:: Searching for Puck... ::

:: Tuesday, May 27, 2003 ::

So I gave in to wanderlust.

I inevitably found myself at Gaby's place.

He isn't my type. I shouldn't like him. I should be finding some long-haired goth who's been just as beaten down by life as I have, someone who is bitter and has my perverted sense of humor. Yet I don't.

The persistent youthful exuberance that made itself known at my coffee shop every day for a solid week has affected me in ways I didn't anticipate. I started this business of seeing him because I was lonely, and so was he. It was nice to have noncommital companionship - someone to hold hands and talk with just because. He's just so bright and unsuspecting of the world, so trusting and hopeful...it scrubbed away some of the bitter patina the last handful of years has settled on me. I guess I've kind of grown to like it.

Tonight, we came down to my car before I left, as is our custom, to talk for awhile. I found myself mid-sentence about something ultimately inconsequential to the real meaning of the course of life, and I just stared at him. There he was, hanging on my every word, and his happiness at being even near to me was all over his face like sunlight. It wasn't a puppyish obsession, as I suppose I've been thinking all along. The kid likes me. Really likes me. And even deeper then that, I saw his innocence laid out like an open book, and I saw myself. I saw myself so many years ago, before Russ, Rog, Marco, Jon....the beautiful and unmarred honesty of my own fallen youth, the kind soul I used to be.

And I realized, in a terribly cold, clear moment - that the world would do to him what it did to me. And there was nothing I could do about it. Fear, sudden and sharp, seized my heart and tears stung my eyes. I realized, in that moment, that I would give anything to protect him from the hardships I've faced myself - but no matter what I gave, nothing could protect him from the eventuality of life.

Gaby has become a reminder to me what good there is in this world. Because of that, he is something precious, something sacred. I fear for him, for what life will do to him....he is indeed going home, for three months, it appears. Back to Lebanon, where there is a danger of him being drafted into the army and never being able to return.

There is no chance, for he and I. This is a whirlwind courtship, at best...we're very different, and his family wouldn't accept me in a million years. And yet still, I mourn the loss of it, the eventual separation due thursday, to a place where letters do not reach for nearly a month, and internet is scarce.

It is ironic...this whole time, I imagined myself to be some mental, some social support to Gaby. And it was only tonight, when he was drying my fearful tears and assuring me that things would be allright in his accented and ever-optomistic tone, that I realize that he is the one doing the supporting.

Whatever deities can hear, please, just keep him safe. The world needs good men.

~Fox



:: Fox 5/27/2003 02:04:00 AM [Say what?] ::
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