Chapter 17 Fever
Fever
The dark spirals of hair that drip and pull between Lir’s fingers stop me in my tracks.
I was supposed to be moving fuel inside, but I can’t help but watch as he detangles his long hair.
Pearly droplets of water spin around each one like a glass marble down a spiral track.
Each and every orb holding my attention all the way down to the water where they break the surface in undulating ripples.
He looks up at me, his eyebrow raised as I stare at him.
Dumbfounded, completely awestruck by how human and impossibly not human he is at the same time.
He looks down at his reflection in the water.
The creases across the surface splay out his image into a thousand shattered pieces that move in and out from his solid portrait.
I try to justify that my mouth was just hanging open by saying something—anything. “So, do mermen just run their fingers through their hair all day?”
Inquisitively, his attention shifts towards me. His eyebrows pushed together and the muscles across his core bunching into mounds of tension. “Oh, yeah,” he says sarcastically, “We just stare at our reflection all day and adorn ourselves with shipwreck gold.”
“Really?” My excitement gives way to my gullibility.
“No!” He exclaims, half smiling. His fin rises out of the water and fans out, fluttering like that part of him is shaking in laughter.
It is a bright chartreuse sail that catches the wind behind him to add emphasis to his words.
Sometimes, I wonder if there are texts written between the lines of its splines that some primordial part of myself used to be able to read.
That the dots and dashes we now use, are just recreations of some ancient language humans used to be accustomed to—on bird wigs, between animal stripes and in fish fins.
“I told you before, I had been out protecting the ocean.” He says while straightening his shoulders, his chin strut out in a noble air—only the tiniest bit full of himself.
We stare at each other silent for a moment, but then both laugh as his fin shakes water around him in all directions.
I roll my eyes. “Is that really all you’ve been doing with your life?”
“Is that all?” He scoffs. “Andrea, I have really been fighting for the ocean, and it covers most of the whole Earth…So yes, I have been busy.”
“Not just brushing your hair then?” I huff and shimmy my out of control waves across my shoulders.
“Ah, Andrea. You have seen right through me. My streak of vanity has been too obvious—” He smiles, his perfect teeth practically glinting. He leans towards me, the corners of his mouth pinching his eyes into a suspicious squint. “But, excuse me for just being a martyr—only a portion of my time.”
I step back, momentarily shocked at what his words imply. I suppose, the whole ocean, the whole Earth is a pretty good thing to be protecting. What have I have been fighting for?
I clench my fists, and think of the reasons I’ve thrown them before.
To be lonely?
To have an uneventful life?
To die alone on a rock?
Has it really been for peace and quiet, if I am now so haunted by the feeling that I’m am wasting my only life. Why have I become so content, so docile with the prospect of eternal monotony.
He shatters me out of my whorling thoughts with more murmured revelations. “—And I don’t think, that you being one…a martyr here, is making you very happy.”
That strikes a raw nerve and before I can catch my mouth, I reply sharply, “Well, I’m sorry, Lir. I don’t just get to do whatever I want!”
My hands tighten in a painful impulse that wracks down my limbs.
“I’ve learned that I get three options in life—three!
Either, a virgin—and that went out the window a long time ago.
” I count on my fingers, my hands shaking in frustrated over-exaggerated motions.
“Or a wife—and my husband fucking died.” I can’t even look at Lir now, I’m not even seeing him.
My eyes are too filled up with thumping pain which blinds me from even his glare as I sputter out the last item on the list. “Third option is a nun and this lighthouse is the closest I could stand.”
After a long pause between us, while I catch my breath from my small rant, he crosses his arms. His face going blank in stern sincerity. “I don’t live that way, Andrea.”
I sigh, my body crumpling a little—defeated. “Well, it’s different for a man.”
Leaning in close, his face serious now. “I am not just a man.” Even the seagulls seem silent as he whispers, “and you Andrea, are not just a woman.”
He dips away from me to pick up Little Bird from my shredded sweater pile that she rests within. It has been repurposed into a nest for her. Scratching her head with his claw he coos to her, “And, you are not just any bird, little lady.”
As his hands slow to a halt, his face twists into a tight ball. I realize Little Bird hasn’t lifted her head since he picked her up. In his hand just a crumble of feathers lays completely still other than slow raspy breaths. “A very sick bird—Andrea!”
I cradle his hands. “She’s burning up!”
He instinctively pulls her towards his chest and looks at me scared. His eyes hold more fear than he ever had for himself as my patient.
“She’s still alive! So—that means that there’s still things we can do. I’ll be right back! Just hold her—”
Running upstairs I get a damp towel that we wrap her in. My hands always shake no matter who—or what I’m treating. I shush her nervously as I hear her make the most pitiful sounds while I tuck the cold moist cloth around her.
“I hope she doesn’t have an infection. I’ve read about penicillin—but there’s no way they would just bring some out here for a seagull.” I coo her. “You’re not just a seagull Little Bird.”
He nods. My eyes dart back and forth at Lir.
Tight knit ledges of concern shadow over his gaze.
Individual tears fall down the cliffs of his cheek.
Carefully, he holds the spherical beads intact on the tip of his claw before dripping them down onto her head.
An osmosis exchange of his power, of his strength to the little collapsed ball of greasy feathers.
Hurrying, I go back inside and drip out some honey from a jar to mix with potable water. Assembling a kit, I wash a rubber and glass dropper I would normally use for oiling precise mechanics of the lamp and bring it downstairs along with the tincture.
“This will help hydrate her.”
He nods solemnly as he supports her tiny head so I can squeeze the droplets into her mouth.
After a moment, he grabs my hand. “This wont hurt her Lir, it’s the best shot we have at keeping her alive—” I hope he doesn’t think me overconfident just because I’ve managed to keep him alive.
The sharp points of his nails guide the vial up to his sorrowful dewy gaze and he blinks a liquid silver drop into the mixture.
I whisper, “That’s a very good idea, Lir.” Even though I have no idea how the hell any of that all works, it’s worth trying. I want to cry too, this stupid little gull. Damn this precious fuzz ball that has scavenged a piece from the scrap in my chest.
I collect the samples that pour out of my strange specimen.
For these tears that drip from his glossy eyes and the saliva that bubbles out at the corners of his silent cry mouth—they may be the elixir of life, the fountain of youth.
The only hope we have for saving Little Bird other than luck.
I imagine the men who would have fought for such things, such ordained relics that they had assumed were objects they could grasp, could steal.
Instead, they are as untenable as the tide—but not any less valuable.
Men have waged wars over that which Lir so freely gives to me.
The sun is setting out across the sea and I know I have to leave up for the bulb soon. “I’ll leave this here with you, try to get her to drink every hour or so. If you run out just knock and I’ll bring down more.”
Nodding, he tucks her into his shoulder wrapping close to his heart, or where I assume his heart is. His eyes are lost in thought as he focuses on positioning her head just right for easy access throughout the night.
I peek through the front door at them one more time.
Blending in with the rocks and spires surrounding the tide pool, the mausoleum of his arched body bends over Little Bird.
His silhouette as he clutches her into his shoulder blends into the sharp landscape, all the naturally formed gravestones around them spiraling out into circles of hell surrounding this lighthouse.
The way he is angularly frozen as I shut the door pulls painfully at my heartstrings.
Those tethers snap in individual plucks when I climb the spiraling cobblestone path up to the lens.
From up here, the island feels so small, so silent. As if once again, all the life has been scraped from the world surrounding us.