’m Edward Converse,” I say extending my hand.

“Kate Willett,” she says, shaking hands while trying to wipe away stray strands of hair from her lips.

She is incredibly beautiful.

The wind buffets us, thundering in our ears and drowning out conversation.

I cup my hand to shout in her ear, “Would you like to come inside for tea?”

She shakes her head and my hopes sink.

She leans in close and I inhale the scent of sunshine lotion, “I prefer wine.”

Turns out she’s a writer—a poetess. She owns the cottage and stays here six months out of the year. The rest of the time she spends in New York—less solitary and less friendless.

“I need to get away and be by the sea. Don’t get me wrong—I’m not a misanthrope—I’m more Anne Lindbergh or May Sarton, if you know what I mean.”

“I do,” I smile. “I love the Gift of the Sea and The Rewards of a Solitary Life is one of my favorite Sarton essays.”

Her face lights up. “Oh, you do know what I’m talking about!”

I feel a profound moan inside me as if some deep and remote chambers of my being are calling out to be filled—as if sea caverns empty and desolate all my life are now longing for a sea-maid to come and inhabit them.

She senses an affinity too. We sit and talk the long afternoon and when night falls, we take our wine outside and fall asleep in each other’s arms under wind-blown stars.

I tell her the secret of my life.

“You can’t keep running Edward. You’re like a gypsy roaming from place to place.”

I nod. “I’m tired. It’s not what I envisioned it would be. Everyone I once knew is dead. Immortality is so overrated.”

She frowned. “What will happen if you discontinue the therapy?”

“I don’t know. I’m the guinea pig, but based on the lab results with mice, I’ll just revert to the normal aging process and in twenty-five years be back to where I began.”

“How would that make you feel?”

I shrug, “Normal—mortal, I guess. Lately, I’ve been restive—discontent. I’m at a standstill in my life. Face it—a feast isn’t a feast if you’re the only one eating.”

“Can you bear growing old with me?”

I wrap my arms around her, owning her like the wind.

“I couldn’t bear living life without you—a lifetime with you is more than an eternity alone.”

We lie out on the sand that night under washed-up stars and fall asleep to the rush of wind and the thunder of the surf.

And we sleep the brevity of fleshly wishes; and I forego the lure of eternal youth to sleep with her and pursue the endless passion of dreams.

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